McCann’s lip lifts. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re at? You’ve got some nerve, trying this shite on me. Go play with Rory Fallon some more. Get Bres to show you how it’s done. See if you can learn something.’ He shoves his chair back from the table. ‘I’m done here.’

Steve takes the Des Murray family pic out of his suit pocket and lays it on the table. ‘Do you recognise any of these people?’ he asks.

McCann leans over and whips it up, ready to toss it back at Steve after one glance, but the photo catches him. He holds it between his fingertips and we watch his face, held to stillness with all his will, as he recognises Evelyn, then Des, and fumbles for what the hell they have to do with this. As that chubby little girl and her tentative smile start to ring a bell. We watch the tremor run through his mind, coming from deep inside the foundations, as he finally begins to understand.

Steve puts a finger on Desmond Murray. He says, ‘Can you identify this man?’

McCann doesn’t hear him.

I lean in and tap the photo. ‘McCann. Who’s this?’

McCann blinks. He says thickly, like his mind’s too taken up to work his mouth right, ‘Name’s Desmond Murray.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘You already know.’

‘We want to hear it from you.’

‘He went missing. A long time back. I worked the case.’

‘And this?’ I move my finger to Evelyn Murray. ‘Who’s this?’

‘The wife. Evelyn.’

‘And this?’

My finger’s on Aislinn. Steve’s leaning across the table beside me, the two of us close in McCann’s face, watching every twitch. There’s a long silence before McCann says, ‘That’s the daughter.’

‘Her name.’

One breath. ‘Aislinn.’

A second of silence, while that falls through the air.

‘You seriously didn’t remember her?’ Steve asks, incredulous. ‘I know she’d grown up and all, but her face didn’t even ring a bell? Her name? Nothing?’

After a moment McCann’s head moves, side to side.

I say, ‘She remembered you.’

He can’t stop shaking his head.

‘That’s why she picked you out in Horgan’s,’ I say. ‘Not because she was a badge bunny and you were a D. Because she wanted to know what happened to her da.’

‘I wondered if maybe it started out as curiosity,’ Steve says, ‘or some fucked-up way of getting closer to her da’ – that gets one sharp flicker of a wince, at the corner of McCann’s mouth – ‘and then, as she got to know you, it turned real.’

I snort. ‘Hey,’ Steve says, ‘stranger things have happened. Is that what you’re wondering, too?’

McCann lifts his head to look at Steve for a second. The flash of hope is terrible.