‘How’re you doing?’ I ask.
He nods. He’s even paler than usual, but there’s a going-over-the-top set to his jaw. ‘You?’
‘Yeah. You need anything? Coffee, food?’
‘Nah, I’m sorted. Thanks. How do you want to do this?’
I say, ‘Deasy’s meant to have organised surveillance on Rory’s gaff. I’d say he’ll be doing it himself; he’d be lucky to get authorisation for uniforms, plus he’ll want the pat on the head if anything good happens. And I don’t want Deasy knowing you and me are working Rory together. He could be Breslin’s bitch.’
Steve nods. ‘We’ll go in separately.’
‘Yeah. And we’re not in a good mood with each other.’
‘I made up a photo array,’ Steve says. He pulls a handful of thin card out of his bag. Eight clean-shaven middle-aged guys with greying dark hair, all caught full-face or almost, in stills pulled from video, against neutral backgrounds. Steve must have been up half the night finding the right shot of McCann and then combing the internet for good matches, making sure no one can say the array was skewed. McCann is third down on the left, wearing what looks like his court suit, staring darkly over my shoulder against thick cloudy sky. ‘Printed off a bunch of copies, just in case.’
‘Good,’ I say. It fries wires in my brain, seeing one of our own squad where a scumbag belongs; it looks like a joke birthday card. ‘You do one with Breslin? I might need it for Lucy.’
‘Yeah.’ He flips to another sheet, this one full of good-looking fair-haired middle-aged guys. Breslin’s smirk is in the top right corner.
If I start thinking about how fucked-up this is, I’m gone. We can’t look down.
I can see Steve thinking the same thing. ‘Nice one,’ I say. ‘Let’s do this.’ And I open the door to let him out.
There’s a black Mitsubishi Pajero with heavy tint parked opposite the Wayward Bookshop, in the dim stretch between streetlamps. Dawn is only starting and all I can see through the windscreen is a wide shape in the driver’s seat, but when I knock on the window – keeping my head low, and the car between me and the bookshop – sure enough, Deasy sits up and cracks it.
‘Howya,’ I say. ‘Any news?’
‘Not a lot.’ Deasy looks wrecked enough that I believe he’s been awake at least most of the time. The air in the car smells of fish and chips, too much breathing, and there’s probably a piss-bottle under the seat. ‘That there, the grey door next to the bookshop, that goes up to his flat; the windows over the bookshop, those are his sitting room. He went to the Spar on the corner around nine last night, came back with a pint of milk and a sandwich. The little bollix looked petrified; kept looking around like someone might jump him. I nearly gave him a blast of the horn when he passed me, just to watch him keel over.’
That gives us both a good laugh. ‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘That’s where we want him. Any other movement?’
‘He closed his curtains when he went in, but the light stayed on all night. Twenty past five, he came down and went into the shop. Hasn’t shown his face since. Are you bringing him in?’
‘Nah. Later. I just want to poke him a little bit, keep him on his toes. No reason why he should get a lie-in when I don’t.’
The thought pulls a yawn out of Deasy. ‘Speaking of which,’ I say. ‘Call someone to take over, and go get some kip.’
He looks startled. It strikes me that I may have been kind of a bitch to the floaters on this one, at least part of the time. When Breslin went looking for a stooge, I’d made it easy for him.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘For covering this.’
Before Deasy can find an answer, Steve rolls up, with his hands in his overcoat pockets and a look on his face that no one could call friendly. ‘Morning,’ he says. ‘What’s the story?’
‘No story,’ I say. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘Just checking in. Wanted to see if Rory’s done anything interesting.’
‘He hasn’t.’
Steve raises his eyebrows at Deasy, who’s soaking all this up. ‘What’s he been at?’
Deasy opens his mouth, catches my eye and shuts it again. ‘Ah. Not much.’
‘Like I just told you,’ I say. ‘See you back at HQ.’
Steve doesn’t move. ‘Are you planning on talking to him?’
‘I might.’
‘I might join you.’
I jut my jaw up at the dark sky, but I manage to keep it together, what with Deasy being there and all. ‘Do you not have a tree to shake, no?’
‘Good one,’ Steve says. ‘Will we go in?’
After a moment I do a tight sigh. ‘Whatever.’ To Deasy: ‘See you tomorrow.’ And I head across the road without waiting for Steve.
He catches up with me outside the bookshop. The window is dim, just a faint glow coming from somewhere in the back. The display’s laid out with a perfection that stinks of desperation: bestsellers temptingly overlapping bright-coloured kids’ books, all those wacky cartoons and enigmatic heroines staring dementedly into the darkness. I shift away from Steve and lean on the bell.
Rory hasn’t slit his wrists, anyway. He opens the door fast, and we watch his heart rate skyrocket when he sees us. He’s wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday, jeans and the depressed beige jumper, and he’s getting wimpy stubble. Being a suspect has hit the pause button on his life; the poor bastard is paralysed.
He says, breathless, ‘I’m not ready. I wasn’t expecting—’ He gestures helplessly at his ratty grey slippers. ‘I haven’t eaten breakfast, or even . . .’
‘You’re all right,’ Steve says gently. ‘We don’t need you to come with us. We just have a couple of leftover questions to ask. Can we come in, yeah? It’ll only take a few minutes.’
Rory’s panic solidifies into fear. ‘I don’t think I should talk to you without a solicitor. Not now that I’m a . . .’
‘We’re not going to ask about Aislinn,’ Steve says, lifting his hands. ‘Nothing like that. OK? Just, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you yesterday, and you said something in the interview that got me interested.’
Rory blinks hard, trying to focus. Fatigue and fear are using up most of his bandwidth; his mind’s slowed down to a crawl.
Steve says – lower, leaning in like someone might be listening – ‘And I think we need to talk about it without Detective Breslin around.’
That gets Rory’s attention; anything that Breslin wouldn’t like has to be good. And there’s Steve, all rumpled and earnest, looking like your most harmless pal. ‘I suppose . . .’ he says, in the end, moving back and opening the door properly. ‘All right. Come in.’