‘My name is’ – she dropped her voice so that the kids couldn’t hear. They had all crowded closer, rigid with curiosity, and she didn’t want to get out her police ID unless she had to – ‘Detective Sergeant Masiello, from the London Metropolitan Police. I’m after speaking to your daughter, Roisin – if you’re her mother?’ She couldn’t help noticing how much more Irish she sounded when she came home.

The woman stared at her, eyes wide with alarm, her hand frozen on the door.

‘Please don’t worry, nothing’s happened to her, she’s not in any trouble. It’s concerning another investigation we’re in the middle of over in London.’

‘I think you must have the wrong girl,’ Mrs McGreevy said cagily. ‘Roisin’s never been to London.’

‘May I come in?’

Mrs McGreevy stepped aside to admit her but only, Carmella thought, to get her away from the prying eyes of the neighbourhood lads.

The interior of the house was as neat as the front garden, but utterly devoid of any style or flair. It was as seventies as Mrs McGreevy herself, although clearly not in any sort of retro or ironic way. Carmella half-expected to see a man with Brylcreemed hair and peg-top trousers smoking a pipe in an armchair in the front room. She blinked at the swirly carpets and flock wallpaper, and followed Mrs McGreevy through to the back of the house, to a slightly less eye-watering breakfast room.

‘Sit down, now. I’m sure you’ve had a wasted journey, but can I get you a coffee at least before you go, Miss, er, I’m sorry, what do I call you?’

‘Carmella is fine.’ She smiled at the woman, who looked sick with worry. ‘Thanks, I’d love a coffee, white, no sugar, please.’ She sat down at the kitchen table.

‘Are you sure Roisin’s not in trouble?’ Mrs McGreevy blurted, busying herself with the kettle.

‘No. It’s in connection with an incident a couple of years back.’ Carmella hoped the woman already knew about it. It would be a hell of a shock to discover your fourteen-year-old had been engaged in non-consensual S&M with one of the planet’s biggest pop stars.

‘What’s going on?’ came a small high voice from the doorway. Carmella turned, expecting from the voice’s pitch to see a young child, but was surprised to find a teenage girl in a blue uniform and baseball cap bearing an embroidered logo of Supermac’s burger bar resting on top of brown curls.

‘Who are you? Mam, who is this?’

‘Roisin, love, don’t be worrying. She’s a police officer from London. She wants to ask you a few questions about something. I can’t imagine what.’

Roisin couldn’t have been further away from Carmella’s mental image of her. She looked about twelve, and so wholesome that it was almost impossible to imagine her naked, indulging in all sorts with Barrett. The only hint that she might not always have looked this innocent were the empty pinpricks of holes in her ears, four or five in each.

‘Oh God, really? Why?’ Roisin’s eyes immediately filled with tears, making her look even younger.

‘Come and sit down, Roisin. I just need your help, that’s all.’

‘It was ages ago.’

Her mother’s eyes opened wide. ‘What was ages ago, Roisin Marie McGreevy?’

‘Mam! You know. That business with that man. The money.’ Roisin was actually wringing her hands.

‘Ach, that business. I might have known.’

‘Well, what else would it be?’ Roisin turned to Carmella. ‘Amn’t I right? Is that what it’s about?’

Carmella smiled gravely at her. ‘It depends what man you mean.’

‘Mervyn Hammond . . . We weren’t supposed to tell anyone about the money.’

Carmella nodded, although this was the first she’d heard about any money. So the sleazy bastard had actually paid Roisin’s family off, to keep quiet?

‘How much money did he pay you, Roisin? It’s OK to tell me. He’s the one that gave us your address, so he knows I’m talking to you.’

‘Ten grand, he gave her,’ said Mrs McGreevy contemptuously. ‘Damages, he called it. Not nearly enough, in my book. You should’ve seen the bruise on her cheek! Still, it’ll pay for her university.’ She banged down a cup in front of Carmella, grains of undissolved coffee swirling in a greyish liquid on top.

A guilty look passed across Roisin’s peachy face, unnoticed by her mother. Ahah, thought Carmella. Mrs McGreevy clearly doesn’t have all the facts.

‘I’ve to be in work in half an hour; my shift starts at noon,’ Roisin said.

Carmella took a sip of the coffee and tried not to grimace. It would be better for her bladder for her not to drink it anyhow. ‘Mrs McGreevy, would you mind ringing Supermac’s for Roisin, to tell her boss that she’ll be a bit late?’

‘I’ll get fired!’ wailed the girl.

‘Tell them that you’re being interviewed as a police witness but you can’t say why – I’ll call them too if they give you any grief, OK? Please go ahead, Mrs McGreevy.’

As soon as Mrs McGreevy had left the room, Carmella pulled out the chair next to her, gesturing to Roisin to sit. ‘Quick, now, if you want to tell me while your mum’s out of the room. You’ve not told her the whole story, have you?’

Roisin bit her lip, her shoulders slumped. She was an exceptionally pretty girl, with pink, clear cheeks, a pointy little chin and bright blue eyes. ‘Has he done it to someone else?’

She started picking at the skin around her fingernails, ripping shreds off them, worrying at them until she pulled a strip too far on her thumb and a bead of blood sprang to the surface. She stuck it into her mouth, then turned it sideways so that she didn’t look like a toddler sucking its thumb. Poor kid, thought Carmella.

‘I’m afraid I can’t say what it’s about. I know this won’t be easy for you, dragging it all up when I’m sure you don’t ever want to think about it again. Can you talk me through what happened? But before your mum gets back, tell me – was it just the bruise on your face that made Hammond give you that money? I’m guessing it wasn’t.’

Roisin shot a panicked look towards the hall, where her mother was on the phone – they even had an old-fashioned telephone with a curly cable, on a little wooden table by the front door. ‘Please don’t tell her. It would kill her if she knew what he really did to me,’ she whispered. ‘They wanted to make sure I never told the papers.’

‘What was it, Roisin? What did Shawn Barrett do to you?’

But at that moment they both heard the click of the receiver being replaced and Mrs McGreevy came back in. ‘It’s grand. Nicola will see you when she sees you, she says. I told her you’d been a witness to a road accident and the police were talking to you.’

‘Oh, Mam! What if she asks me about it?’

Carmella glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something, Roisin. In the meantime, could you talk me through how you first met Shawn? Do you mind if I record this, just so I can write notes later?’

Roisin nodded. Her mother bustled around the already-clean kitchen, wiping down clean surfaces with a clean sponge, listening but pretending not to.

‘I went to an OnTarget concert, their first big tour. It was the first time they’d played in Dublin. I’d never been to the O2 arena—’

‘That’s the place that used to be the Point, right?’

‘Yeah. Think it’s changed again now, to the 3Arena. Anyway, I’d never been there. Me and my mate Scarlett went together, queued for hours to get near the front, we did. Couldn’t believe it when Shawn got me up out of the crowd.’

There was just a hint of pride in her voice, even after everything that happened that night.

‘Go on.’

‘It was during “Catch Me Falling”, in the first encore. He just pointed at me and beckoned, and before I knew it these two massive bouncers dragged me up on the stage. Everyone was screaming and cheering. I sang a whole verse with him into his microphone! He kissed me . . .’

Her voice faltered.