The female officer pushed open a fire door and told her to walk to the end of the corridor. A man was waiting for her, half-in half-out of a doorway. She was inches from him when she recognised him. It was Disco Peeler. She had only seen him in poor light, and he was fairer than she remembered, almost ginger at his sideburns and moustache. Handsome, in a dull, wholesome way, but something unappealing in his deliberate movements, his measured voice.

A Formica table, blue like the worktops at home, bolted to the floor. Two chairs one side, one on the other. Four walls, at the base of which were scuffmarks, too high for heels, too low for knees. At kicking height.

He pulled out a chair for her. Cushla, he said, if I may.

She sat down, trying to stay still, but felt her shoulder go up. It must have looked like a shrug. There was a Manila folder on the table, an ashtray. A tape machine that he didn’t turn on. He caught her looking at it.

You haven’t been arrested, he said.

Does that mean I can go?

He intertwined his fingers and smiled a smile that chilled her. We’re hoping you can help us.

Who is we? There is just you and me.

Tell me about your relationship with Michael Agnew.

He came into the bar sometimes.

Did you ever meet him outside the bar?

He asked me to join an Irish-language conversation group.

He took a photograph from the folder and turned it over, pushing it towards her. She and Michael on the footpath on the perimeter of the barracks, lit by a streetlamp. He was swinging the bottle of brandy by the neck, his face lined with laughter.

To the home of James and Penelope Scott, he said. Cushla had put on a long-sleeved Rupert the Bear T-shirt under the cardigan and had not washed her face since the previous morning. He was looking at her with amusement, as if it was ludicrous that she could have been in the company of people like that.

Yes.

Did you meet him elsewhere?

No.

He laid another photograph on the table. Cushla talking, her mouth slightly open, a furrow between her eyebrows as if she was giving off. Michael’s face turned to hers. The look on his face winded her. He had loved her.

She took a cigarette from the crushed pack in her pocket. Disco Peeler leaned forward and sparked a gold lighter under it. Who took these? she said, blowing the smoke through her nostrils.

Were you in a sexual relationship with Michael Agnew?

Why don’t you just show me the picture? she said. I presume you have a really good one.

Did you visit him at his home?