by Tana French
‘Exactly. I’m willing to bet Aislinn did too.’
Rory’s shifting. ‘OK. Maybe she didn’t, she might not have known the guy was watching her—’
‘Maybe not,’ Breslin says. He leans in sharply towards the table and Rory flinches, but he’s only going for another swig of his coffee. ‘Maybe not. In which case, we’re back where we started: when the friend told Aislinn to be careful, she couldn’t have been talking about the stalker ex. Who’s never entered anyone’s head but yours.’
Except that he did. It twinges like a sore tooth that I thought was fixed, sorted, gone: an ex entered Lucy’s head. According to her story, he was part of the reason she sent that text.
Breslin puts down his mug with a hard, precise clunk. ‘So,’ he asks, ‘what was the friend talking about?’
Rory shakes his head. He’s subsided back into his heap.
‘Out loud for the tape.’
‘I don’t know what she meant.’
‘Shame,’ Breslin says. ‘That could really do with an explanation. But if you’re sure you can’t help us there . . .’ A small pause for Rory to come in, which he doesn’t. ‘I suppose we can leave it, for now. Let’s move on down my list, shall we?’
He leans over his notes and scans. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘That’s right. Question Two.’
He pulls a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and unfolds it with a snap that makes Rory’s shoulders leap. He has another stroll around the room while he reads down the page, taking his time, wandering behind Rory to make him twist in his chair.
‘Tell me that’s not another list,’ I say, rolling my eyes at Rory. No response.
‘This,’ Breslin said, tapping the page, ‘this is Rory’s timeline for Saturday night.’
Rory’s shoulders stiffen. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yeah. That’s not as big a deal as you’re making out.’
‘You might be right. Let’s find out.’
‘What . . . ?’ Rory’s voice wobbles. He clears his throat and tries again. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Ah,’ Breslin says. ‘This is going to get complicated, Rory, so stop me if you’re not following. According to you, you got on the 39A just before seven, and got off it in Stoneybatter just before half-seven. Walked around to Viking Gardens to make sure of the route – that brings us to, say, 7.32. Headed up to Tesco for flowers: we’ve timed it at around a seven-minute walk, so you’d have got there by 7.40.’
Rory has stopped tracking Breslin’s stroll. He’s rigid, feet braced on the floor, staring ahead.
‘Your statement says you spent “a couple of minutes” in Tesco; let’s say you left around 7.43. Another seven or eight minutes to get back to Viking Gardens, maybe less since you said you were hurrying: you’d have been at Aislinn’s door by 7.50. Are you with me?’
‘If you’re not,’ I say, ‘get Bres to write it down for you. Make him earn his wages.’
Rory says, without looking at me, ‘I’m following perfectly well.’
‘You are, of course,’ Breslin says heartily. ‘Except you told us you got to Aislinn’s just before eight. What’d you do with the extra eight or nine minutes?’
And his shoulders slacken again. Rory thinks he’s off the hook; he’s loosening, body and mind, with relief. ‘I haven’t got a clue. I mean, God, maybe I got off the bus a little later than I thought, or took a bit longer choosing the flowers; or maybe I reached Aislinn’s a few minutes earlier than I thought. Or all of those. I don’t really notice exact times; I haven’t been trained to, the way you have. I couldn’t tell you within eight minutes what time it is now, or how long we’ve been here.’
Breslin rubs at his nose, embarrassed. ‘When you put it like that . . .’
‘See?’ I say, to both of them. ‘No big deal.’
‘Professional deformation,’ Breslin says, with a rueful little laugh at himself. I laugh too, Rory lets out a slightly hysterical half-laugh, we all laugh together. ‘I swear to God, sometimes I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like being normal. I mean, a normal person couldn’t lose track of, like, hours, right? Or even half an hour? You couldn’t have got to Aislinn’s house at half-eight and thought it was eight o’clock. Ten minutes would be about the limit?’
‘I suppose,’ Rory says. He remembers his coffee and takes a quick, covert sip. ‘Probably.’
‘Huh,’ Breslin says, turning over his piece of paper. ‘I’ve got another timeline right here – get more of that coffee down you, you’re going to need it.’
‘So am I,’ I say, raising my mug to Rory and throwing him a wink. ‘Hang in there, man. The list’s gotta end sometime.’
‘Yeah, yeah. The sooner you two quit bitching, the faster we get through this.’ Breslin moves round to my side of the table, getting into firing position. ‘So. This timeline is built around CCTV. Which says you got on the bus at ten to seven, Rory, and you got off it in Stoneybatter at quarter past. That doesn’t exactly match what you told us, but hey, like we said: a few minutes here, a few minutes there, to normal people . . .’ He smiles at Rory, who’s still relaxed enough to smile back. ‘Except after that, the next time we can confirm your location is when you were caught on Tesco’s CCTV paying for the flowers, at 7.51.’
Rory’s smile is gone. He’s starting to cop on.
Breslin’s voice is getting more weight to it, words coming down on the table with thick cold thuds. ‘Like we said, from Aislinn’s place to Tesco is about a seven-minute walk. So if you were paying for the flowers at 7.51, you had to leave Viking Gardens by around 7.40. That leaves your movements unaccounted for from 7.15, when you got off the bus, until 7.40. Twenty-five minutes, Rory. We’ve just established that even a normal person couldn’t lose track of twenty-five minutes. Do you want to tell me what you were doing for those twenty-five minutes?’
Rory is staring at the space between me and Breslin. He’s clenched into one tight knot; his mouth barely moves when he says, ‘I’ve already told you.’
‘I thought you had,’ I say, miffed. The thought of losing his lovely ally makes his breathing speed up, but he doesn’t look at me. ‘But now it looks like you’ve been feeding us a great big heap of shite. You want to try again, before we decide you might have a reason for not wanting us to know what you were doing that night?’
‘I’ve told you what I did. I can’t help it if it doesn’t match your timeline.’
It’s not a bad strategy: pick a story, plant your feet on it and don’t budge, no matter what. Once you start shifting, we can shove you off balance, push you step by step to where we want you. We need Rory shifting.
Breslin swings his chair to the table and sits down in one fast sweep. I sit back: let him work it for now, while Rory wonders if I’m still his pal. He says, ‘How’d you know Aislinn didn’t have curtains in her kitchen?’
That gets through: Rory jerks and stares. ‘What?’
‘And the laneway out the back. How’d you know about that?’
‘The— I didn’t. I mean, I don’t. What lane—’
‘You described your theoretical stalker watching Aislinn cook the dinner and get out wineglasses: stuff she would have done in the kitchen, which is at the back of the house. You didn’t have him watching her set the table, which is in the living room at the front. In other words, you knew the stalker would have been able to watch from the back of the house.’
Rory blinks wildly, bewildered. Breslin says, grinning, ‘Dude, see that glass there? I was right behind it, listening, for your whole chat. Antoinette’s a top-notch detective, but she’s . . . how’ll I put this without getting a punch?’
‘Careful, you,’ I say.
‘Easy, tiger,’ Breslin says, leaning away and holding up a hand to block me. ‘Let’s just say she’s a little more willing than I am to believe that you’re on our side. She’s an optimist: she’s been hoping all along that this case would turn out to be some great big fascinating mystery.’ A slant of side-eye towards me, a hair’s breadth of grin that could mean anythi
ng. ‘Me, I’ve been around longer. I’m a suspicious guy – more of that professional deformation we were talking about. So I keep an eye on things. I heard just about every word you said. And I’m asking you: how did you know the stalker would have been watching Aislinn in her kitchen, unless you were the stalker?’
‘I was guessing. It’s – I mean, that’s just, it’s basic – basic common sense, if he didn’t want the neighbours seeing him, that he would—’ Rory’s breath isn’t working right. ‘And the kitchen, that’s where she’s going to be preparing, isn’t it, if I’m coming – which I was, I don’t mean if—’
He’s losing his foothold on that safe story. I say – a touch of worry, not happy with where things are going – ‘Here’s another thing. You talked about the stalker seeing Aislinn singing into her corkscrew. We know from her texts that that’s exactly what she was doing that evening. How did you know about that, unless you were watching her do it?’
Breslin says, before Rory can get enough air to answer, ‘Do me a favour: don’t try and tell us you were guessing. Unless you’re psychic, there’s no way in hell you could guess that. Are you psychic, Rory?’
‘What? No! How could – I don’t—’
‘Well, that’s a relief. So tell us how you knew about the corkscrew.’
Rory shakes his head, panting and wordless. I say, ‘Then I’ll tell you. You watched Aislinn from the back laneway that evening. Am I right?’
After a long moment his head rocks, helplessly, on his neck: yes.
‘That’s how you spent the missing twenty-five minutes.’
Another nod. That one-way glass, splattering light into the corner of my eye again. I hope Steve is behind it. I hope he’s scarlet right up to his hair.
‘Out loud for the tape,’ Breslin says.
Rory finds a pinch of voice. ‘I just wanted to . . . I was just taking a moment. To let it sink in that this was really happening. That’s all.’
‘And the only way you could do that,’ Breslin says, ‘was by peeping through Aislinn’s back window.’
He makes it sound filthy. Rory flinches. ‘I wasn’t— I was just standing there. Being happy. I don’t know how to explain—’
‘I guess I get it,’ I say doubtfully. ‘Sort of. It’s not like you were watching her shower – or were you?’
‘No! Even if I’d wanted to – which I didn’t; I would have left if . . .’ Breslin lets out an amused snort. Rory manages to ignore him by focusing on me. Telling the truth, or telling the story, has given him his breath back. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t have: the bathroom window is frosted. Aislinn was in the kitchen. She had music on – it was too windy for me to hear what, but I could tell it was something upbeat by the way she was dancing around, singing into . . . yeah. The corkscrew.’ A glance at me, too sad for defiance. ‘She was wearing a pink jumper and jeans, and she was taking things out of the fridge and opening them, putting them into pans, and dancing while she did it. After a bit she went out of the kitchen – I waited, and when she came back in she was wearing this blue dress . . . She looked – all blue and gold like that, it was like she’d just appeared in the kitchen, like one of those visions of saints that people used to have centuries ago. And she was smiling. And I couldn’t believe that, in just a few minutes, I would be in there with her. She would be smiling at me.’
The grief goes deep, right to the heart of his voice. That means nothing. ‘And then I thought of the flowers, and I headed for Tesco. And if I hadn’t . . .’ Rory grabs a fast breath through his nose, like he’s been hurt. ‘If I had just remembered that azalea plant, if I had just stayed there watching her— I would have been there. When he came. And I could have, I would have . . .’
His mouth starts to curl up. He presses his knuckles to it. I can feel Breslin clamping down a snide grin at the image of Rory throwing on his cape and tights and beating the shit out of the villain. Rory has presumably run through a couple of hundred variations on that scenario.
He says, through his fingers, ‘But I didn’t do any of that. I skipped off to Tesco like an idiot, and while I was gone someone came along and killed Aislinn. I may have seen him, but I didn’t even take it in, because I was utterly oblivious to everything except my own happy bubble. And when she didn’t answer her door, I waited and waited because I couldn’t find a way to believe that she had changed her mind, when just a few minutes earlier she had been acting like she couldn’t wait to see me. I was standing in the cold, trying to understand how that was possible, while she was lying inside, dead or dying. And in the end, instead of having the brains to realise that something had to be wrong and breaking the door in, I went home to feel sorry for myself. That’s it. That’s what happened.’
‘Jesus, Rory,’ I say reproachfully. ‘Why didn’t you tell us straight out?’
‘Because I know how it sounds! I know it makes me come across like some . . . I can’t expect you to understand what it was actually like.’
‘I’m doing my best. It’d be a lot easier if you’d told us the truth right away.’
‘I’m telling you now.’
Under the table, I touch my foot to Breslin’s ankle. He says, without missing a beat, ‘Well. Part of the truth, anyway. That wasn’t the only time you watched Aislinn. Was it?’
Rory’s eyes flash to him and to me and away to a corner. He picks fast. ‘Yes. That was the first time.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
I say, ‘That’s why you needed your moment out the back, to take in that this was real. Because you’d watched her in that kitchen, and daydreamed about going in there, so many times before. Right?’
‘Just like the guy in your scenario,’ Breslin says. ‘Your hypothetical scenario.’
‘It was hypothetical. You asked me to imagine—’
‘That moment must’ve felt amazing, did it?’ I ask. ‘After all those times when you’d had to turn around and go home again, in the cold . . .’
‘It— Yes, it felt wonderful. But not because I’d been— I wasn’t stalking Aislinn, I wasn’t—’
Rory’s starting to gibber again. ‘Shh,’ Breslin says.
‘What?’
‘Shh.’ Breslin picks up his file. ‘I want to show you something.’
He leans back and leafs through the file at his leisure, pausing occasionally to lick his thumb. Rory watches with his hands clenching the edge of the table, like he’s ready to leap out of his chair, but he keeps his mouth shut. His control isn’t completely gone.
‘Here.’ Breslin throws a handful of photos, big eight-by-tens, across the table. Rory grabs at them and sends them scattering. He catches one, takes one look and makes a high, startled whimper.
Breslin says, ‘Pick up the rest of them.’
Rory doesn’t move. His head is down over the photo, but his eyes aren’t focusing.
‘Pick them up.’
Rory moves automatically, stacking the photos one by one. His fingers are trembling.
‘Look at them.’
He braces himself before he goes through them, but every image still gets a hard blink out of him. Breslin tells the video camera, ‘I’ve just shown Mr Fallon images from CCTV footage taken in Stoneybatter over the past month.’
There’s a silence.
‘Rory. That’s you in those pictures. We can all agree on that, can’t we?’
More silence. Then Rory’s head moves, just a twitch: yes.
‘For the tape.’
‘Yes.’
Breslin leans forward – Rory flinches – and brings down a finger on the top photo, the face staring straight into the Tesco camera. ‘This is you. On the fourteenth of this month.’
‘Yes. I was just buying, I was in there looking for—’
His mind is flailing for a new story. I say, ‘You told us you’d never been to Stoneybatter before Saturday night. When you had to look up the nearest Tesco on your phone.’
His mouth moves as he tries to swallow.
Breslin’s finger is still mas
hed down on Rory’s photo face. ‘So,’ he says, pleasantly. ‘Your pretty little story about the guy who got hooked on spying on Aislinn. That was based on real events, as they say on the telly. Right?’
‘Not the – no. No. Not the part where—’ His breathing is starting to get away from him again. ‘I never, I—’
If he hyperventilates and faints on us, the paperwork is gonna take all night. I say, calm but firm, ‘Rory. The part about the guy wandering around Stoneybatter to feel closer to Aislinn. You’ve been doing a bit of that. Yeah?’
‘Yes. But—’
‘Hang on. One thing at a time. The part about him watching Aislinn from the laneway: you did a bit of that, too. Yeah?’
‘I just—’ Rory’s rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth, hard enough to leave red streaks. ‘No. I—’
‘Rory,’ I say. ‘Come on. You really want to tell us you were mooning around Stoneybatter for weeks, but you never went near Aislinn’s actual gaff till the exact night she got killed? Because I don’t like the sound of that.’
‘No. Wait.’ His hands fly up. He’s so easy to shove, step by step, back towards the corner he’s never going to get out of. ‘I watched her just, maybe, just a few times. Only to—’
Breslin – he’s pulled the photo over to himself and is examining it – says, ‘But on Saturday night, Aislinn caught you out.’
That voice. Easy, almost a drawl, almost friendly. But it fills up the air, leaves no room for anything else. ‘How did it happen? Did she come out onto the patio for some reason, see you hanging over her wall? Or maybe you said something about the trip to Tesco that made it obvious you knew your way around Stoneybatter. Maybe you said the kitchen looked nice with the new picture, or told her you love beef Wellington. And just like that’ – Breslin lifts his hand, lets it fall onto the photo with a flat thwack – ‘your dirty little secret’s out.’
Rory’s face is coated in a thin, sick shine of sweat. ‘I was never. No. I wasn’t in her house.’
Breslin ignores that. ‘You walk into that house thinking you’re walking into Paradise, and inside five minutes it’s all turned to shite. Jesus, man. Ouch. I’m scarlet for you just thinking about it.’ The sadistic curl at the corner of his mouth makes that into a joke. ‘How did Aislinn take it?’