by French, Tana
‘And then what? Say she tracked him down; then what?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
Steve runs a hand over his head, trying automatically to smooth down his hair. ‘Are you figuring he was the secret boyfriend?’
‘I thought of that, but I can’t see any reason she’d want him. We’re back to the same old question: a girl like that, why would she go for some middle-aged cop starting a beer gut? Flirt with him to get the story on her dad: sure. But be his bit on the side for six months? Why?’
‘She’s trying to get closer to her dad, McCann’s the only link she’s got—’
‘Jaysus.’ I make a face. ‘Now that’s fucked up. I don’t see it, but. Gary was a link to her dad, too, and she didn’t pull anything like that on him. He would’ve said.’
‘Maybe she was a badge bunny.’ Steve is still running his hand over his hair, again and again. ‘She comes in to talk to you and Gary, gets a look around, decides she likes the vibe . . .’
They’re out there. Women, mostly, but I’ve run into a few guys along the way. You could have a face like a warthog and they wouldn’t give a damn; they barely see you. What they’re chasing is the buzz of second-hand adrenaline, second-hand power, the story that doesn’t end with And then he worked in the call centre ever after: tell me who you arrested today, keep the uniform on in the bedroom and get your handcuffs out. They’re easy enough to spot, but there are cops out there who love it; makes them feel like rock stars. And it lets them punch above their weight.
McCann would have been punching farther above than most, though. ‘If that was all she was after,’ I say, ‘she could’ve gone down to Copper Face Jack’s and had her pick of good-looking young fellas. Why him?’
‘Because she didn’t want some uniform who spent his day giving people hassle for not having their car tax up to date. Like we said before: after the life she’d had, she wanted thrills. She wanted a Murder D.’
I can see it. Murder are the big-game hunters; we spend our days going after the top predators. For these people, that makes us the top prey.
If that’s what Aislinn was after, Steve has a point: she didn’t have a lot of options. Murder is small: two dozen of us, give or take. Half are McCann’s age, or older. No one’s a supermodel.
All the same, I don’t believe she’d have picked out McCann. Going by Rory and the exes, rough and silent wasn’t her style. She would have skimmed straight over McCann and kept looking, gone for someone smoother around the edges, someone with a bit of chat to draw her in; someone like—
Someone like Breslin.
Breslin, with his lovely little wifey and three lovely little kiddies. Breslin, with plenty to lose if the badge bunny turned bunny-boiler. Breslin, pushing us to charge Rory Fallon and close the case.
I say, ‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘The only thing is the timing,’ Steve says. ‘If you’re right and Aislinn got McCann’s name off Gary, that was two and a half years ago. According to Lucy, she only picked up the secret boyfriend six months back. Why the gap?’
‘Try this,’ I say. ‘Aislinn goes to McCann looking for info, he gives her the brush-off. She doesn’t give up; every few months she’s back, hassling him for more. Then one day she turns up at the squad, he doesn’t feel like dealing with her, he sends his partner out to get rid of her for him. And Aislinn likes what she sees.’
Steve’s face has gone immobile. It changes him, strips away the studenty perkiness so that for once I can get a good look at what’s underneath. He’s turned adult, sharp, not someone to mess with.
I say, ‘Remember the neighbour who called in a guy going over Aislinn’s patio wall? Male, medium build, dark coat, probably middle-aged; and probably fair hair.’
Steve says, ‘Breslin the Monk. Having a full-on affair. You think?’
‘Everyone says Aislinn was something special, when it came to sucking people into her fantasies. The woman had talent, and she had practice. And Breslin, he overestimates himself and underestimates other people. Those are the ones who get tripped up. If she decided she wanted him . . .’
‘Yeah, but getting into something that risky? Breslin’s very careful of himself.’
‘He was careful. No calls, no texts, no e-mails, nothing. And remember how someone ran Aislinn through the system? Last September, right after she picked up her secret boyfriend? He was making sure she’d never been reported for stalking, harassment, blackmail, anything that said she might be a psycho.’
Something hard flashes in Steve’s face. He says, ‘Remember how you told Breslin to take the recordings of Rory’s male KAs down to Stoneybatter? To see if the uniform could ID the guy who called it in?’
‘Yeah. The pompous bastard palmed it off on Gaffney—’ And I stop there.
Steve says, ‘I thought he was too important for scut work.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Me too.’
‘That’s what he wanted us thinking. It was nothing to do with that. He couldn’t risk the uniform hearing his voice.’
That movie-trailer voice. In a world . . . Even the thickest uniform would remember that voice. Unless, maybe, someone made sure he was bombarded with possibles till his memory smeared beyond recovering.
Breslin called this in. My mind jams on that like a needle stuck on a record, hitting it over and over. This isn’t just us playing imagination games. This happened. Breslin called it in.
I say, ‘No wonder the call didn’t come in to 999. He couldn’t have a recording floating around.’
‘And no wonder the secret boyfriend’s invisible. Breslin wouldn’t go leaving love notes, or sending Facebook messages. Unless there’s something solid in that computer folder, we’ve got nothing.’
‘We’ve got Lucy. She could confirm the relationship. Whether she’ll do it is a whole other question.’
‘Lucy.’ Steve’s head goes back as it hits him. ‘Jesus Christ. And we were wondering why she was so cagey. She was trying to figure out whether we were pals of Breslin’s.’
The whiskey tastes ferocious in my mouth, dangerous. I say, ‘Because she thinks he killed Aislinn.’
Silence, a small one this time. My heart beats strong and slow in my ears.
Steve says, ‘That doesn’t mean she’s right.’
‘She was afraid of us,’ I say. ‘“I don’t know anything about Ash’s secret fella, she told me nothing, we’re not that close . . .” She was terrified that we were the cleanup crew, and if we thought she knew anything . . .’
‘But she dropped the hint about the boyfriend all the same. If we were actually on the up-and-up, she wanted us looking around, not fixating on Rory.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Fair play to Lucy. She’s got guts.’
Steve takes a swallow of his drink like he needs it. ‘Yeah, but enough guts to come out and say what she knows? It’s been two days now, she hasn’t been in touch about giving her statement . . . She wants nothing to do with us.’
‘We need her. Without her, we’ve got fuck-all linking Aislinn to either Breslin or McCann. We can’t exactly go showing her photo around the job, ask if anyone remembers seeing her with either of them.’
‘The barman in Ganly’s? He saw Aislinn with her fella.’
‘He didn’t see them. He saw Aislinn, with some middle-aged guy vaguely in the background. He’ll never make the ID.’
‘There’s Rory,’ Steve says. ‘He’s hiding something: that half-hour when he got to Aislinn’s early, something happened there. Maybe he saw something, or she said something . . .’
‘Shit,’ I say, straightening up fast. ‘Were you in the observation room when Breslin asked him for evidence that Aislinn had a stalker?’
‘Jesus.’ Steve catches his breath with a hiss. ‘Yeah, I saw that. Rory started to say something about having seen some bloke on Saturday night, and Breslin shut him right down.’
‘Breslin and me,’ I say. ‘I was right in there, backing him up, like a bloody idiot. But listen: the guy Rory sa
w, that can’t have been Breslin. If it was, Rory would’ve recognised him on Sunday – or at least today, when he brought it up. And you and me would’ve seen that, if he recognised Breslin; we couldn’t have missed that. Breslin’s not the one who was in Stoneybatter Saturday night.’
‘Huh,’ Steve says. He’s gone immobile again, only his mind moving, twisting and rearranging the case like a Rubik’s cube. ‘Try this. Breslin was Aislinn’s fella. Over the last few weeks, he starts to suspect she’s two-timing him. Maybe he checks her phone – it only had a swipe lock, remember? – and he finds the texts between her and Rory. And then, sometime last week, he finds Rory’s text about the dinner date.’
‘Breslin wouldn’t like being two-timed,’ I say. ‘The ego on him; he wouldn’t like it one little bit.’
‘But he’d have better sense than to do his own dirty work.’ Steve’s eyes come up to meet mine. ‘You know who he would’ve brought in.’
I say, ‘McCann.’ The thought of putting yourself in your partner’s hands like that does something weird inside my head. I look at Steve and he looks different from ever before: his freckles are more vivid, the lines of his mouth are more definite, I can almost see warmth coming off his skin. He looks more real.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘McCann.’
I say, ‘Breslin sets up a beautiful alibi, just in case – what do you bet him and the missus had friends over, Saturday night, or went to a nice crowded restaurant? And McCann heads down to Stoneybatter to sort out that cheating bitch.’
‘The way it went down,’ Steve says. ‘That can’t have been the plan.’
There’s a question in his voice. He means did they want Aislinn dead.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Just for two-timing Breslin? He might’ve been raging, but I don’t care how close him and McCann are: there’s no chance McCann would get himself into something like this just because Breslin can’t keep his mot in line.’
‘So McCann was just planning to talk to her. Drop a few hints about why it’s a bad idea to cheat on a cop. Maybe talk to Rory, too, warn him off. Just talk.’
He badly wants to believe that. A surprisingly big part of me does, too. ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Probably. Only something goes wrong. Maybe Aislinn goes to scream and McCann panics, something like that.’
‘And he hits her. Or pushes her down and then hits her.’ Steve’s hand is tight around his glass. This shit is hard to say, physically hard. It goes against the grain. Our throats want to close over it.
‘When he realises what’s after happening,’ I say, ‘he wipes the place down, legs it out of there and gets hold of Breslin. Once Breslin’s finished throwing a wobbler and had a chance to think, he calls it in to Stoneybatter. He times it so Aislinn will be found when he’s on shift, and he’ll be there to keep an eye on the investigation. And that’s where we came in.’
For a long time it feels like there’s nothing else to say. It feels like there might never be anything to say; like the one and only thing we can do is sit here on my sofa, drinking whiskey, while a man shouts far away outside and that small nagging wind flutters in the chimney.
The house is getting cold enough that in the end I have to move, to turn on the heat. ‘You take Rory,’ I say, when I come back. ‘You were getting on great guns with him there, on Sunday. I’ll take Lucy.’
Steve scrapes at his glass with a thumbnail, thinking. ‘Rory first. First thing in the morning.’
‘Yeah. Then anything he gives us, we might be able to use it to crack Lucy.’
‘Breslin,’ Steve says. He looks up at me. ‘What do we do with him?’
I can’t even think of what I actually want to do with Breslin. I say, ‘You’ve got a date with him to check out Rory’s rep with the locals, remember? Once that’s done, someone needs to chase up the rest of the people who were in evening classes with Aislinn. No harm letting Breslin do that now.’
‘If Lucy or Rory IDs him or McCann . . .’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s when it gets interesting.’
‘Shit,’ Steve says. It’s sinking in: this is real, and we’re stuck with it. ‘Ah, shit.’
I start to laugh. The face on him is beautiful: like a good citizen coming home and finding a dead hooker and a K of coke in his bed.
‘Jesus, Antoinette. What’s funny? This is fucked up. We’re talking about one of our own squad. Killing someone; murdering her, maybe.’ I’m laughing harder. ‘No. Have you even— If this is true, what the hell are we going to—’
‘You should see yourself. The state of you. Don’t you dare have a heart attack in my gaff. The rumours—’
‘Antoinette. What are we going to do?’
Obviously, I don’t have a clue either. I would tell him we’ll figure it out as we go along, except that seems unlikely. ‘Cheer up,’ I say. ‘Maybe it’ll all turn out to be nothing. Maybe you’ll give Rory a nudge tomorrow and he’ll confess on your shoulder. Bring tissues.’
Steve takes a deep breath and runs a hand down his face. ‘It could be nothing. Right? It could. Breslin was shagging Aislinn, he went down there late Saturday night looking for his hole and found her dead, and he freaked out. Like anyone would. The rest is coincidence and rubbish. It could be.’
‘It could, yeah.’ It isn’t.
‘It could. This is all fairy tale. There’s no solid evidence; it’s all maybe-what-ifs.’
He’s grinning at me, but the grin is a complicated one. Steve knows some, at least, of what’s gone on in my head over the last few hours. He’s here anyway.
‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ I say. It comes out easy, but he’s right, and it catches at me in places I can’t see. ‘Your money’s still on the big bad drugs gang, is it?’
‘Jesus,’ Steve says. The grin is fading. ‘I actually wish that had panned out. Just to keep our lives simple.’
‘Ah, no. If our lives were simple, I’d still be bitching about it, and you’d be bitching about me bitching about it. This is way better.’
He makes a helpless sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. ‘God. All that shite with the fifty-quid notes . . .’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘All that shite.’ All Breslin’s fancy hints that he was on the take: all to give me and Steve a nice dead end to chase. The first day, when I asked the whole squad room who had run Aislinn through the system, McCann must’ve shat a brick. First chance he got, he grabbed Breslin and the two of them came up with something that would account for the check on Aislinn, account for anything else we found that linked her to them, keep us occupied till Breslin could break Rory, and lead us exactly nowhere. Breslin must’ve had fun, muttering darkly into his phone, layering on the obvious fake stories about stopping off for a shag to let us dig out the non-obvious fake story underneath, watching us lick it all up.
And now I know exactly why Breslin threw away his red herring, this morning. It wasn’t because he could tell I was ready to jump. It was because when he got back in from interviewing Rory’s exes, his pocket floater – and if that wasn’t Reilly, I’m gonna find out who it is – told him that me and Steve had had a row and Steve had walked out. Breslin knew I was the one who’d been closer to sold on Rory from the start, he made an educated guess that that had been a big part of the row, and he knew I’d be itching to have the last word on Steve. And to help me do exactly that, he had the CCTV evidence of Rory stalking Aislinn. He dropped the bent-cop bullshit and played hard to that, aiming to get Rory arrested fast and to keep me and Steve apart till the file had gone to the prosecutors.
And me, I was so busy bracing myself to fight anyone who was out to sink me or own me or generally use me as his very own dollhouse dolly, it never occurred to me that this might not be about me to begin with. I skipped right off with the nice man waving candy – Steve did too, in his own way – and if that cocky fuck hadn’t been hanging around outside my gaff, or if I hadn’t made myself ring Steve, or if Steve was a very slightly different guy, we wouldn’t be sitting here.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘For coming down.’
‘You’re all right. There was nothing decent on the telly.’
I kind of want to say sorry, but explaining what I’m apologising for and not apologising for would take too much hassle and embarrassment and overall shite. Steve might be thinking the same thing, I don’t know. Instead I get the whiskey bottle and give us both a refill. We sit there, drinking, while the stuff we should probably be saying out loud gets itself done in the silence.
‘Fuck me,’ I say, suddenly realising. ‘I’m half English.’
‘And you’re middle-class,’ Steve says. ‘Next time you go home, you’re going to get the shite kicked out of you.’
‘Shh. Nobody has to know.’
‘They’ll smell it off you.’
‘Seriously,’ I say. I’m looking at him. ‘Nobody has to know.’
Steve gives me a straight look back. ‘They won’t.’
‘Good.’
‘Unless someone else talks. Do you know how your man tracked you down?’
‘He got my address off Crowley,’ I say. The taste of that makes me finish my whiskey. ‘I need to sort the little wankstain before he blabs.’
‘He’s not a problem. We’ll do it tomorrow.’
The we sounds good. ‘It’s gonna be a long day.’
‘Yeah.’ Steve takes a deep breath, throws back the last of his drink and head-shakes away the burn. ‘I’ll head. Get some rest for this one.’
‘You’re over the limit. Get a taxi, come get the car tomorrow.’
‘I’ll start walking, pick one up along the way. Clear my head.’ He stands up and pulls on his coat. ‘Are you coming to Rory’s with me?’
‘Yeah, I’ll come. He still thinks I’m OK. Early, like seven? You need to get back in time for your date with Breslin.’
He nods. Breslin’s name doesn’t even bring back an echo of that horrified look; we’re somewhere out on the other side of that. ‘Seven works.’