The wonder in his voice. He sounds like a teenager, lifting with joy and amazement, he sounds so tender you could bruise him with one wrong touch. Time after time it’s left me gobsmacked, how people will tell you things they should keep locked inside for life; how ferociously they need the story to be out in the air, in the world, to exist somewhere outside their own heads.

He says, ‘It was real. All that shite you’ve got, that means nothing. One time I fell getting over her wall, scraped up my knee. Aislinn knelt down in front of me and washed it, so gentle. You think she’d’ve done that if she only hated my guts? Maybe she did, some of the time, but she loved me as well. People are complicated. She was more complicated than I realised.’

He’s giving me and Steve a stare that’s a challenge. No takers. The whole thing is pure double-dipped fantasy, but the last thing we want to do is take it apart. Me and Steve, scrabbling so hard to pull the true story out of the tangle, we forgot the false ones come with their own ferocious, double-edged power.

The gaffer nods. ‘I would’ve put money on that. Nice to know I’m not losing the bit I have.’ He resettles himself in his chair, adjusts his waistband over his belly. ‘Now we’ve got that cleared up,’ he says. ‘Let’s talk about Saturday night.’

McCann opens his mouth, but O’Kelly lifts a hand. ‘No. Hang on. That’s not what I’m asking you.’

McCann shuts up.

‘Breslin told these two you found Aislinn dead. But he told me that you – that his mate, I mean – didn’t even check for a pulse. Why?’

A shake of McCann’s head, baffled and wary. This isn’t what he was expecting. Not what I was expecting, either. I’m not sure, any more, that I have the foggiest clue what the gaffer is at.

‘He wanted me thinking the mate was a civilian, is why. So he said the mate panicked and did a runner, the way a civilian would. The way no D would, ever.’ O’Kelly shoots a sharp glance at McCann, under his eyebrows. ‘You happy with that?’

A humourless twist of McCann’s mouth. ‘Not happy with any of this.’

‘You shouldn’t be. You let Breslin paint you as a civilian, to keep you out of hassle with your gaffer. How does that sit with you?’

McCann’s jaw moves. ‘Not great.’

‘Good. Because it’s not sitting great with me, either.’ O’Kelly leaves that for a moment, but McCann’s got nothing to add. ‘And then, a minute ago, you said Aislinn made you feel the way you used to feel on a good case: like what you did mattered.’

Nod.

‘Used to feel, you said. Meaning not any more.’

McCann’s eyes are on the floor.

‘Since when?’

‘Don’t know. A couple of years back.’

‘What happened?’