Breslin steps back and spreads his arms. ‘If you think I obstructed your investigation, go ahead and file a complaint. What are you going to put in it? Breslin paid for his sandwich the wrong way? Breslin didn’t want Gaffney hanging off him?’ He’s got a grin on him, a nasty one. ‘If you saw anything dodgy there, kids, it was in the eye of the beholder. If you went chasing after some wild hare, that was all on you. Not my problem.’

Neither of us answers that. I can still smell Breslin’s aftershave.

‘If you don’t have enough to file a complaint,’ Breslin says, ‘then I think you owe me an apology.’

I say, ‘Now we’re gonna tell you our story. And it’s a lot better than yours.’

His face pulls into a grimace of pure disbelief. ‘What are you talking about? This isn’t about who’s got the best story, Conway. This is about what actually happened on Saturday night. And I’ve already told you that.’

‘Humour me. Don’t worry, ours is shorter than yours, too.’

Breslin sighs, long and noisy, and makes a big thing of pushing mugs out of the way so he can settle his arse against the counter. ‘All right,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘Go for it. Blow me away.’

‘Saturday evening,’ I say. ‘McCann had dinner at home and then decided to call round to Aislinn. He hadn’t given her any notice, but that wasn’t supposed to matter: she was supposed to be available whenever he wanted her. He got there sometime after seven-forty, when Rory left the laneway to go to Tesco. McCann went over the wall and in the back door, same as usual.’

Breslin’s nodding away, giving me a wide-eyed stare of disbelief: isn’t this the same story he told us? ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘This is where it gets good. He found Aislinn all dressed up and cooking dinner, and he didn’t get the welcome he was expecting: she obviously didn’t want him there. McCann went out into the sitting room to see what was going on, and he found the table all set for a romantic dinner that he knew bloody well didn’t involve him.’

‘By that point,’ Steve says, ‘his whole life was hanging on Aislinn Murray. He was getting ready to leave his wife, his kids—’

‘I’m guessing Breslin knew that already,’ I say. Breslin rolls his eyes to the ceiling.

‘McCann had ripped up what he thought was going to be the rest of his life,’ Steve says, ‘thrown it away, and rewritten it from scratch around Aislinn.’

‘Gobshite,’ I say, aside to Steve, and see the flash of anger in Breslin’s eye.

Steve says, ‘And she set it on fire.’

‘I wonder how much she told him,’ I say.