‘Because finding out her man had run off with a younger model, that would’ve killed her. Smashed her to bits. I wasn’t going to do that to her.’

I say, ‘But you had no problem taking over the rest of her life. Everything she ever did after you walked in her door, every thought that ever went through her head, it had your fingerprints all over it. And you knew it would.’

I’m leaning in, across the table that’s specially chosen to be narrow enough that I can get close, see every coarse hair of this fucker’s stubble, I can smell the tea on his breath and the stale smoke on his clothes and the acrid reek of rage and terror in his sweat, I’m close enough to draw blood a dozen ways. ‘Be honest with yourself, McCann: that’s why you kept your mouth shut. Isn’t it? You couldn’t have Evelyn, but you loved the thought that you owned the rest of her life. Every time she woke up wondering whether Des would walk in the door today, every time she leaped when the phone rang, every night she dreamed he was dead, she belonged to you. Did you think about that sometimes, when your wife was a bitch and you were lying beside her daydreaming about sweet little Evelyn? Did it turn you on, knowing that whatever she was doing at that second, whatever she was thinking, you’d made her do it?’

McCann’s staring at me, those bloodshot blue eyes. I’ve never seen hate like this before, not coming my way. I’ve only ever seen hate this intimate between couples, families. I’ve put my finger right between his ribs, onto his deepest hidden places. I’ve got him.

He says, low and clenched and right into my face, ‘Fuck you to hell. It was for her own sake. You know what her man said about her? For his excuse? Said she’d been suffocating the life out of him for ten years. Said he was going mental, another few months in that house would’ve sent him off his chomp. You think I should’ve told her that? Let that own the rest of her life, instead? She wasn’t the kind who could throw that off, move on. It would’ve wrecked her. At least my way let her keep some self-respect, remember her marriage the way she thought it had been. Gave her a chance.’

‘Except,’ I say, ‘you got Aislinn as part of the package. You never even bothered thinking of that, did you? You took over Aislinn’s life, too. Every day was what you’d made it into, and it was shite. Then she grew up and went looking for some answers, and then she found out who had deliberately kept them away from her till it was too late.’