‘Your wish is my command,’ Breslin says, and hauls himself out of his chair with a groan. ‘I could sleep for a week. It’s this bloody weather. One decent bit of sunshine and I’d be a new man.’

‘Have a look through O’Gorman’s desk, while you’re at it,’ I say. ‘See if he’s got a couple of tickets to Barbados in there.’

‘If he does, we’re out of here. Rory, got your passport?’ Rory manages to catch up and find a laugh, a few seconds too late. Breslin throws us both a grin on his way out the door.

I lean back in my chair, stretching out my legs in front of me, and pull out my hair elastic to redo my bun while we wait. ‘Oof,’ I say. ‘Long few days. How’ve you been getting on?’

‘OK. It’s a lot to take in.’ Rory’s on guard. He hasn’t forgotten that I’m the mean cop who didn’t tell him Aislinn was dead. Steve would have had him cosy and chatting in no time.

Steve isn’t the only one who can play nice. ‘It is, all right,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to set you up with Victim Support, find you someone you can talk to? That’s their job, helping people through this kind of thing. They’re good.’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. I’ll be fine. I just . . . what I really need is to know what happened. I need to know that.’

‘Well, yeah,’ I say, with a rueful grin. ‘Don’t we all.’

Rory risks a fast glance at me. ‘Don’t you . . . ? Do you know yet?’

I sigh and give my head a massage, while I have the hair down. ‘To be honest with you, no, we don’t. We’ve followed a load of lines of investigation, and I can’t go into details, but basically none of them are taking us anywhere. That’s why we’re calling back the people who were closest to Aislinn: we’re hoping someone will be able to give us a fresh idea, kick-start things.’

Rory says, still wary, ‘I’d only known her a couple of months.’

‘I know, yeah. But a connection like you and Aislinn had, that counts more than years of sitting next to her in work and chatting about internet kitty pics.’ I get the tone right: no syrup, just direct and clean and matter-of-fact. ‘You understood her. That was obvious, last time we talked. You weren’t just seeing some blonde with a faceful of fancy makeup; you saw straight through all that. You saw who she really was.’

Rory says quietly, ‘That’s what it felt like.’