Fine to me is a grand summer's morning, or the first pint on a stag night. Fine coming from a woman translates as appalling.

'How's the boy wonder?'

'Fine.'

'Is he holding you hostage and restricting you to one word?'

'No,' she said. Then she sighed. 'No, really. It's okay. I suppose. He's bored. I'm bored. You've lumbered me with this. He knows he can't go out, but there's nothing here for him to do. I can't entertain him. So, I was wondering . . . he was wondering . . .'

'Mmm-hmmm?'

'Well, he was asking if I could run him up to his house, just so that he can go in and get his Xbox. It's in his bedroom, sitting there doing nothing.'

'No.'

'He'd be in and out in two minutes.'

'Absolutely not.'

'Dan, he's a teenager, they're miserable at the best of times. With everything he has going on, he needs something to take his mind off it, and I'm afraid daytime television doesn't cut it.'

'Rent him a movie. Download something.'

'Dan, he wants the Xbox. Look, his mum is gone, he can't talk to his friends. Just let-'

'Trish no. He goes near the Shankill, they'll have him in an instant.'

'Then I'll take a run up and-'

'No.'

'Are you telling me no?'

'Yes.'

'Then you do it for him. Dan. Please. I'm harbouring a fugitive, the least you can do is-'

'Okay. All right. Leave it with me, I'll see what I can do.'

'So you'll do it?'

'I said to leave it with me.'

'Dan, just say you'll do it.'

'Okay! Christ. I'll do it. Satisfied?'

'Thank you. Was that so hard?'

'Trish. Jesus.' Calm. Deep breath. 'Right. Okay.' I drummed my fingers on the table. 'What're you going to do about your work?'

'What do you mean?'

'You're going to take some time off?'

'Dan, I happen to be off today. But I'm going in tomorrow.'

'Are you sure that's wise?'

'It's my job, Dan. It's not a case of it being wise or not.'

'I mean, you're just going to leave him at home by himself? Couldn't you take a couple of days off, just till I get this sorted?'

'No. I don't have them to take.'

'Okay. It's up to you. I'm sure it'll be okay. We are insured, aren't we?'

'Dan, don't.'

'I'm just asking.'

'Tell you what, why don't you come round and babysit him? It's not like you have a job.'

'Nice one, Trish.'

'You asked for it.'

We were quiet for a bit. Lenny came past and lifted my empty glass. She didn't ask if I wanted another.

I said, 'I appreciate your candour, Inspector,' for her benefit.

'You what?' Trish asked.

'Nothing. Sorry.' I sighed. 'You okay?'

'Yes. It's just . . . strange, having him around.'

'I know.'

'Because I keep thinking . . .'

'I know.'

'Do you ever think . . .?'

'Trish . . .'

'What he would have been like? He'd have been fourteen by now.'

'Yes, he would. I know that. A little ginger teenager.'

'He wasn't ginger.'

'He was one gene from it.'

'But not your gene, Dan.'

Dagger between the ribs.

'No. That's true.'

'I'm sorry, Dan, I didn't mean that.'

'I know that. Anyway, gotta go . . .'

'Dan, don't be like that.'

'Like what?'

'Dan.' I didn't say anything. After a bit she said: 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine,' I said, and cut the line.

The house on Dewey Street had been boarded up after the fire, but its defences had long since been breached. Scorched furniture lay in the garden: a sofa with the stuffing spilling out, a blackened sideboard, various battered kitchen appliances. Crime-scene tape flapped in the breeze. It was a Housing Executive dwelling, and they would soon be round to clear it out and make it ready for the next young couple on the list desperate enough for their own home that they wouldn't care that someone had recently been murdered in it.

The front door was lying open. I stepped into the hall, and on into the living room. It smelt of burning rubber. Shards of broken glass and smashed ceramics littered the floor. The fire hadn't made it upstairs, but the smoke had, and it still clung to everything. Jean's bedroom had been thoroughly ransacked: drawers emptied and clothes ripped apart; someone had taken a dump on her bed. There were cider bottles lying around, stubs of cigarettes and bags with residue of glue. She'd not been dead for more than a few hours and her home had already been colonised by vermin. Bobby's bedroom was similarly trashed. Posters on the wall had been torn to shreds and his clothes appeared to have been pissed on. There was a portable TV that wasn't considered valuable enough to steal, so its screen had been smashed in. There was no sign of an Xbox.

I went back downstairs and outside. I turned to my left and knocked on the next front door. Nobody answered. I went right, and a small man in his sixties answered; white T-shirt, fleshy neck.

'All right, mate,' I said. 'I'm from the Housing Executive, we're going to be starting work on next door.'

'Yeah? We're puttin' in for compensation, been coughin' our guts up ever since.'

'That's not really-'

'I worked in the shipyard, thirty years, me lungs aren't good, I can't be having that.'

I nodded sympathetically. I said, 'It was a tragedy, what happened.'

'Aye,' he said.

'Have any of her relatives been to the house, clearing out? The upstairs wasn't too badly damaged.'

'There was a few here, but they were too late. Minute the peelers and the firemen left, the scavengers were in, stole everything worth stealing. I couldn't do anything about it. Fucking vultures, so they were.' He nodded beyond me, across the road. 'No respect, these young 'uns. My day they would have got a boot in the arse; these days they just boot you right back. Wee skitters.'

I looked where he had looked. 'In there? Number four?'

'Aye. Little shits.'

I thanked him. That's why reporters knock on doors. Sometimes you get a break. It might mean nothing, or it could lead to a little tiny something that sends you in the right direction.

I crossed the road and knocked on number 4. A small man in his sixties answered; white T-shirt, fleshy neck. It seemed to be the style of the moment. I said I was a detective investigating thefts from the burned-out house. He asked if his brother had sent me. He glared across the road, at his brother, glaring back.

'What's it to do with me?' he barked.

'I'm afraid, sir, it has to do with your sons. We have CCTV footage that shows them entering the house.'

'You've fuckin' what?'

'Security camera footage. They were in the house. Are they here?'

'Aye. They're upstairs.'

'If you could send them down? The relatives want some of the family possessions back. If they get them, that'll be the end of it; if they don't, I'm afraid I'll have to take them in. Sir?'

He was too busy glaring across the road to pay much attention to me. He gave his brother the fingers.

'Howl on,' he growled, and turned to the stairs behind him. 'Nathan! Clint! Get your arses down here now!' There was a chorus of whats and whys. 'Just get fuckin' down here!'

Nathan and Clint arrived. They looked neither sheepish nor worried. They looked at me without apparent recognition and grunted.

'He's a peeler,' said the dad, pointing at me. 'Were yousuns in Jean Murray's house?'

'Wasn't us!' both of them cried together.

'Not the fire,' I said, 'after. You stole stuff.'

Nathan shrugged. Or maybe it was Clint.

'Youse came back here with a clatter of stuff,' said the dad.

'House was fuckin' lyin' open,' said Nathan or Clint.

'Everyone else was fuckin' doin' it,' said Clint or Nathan.

The dad slapped their heads, one after the other. 'Don't fuckin' curse, show a bit of respect. Now whatever you took, go and get it.'

'Can't,' said Nathan or Clint. 'We sold it. It was shite stuff anyway, only got a couple of quid for it.'

'Who'd you sell it to?' the dad asked.

Nathan and Clint shrugged.

I said, on a hunch, 'You didn't sell the Xbox.'

Nathan and Clint looked surprised.

'How the fuck do you-'