‘Could’ve done. She never mentioned it.’

I ask, ‘Did she ever talk about you leaving your wife?’

‘It came up. Nothing serious, just a mention.’ He’s stepping carefully again: the texts.

‘And what did you say?’

‘Brushed it off. Changed the subject. She didn’t push it.’

‘Huh,’ I say. I lean back in my chair, have a swallow of my tea – gone cold – and take out my phone. I go into my e-mail, taking my time, and find the Post-it photos from Aislinn’s secret folder.

Civilians’ eyes dive on anything you bring out; they can’t stop themselves. McCann’s don’t move from my face. I put my phone on the table in front of him. The small click of it going down snips at the air.

McCann waits till I sit back before he looks down. His face doesn’t change, but I feel the pulse of bafflement and wariness off him.

I say, ‘There’s more of them. Swipe.’

He swipes, keeps swiping. Something else stirs, under the bafflement: a wretched twist of pain and something almost like joy. McCann thinks he’s seeing proof that he got it all wrong; that Rory meant nothing to Aislinn. She was mad about him, after all.

After a dozen or so pics he takes a fast breath and shoves the phone back across the table. ‘I get the idea.’

I say, ‘Are these the notes you wrote to Aislinn, to let her know when you’d be calling round?’

Shrug. McCann settles back in his chair, hands shoved easily in his pockets, but the taut stillness holding every muscle gives him away. We’re building up to the big push, and he knows it.

‘I don’t have to be a handwriting expert to know these are consistent with your writing,’ I say, ‘but I can get one to confirm it for me if I have to. I can also pull your shift times for the last six months and cross-check them against the times and dates when Aislinn entered those photos into her computer. I’ll bet my paycheque every one of those notes will line up with a time when you were just coming out of work, or just going in.’

‘So maybe they’re my notes. So? I already told you I wrote them.’

‘And made sure to destroy them,’ Steve says. He’s picked up my phone and he’s skimming through the pictures. ‘You thought, anyway.’

‘Only Aislinn had other ideas,’ I say. McCann’s eyes close against that for an instant. ‘Every time you left her a note, she took a photo, put it on her computer – in a special password-protected folder – and deleted the phone pic. Why would she go to all that hassle?’

Shrug. ‘How would I know?’

‘If you had to guess.’

‘Souvenirs?’

That gets a laugh out of me. ‘You serious?’ I take the phone off Steve and wave it at McCann. ‘This is what you think a girl keeps for a souvenir?’

‘I don’t know what girls do and don’t do.’