Breslin says, ‘Pick up the rest of them.’

Rory doesn’t move. His head is down over the photo, but his eyes aren’t focusing.

‘Pick them up.’

Rory moves automatically, stacking the photos one by one. His fingers are trembling.

‘Look at them.’

He braces himself before he goes through them, but every image still gets a hard blink out of him. Breslin tells the video camera, ‘I’ve just shown Mr Fallon images from CCTV footage taken in Stoneybatter over the past month.’

There’s a silence.

‘Rory. That’s you in those pictures. We can all agree on that, can’t we?’

More silence. Then Rory’s head moves, just a twitch: yes.

‘For the tape.’

‘Yes.’

Breslin leans forward – Rory flinches – and brings down a finger on the top photo, the face staring straight into the Tesco camera. ‘This is you. On the fourteenth of this month.’

‘Yes. I was just buying, I was in there looking for—’

His mind is flailing for a new story. I say, ‘You told us you’d never been to Stoneybatter before Saturday night. When you had to look up the nearest Tesco on your phone.’

His mouth moves as he tries to swallow.

Breslin’s finger is still mashed down on Rory’s photo face. ‘So,’ he says, pleasantly. ‘Your pretty little story about the guy who got hooked on spying on Aislinn. That was based on real events, as they say on the telly. Right?’

‘Not the – no. No. Not the part where—’ His breathing is starting to get away from him again. ‘I never, I—’

If he hyperventilates and faints on us, the paperwork is gonna take all night. I say, calm but firm, ‘Rory. The part about the guy wandering around Stoneybatter to feel closer to Aislinn. You’ve been doing a bit of that. Yeah?’

‘Yes. But—’

‘Hang on. One thing at a time. The part about him watching Aislinn from the laneway: you did a bit of that, too. Yeah?’

‘I just—’ Rory’s rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth, hard enough to leave red streaks. ‘No. I—’

‘Rory,’ I say. ‘Come on. You really want to tell us you were mooning around Stoneybatter for weeks, but you never went near Aislinn’s actual gaff till the exact night she got killed? Because I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘No. Wait.’ His hands fly up. He’s so easy to shove, step by step, back towards the corner he’s never going to get out of. ‘I watched her just, maybe, just a few times. Only to—’

Breslin – he’s pulled the photo over to himself and is examining it – says, ‘But on Saturday night, Aislinn caught you out.’