Neither of us answers.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out delicately, the way you do when you’re dying of a cough, afraid if you do it wrong you might explode. ‘Five in the morning, he rang me. He said his friend, one of his best friends, he had called round to his girlfriend that night. Found her in her sitting room unconscious, bet up. Pretty sure another boyfriend did it. I said, “What are you dragging me out of my bed for? Call it in, get the uniforms and the paramedics over there, see you in the morning.” Breslin said he was going to call it in as soon as we hung up. But then he said to me, “My friend’s got a wife and kids. He can’t be linked to this, gaffer. It’ll wreck his life. We need to keep him out of it.” ’

O’Kelly lets out a small, humourless snort of laughter. ‘I said don’t be giving me that shite about my friend; we all know what that means. But Breslin said no. He swore up and down: it’s not me, gaffer. You know me, I don’t step out on my missus. I’ll put you on to her, she can tell you I’ve been with her and the kids all weekend . . . A lie that size, from a fella I know the way I know Breslin, I wouldn’t have missed it. I believed him.’

He moves; the chair creaks sharply. ‘I said, “Your mate says he didn’t put a finger on her, just walked in and found the damage done. Do you believe him?” And Breslin said he did, yeah. Hundred per cent. Two hundred. A thousand. He wasn’t lying then, either. And Breslin’s no eejit. He’s had plenty of practice spotting bullshit stories.’

There’s a second of silence, while we all let that lie there.

‘I asked him, “Then what are you getting into hysterics about? If your friend did nothing and saw nothing, there’s no reason his name should ever come into this. The bird’ll wake up and tell the uniforms who gave her the slaps, they’ll pull the fella in, she’ll refuse to press charges, everyone’ll go home; rinse and repeat a month or two down the line. Your mate’s grand. I hope it scared him shitless enough that he’ll keep it in his trousers from now on.” ’

The cough breaks through. We wait while O’Kelly pulls a tissue out of his pocket and presses it to his mouth, makes ferocious revving noises to clear his throat.