‘Like a bad smell,’ said Ryan. ‘Don’t you hate Americans? Not that James was a bad guy. I never thought he was a bad guy. But he arrives with his money and his family and I’ll be honest – he was a fair painter if your tastes run to the old-fashioned. Send him back to la belle époque and he’d have been knee-deep in Parisian pussy within a week.’

And he had to be branching out into ceramics, he had to be strolling into Ryan’s own hitherto secret world. But Ryan could have lived with all of that if James bloody Gallagher hadn’t been better at singing in his head as well.

‘Not that he just sat down and did it first time, you understand,’ said Ryan. ‘It was me that got him settled, showed him the ropes, pointed out where the loo was.’

‘How long it did it take him to learn?’

‘About three weeks,’ said Ryan. ‘I felt him do it, but you know what? As he sang the song, I did too. In my head. Suddenly it was so simple. And we sang together, sort of both of us with the clay running between our fingers, and for that moment I was in tune with the fabric of the universe. I was singing along with the actual music of the spheres.’

But the proof of the pudding is in the baking. So the next day both of them had rushed back down the sewers for the grand ceremonial opening of the kiln.

‘For Stephen it’s an industrial process,’ said Ryan. ‘Just another day at the office, so we had to wait while he cleared out all the make-work until finally he gets to the layer where our plates are.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘And there they are – beautifully fired both of them. When Stephen put it in my hand, still warm, I knew it was mine. I could feel it through my skin. James and I look at each other and we just start laughing like little kids.’

Ryan trailed off and stared down at his hands. He turned his right hand over and rubbed absently at the bandage for a moment.

‘They test their work by banging it against the side of the kiln,’ said Ryan without looking up. ‘So we did the whole you-first-no-you-first routine and Jimmy boy gets fed up and cracks his plate against the edge of the kiln – the edge mind you – and it rings as sweet as a bell.’ Ryan looked up. ‘You can guess what happened next?’

I suddenly realised I’d talked myself into a trap – if the plate had broken in his hands then it could explain the cuts on his palm and possibly, if his brief was clever, the DNA evidence as well.

‘Yours smashed to pieces?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Ryan. ‘It cracked.’