For which Hardy wasn’t in the mood. He was happy enough to help Graham out with estate issues, but that was as far as it went. Although he had defended two murder cases in his time and won both of them, he had no intention of getting involved in another one. They invariably became too consuming, too personal, too agonizing.

And now Glitsky was hinting that Sal might not have been a suicide. ‘It wasn’t so much the words as the meaning, Abe. Did Sal kill himself or didn’t he?’

Glitsky took his time, draining his teacup, before leaning across the booth, elbows on the table. ‘The autopsy isn’t in yet.’ The humor vanished, mysterious as its appearance. ‘You got a client?’

This was tricky. If someone had sought Hardy’s help in connection with a homicide, then that very fact would be relevant in the investigation of the death. But Hardy didn’t want to lie to his friend. He hadn’t accepted anything like criminal defense work with Graham, so he shrugged. ‘I’m helping one of the kids on the estate.’

‘Which one?’

A smile. ‘The executor’s. Come on, Abe, what do you hear?’

Glitsky spread his hands on the table. ‘What I hear is that there was trauma around the injection site.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning maybe he didn’t stick himself. Maybe he jerked, pulling away, something like that.’

‘Which would mean what?’

‘You know as well as me. I’m reserving judgment, waiting for Strout’ – John Strout, the coroner – ‘although the investigation, as they say, is continuing. As you know, we roll on homicides until Strout calls us off.’

Hardy sat back. Glitsky waited another moment, then gave in. ‘Sal’s got a DNR in his freezer, a sticker telling about it on his coffee table. He was somewhere between very sick and about to die. The death itself is pretty humane – booze and morphine. Ends the pain.’

‘I didn’t read about pain. I thought the story was he had Alzheimer’s.’ Although Hardy knew that Graham had said his dad was in pain, he didn’t think this was public knowledge.