The web of laneways behind Dublin Castle is hopping: students dragging their hangovers towards Trinity College, business types talking too loud into too-big phones so we can all be blown away by their Bulgarian property deals, yummy mummies out for shopping sprees and skangers out for pickings. It feels good getting out onto the street, where any danger coming our way won’t be personal, and I hate that. ‘So,’ I say, once we’re a safe distance into the flow of people. ‘Breslin doesn’t want company today. He wants to be all on his ownio for those interviews.’ ‘For the interviews,’ Steve says, sidestepping a couple having complicated relationship problems in Russian, ‘or for whatever else he’s doing. Not long before you got in, right? Breslin’s mobile rang. He had a look and got this face on him—’ Steve does a clamped jaw and flared nostrils: Breslin, pissed off and trying to cover it. ‘He took the call outside. But before he got all the way out the door, he said, “Don’t ring this phone.” ’ He’s right: maybe not the interviews.
