I can play that game too. I rearrange cushions, shift my arse on my bockety sofa, find the best angle to stretch out my legs. Lucy winds tighter, wanting me to get on with it.
‘So,’ I say, when I’m good and comfortable. ‘Let’s start with your friendship with Aislinn. You two were a lot closer than you tried to make out. Her phone records say you guys talked or texted basically every day. You were proper friends; best friends.’
Lucy pokes her coffee with her fingertip, scoops out a speck of something and examines it. The solid black of her against the blue-and-rust-striped Mexican blankets, and the white-blond forelock falling in her white face, make her hard to see, like a blank spot in the middle of my vision.
‘So there has to be a reason you didn’t want us knowing that, on Sunday. And the point when you started claiming you and Aislinn weren’t close was when you told us about her secret fella. Which has to mean three things. A, you know more about him than you let on. B, you’re scared of him; you don’t want him finding out you know anything. And C, you think he might find out through us.’
One blink, on the word scared. She rubs her fingertip clean on the edge of the cup.
I say, ‘Me and my partner, at first we wondered if Aislinn was going out with some gangster.’ The way Lucy’s face closes down would tell me, if I didn’t already know, how far off target that was. ‘It took us till last night to click. Aislinn’s married fella wasn’t a gangster. He was a cop.’
The silence stays. I’m better at leaving it than Lucy; more practice. In the end she moves. ‘Is that it?’
‘Yeah. Your turn.’
‘For what? I’ve got nothing to say.’
‘You do. I can see exactly why you’re scared’ – that blink again – ‘but if you wanted to keep your mouth shut, you would’ve. You told us Aislinn was seeing someone on the side because you wanted us to track him down. You didn’t want to get in too deep; you were hoping that, if you pointed us in the right direction, we’d get there on our own. And we have.’
Lucy’s eyes are still on her coffee. She says, ‘Then you don’t need me.’
‘If we didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’m pretty sure I know who Aislinn was seeing. I’m pretty sure I know who killed her. But I can’t prove any of it.’
‘Or you’re saying that because you want to find out how much I know.’
I say, ‘You want to hear something I haven’t told anyone? We’ve got lockers, at work. A couple of months back, someone jimmied mine open and pissed in it. All over my running gear and half a dozen interviews’ worth of notes.’
Lucy doesn’t look up, but I catch the flick of her lashes: she’s listening. I say, ‘Here’s the part that matters. Murder works separate from the other squads; there’s no one else in our building. And the locker room has a combination lock on it. One of my own squad did that.’
She looks up then. ‘Why?’
‘Because they don’t like me. They want me out. That’s not important. The point is, this isn’t the telly, where cops are all blood brothers and anyone who gets on the wrong side of a cop ends up dead in a ditch while the rest of us lose the evidence. I don’t have any squad loyalty. I’m not here to clean up anyone’s mess. I’m just working my case. Anyone gets in my way, cop or not, I’ve got no problem running him down.’
‘That’s supposed to reassure me?’
‘If I was just here to shut your mouth, I would’ve done it by now. One way or another. I already know you know something; if I didn’t want it coming out, I wouldn’t need the details.’
For a second I think I’ve got through, but then Lucy’s face shuts down again. She says flatly, ‘You’re better at this than I am. I know that. I’ve got no chance of figuring out whether you’re telling me the truth.’
I take out my phone, find Aislinn’s fairy tale and pass it across the table to Lucy. ‘Here,’ I say. ‘I think this is for you.’
I’m hoping to God it won’t break her down again, because I don’t have time to stick her back together today, but Lucy’s made of tough stuff. She has to bite down on her lips once, and when she looks up at me her eyes are too shiny, but she’s doing her sobbing in private now.
I say, ‘That’s Aislinn’s handwriting. Right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And it’s meant for you.’
‘Yeah. It is.’
I say, ‘I don’t understand all of it, but I get this much: if the story doesn’t have a happy ending, you’re supposed to tell me the rest. I think this qualifies as a pretty shitty ending.’
That gets something like a laugh, helpless and raw. ‘Carabossa and Meladina,’ Lucy says. ‘When we were kids, and Aislinn used to make up stories about us having crazy adventures, those were our names. I can’t even remember where they came from. I should have asked her.’
I say, ‘If I wanted this story kept under wraps, I wouldn’t have brought you that. You’re right, there are detectives who’d try to bury the whole thing. You didn’t get them. You got me.’
Lucy’s touching the phone screen, just lightly, two fingertips. ‘Can I have this?’ she asks. ‘Could you send it to me, or print it out for me?’
‘Right now it’s evidence. I can’t go passing it around. Once the case is over, yeah, I’ll get you a copy. I promise.’
Lucy nods. ‘OK. Thanks.’
I hold out my hand. She takes one more moment with that message; then she catches a small tight breath and straightens her back. ‘Yeah,’ she says, and passes me the phone. ‘The guy Aislinn was seeing was a Guard. A detective.’
Flash of her eyes, checking my reaction. I ask, ‘Did you ever meet him?’
‘Yeah. The same night Aislinn did. I wasn’t going to let her—’
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘One step at a time. Do you think you could identify him?’
‘Yeah. Definitely.’
I open my satchel and find the Breslin photo array. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘If you see the man who Aislinn was going out with, I want you to tell me. If he’s not there, or you’re not sure, say so. Ready?’
Lucy nods. She’s bracing herself for his face.
I pass her the card. She scans; then her face goes blank with bafflement. ‘No. He’s not here.’
What the fuck? ‘Take your time,’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive. None of these guys look anything like him. At all.’ Lucy almost shoves the card back at me. She’s gone wary again, wondering what I’m playing at. I’d swear it’s real.
In the moment as I bend to put the card back in my satchel – wondering wildly where the hell I go from here, wishing I’d brought Steve – it hits me.
I pull out the other photo array, the McCann one. ‘Try these guys,’ I say. ‘Do you recognise any of them?’
It takes less than a second: the scan, the quick burst of breath through her nose, the clamp of tension grabbing her whole body. ‘Him,’ Lucy says quietly, and her finger comes down on McCann. ‘That’s him.’
‘The man Aislinn was seeing.’
‘Yeah.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘A hundred per cent. That’s him.’