‘Hey, whoa there, Rory,’ Breslin says, lifting his hands and laughing. I grin along. ‘Slow down, will you? We’ll get there, I promise. But me and Detective Conway, we’re going to be doing hundreds of these interviews, so we need to stick to asking the same questions in the same order, or we’ll get mixed up and forget what we’ve already asked who. So do us a favour: let us do this our way. OK?’

‘OK. Sorry.’ But Rory’s shoulders have dropped – what with him being just one of hundreds, and what with us being just a couple of dumb goons on the verge of losing our place in our script. Breslin is good. I’ve watched him work before, but I’ve never shared an interview room with him, and in spite of myself I’m not hating it.

‘No problem,’ I say easily. Breslin drops into the chair next to mine and we get comfortable, flipping notebook pages, settling our arses into the quirks of our chairs, checking that our Biros work. ‘So,’ I say, ‘let’s start at the beginning. What’d you do yesterday? From, like, noon onwards?’

Rory takes a deep breath and pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘Right. At noon I was in the shop – I own the Wayward Bookshop, in Ranelagh? Right below my flat, where you – well, your colleagues – came and got me?’

‘Been past it a hundred times, kept meaning to go in,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to do it now, or you’ll be filing complaints about me.’ Me and Breslin have a little chuckle about that. Rory smiles automatically: a good boy, giving us what we expect from him. ‘So how was business yesterday?’

‘Pretty good. Saturdays I get a lot of regulars – mums and dads bringing the kids in to pick out a book, mostly. We’ve got a good children’s section, if you – I mean, I just mean if you were, I’m not—’

He’s blinking away anxiously. ‘I’ll bring the nephews in to you,’ I say. I don’t have nephews. ‘You can recommend them something with dinosaurs. How’s business overall?’

‘It’s all right. I mean . . .’ Rory does a twisty shrug. ‘Bookshops are all having a hard time these days. At least we’ve got regulars.’

Meaning Rory is under pressure. We’ll check what ‘all right’ means to him. ‘I’ll definitely have to bring the nephews in to support you, so,’ I say, smiling. ‘What time did you finish up?’

‘I close at six.’

‘And what’d you do then?’

‘I went back up to my flat and had a shower. I was, um, I had a . . .’ Rory is turning a cute shade of pink. ‘I was going over to a girl’s house for dinner. A woman’s house.’