And now I know exactly why Breslin threw away his red herring, this morning. It wasn’t because he could tell I was ready to jump. It was because when he got back in from interviewing Rory’s exes, his pocket floater – and if that wasn’t Reilly, I’m gonna find out who it is – told him that me and Steve had had a row and Steve had walked out. Breslin knew I was the one who’d been closer to sold on Rory from the start, he made an educated guess that that had been a big part of the row, and he knew I’d be itching to have the last word on Steve. And to help me do exactly that, he had the CCTV evidence of Rory stalking Aislinn. He dropped the bent-cop bullshit and played hard to that, aiming to get Rory arrested fast and to keep me and Steve apart till the file had gone to the prosecutors.

And me, I was so busy bracing myself to fight anyone who was out to sink me or own me or generally use me as his very own dollhouse dolly, it never occurred to me that this might not be about me to begin with. I skipped right off with the nice man waving candy – Steve did too, in his own way – and if that cocky fuck hadn’t been hanging around outside my gaff, or if I hadn’t made myself ring Steve, or if Steve was a very slightly different guy, we wouldn’t be sitting here.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘For coming down.’

‘You’re all right. There was nothing decent on the telly.’

I kind of want to say sorry, but explaining what I’m apologising for and not apologising for would take too much hassle and embarrassment and overall shite. Steve might be thinking the same thing, I don’t know. Instead I get the whiskey bottle and give us both a refill. We sit there, drinking, while the stuff we should probably be saying out loud gets itself done in the silence.

‘Fuck me,’ I say, suddenly realising. ‘I’m half English.’

‘And you’re middle-class,’ Steve says. ‘Next time you go home, you’re going to get the shite kicked out of you.’

‘Shh. Nobody has to know.’

‘They’ll smell it off you.’

‘Seriously,’ I say. I’m looking at him. ‘Nobody has to know.’

Steve gives me a straight look back. ‘They won’t.’

‘Good.’

‘Unless someone else talks. Do you know how your man tracked you down?’

‘He got my address off Crowley,’ I say. The taste of that makes me finish my whiskey. ‘I need to sort the little wankstain before he blabs.’

‘He’s not a problem. We’ll do it tomorrow.’

The we sounds good. ‘It’s gonna be a long day.’