‘But she was just shaking her head: no, not that, no, no, just go. She was trying to move me towards the kitchen, herding me, only I wouldn’t, or I couldn’t . . . I said – stupid, standing there, couldn’t keep up – I said, “Are we done? Does this mean we’re done?” And Aislinn, she stopped like she’d never thought of that. Startled. And then she said, “Well. Yes. I suppose it does.” ’

There’s no way I’d risk a glance at Steve now. Neither of us is breathing.

‘It felt like a joke,’ McCann says. ‘I was waiting for the punchline. But her face: she meant it. I said, all I could say, “Why?”

‘She said, “Go home.” I said, “Tell me why and I’ll go. Whatever it is, just tell me. I can’t live wondering.”

‘She looked at me and she laughed. Aislinn’s got a lovely laugh, sweet little giggle, but this wasn’t— This was something different. Great wild laugh, huge. She sounded . . .’

McCann’s throat moves as he hears that laugh again, growing and growing to fill his head, unstoppable. ‘She sounded happy. The happiest I’d ever heard her. And then she said, “You keep on wondering. Now fuck off.” ’

He stops talking.

O’Kelly says, ‘And.’

McCann says, ‘And I hit her.’

Me and Steve, we went at McCann by ripping away what he believed most about his life, blowing it up in front of his eyes, and hoping there’d be too little of him left to hold out against us. Just like Aislinn had been planning. But when we took as much of McCann as we could, shredded him into the last thing he ever wanted to be, we left him with No comment.

O’Kelly offered McCann a way back to who he was. McCann’s taken it.

He says, ‘It wasn’t murder, gaffer. It was manslaughter. I never meant her to die.’

The gaffer says, ‘I know.’

‘It never came to me that she might. Not till after.’

‘I know.’

I’m taking in a breath to say it. Cooper’s report. McCann is no bodybuilder. He landed that punch when Aislinn was down, head on the stone fireplace.

O’Kelly hears the breath. His eyes flick to me and he waits for what I’m going to say. His face still hasn’t changed. Only the eyes, moving in shadow, look alive.

I shut my mouth.

The gaffer’s eyes go back to McCann. He says, ‘We need this on record. You understand that?’

McCann nods. He keeps nodding for a long time.

O’Kelly leans his hands on the desk to stand up. ‘Time to go,’ he says.

McCann’s face turns up to him, quickly.

‘I’ll do it,’ the gaffer says. Steadying, like a surgeon promising to cut it out himself, not to let the med students touch the scalpel.

McCann says, ‘Maura.’