It catches me with a warmth that almost hurts. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘No.’

Steve says, ‘From what I’ve walked in on, but, the locker was Roche.’

‘How about the poster with my head Photoshopped onto the gash pic?’

‘Yeah. Roche.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘OK.’ I turn in a circle, looking up at the city lights painting the clouds a tricky grey-gold. ‘All the other shite? Not the small stuff. The real shite.’

‘Like I said: I wouldn’t know. But I’ve never heard anything to say anyone else was in on it.’

I say, ‘You never told me.’

That gets a flick of one corner of his mouth. ‘’Cause you would’ve listened, yeah?’

Steve hanging on to his precious gangster story for dear life, building it bigger and fancier and twirlier, waving his arms for me to look. Here I thought he was trying to cheer me up so I wouldn’t get him in the lads’ bad books. All along he was hoping, if he could just come up with a good enough alternative, maybe he could snap me out of convincing myself the whole case – the whole squad – was one great big conspiracy to shaft me. I can’t decide which of us is the bigger spa.

‘Huh,’ I say. The air smells tasty and restless, all those places you could spend your evening, all the things waiting to happen inside those beckoning open doors. ‘Would you look at that.’

‘What?’

‘I just wish I’d copped earlier. Is all.’

Steve waits.

I say, ‘We need to talk to the gaffer.’

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Me and Steve, back in the gaffer’s office. It’s down the end of a corridor; with the click of the door, the silence closes around us and we’re a thousand miles from the rest of the squad. The layers of tat and clutter close in, too: spider plant, golf trophies, framed crap, stacks of pointless old files, and there’s a brand-new snow globe holding down a heap of paper on the desk, souvenir of some grandkid’s holiday. In the middle of it all, O’Kelly, taking off his reading glasses to look at us.

He says, ‘Breslin was in. He says you’ve hit a wall with the Aislinn Murray case; time to take a step back, hope ye catch a break somewhere down the road.’

He gets it bang on, gruff and not exactly delighted with us, but holding back from the bollocking because Breslin told him we’ve done a good job. For a second there I could almost believe it’s real, and all the rest is our imagination. The rush of fury pulls a sharp breath into me.

The gaffer watches us.

I say, ‘McCann killed Aislinn Murray.’

Not one muscle of O’Kelly changes. He says, ‘Sit down.’