Holly didn’t answer that. Just gave me the edge of a smile and a little wave, half sarcastic, half not.

I was watching that straight back move away down the corridor, social worker duckfooting along beside her trying for a chat, when I copped: she’d never answered my question. Swerved out of the way, neat as a rollerblader, and kept right on moving.

‘Holly.’

She turned, hauling her bag strap up her shoulder. Wary.

‘What I asked you earlier. Why’d you bring this to me?’

Holly considered me. Unsettling, that look, like the follow-you stare off a painting.

‘Back before,’ she said. ‘The whole year, everyone was tiptoeing. Like if they said one single wrong word, I’d have a nervous breakdown and get taken away in a straitjacket, foaming. Even Dad – he pretended to be totally not bothered, but I could see him worrying, all the time. It was just, ahhh!’ A gritted noise of pure fury, hands starfished rigid. ‘You were the only one who didn’t act like I was about to start thinking I was a chicken. You were just like, OK, this sucks, but big deal, worse stuff happens to people all the time and they survive. Now let’s get it done.’

It’s very very important to show sensitivity to juvenile witnesses. We get workshops and all; PowerPoint presentations, if our luck’s really in. Me, I remember what it was like, being a kid. People forget that. A little dab of sensitive: lovely. A dab more, grand. A dab more, you’re daydreaming throat-punches.

I said, ‘Being a witness does suck. For anyone. You were better able for it than most.’

No sarcasm in the smile, this time. Other stuff, plenty, but not sarcasm. ‘Can you explain to them at school that I don’t think I’m a chicken?’ Holly asked the social worker, who was plastering on extra sensitive to hide the baffled. ‘Not even a little?’ And left.

One thing about me: I’ve got plans.

First thing I did, once I’d waved bye-bye to Holly and the social worker, I looked up the Harper case on the system.

Lead detective: Antoinette Conway.

A woman working Murder shouldn’t rate scandal, shouldn’t even rate a mention. But a lot of the old boys are old-school; a lot of the young ones, too. Equality is paper-deep, peel it away with a fingernail. The grapevine says Conway got the gig by shagging someone, says she got it by ticking the token boxes – something extra in there, something that’s not pasty potato-face Irish: sallow skin, strong sweeps to her nose and her cheekbones, blue-black shine on her hair. Shame she’s not in a wheelchair, the grapevine says, or she’d be commissioner by now.