The flat? You tell me. It was agonising, how he was looking at her, watching the words form on her lips. She felt her left hand fold across herself to grip her right forearm, the other hand holding the cigarette close to her mouth.

He smiled and laid down another photograph. She and Michael were near the dining table. Her mouth wide like a yawn, his lips pushed out and almost touching hers. Her bare knee was clinging to his arse. It had been taken the day the car had reversed on to the gravel; from the light and angle, the photographer had been across the street, under one of the trees. Christ, she heard herself say softly.

Have you ever visited his family home?

She ground out the cigarette. Her mouth was dry. She tried to wash it with saliva, but it wouldn’t muster. I suppose you have a photograph of that as well, she said. Even though I never visited his family home.

He was enjoying her discomfort, his fingers flexing playfully over the folder. Your car was seen outside the house on the night of May the twenty-fifth.

I was upset that I couldn’t see him. I drove out the road to check if he’d gone home.

Michael Agnew was shot dead in his family home, he said, pulling the folder towards himself.

She had begun to cry, tears cooling on her chin, the salt itching her cheeks. She tugged a cuff down and held it in her fist, wiping the taut cotton across her face. How come youse didn’t stop him getting shot, she said, when youse were following him all the time?

He didn’t even blink. What was the nature of your relationship with Tommy McGeown? he said.

I don’t have a relationship with Tommy McGeown. His wee brother was a pupil of mine.

You befriended the family, it seems.

Davy McGeown is a seven-year-old boy. His father was assaulted and I tried to help him.

You visited the house on numerous occasions.

Over Easter I sat with the kids while their mother was visiting their father in hospital. I gave Davy lifts to and from school.

Did you ever discuss your relationship with Michael Agnew with Tommy McGeown?

No! He’s a teenager. He hardly talks. And he hasn’t been around for the last while.

He opened the folder and took out a small black notebook; the one Tommy had kept in his back pocket. He opened it and held it up like a caroller. Did you give him your number?

Yeah. So he could ring me if they needed shopping done.

He’s written something on the page opposite. Would you like me to read it to you?

No. I wouldn’t.