Lucy shakes her head. ‘No. She said if he hadn’t told her back then, why would he tell her now? And it wasn’t like she could force him to – the Missing Persons detectives had told her you couldn’t use the Freedom of Information Act to find out about investigations. So Aislinn decided she’d have to go at him a different way: meet him “by accident”, not tell him who she was, and get him talking.’
I’ve got an eyebrow up. Lucy says, ‘I know, yeah. But Aislinn wasn’t just planning to bounce up to him the next morning and hope he spilled his guts. She was thorough. This was her last chance; she wasn’t going to blow it. She wrote down everything she could remember about Detective McCann – she had this notebook. She hadn’t paid a lot of attention to him, himself, because she didn’t think he mattered; but she used to sit at the bottom of the stairs in the dark, listening in while he and her mother were talking in the sitting room, hoping she’d get some clue to where her dad had gone. So she remembered bits about him. She remembered he was from Drogheda, and he took his tea with just a drop of milk, no sugar.’
McCann still does. For some reason that’s the thing that sends a cold spike down my spine. That’s the moment when it goes right through me: that guy is the same McCann who was waiting for me outside the Murder building yesterday morning, all stubble and restlessness. That missing-persons case followed him from the dim house with the silent kid listening, down every twisting road, all the way to our bright shouting squad room. That’s the moment when I understand that McCann is our man.
‘She remembered he was married, with two little boys – her mum asked him over and over, “And you wouldn’t leave them, would you? You’d never walk away from your own wife and your own children?” and he always said no, he never would. She remembered his coat, this grey tweed overcoat – he’d leave it hanging on the banister, and she’d pick bits of fluff off it while she listened and stick them in his pockets – she didn’t like him being there. But the big thing Ash remembered, the thing she wrote down with circles and stars all round it, was that he was into her mum.’
‘Into her like what?’ I ask. ‘Like they had a relationship? Like he came on to her?’
‘Jesus, no!’ The instant squeeze of disgust on Lucy’s face says it’s true. ‘This wasn’t some Greek tragedy; Ash wasn’t shagging her mum’s ex. Just, in hindsight, she was pretty much positive that he’d fancied her mum. She figured that was why he spent so much time on the case. Even though he was married with kids, even though he was supposed to be professional, even though Ash’s mum was going nuts trying to find her husband: he fancied her, and he went with it.’
‘And Aislinn thought that was important.’
‘Yeah. She knew she could use it. She said, “If he’s that kind of guy, the guy who does stupid stuff for pretty women, I can be that. I’d have to change my look anyway; I can’t have him recognising me and getting suspicious – not that he ever looked twice at me, he barely noticed I existed, but I’ll only get one chance at this and I’m going to do it right.” And she did.’
Lucy laughs, a humourless small breath. ‘God, she did. She basically stopped eating, and she started going to the gym every day. Once she got thin enough that she was satisfied – too thin, if you ask me, but whatever – she went to an image consultant and got shown what clothes to buy and how to put on makeup and what colour to dye her hair. She came out looking like she’d been cloned in some creepy factory off the M50. I was like, “Why don’t you just wear whatever you like best?” but Ash said no. She said, “I don’t know what type he goes for – except my mum’s type, and I can’t look anything like her or he’ll suss me. So I have to look generic. I have to be someone who any guy in the world would think was pretty, so even if he’s not actually attracted to me, being with me will be too much of an ego-boost to resist. I’ll have plenty of time afterwards to figure out what I like.” I mean . . .’ Lucy’s hands fly up in frustration. ‘What was I supposed to say to that?’
Part of me is actually growing some respect for Aislinn Murray. The core idea is idiotic shite, but the way she went about it: fair play to her. She wasn’t the limp blob I pictured on that first day in her house, or the pushed-around kid I felt sorry for a minute ago. She was training, taking her time and doing whatever it took, to do some pushing of her own.
‘That’s some pretty obsessive stuff right there,’ I say. ‘Didn’t you worry about her? That she was getting way too wrapped up in this?’
‘Of course I did. When I thought she needed to start going after what she wanted, this wasn’t what I had in mind. She spent like a year and a half trying to turn herself into what she thought some total stranger would fancy. It was insane.’
‘Did you say that to her?’
‘Ahh . . .’ Lucy grimaces, rubbing both hands down her face. ‘I did and I didn’t. The last thing I wanted to do was start pushing Ash around, you know? She’d had a tough enough time getting a hold of what she wanted to begin with, without me telling her she had it all wrong. But after the image-consultant thing, I had to say something. I didn’t exactly go, “This is fucking mental,” but I made it pretty clear that I thought she was taking this too far and it would be a lot healthier to either go talk to Detective McCann straight out or else forget the whole thing. Aislinn just laughed at me. She was like, “Don’t worry, silly! I know what I’m doing; I’ve got a plan, remember? All I have to do is get this sorted, and then the whole thing’s finally over and I can start my real life! Do you want to come to Peru with me?” I was like, “Can we not just go to Peru straightaway, and forget this guy?” ’
‘But she wouldn’t,’ I say.
‘No. She said she needed to do this. She kept saying – in her new accent; she used to sound Greystones, like me, but she was worried that Detective McCann might connect up the accent, so she’d started talking like that newsreader who does the weird pout thing – she kept going, “You worry too much! Look at me; don’t I look happy?” ’ Lucy has a small sore smile on her, remembering. ‘And she did; she really did. The happiest I’d ever seen her. Giddy, like a kid high on sweets, but still: happy. And she was making plans for afterwards – she’d never made plans before. Peru wasn’t just a joke – I mean, the bit about me going was, because I don’t have the dosh and I couldn’t leave my job for that long, but Ash was going travelling, all right. She was doing research on all the different countries she wanted to visit, and on the college courses she was thinking about doing when she came back . . . This plan had her galvanised. So . . .’ Lucy’s shoulder moves in something like a shrug. ‘Hard to argue with that.’