‘Ah, arse,’ Steve says. ‘I hope I’ve got a tenner. Look at the state of him.’

‘Sucks to be you. Get in quicker next time.’

We watch Rory Fallon flick his head back and forth and fidget his feet under his chair while he tries to get a handle on the interview room. Interview rooms are designed so you can’t get a handle on them. The linoleum and the table and the chairs are all the plainest, most nondescript ones out there, and it’s not just because of budget cuts; it’s so your mind can’t read anything off them, and it starts reading stuff in. Long enough alone in an interview room and the place goes from nothing to sinister to pure horror film.

There’s a black overcoat neatly folded over the back of his chair, and a pair of grey nylon padded gloves lined up on the table. Rory’s hands are arranged the same way as the gloves, palms pressed down, thumbs just touching. His knuckles, as far as I can tell from this distance, are perfect: not a scratch.

Steve says, ‘See his hands?’

‘That doesn’t rule him out. Sophie said he probably wore gloves, remember?’

‘Ring her. See if they found prints in the end.’

I ring Sophie, hit speaker, keep one eye on the door for Breslin. ‘Sophie. Hey. It’s me and Moran.’

‘Hey. Update: we’ve basically finished processing the body and the sitting room—’ Her voice cuts out, comes back. ‘Fucking reception in here. Hang on a sec.’ A door slams. ‘Hi.’

‘How’re you doing on prints?’

‘It looks like we’re out of luck, basically.’ Wind whirls around Sophie’s voice; she’s out on the street. She does something, cups her hand around the phone, and the roar goes away. ‘We’ve got plenty on the dinner settings, the door handle, the wine bottle, wineglasses, but just offhand my guy says they’re all too small for a man and they all look like a match to the vic.’

‘We were right about the guy wearing gloves,’ I say. Steve makes a face.

‘We’ll keep looking, but I’m guessing yeah. Probably leather or Gore-Tex, something smooth like that. We didn’t find any fibres on the vic’s face where he punched her, and we should’ve, if the gloves were wool or anything knitted. Fibres would’ve stuck to the blood.’

I say, to Steve, ‘So thick gloves, probably. Meaning he might not have wrecked his hand, at least not enough to be visible.’

‘Meaning you’ve picked up your suspect,’ Sophie says. ‘And his hands are fine.’

‘Yeah. The dinner-date guy.’

‘Did you get whatever gloves he was wearing last night? Because if your killer wore gloves, he’s got the vic’s blood all over the right-hand one. Even if he cleaned it. That shit sticks around.’