But nothing’s gonna wet-blanket Steve now. Way before I finish, he’s shaking his head. ‘Then what about Lucy? You think she made up the whole secret-boyfriend thing out of nothing? All the twitchiness, she was just putting that on?’
‘Maybe,’ I say. That spark of respect for Aislinn is fading; this whole theory is pissing me off worse and worse. I press my heel down to stop one knee jittering. ‘I’ve got feelers out; if Aislinn was hanging with gangsters, I’ll hear about it. And when Lucy gets up the guts to come in, we’ll squeeze her harder, see what comes out. She won’t be as happy about withholding information when it’s all official and on the record. Until then—’
Steve is woodpecker-tapping two fingers off the wall; he’s frustrated too, with me for not getting it. ‘Until when? What if she doesn’t come in?’
‘We give her a couple more days to get good and stressed, and then we go get her. Until then, we stick to what we’ve got. Not what you think might just maybe be out there somewhere.’
He doesn’t look happy. I say, ‘What else do you want to do? Take a pub crawl around the gang holes yourself, ask all the boys if they were banging our vic?’
‘I want to pull mug shots of Cueball Lanigan’s lot, run them past the barman in Ganly’s. He might remember more than he thinks.’
I shrug. ‘Knock yourself out. Me, I’m gonna concentrate on how Aislinn’s bullshit could actually come in useful.’ I already have my phone out, swiping for Sophie’s number.
‘What? Who?’
Sophie’s phone goes to voicemail. ‘Hey, it’s Antoinette. If your computer guy hasn’t cracked the password on that folder yet, I might have a couple of ideas for him. Try variations on “Desmond Murray” or “Des Murray”, and stuff to do with “dad” or “daddy” – finding Dad, looking for Dad, missing Dad. Our vic’s father did a runner when she was a kid, and our info says she might have been looking for him. It’s worth a shot, anyway. Thanks.’
I hang up. ‘Nice one,’ Steve says. He’s looking a lot happier with me. ‘If that folder’s full of pics of dodgy geezers, then will you—’
‘OhmyGod,’ I say, wide-eyed. ‘What if Aislinn thought her da had actually become a gangster? What if she thought he’d, like, dumped some poor schlub’s body with his ID on it, and he was alive and well under a whole new evil identity?’ And when Steve opens his mouth and leaves it that way, trying to figure out if I’m serious: ‘You spa, you. Come on and get this case meeting done.’
We need to go back into the incident room separately, and let the cold and the outdoors smell wear off us first. I head for the jacks and slather on the hand soap till I reek of fake herbal goodness; Steve goes to the canteen for a cup of coffee. When we wander back to our desks, nice and casual, Breslin is pouring smarm down the phone at one of Rory’s exes and barely glances up at either of us.
Only: my stuff is wrong. I’m positive I had Rory’s bank statement on top, but now my notebook is overlapping it; and the notebook is open to my notes on Cooper’s phone call, when I think I remember closing it. I look over at Breslin, but he’s schmoozing away, convincing Rory’s ex to let him come for a chat this evening, and doesn’t even look my way. The more I try to remember what was where, the less sure I am.
Gaffney comes rushing in just in time for the case meeting, mottled and watery-eyed from the cold, to tell us how he got on at Stoneybatter station: he played the recordings of Rory, both his brothers, and all his best guy friends, and the uniform is ninety-nine per cent sure the call didn’t come from any of them. ‘Ah well,’ Breslin says. ‘Thanks anyway. I appreciate that. And this.’ He starts unwrapping his sandwich. ‘Beautiful.’
‘I’d say I did more harm than good, like,’ Gaffney says worriedly. He hands over Breslin’s change, a great big handful of notes and coins. ‘By the end, after he’d listened to all those different voices, he was actually having a harder time remembering what the original one had sounded like. D’ye know what I mean? Now, if we get more voices for him to listen to, he won’t be able to—’
‘Lineups’ll do that,’ Breslin says, honouring Gaffney with a smile. ‘Not your fault, my son; it goes with the territory. You did fine.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’ It comes out an ungracious grunt – not that it matters: Gaffney is too busy giving Breslin the hero-worship goo-goo eyes to notice I exist. All I can think is that of course the lineup wrecked our chances of getting an ID. Even when we have something, touching it crumbles it into nothing. More nothing, sifting down like fine dust, piling up in sticky drifts on the glossy desks, gumming up the swanky computers.
Before we head home, me and Steve give the gaffer his update. O’Kelly stands at the tall sash window, with his back to us and his hands in the pockets of his tweed suit, rocking back and forth on his heels. He looks like he’s gazing out at the dark gardens, only half listening, but I can see his eyes in the glass, zipping fast between my reflection and Steve’s.
When we finish talking, he leaves a silence that says he wants more. Steve’s reflection glances at mine. I don’t look back.
O’Kelly says, without turning round, ‘I looked in on your incident room, around noon. Ye weren’t there. Where were ye?’
It’s been a long time since any gaffer made me account for my whereabouts like a fucking kid. Before I can open my mouth, Steve says easily, ‘We did the search on Aislinn’s gaff. Then we brought a photo of her round Stoneybatter, asked pubs and local places if they recognised her. See if anyone had spotted her doing anything interesting.’
‘And?’
Steve lifts one shoulder. ‘Not really.’
O’Kelly lets that lie for a few seconds. Then he says, ‘This afternoon you got a delivery from some lad who wouldn’t let it out of his hands. What was it?’
Bernadette’s had a thing for the gaffer as long as anyone can remember; everyone knows she’ll grab any chance to drop a word in his ear. She could’ve grassed us up; or not. ‘Aislinn’s father went missing when she was a kid,’ Steve says. ‘It seemed like a bit of a coincidence, so we took a look at the file.’
‘Any joy?’
‘Nothing. He ran off with a young one. Died a few years back.’
O’Kelly turns around. He leans back against the window and examines us. His shave went wrong this morning; his face is raw and flaky, like he’s slowly eroding away. ‘D’you know what ye’re acting like?’ he asks.
We wait.
‘Ye’re acting like you don’t have a suspect. Flailing about, haring off in every direction after anything you see. That’s how Ds act who’ve got nothing.’ His eyes move from Steve to me. ‘But you’ve got a perfectly good suspect right in front of you. So what am I missing? What’s wrong with Rory Fallon?’
I say, ‘Everything we’ve got on Fallon is circumstantial. We’ve got nothing solid tying him to the actual killing: no blood on his gear, none of his blood or hair on the victim, no injuries to his knuckles. We can’t even put him inside her house. We’ve got no motive. We’re still working on all of that, and if the Bureau comes back to me saying they found fibres from Aislinn’s carpet all over Rory’s trousers, then yeah, I’ll be paying a lot less attention to other possibilities. But as long as it’s all circumstantial, I’m gonna keep chasing down other scenarios and ruling them out. I don’t want to get Fallon into court and have the defence whip out a witness who saw Aislinn having a massive fight with some guy who looks nothing like him.’
O’Kelly’s pulled a handful of stuff out of his pocket – paper clip, twisted tissue, a pebble – and he’s turning through it slowly, not looking at me. He asks, ‘Why didn’t you have him back in today?’
And it’s been a long time since any gaffer made me explain my decisions, in a case that wasn’t going off the rails or anywhere near it. If I was positive this was just O’Kelly giving me shite to try and nudge me out the door, I’d be raging; but I’m nothing like positive. I think of Breslin’s roll of fifties, and of O’Kelly at the roster saying Breslin’s due in
. Have him. The air of the building feels like it’s changing into something different, something gathering speed and ready to switchback any second; something I know I should have more cop-on than to love.
I say, just bolshie enough, ‘Because I didn’t want to. When we get everything back from the Bureau, then we’ll haul him in and hit him hard. He’s the nervy type; letting him stew for a couple of days won’t do any harm.’
O’Kelly’s eyes hit my face for a second, needle-sharp, and then flick away again. He pulls a battered throat lozenge out of the pile in his hand and examines it with faint disgust. ‘I don’t know what you’re so happy about, Conway.’
Like I said: O’Kelly is a lot sharper than he likes pretending. I smash the expression off my face. ‘Gaffer?’
‘Never mind.’ He stretches out his hand over the bin and opens it. The rubbish falls in with a dry rattle. ‘Go on. I’ll see ye tomorrow. Try and get somewhere.’
Driving chills me out better than almost anything, but this evening it’s not working. The wind is pulling nasty tricks, dying down just long enough to let me relax, then slamming into the car like a shoulder-tackle, throwing gritty rain at the windows. It turns the traffic jumpy, everyone hitting their horns too fast and taking off from red lights too early, and throws off the pedestrians’ timing so they’re skittering between cars at all the wrong moments.
I get pulled over before I even get across the river. I’ve just gunned it through a yellow and at first I figure the uniform is having a twitchy day too, but the spit-take he does when I pull out my ID tells me there’s more going on. He spills straightaway: someone called in my car for dangerous driving, probably DUI. Some driver could have misread a reg number, in the rain and the traffic, except they described the car as well: black ’08 Audi TT. No one misread that.
The uniform wants to run for his life, but I make him breathalyse me and put the whole thing down in writing, before someone rings Creepy Crowley and tells him I used my badge to duck a DUI. I could try tracking down the number that rang the station, but I already know it’ll be unregistered – plenty of cops have burner phones, for one thing and another. I spend the rest of my nice relaxing drive looking over my shoulder for the next blue light. It doesn’t come, which means I get to look forward to meeting it in the morning instead.
At least there’s no one hanging around the top of my road this time, which is something. I unlock my door, switch on the light, drop my satchel, slam the door behind me, and as I turn back into the sitting room the three things hit me one after the other and all faster than a blink. Smell of coffee. Silence where my alarm system should be beeping. Movement, just a brush, in the dark kitchen.
I get my gun out – it feels zero-gravity slow, even though I know I’m going at top speed – and aim it at the kitchen door. I say, ‘Armed Garda. Drop any weapons, keep your hands where I can see them and come out slowly.’
For the first second all I see is a scrawny little bollix in the kitchen doorway, shiny blue tracksuit, hands up above his head, I think some dumbfuck junkie has picked the wrong house to rob and the trigger is a cool perfect fit to my finger and I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t pull it. Then he says, ‘You need a better alarm system.’
‘Fleas,’ I say. I laugh out loud; if I was the hugging type, I’d hug him. ‘You little fuck. You almost gave me a heart attack. You couldn’t have just e-mailed me back, no?’
‘This is safer. And anyway, too long no see.’ Fleas has a grin the size of a dinner plate on his face. I can feel the matching one on me.
‘How is this safer? I nearly shot you, you know that?’ I holster up. I’m light-headed with the adrenaline spike. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘I wasn’t worried. I’ve got faith in you.’ Fleas heads back into the kitchen. ‘Will I make you a cup of coffee?’
‘Yeah. Go on.’ I follow him and give him a smack across the back of the head, not too hard. ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again. If I’m gonna kill someone, I don’t want it to be you.’
‘Ahh!’ Fleas rubs his head, looking injured. ‘I wasn’t trying to freak you out. I would’ve waited in the sitting room, only I thought you might bring some fella home with you.’
‘Yeah, right. Chance would be a fine thing.’ I still have that grin on; I can’t get rid of it. ‘You hungry?’
‘You’re out of everything. I looked.’
‘Cheeky bastard. There’s fish fingers in the freezer; you want a fish-finger sandwich?’
‘Deadly,’ Fleas says happily, and starts pushing buttons on the coffee machine. ‘Loving this yoke. I might get one of my own.’
‘If mine goes missing, I’m coming after you.’ I turn on the cooker and pull open the freezer. Fleas leans his elbows on the counter and watches the machine spew coffee like he’s fascinated by it.
Fleas is a little runt who looks like his ma didn’t drink enough milk when she was having him, which given the block of flats he’s from is probably true. He got the nickname in training college – he was in my year – because he can’t stand still; even waiting for the coffee machine, he’s bouncing from foot to foot like he’s itchy. The two of us got on, back in training. I wasn’t there to make bosom buddies, and I didn’t need morons saying I was shagging a guy into looking after me; but if it hadn’t been for all that, we would have been friends.
Halfway through our second year, Fleas disappeared. The story we got was that he had been kicked out for being caught with hash on him – cue jokes about how you can put the skanger in a uniform, but you can’t put the uniform into the skanger – but I didn’t fall for it: Fleas was way too sharp for that. A few years later, when I got pulled off a desk to spend a few weeks being Fleas’s cousin Rachel who would be only delighted to take a suitcase full of drug money to his boss’s friend in Marbella, it turned out I’d been right all along. The sting went like clockwork, a few bad guys went down, and me and Fleas had a blast. Before I went back to my desk, we made Rachel an e-mail address so we could get in touch, if we ever needed to. We’ve never needed to before.
We take the coffee and sandwiches into the sitting room and stretch out at opposite ends of my sofa, with our feet up and our plates balanced on our laps. I’ve lit the fire; the wind is still going, but the thick walls turn it faint and almost cosy. ‘Ahhh,’ Fleas says, wriggling his shoulders comfortable against the cushions. ‘This is lovely, so it is. I’m gonna get myself a nice place like this, one of these days. You can teach me how to do it up.’
Which reminds me. ‘How’d you know where to find me?’
‘Ah, now. Where would you be if I hadn’t?’ He gives me his crinkly grin. ‘Murder now, yeah? The big time. How’s that going?’
Meaning he’s been asking after me, when he gets a chance. ‘Grand. Beats giving out penalty points.’
‘How’re the lads? Any crack?’
I can’t tell what that means. His face, full of food, gives away nothing. ‘All right, yeah,’ I say. ‘What’re you at these days?’
‘You know yourself. Bit of this, bit of that. Remember your man Goggles? The little fat fella with no neck?’
‘Jaysus, him.’ That makes me laugh. ‘You know he kept trying to chat me up, right? Every time you left me on my own, there he was, edging over and telling me he loved tall birds and the littlest jockeys have the biggest whips. He was always so bickied he kept forgetting he’d already tried and got nowhere.’
Fleas is grinning. ‘That’s the boyo. We finally landed him – we didn’t even want to, he was still useful, but the thick eejit . . . Himself and his pal Fonzie were in a B&B in Cork, right? Parcelling up a load of Es that had just come off a boat?’ He’s got the giggles; it’s catching, even before I know what we’re laughing at. ‘And Goggles was sampling the merchandise, only he went too far. Three in the morning, he’s out in the front garden in his jocks, singing – I heard it was “I Kissed a Girl”.’
By now I’m lying back on the sofa, laughing properly. It feels good.
&nb
sp; ‘When the landlord goes out to see what’s the story, Goggles gives him a hug, tells him he’s only gorgeous, then legs it back inside, hops in bed with the landlady and starts playing peekaboo under the covers. The uniforms arrive, take him back to his room to sleep it off, and there’s Fonzie crashed out in a chair and a hundred grand of Es spread out on the bed.’
‘Ah, Jaysus,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘That’s beautiful, that is. You couldn’t just seize the haul and let the lads go, no?’
‘We tried. The gaffer had half the squad looking for some way the uniforms had fucked up, illegal search or something, yeah? But they were watertight. Poor old Goggles is going down. Here’ – Fleas points his sandwich at me – ‘you should visit him, inside. Cheer him up a bit.’
He’s messing, but it sounds like there’s a corner of serious in there. ‘I’ll get him to do his Katy Perry for me,’ I say. ‘Cheer us both up.’
‘Not from what I heard, it wouldn’t.’
‘Come here,’ I say. ‘Speaking of the lads. The Courier’s after running my photo. Is that gonna fuck you up?’
Fleas is the reason I don’t let my photo out there. They did me up for the gig – curls, big hoop earrings, shitload of makeup, pink crop tops with cheeky and your boyfriend wants me across the front – but still: better safe. He shrugs. ‘No hassle so far. See what happens.’ It takes a lot more than this to panic an undercover. ‘I wouldn’t say anyone recognised you. You’re all fancy these days’ – a nod at my suit, half impressed, half amused – ‘and in fairness, it’s been a few years.’
‘Rub it in, why don’t you.’
Fleas examines me critically, chewing. ‘You’re looking all right. Not great, now; you look like you could do with a holiday. Or a tonic.’