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shrugged to indicate he’d got nowhere. She glared icily at him. She would speak to him later about protocol and, more importantly, about having some common sense.
    ‘Good morning, Callum. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’
    Callum rolled his eyes at Murray, who frowned and sighed.
    ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, opening the door and pulling it closed behind him.
    ‘You tell me,’ said Callum. ‘I was dragged here out of my bed, and those two started firing questions at me about the wee girl.’ It seemed that in anger his Belfast accent had gained the upper hand.
    Tara knew the situation had been handled badly. Murray was too quick, bringing Armour in for questioning, but she wasn’t about to criticise her colleagues in front of him for trying to do their job. The washed out, distant and unhelpful character sitting before her knew more about the murder than he had so far revealed. She stared for a moment at the swelling above his eye.
    ‘Do you have something you want to tell me about the killing of the girl?’ He had yet to focus on her, his eyes set on an infinite point beyond the room as if staring the past full in the face, trying his best to square up to whatever evil had destroyed his life.
    ‘Callum, you asked to speak with me. If you’ve changed your mind I can always get DS Murray to come back in.’
    ‘Why should I help you, when you and all the rest of them have done nothing to help me?’
    She saw the nerves rise in him, could hear the emotion breaking the last words in his sentence. She sat down, facing him across the table.
    ‘How do you spend your days, Callum? Do you work?’
    ‘Unemployed.’
    ‘So, what do you do with your time?’
    ‘I walk Midgey, I go to the library, the shops, the park and I go home.’
    ‘And your evenings?’ He looked at her for the first time. Incredulity flowed from brightening eyes.
    ‘I go out with my friends to the cinema, to the theatre, the opera and ballet. We have dinner in the best restaurants in Liverpool. We have a private box at Anfield. We drink in the liveliest clubs and get off with stunning women… What do you think?’
    ‘I don’t think that’s necessary. Something you may not have realised, Callum. You are a suspect in this murder. For your own good I think it’s best if we cut the sarcasm, and maybe we can rule you out of the investigation as soon as we can. Tell me what you were doing two nights ago.’
    ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. I want to go home. Midgey will be looking to be fed.’
    ‘A young girl was murdered in a house close to yours. I want to know what you were doing around midnight on Tuesday.’
    ‘I was in my bed asleep.’
    ‘Can anyone vouch for that?’ She knew it was a stupid question for a man in his situation. He gave her a look of disgust, and took to contemplation of the blank wall once again. Tara rose from her chair. She thought that after yesterday she understood this man a little better than others around him. She had sympathy for his plight. Today, however, she found him rude and obnoxious.
    ‘I’ll pass on your request to the Superintendent. If there’s anything you want to tell me, Callum, you know where to find me. I won’t be making this offer every time we meet.’ She left him as she’d found him, staring into his personal oblivion.

 
    CHAPTER 9
     
     
    They kept him until lunchtime but didn’t happen to give him anything to eat. Didn’t bother giving him a lift home either. He had some change in the pocket of his trousers, enough to scrape the bus fare to Netherton and buy some milk for his breakfast. Walking to the bus stop, he wondered if it would ever do anything else but rain in this damn country. Incessant drizzle that soaked you through, bleaching the will from you to do anything but get indoors and stay there, waiting, urging life to hurry on by. He thought of his native Belfast, a city he hadn’t visited since he was thirteen, trying to imagine if a life spent