‘Do you like it?’ he asked. He had a soft Irish accent that if you’d put a gun to my head I’d have identified as middle-class Dublin but not with any real confidence.

‘It’s terrible,’ I said.

‘Yes it is,’ he said. ‘And I like to think horrific as well.’

‘That too,’ I said which seemed to please him.

I introduced myself and we shook hands. He had stained fingers and a strong grip.

‘Police?’ he asked. ‘Are you here on business?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘The murder of a young art student called James Gallagher.’ Carroll didn’t react.

‘Do I know him?’ he asked.

‘He was an admirer of yours,’ I said. ‘Was he ever in contact?’

‘What was his name again?’ asked Ryan.

‘James Gallagher,’ I said. Again not a flicker. I pulled up a headshot on my phone and showed him that.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

This is where, as police, you have to make a decision – do you ask for an alibi or not? Fifty years of detective dramas mean that even the densest member of the public knows what it means when you ask them where they were at a certain time or date. Nobody believes ‘just routine’, even when it’s true. With television broadcast levels of vestigia radiating from his art work I figured Ryan Carroll had to be involved in something but I had no evidence that he’d ever come in contact with James Gallagher. I decided that I would write him up tonight and let Seawoll or Stephanopoulos decide whether they wanted him interviewed. If he was statemented by someone else from the Murder Team then I could pursue the magic angle while he was distracted by that.

I love it when a plan comes together, especially when it means someone else will do the heavy lifting. I waved my glass at the mannequin in his coat of despair.

‘Did you make them yourself?’ I asked.

‘With my own little hands,’ he said.

‘You’re going to make a million,’ I said.

‘That’s the plan,’ he said smugly.

A blonde woman in a blue dress waved at Ryan to get his attention. When she had it, she pointed at her watch.

‘You’ll have to excuse me, Constable,’ said Ryan. ‘Duty calls.’ He walked over to the blonde woman who took his arm and pulled him gently back towards the waiting crowd. As they went she fussed at Ryan’s collar and jacket. Manager, I wondered, or better half, or possibly both.

Most of the patrons gathered around them and I heard the woman launch into what was unmistakably a warm-up speech. I guessed that Ryan Carroll was about to take his bow. I looked at his work again. The question was – did he imbue it with its vestigia or did that come from a found object? And if it did, was Ryan aware of its significance?

My phone rang – it was Zach.