‘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 saw, 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?’