Steve cracking crap jokes when I’m in a fouler, till I give in and throw him the laugh he’s angling for. I thought it was just him liking things to be nice, maybe even him liking me and wanting me to be happy. It hits me like a mouthful of sewer water: he was chivvying me into happy-clappy moods so I wouldn’t kill his chances of buddying up with the lads. And I fell for it, time after time, had a laugh with him and felt better about the world. Steve doing his little dance and his jazz hands; me clapping right along, slack-jawed and grinning.

I say, ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. You’d love to believe you’re trying to save me from myself, but when we get down to it, it’s all about you being in everyone’s good books.’

His head goes back in exasperation. ‘It’s about not making everything ten times harder than it needs to be. For me or for you. Is that so terrible, yeah? Does that make me an awful person?’

‘Don’t do me any favours. You’re aiming for a big group hug and happy ever after, and you might even get them, but we both know it’s not going to happen for me.’

‘No,’ Steve says flatly, ‘it’s not.’ The anger compresses his words into hard chips, slamming down on the desk between us. ‘Because you’re so set on going down in flames, you’d make it happen even if the entire force loved you to bits. You’ll light your own bloody self on fire if you have to. And then you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you knew it all along. Congratulations.’

He tries to shove his chair back to his end of the desk, where he can sulk in peace about what a demon bitch I am, but I’m not letting him away with that. I get hold of his wrist, under the edge of the desk. ‘You listen to me,’ I say, barely above a whisper, and I grip hard enough to hurt and have to stop myself gripping harder. Reilly has stopped banging his keyboard and the silence is stuffing my ears, my nose, making it hard to breathe. ‘You arse-licking little fuck. You listen.’

Steve doesn’t flinch or pull away. He stares back at me, eye to eye. Only the line of his mouth says I’m hurting him.