Fintan had expected Shep to put an end to the racket, maybe even press charges. Instead, Shep approached each officer on the take and let them know he could destroy their careers. Before long, Shep was in control of the whole racket, deciding what these officers would and wouldn’t leak. Shep never made a penny out of it. But he took down a few rivals and ducked a few scandals.

Shep owned their arses. Now he thought he could own mine.

‘I know you leaked the story to Fintan,’ I said.

Shep’s reflex turn gave him away.

‘I’d be very careful, making unsubstantiated claims like that, Lynch,’ Shep said slowly, menacingly.

‘I followed you yesterday. I saw you meeting Fintan, here.’

‘Lynch, I’d strongly advise you to stop right there. That is an outrageous allegation.’

‘Do you remember when you walked out of here? You saw a taxi over there, to your left? You started to hail it, then stopped when you realised he didn’t have his light on. I was in the back of that taxi.’

Shep picked up his glass, took a swig, then planted it back on the table, hard.

‘You can’t prove a thing,’ he spat.

‘I’ve made friends with that taxi driver,’ I lied, ‘he’s the smart, observant type. He’s confident he could pick you both out of a line-up.’

‘So I happened to be in a pub at the same time as your brother. What does that prove? Nothing. I didn’t even know he was here.’

‘It wouldn’t look good for you though, would it, Guv?’

‘Don’t cross me, Lynch. I could destroy you like that.’ His finger snapped like a bone.

‘Of course, I’d probably only raise the matter if I was directly accused of leaking a story to my brother.’

Shep placed his hands to his lips as if in prayer. He stared hard into his scotch.

‘You know something, Donal,’ he said, ‘you’re not that different from your brother.’

‘I’m beginning to learn to see the angles,’ I said, sounding and feeling grubby.

He stood, drained his glass and slammed it down hard on the shiny counter.

‘People are now saying McStay is the leaker,’ he said, and strode off.

Chapter 43

Trinity Road, South London

Sunday, August 18, 1991; 22:30

Had Laura and Terry Foster greeted me at my front door that evening wielding pared-down steel rulers, I would have felt more hospitable.

‘I’m not in the mood, Eve,’ I snapped.

‘Donal, please, I just want to explain a few things.’

I decided to hear her out. My ego badly needed some contrition, and my inner martyr demanded to know how and why my ex-girlfriend had started shagging my older brother, in her own words.

‘I’ll let you in on one condition, Eve,’ I said, ‘I want total honesty. No more lies. Do you understand?’

She nodded, her eyes damp, her bottom lip quivering like a scolded toddler. Here was a woman unused to begging.

After all that had happened today, I felt cold, hard, untouchable. No more Mister Nice Guy. Let’s get ready to rumble.

We stood in the kitchen, face-to-face. She was dressed for housekeeping: jeans, green jumper, hair tied up. I wheeled round to make sure I was closer to the cutlery drawer, and did a quick scan of the sink for any potentially homicidal objects: thankfully all clear.

‘The thing is, Donal, Fintan really was my only friend in the world, you know, when things got really bad. You wanted to help but you weren’t even in the country. I felt so … alone. We started a relationship, by accident really. We kept it secret. We had to, even from you. We knew if anyone found out, it would totally compromise Fintan, and me. They’d have used it to destroy me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Think about it. I couldn’t be the rape victim and be having a relationship, especially with a reporter who got all the exclusives. I had to play the victim all the way, until I saw it through. I still have to play the victim now, or they’ll find a way to send me back to prison. I’m on a suspended sentence. They could dream up any reason to send me back.’

I felt disorientated, in need of an emotional standing count. I was struggling to keep up with the political intrigue and Machiavellian shenanigans, which now seemed the very lifeblood of her and Fintan’s existence.

I watched her look through my eyes into some dark, buried memory. ‘I promise you, no matter what it takes, I am never going back there.’

Then she snapped back to now: ‘But someone did find out about us. Fintan didn’t tell me who, but they threatened to expose our relationship. Fintan gambled that they knew about us, but couldn’t prove it. That’s why Fintan left so suddenly and came to London.

‘He didn’t even call me, for months. I understood he had to protect himself, but I started to get paranoid. Did he want to make a clean break? Was I too much hassle? When I turned up last week at the Archway, he seemed so … put out. I thought to myself: “Eve, you’ve been a fool.” He’d gotten his stories out of me; I was no use to him anymore. He didn’t want this burden, because that’s what I am now to everyone, a burden.’

She blinked fast but that failed to stop a tear breaking through, carving a wet scar down her left cheek. All of me wanted to go to her. Instead, I held firm, inviting my newfound hard-nosed cynicism to take a sniff, see if it could detect the real story flitting between her words.

I felt certain Fintan had been shagging Eve just to get her exclusives. He recognised her as his meal ticket to Fleet Street. When there was nothing left to milk, he invented some know-all nemesis bent on exposing them just so he could scarper. He never expected her to beat the rap and follow him over; he’d said so himself. Then, when she turned up at the Archway, he realised a shocking truth: he could be saddled with her for good. He was all she had in the world, for fuck’s sake.

My frown told Eve that I’d caught up, so she carried on.

‘One morning last week, I had it out with him. He said he wasn’t ready for anything “too heavy”. After all the promises he’d made to me, I couldn’t believe it. I stormed out. I then realised you were the only person in the world who gives a shit about me. So I found out where you lived and came to see you.’

I suddenly felt a step or two behind the action.

‘Then, when you and me spent time together this week …’ She broke into a full-on sob, burying her face into a hand. ‘You’re so kind and funny. I remembered why I fell in love with you,’ came her muffled tribute. ‘I began to think that the only reason I ended up with Fintan was because he reminded me of you.’

I couldn’t stop my ego climbing off its stretcher and performing a series of somersaults around the kitchen. Yes that’s right, it boomed, in a straight shoot-out with my older bro, I was the better man.

Eve sniffed back her composure. Finally she looked up, her wet eyes seeking out mine.

‘Then when your friend Gabby came around, I realised that I couldn’t just expect to pick up where we’d left off. She obviously has strong feelings for you. You didn’t want me anymore. I’d nowhere else to go but back to Fintan.’

This was the cue I needed to ask another critical question: in between shagging my older brother, had she been terrorising my fledgling girlfriend? You know, sending her newspaper cuttings to underline her murderous credentials, slashing her clothes. My film noir alter-ego wanted to ask her out straight. The rest of me settled for gentle probing.

‘Speaking of Gabby, some weird stuff’s been happening to her.’

‘What do you mean, weird stuff?’

‘Someone’s been sending her newspaper cuttings, about you. Old articles about the trial.’

Her eyes and mouth fell open.

‘Who the fuck would do something like that?’ she snapped. I could see the red mist swirling. ‘Jesus, you don’t think it was me do you?’