by Tana French
Possibly not, Frank said, swinging himself vertical and starting to stack up the Chinese cartons. But, as far as I can tell from the phone videos, Lexie didnt use the term wankstain. In the relevant circumstances, she used gitoccasionally big smelly gitor prat or dickhead. Just something to bear in mind. Ill do the washing up if you can tell me, without peeking, how to get from the house to the cottage.
* * *
Sam didnt try to make me dinner again, after that. He came in and out at weird hours, slept at his own place and said nothing when he found Frank on my sofa. Mostly he stayed just long enough to give me a kiss, a bag of supplies and a fast update. There wasnt a lot to tell. The Bureau and the floaters had combed every inch of the lanes where Lexie took her late-night walks: no blood trail, no identifiable footprints, no sign of a struggle or a hiding placethey were blaming the rainand no weapon. Sam and Frank had called in a couple of favors to keep the media from jumping all over this one; they gave the press a carefully generic statement about an assault in Glenskehy, dropped vague hints that the victim had been taken to Wicklow Hospital, and set up discreet surveillance, but no one came looking for her, not even the housemates. The phone company came back with nothing good on Lexies mobile. The door-to-door turned up blank shrugs, unprovable alibis (. . . and then when Winning Streak was over the wife and I went to bed), a few snotty comments about the rich kids up at Whitethorn House, an awful lot of snotty comments about Byrne and Doherty and their sudden burst of interest in Glenskehy, and no useful info at all.
Given their relationship with the locals and their general enthusiasm level, Doherty and Byrne had been assigned to go through a bazillion hours of closed-circuit TV footage, looking for regular unexplained visitors to Glenskehy, but the cameras hadnt been positioned with this in mind and the best they could come up with was that they were fairly sure no one had driven into or out of Glenskehy by a direct route between ten and two on the night of the murder. This made Sam start talking about the housemates again, which made Frank point out the multiple ways someone could have got to Glenskehy without being picked up on CCTV, which made Byrne get snippy about suits who swanned down from Dublin and wasted everyones time with pointless busywork. I got the sense that the incident room was blanketed by a dense, electric cloud of dead ends and turf wars and that nasty sinking feeling.
Frank had told the housemates that Lexie was coming home. They had sent her things: a get-well card and half a dozen Caramilk bars, pale-blue pajamas, clothes to wear home, moisturizerthat had to be Abbytwo Barbara Kingsolver books, a Walkman and a pile of mix tapes. Even aside from the fact that I hadnt seen a mix tape since I was about twenty, these were kind of hard to put your finger onthere was Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen, music for late-night jukeboxes on long strange highways, in with Edith Piaf and the Guillemots and some woman called Amalia singing in throaty Portuguese. At least they were all good stuff; if there had been any Eminem on there, I would have had to pull the plug. The card said Love and the four names, nothing else; the briefness made it feel secretive, fizzing with messages I couldnt read. Frank ate the Caramilks.
The official story was that the coma had knocked out Lexies short-term memory: she remembered nothing about the attack, very little about the days before. Which has side benefits, Frank pointed out. If you fuck up some detail, you can just look upset and murmur something helpless about the coma, and everyonell be too embarrassed to push you. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had told my aunt and uncle and my friends that I was going off to do a training courseI kept it vagueand wouldnt be around for a few weeks. Sam had smoothed over my exit from work by having a chat with Quigley, the Murder squads resident mistake, and telling him in confidence that I was taking a career break to finish my degree, which meant I would be covered if anyone spotted me hanging around town looking studenty. Quigley basically consists of a large arse and a large mouth, and he never liked me much. Within twenty-four hours it would be all over the grapevine that I was taking time out, probably with a few flourishes (pregnancy, psychosis, crack addiction) thrown in for good measure.
By Thursday Frank was firing questions at me: where do you sit for breakfast? where do you keep the salt? who gives you a lift into college on Wednesday mornings? what room is your supervisors office? If I missed one, he zeroed in on that area, worked around it from every angle he hadphotos, anecdotes, phone video, audio footage of interviewstill it felt like my own set of memories and the answer rolled off my tongue automatically. Then he went back to the question barrage: where did you spend the Christmas before last? what day of the week is your turn to buy food? It was like having a human tennis-ball machine on my sofa.
I didnt tell Sam thisit made me feel guilty, somehowbut I enjoyed that week. I like a challenge. It did occasionally occur to me that I was in a deeply weird situation and that it was only likely to get weirder. This case had a level of Möbius strip that made it hard to keep things straight: Lexies everywhere, sliding into each other at the edges till you started to lose track of which one you were talking about. Every now and then I had to catch myself back from asking Frank how she was doing.
* * *
Franks sister Jackie was a hairdresser, so on Friday evening he brought her over to the flat, to cut my hair. Jackie was skinny, bleached blonde and totally unimpressed by her big brother. I liked her.
Ah, yeah, you could do with a trim all right, she told me, giving my fringe a professional riffle with long purple nails. How do you want it?
Here, Frank said, fishing out a crime-scene shot and passing it to her. Can you do it to match this?
Jackie held the photo between thumb and fingertip and gave it a suspicious look. Here, she said. Is your woman dead ?
Thats confidential, Frank said.
Confidential, me arse. Is that your sister, love?
Dont look at me, I said. This is Franks gig. Im only getting dragged along for the ride.
You wouldnt want to mind him. Here She took another look at the photo and held it out to Frank at arms length. Thats bleeding disgusting, so it is. Would you not think of doing something decent, Francis? Sorting out the traffic, something useful like that. Took me two hours to get into town from
Would you ever just cut, Jackie? Frank demanded, raking his hair exasperatedly so that it stood up in tufts. And stop wrecking my head? Jackies eyes slid sideways to mine and we shared a tiny, mischievous, female grin.
And remember, Frank said belligerently, noticing, keep your mouth shut about this. Clear? Its crucial.
Ah, yeah, Jackie said, pulling a comb and scissors out of her bag. Crucial. Go and make us a cup of tea, will you? Thats if you dont mind, love, she added, to me.
Frank shook his head and stamped off to the sink. Jackie combed my hair down over my eyes and winked at me.
When she was finished I looked different. I had never had my fringe cropped that short before; it was a subtle thing, but it made my face younger and barer, gave it the big-eyed, deceptive innocence of a models. The longer I stared in the bathroom mirror, that night while I got ready for bed, the less it looked like me. When I hit the point where I couldnt remember what I had looked like to begin with, I gave up, gave the mirror the finger and went to bed.
* * *
On Saturday afternoon Frank said, I think were just about good to go.
I was lying back on the sofa with my knees hooked over the arm, going through the photos of Lexies tutorial groups one last time and trying to look blasé about this whole thing. Frank was pacing: the closer you get to the start of an operation, the less he sits down.
Tomorrow, I said. The word burned in my mouth, a wild clean burn like snow, taking my breath away.
Tomorrow afternoonwell start you off with a half day, ease you into it. Ill let the housemates know this evening, make sure
theyre all there to give you a nice warm welcome. Think youre ready?
I couldnt imagine what, on an operation like this, could possibly constitute ready. Ready as Ill ever be, I said.
Lets hear it once more: whats your goal for Week One?
Not to get caught, mainly, I said. And not to get killed.
Not mainly; only. Frank snapped his fingers in front of my eyes on his way past. Hey. Concentrate. This is important.
I put the photos down on my stomach. Im concentrating. What?
If someones going to suss you, itll be in the first few days, while youre still finding your feet and everyones looking at you. So for Week One, all you do is ease your way in. This is hard work, itll be tiring at first, and if you overdo it youll start slippingand all it takes is one slip. So go easy. Take time out if you can: go to bed early, read a book while the others play cards. If you make it to next weekend, youll be into the swing of things, everyone else will have got used to having you back, theyll barely be looking at you any more, and youll have a lot more leeway. Until then, though, you keep your head down: no risks, no sleuthing, nothing that could raise a single eyebrow. Dont even think about the case. I dont care if this time next week you dont have one single piece of useful info for me, as long as youre still in that house. If you are, well reassess and take it from there.
But you dont really think I will be, I said. Do you?
Frank stopped pacing and gave me a long steady look. Would I send you in there, he asked, if I didnt think it could be done?
Sure you would, I said. As long as you thought the results would be interesting either way, you wouldnt think twice.
He leaned back against the window frame, apparently considering that; the light was behind him and I couldnt see his expression. Possible, he said, but irrelevant. Yeah, sure, its dicey as all hell. Youve known that since Day One. But it can be done, as long as youre careful, you dont get spooked and you dont get impatient. Remember what I said last time, about asking questions?
Yep, I said. Play innocent and ask as many of them as you can get away with.
This time is different. You need to do the opposite: dont ask anything unless youre absolutely sure youre not meant to know the answer already. Which means, basically, dont ask anyone anything at all.
So what am I supposed to do, if I cant ask questions? I had been wondering about this.
Frank crossed the room fast, shoved paper off the coffee table and sat down, leaning in to me, blue eyes intent. You keep your eyes and ears wide open. The main problem with this investigation is that we dont have a suspect. Your job is to identify one. Remember, nothing you get will be admissible anyway, since you cant exactly caution the suspects, so were not gunning for a confession or anything like that. Leave that part to me and our Sammy. Well make the case, if you just point us in the right direction. Find out if theres someone out there whos managed to stay off our radareither someone left over from this girls past, or someone she took up with more recently and kept a secret. If anyone who isnt on the KA list approaches youby phone, in person, whateveryou play them along, find out what theyre after and what the relationship was, and get a phone number and full name if you can.
Right, I said. Your mystery man. It sounded plausible enough, but then Frank always does. I was still pretty sure that Sam was right and his main reason for doing this wasnt because he thought it had a snowballs chance in hell but because it was such a dazzling, reckless, ridiculous once-off. I decided I didnt care.
Exactly. To go with our mystery girl. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the housemates and keep them talking. I dont rate them as suspectsI know your Sammy has a bee in his bonnet about them, but Im with you, they dont add upbut Im pretty sure theres something theyre not telling us. Youll see what I mean when you meet them. It might be something completely irrelevant, maybe they just cheat on their exams or make moonshine in the back garden or know whos the daddy, but Id like to decide for myself whats relevant here and whats not. Theyre never going to talk to cops, but if you go at it right, theres a good chance theyll talk to you. Dont worry too much about her other KAsweve got nothing that points to any of them, and Sammy and I will be on them anywaybut if anyones acting even slightly dodgy, obviously, report back to me. Got it?
Got it, I said.
One last thing, said Frank. He unfolded himself from the table, found our coffee mugs and took them over to the kitchen. We had got to the point where there was always, every hour of the day or night, a large pot of strong coffee keeping warm on the cooker; another week and we would probably have been eating the grounds straight from the bag with a spoon. Ive been meaning to have a little chat with you for a while now.
I had felt this one coming for days. I flipped through the photos like flash cards and tried to concentrate on running the names in my head: Cillian Wall, Chloe Nelligan, Martina Lawlor . . . Hit me, I said.
Frank put the mugs down and started playing with my saltcellar, turning it carefully between his fingers. I hate to bring this up, he said, but what can you do, sometimes life sucks. Youre aware that youve beenhow shall I put thisa little jumpy lately, yeah?
Yeah, I said, keeping my eyes on the photos. Isabella Smythe, Brian Ryansomeones parents either hadnt been thinking too clearly, or had a weird sense of humorMark OLeary ... Im aware.
I dont know if its because of this case or if it was going on already or what, and I dont need to know. If its just stage fright, it might well vanish as soon as youre inside that door. But heres what I wanted to say to you: if it doesnt, dont panic. Dont start second-guessing yourself, or youll talk yourself into losing your nerve, and dont try to hide it. Use it. Theres no reason why Lexie shouldnt be a little shaky right now, and theres no reason why you shouldnt make that work for you. Use what youve got, even if its not necessarily what youd have chosen. Everythings a weapon, Cass. Everything.
Ill keep that in mind, I said. The thought of Operation Vestal actually coming in useful did something complicated inside my chest, made it hard to breathe. I knew if I blinked Frank would notice.
Think you can do that?
Lexie, I thought, Lexie wouldnt tell him to mind his own business and let her mind hers, which was my main instinct here, and she sure as hell wouldnt answer. Lexie would yawn in his face, or tell him to quit nagging and lecturing like someones granny, or demand ice cream. Were out of biscuits, I said, stretchingthe photos slid off my stomach, all over the floor. Go get some. Lemon creams, and then I laughed out loud at the look on Franks face.
* * *
Frank graciously gave me Saturday night offheart of gold, our Frankieso Sam and I could say our good-byes. Sam made chicken tikka for dinner; for dessert I tried an incongruous tiramisu, which turned out looking ridiculous but tasting OK. We talked about small stuff, unimportant stuff, touching hands across the table and swapping the little things that new couples pass back and forth and save like beach finds: stories from when we were kids, the dumbest things wed done as teenagers. Lexies clothes, hanging on the wardrobe door, shimmered in the corner like hard sun on sand, but we didnt mention them, not once.
After dinner we curled up on the sofa. I had lit a fire, Sam had put music on the CD player; it could have been any evening, it could have been all ours, except for those clothes and for the fast ready beat of my pulse, waiting.
Howre you doing? Sam asked.
I had been starting to hope we could make it through the night without talking about tomorrow, but realistically this was probably too much to ask. OK, I said.
Are you nervous?
I thought this over. This situation was totally bananas on about a dozen different levels. I probab
ly should have been petrified. No, I said. Excited.
I felt Sam nod, against the top of my head. He was running one hand over my hair in a slow, soothing rhythm, but his chest felt rigid as a board against mine, like he was holding his breath.
You hate this idea, dont you? I said.
Yeah, Sam said quietly. I do.
Why didnt you stop it? Its your investigation. You could have put your foot down, any time you felt like it.
Sams hand stopped still. Do you want me to?
No, I said. That, at least, I knew for sure. No way.
It wouldnt be easy, at this stage. Now that the undercover operations up and running, its Mackeys baby; Ive no authority there. But if youve changed your mind, Ill find a way to
I havent, Sam. Seriously. I just wondered why you gave the OK to start with.