It tracks cold right down into my stomach, like swallowed ice. The story we told him, the true one, it’ll never leave this room. By the time we walk out, O’Kelly and McCann between them will have sliced it to pieces and sewn it up into something unrecognisable, to set loose into the outside world. I knew it was coming, but it still hits home.

‘Fact is, everything they’ve got plays a couple of different ways.’

One fast glance from McCann.

O’Kelly holds up a thumb. ‘The photos of your notes. It’s a safe bet Aislinn was going to take those to your wife, but all that says is she wanted you for herself. Nothing to say why.’

Thumb and finger. ‘That fairy tale yoke she left for her mate. That just says she felt trapped – and I don’t blame her; you’re a fucking eejit, putting the girl in that situation, like she wanted to spend the rest of her life being your bit on the side – and she was angry with you, wanted to turn the tables so you couldn’t get away from her.’

A quick double blink from McCann. This is reaching him. Any second now, he’ll be jumping on board with whatever O’Kelly’s got planned.

Another finger. ‘Rory Fallon. Aislinn could’ve been trying to get you out of her head. She had enough sense to know the two of ye were a bad idea all round.’

McCann’s looking at him now. The drowning-man hope struggling on his face is terrible.

‘Maybe this is just me doing my own wishful thinking. I don’t want to believe you’d make a mess like this one, drag the whole squad into it, just for the sake of a ride. For you to fuck up this badly, then you and Aislinn, that had to be the real thing.’

Shame, mixed in with the hope.

‘We can’t ask Aislinn what was going on in her head. You’re the only other person who was there; if anyone knows, it’s you. So you tell me, McCann. Was it the real thing? Or are we all sitting here because you fancied a fuck?’

The clench of anger in his voice pulls it out of McCann. ‘It was real. I’m not that bloody stupid.’

‘Real,’ the gaffer says. And waits for more.

‘Maybe Aislinn did go into it wanting to fuck me over. Probably. Maybe she ended the same way – that mate of hers persuaded her, or, I don’t know. But there was a while in there . . .’