The squad room, waiting in cold early light for the day to begin. O’Kelly tossing the call sheet on my desk: I picked it up on my way in, said I’d bring it upstairs to save Bernadette the hassle . . . I say, and my voice sounds calm and clean and very strange, ‘Breslin had talked to the gaffer.’

Steve says, ‘Can you think of any other way he could have known?’

‘Is there a call to the gaffer in the phone log?’

‘No. He must’ve used his regular phone for that. He knew we’d trace the Stoneybatter call; he wasn’t going to have the gaffer’s number showing up on that same phone. He couldn’t do anything about the calls to journos, but anyone can ring journos, and we can’t make them reveal their sources; he figured those wouldn’t come back on him.’

O’Kelly scanning the roster, hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. You’ll need backup on this one. Breslin’s due in. Have him.

I say, ‘The gaffer knew all along. He put Breslin on the case to keep an eye on us.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve says. ‘Yeah. Fuck, Antoinette.’

We can’t afford to get angry or wired or anything else, not now. ‘Keep it together,’ I say sharply.

I hear Steve blow out a long breath. ‘I know.’

‘What time are you and Breslin gonna be back at the squad?’

‘We’re pretty near done here. Say forty-five minutes, an hour max.’

‘I’ll throw him a ball to chase. When he heads off, meet me in the garden outside HQ.’

‘OK. Gotta go.’ And Steve hangs up.

The people going past the car seem like they’re speeding up, driven along by that unstoppable savage thrumming inside their heads. I still have that off-kilter feeling like a fever starting. I can’t afford the flu today, any more than I can afford to lose the head.

I need to head out to Stoneybatter, but first I set my phone number to Private, ring the General Unit and ask them, in a timid little girly voice with a nice middle-class accent, if I could please talk to Detective Breslin about Aislinn Murray who got murdered. They put me through to the Murder Squad; when Bernadette answers and tells me Detective Breslin is out and she’ll get someone else for me, I get all nervy and say no, no thanks, but could I maybe leave him a message? And she pats me on the head, more or less, and puts me through to Breslin’s voicemail.

‘This is Detective Don Breslin.’ Smooth as a coffee ad. He probably did a dozen takes. ‘Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’ Beep.