A quick double blink from McCann. This is reaching him. Any second now, he’ll be jumping on board with whatever O’Kelly’s got planned.

Another finger. ‘Rory Fallon. Aislinn could’ve been trying to get you out of her head. She had enough sense to know the two of ye were a bad idea all round.’

McCann’s looking at him now. The drowning-man hope struggling on his face is terrible.

‘Maybe this is just me doing my own wishful thinking. I don’t want to believe you’d make a mess like this one, drag the whole squad into it, just for the sake of a ride. For you to fuck up this badly, then you and Aislinn, that had to be the real thing.’

Shame, mixed in with the hope.

‘We can’t ask Aislinn what was going on in her head. You’re the only other person who was there; if anyone knows, it’s you. So you tell me, McCann. Was it the real thing? Or are we all sitting here because you fancied a fuck?’

The clench of anger in his voice pulls it out of McCann. ‘It was real. I’m not that bloody stupid.’

‘Real,’ the gaffer says. And waits for more.

‘Maybe Aislinn did go into it wanting to fuck me over. Probably. Maybe she ended the same way – that mate of hers persuaded her, or, I don’t know. But there was a while in there . . .’

McCann rubs his eyes. In the merciless light they look red and sore, like he’s got an infection starting. He says, ‘I couldn’t believe it was happening. To me. I thought I knew the rest of my life like it had already happened. All the decisions that make a difference, I’d made them before I was twenty-five – the job, the wife, the neighbourhood, having kids. All that was left was for me to sit there and watch them play out. No twists left; no surprises.’

He lifts his head to look over at me and Steve. ‘You won’t get it now, you two. You’re still young enough that anything could happen. But you’ll find out. It’s like being in a film, one of those third-rate ones where by halfway through you know exactly where it’s headed, every step; you can’t remember why you’re even bothering to watch the rest. Because it’s there, just; because there’s nothing else to do. And then . . .’

He blinks hard, like that might clear his eyes.

‘And all of a sudden someone lifts you right out of it and drops you into a different film. Different music, different colours. She was brighter. Always bright colours. And anything could happen.’

Steve says, ‘So what you told us about just liking her company, that was bollix. You knew from the start that this was something special.’