The only possibility left is the one jabbing deeper: Breslin knows, somehow, that there’s no point to that shite any more. The words I’m going to say to the gaffer stink like burning hair all around me, brand my face with their growing shadow. Breslin took one look at me and knew, with those dense-packed twenty years’ worth of detective instincts, that the kill shot had already been fired. He knew I’m worthless now.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

All the way home I’m waiting for something, or someone: another uniform pulling me over, the lamppost guy leaping out in front of my car as I turn onto my road, Fleas sticking his head out of the darkness in my kitchen. Nothing happens. My street is a blank; as soon as I step into the house, I know it’s empty. I clear it anyway.

I’m craving sleep, a lot of it, ideally with someone armed and trustworthy outside my bedroom door, but I’m not going to bed till I know I’m wrecked enough to crash out the second I hit the sheets. There’s a whole list of stuff I’m not gonna think about tonight, but it covers so much territory and I’m so tired that my mind keeps getting mixed up and letting bits slip through. For half a second, before I pull myself up sharp, I wonder what Steve is doing.

There’s fuck-all in my fridge, and me and Fleas killed off my emergency fish fingers. I ring my ma and tell her about Sophie’s vase, which has blood spatter on it because two scumbags broke into an old woman’s gaff and punched her in the stomach till she puked blood, to which my ma says ‘Huh.’ She doesn’t bring up Aislinn and neither do I. While she smokes, I make coffee and a pile of toast, cut the green bit off an old chunk of cheese, and take the lot into the sitting room.

No wind shoving at the window tonight; it’s died down, leaving a thick, still cold. I look out into the dark and think, Come on, motherfucker. Come and get me. I leave the curtains wide open.

I’ve got an e-mail from Fleas. Hiya Rach! Great to hear from you. No news here, all the gang are OK, no one doin anythin special. Kinda busy at the mo but love to meet up sometime when we both have the free time. Take care sunshine xx. Meaning no one in his corner of the underworld is suddenly drowning his sorrows or looking twitchy or sobbing on Fleas’s shoulder about his dead girlfriend. And meaning bye, see you someday maybe.