They would be. This is what my ma was telling me, through all her bullshit fairy tales. If I let him give me the answers, he’ll own me. Everything in my life, past and future, will be his: what he decides to make it into.

I say, ‘How’d you track me down?’

He blinks then.

‘You said anything I want to know.’

He glances at the sofa. ‘May I sit down?’

‘No. First you start answering. Then I’ll see.’

A wry quirk of one eyebrow, like he’s decided to humour an overwrought kid. I use that look on witnesses sometimes. ‘All right. I went to my local shop on Sunday afternoon, to buy my newspaper. While I was in the queue, I glanced at the other papers on the stand. Your photograph was on a front page. I knew as soon as I saw you.’

It sends red straight through me: he’s got no right recognising me. ‘So?’ I say. ‘What’d you do?’

‘I looked you up in the phone book, but you’re unlisted. I was certain your work wouldn’t give me any information. So I rang the paper and asked to speak to the journalist who had written the article. I told him who I was – I could hardly expect him to give me any information otherwise – and that I was hoping to get in touch but uncertain of my welcome.’ A dry glance at the gun. ‘With good reason, apparently.’

‘And he just handed over my address?’ Even for Crowley, that doesn’t ring true; Crowley does nothing for nothing. ‘What’d you give him?’

‘I haven’t given him anything.’

I know that crisp snap of denial, too; too well to fall for it. ‘Yet,’ I say. ‘What’d you promise him?’

He thinks about lying, but he’s too smart to risk it. ‘The journalist said he could provide me with an address for you. In exchange for an interview after our meeting.’

I can just picture it. Top Cop’s Childhood Anguish; side-by-side photos of my shitty block of flats and his detached house in a leafy suburb; ‘All the time she was searching for the truth on the job, she was really searching for me,’ sobs long-lost dad. Not the front page, or anything; part of some glurge spread about fatherless women. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. Crowley wouldn’t even need to publish it; he could just wave it under my nose and demand every scoop I ever have, and know I would hand them over.

I say, ‘And you said yeah, sure, no problem.’

‘I wasn’t overjoyed about the prospect. Baring my soul for some tabloid isn’t something I ever envisioned myself doing. But I would have done much more than that to find you.’