Saying it pulls a huge yawn out of him. I bite one back, but too late: it’s hit me that I’m shattered too. My vision is jumping; I can’t tell how far away the walls are. ‘But Breslin’s not,’ I say. ‘If we go home, we’re leaving him in charge to do whatever he wants.’

‘And if we don’t, we’re tipping him off.’

Steve’s right. For a dead kid or a dead cop, you work twenty-four hours straight if you need to, then grab a shower and a quick kip and head in for another twenty-four. If you do that for every case, you’ll burn out inside three months. Your basic murder gets an eight-hour shift, maybe twelve or fourteen if something interesting happens. If me and Steve go twenty-four hours for this, we might as well run to Breslin and tell him we think there’s something dodgy going on.

I say, ‘So what do we do about him?’

‘Load him up with busywork at the case meeting. Keep him out of trouble.’

‘Yeah, right. He’d love that. Big man like him—’

Steve’s grinning. ‘This isn’t about his ego, remember? He told us so. It’s all about the squad. He won’t mind tracking down every passenger on the 39A, not when it’s for the squad.’

I’m grinning too. ‘Search every bin between Stoneybatter and Ranelagh: Breslin, for the sake of the squad. Go to the post-mortem: Breslin, for the sake of the squad. Type up statements—’

‘Pizza run: Breslin, for the sake of the squad—’

We’re both on the edge of a full-on fit of the giggles. If I relax that much, I’m gonna fall asleep right here on my feet.

‘We’ll keep him on checking out Fallon,’ I say. ‘If he gets through the KAs, he can talk to Fallon’s old girlfriends, see if he’s got any history of giving out the slaps—’

‘He won’t have.’ Steve runs his hand under the water-cooler tap and over his face, trying to wake himself up.

‘Probably not. But if Breslin wants Fallon charged this bad, he won’t have a problem digging for dirt on him, right? That should keep him too busy to make trouble for us, at least for the evening. And we’ll send a floater with him. Might make him think twice before he disappears any statement he doesn’t like.’

There must be something in my voice. Steve glances up sharply. ‘Has more stuff been going missing on you? Since that witness on the Petrescu case, like?’

‘Nah,’ I say – I’m not about to sob on his shoulder about the mean boys who stole my lovely statement sheet. ‘That doesn’t mean it won’t. We need to be careful here.’

Steve is still watching me, palming drops of water off his jaw, and I feel like it’s half a blink too long before he answers. But he says, easily enough, ‘A floater won’t stop Breslin from feeding Crowley info, if he’s the one doing it.’