I concentrate on the kids eating flowerbed, and the cyclist doing improbable stretches to show off his glutes to the nannies, till I can wipe my mind blank again. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Good. In that case, I’m gonna go show Aislinn’s fairy tale to Lucy. You go play with Breslin. Tell him you and me called in to Rory – he’s gonna hear anyway. Say I was giving Rory hassle about his exes saying he was too full-on; I was asking if he stalked them too, he denied it, the poor guy got all upset. Play it like you’re still not totally sold on Rory, I’m still pissed off with you for having doubts, and you’re still pissed off with me for dissing them. That way Breslin’ll want to keep you close, and he won’t be too worried about me going MIA for an hour.’

Steve’s nodding, thinking it through. ‘All sounds good. If he asks where you’ve gone . . . ?’

‘You don’t know. I told you it was none of your business.’

After a moment Steve asks, ‘When do we pull the pin?’

‘Today,’ I say. ‘It has to be. Breslin’s expecting to haul Rory in later on, arrest him and start preparing the file for the prosecutors. If I don’t do that, he’s gonna start wondering why not, and then they’ll be on guard.’

He nods. ‘Who do we go for? Breslin or McCann?’

‘I vote McCann. Unless Lucy comes out with something top-notch that we can use on Breslin. Breslin’s been watching us for days now; he’s got a lot better handle on us than McCann does. Plus, if we even hint any of this to Breslin, he’s gonna throw the mother of all self-righteous tantrums, and I’ve had enough of those for one week. We’ll find a way to get him out of our hair for a while, and we’ll tackle McCann.’

‘OK,’ Steve says, at the end of a long breath. ‘OK. McCann.’

‘And you’d better get moving, before Breslin starts wondering where you are.’

‘Right.’ He pulls the photo arrays out of his case and hands me a couple of each. ‘Good luck.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You too.’

For some reason me and Steve slap hands as we’re leaving. We don’t normally do that shite, what with not being sixteen, but it feels like we need something, on our way into this.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

This time Lucy answers the buzzer fast. When she opens the front door, she’s dressed – black combats and a hoodie again, but clean ones, and she’s got Docs on. She looks at me, expressionless, and waits.

‘Morning,’ I say. ‘Are you OK to talk for a while, or is this too early?’

She says, ‘I figured you’d be earlier.’ Then she turns and heads back up the stairs.