Breslin clicks his tongue. ‘Not going to happen. Mac’s got more sense than to put it on the record – to be honest, after that little stunt you pulled, I’ll be amazed if he ever wants to talk to either of you again, on or off the record. But I figure it’ll simplify all our lives if you know the facts.’

Steve says, ‘And it’ll be unrecorded, unverifiable, inadmissible hearsay.’

‘Them’s the breaks. Do you want to hear this or not?’

Deep down, I don’t. When McCann left the room he took something with him, some dark savage charge sizzling the air. Without him at its heart, the room’s gone flat and sickly and stupid. I just want to walk out and keep walking, anywhere I don’t have to think about what comes next or look at Breslin’s self-righteous gob. I lean back in my chair and rub my hands over my face, trying to find some of that charge again.

‘OK,’ Steve says. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Don’t do me any favours.’

‘We’d like to know.’

‘Conway?’

‘Why not,’ I say. I take my hands off my face, but I don’t have the energy to straighten up.

Breslin doesn’t join us at the table. He tosses his water cup in the bin, sticks his hands in his pockets and starts pacing, a leisurely stroll, the cool professor explaining something to his enthralled students. ‘Saturday evening,’ he says. ‘Mac had dinner at home with his family, and then he decided to call in to Aislinn. He got there around quarter to eight, give or take – he didn’t check his watch. He went in the back door to the kitchen, same as usual. The lights were on and he could see Aislinn had been in the middle of cooking dinner, but she didn’t call out or come to meet him. Mac went into the sitting room and found her lying there with her head on the fireplace.’

‘Must’ve been a shock,’ Steve says. Breslin shoots him a sharp glance, but Steve’s face is blank.

‘It was, yeah. Obviously.’

‘Most people would’ve gone to bits.’

‘Most civilians would have. Mac was devastated, but he kept it together. That doesn’t make him a killer. It makes him a cop.’

‘He also found the table set for a romantic dinner,’ I say. ‘That must’ve been a shock, too. What’d he make of that?’