‘I’ll take it,’ I say, finding a pen. ‘Initial the photo you recognise. At the bottom, write down where you’ve seen him before and how sure you are, and sign.’

The barman writes, head bent close to the page. ‘Can you think of anyone else who was in that evening?’ I ask. ‘Anyone who might have noticed the pair of them?’

‘Ah, now. You’re asking a bit much. I don’t call the register at the beginning of every night.’

‘I might have to come in and have chats with your regulars, some night. I’ll try and keep it low-key.’

‘I had a feeling that was on the cards, all right.’ The barman passes me the sheet and the Biro. His writing is tiny and beautiful; it deserves fountain pen and thick yellowing paper, not this. ‘If you’re talking to this fella, tell him he’s not welcome back in here. I’m not asking you if he did anything to that young one. I’m just saying people come here for a bit of peace.’ He gives me one more long glance, as he picks up the next two glasses. ‘I wouldn’t have your job for all the tea in China,’ he says.

The uniform in Stoneybatter station says the voice sample might be the fella who rang Sunday morning, except he thinks that fella sounded a bit different from this one, he can’t explain how but not the same, maybe the voice was a bit higher and maybe it had a Meath accent, or else Kildare, it won’t come back to him properly. No surprise there; even if we hadn’t already smeared that pointless voice array all over his memory, I’m not the only one who can put on funny voices. We’ve got everything we’re going to get.

It’s lunchtime. I stop at Rory’s favourite Tesco, grab two bottles of Coke and two sandwiches with plenty of meat in them – this could be a long afternoon – and head back to HQ. Sleety rain spatters my windscreen with big dirty spots, but by the time I get to the Castle gardens, it’s stopped. I pick a stretch of wall among the bushes, out of sight of the windows, and use paper napkins to get the worst of the rain off it before I sit down and open my sandwich. A couple of small birds are hopping forlornly on the wet grass. When I toss them a chunk of bread, they panic and scatter into the bushes in a wild rattle of wings.

I’m only getting stuck into the sandwich when Steve comes through the garden gate, walking fast with his head down, like that’s gonna magically hide the red hair from anyone at a window. ‘Hey,’ he says.

‘Hiya. Breslin gone?’