Gwen remembered where she’d seen this kid before. He’d been selling magazines by the covered market. He was one of the badged vendors who cheerfully cajoled shoppers to part with their money, and who didn’t scowl even when the passers-by gave him the finger instead of cash. And now here he lay, dead in a grubby back alley in Splott. Someone or something had extinguished that lively look in his eyes by crushing the back of his skull. Crushing it so completely, Gwen already knew, that when they turned him over they would be able to see the cracked remains of his top vertebrae.

‘Youngster.’ Jack nodded, satisfied. ‘Won’t be so hard for Tosh to cover up,’ cause he won’t be missed.’

‘He will be missed.’ Gwen was surprised how angry she felt about it. ‘He’ll be missed by me. I’ve seen him selling the Big Issue in town.’

‘So, what’s his name?’

‘I don’t know what his-’ She bit off the rest of her sentence. ‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’

Jack smiled at her. Now she’d been working with him for a while, Gwen knew that he was trying to encourage her, not mock her. That still didn’t stop her feeling like he was patronising her. ‘It’s all relative,’ Jack said. ‘Which of us will be missed? And when? Next year? Ten years? A century? When they’re building the next Millennium Stadium, in Cardiff or whatever Cardiff has become by then, who will miss any of us?’

Gwen stood up again. ‘Don’t give me that “the universe is an atom in a giant’s fingernail” bollocks. If you exaggerate the context, of course nothing’s significant. What we do is important. What Mitch does is important.’ She saw Jack puzzling over this. ‘Him, that poor policeman down there, staring at his own spew, he’s significant.’ As if to prove it, she began walking back to Mitch’s beaten figure.

‘Name any famous cop from two hundred years ago,’ Jack called after her.