Of course he did. Like Aislinn said: McCann is a romantic, at heart. He wanted to see himself riding down the green hill with light flashing off his spear, doing battle to save the world from itself. No way the job was letting him tell himself that story, not after this many years. His wife wasn’t doing it either. Aislinn let him tell it to her instead.
‘And then,’ Lucy says, ‘at the end of August, Aislinn decided it was time to go for it. She and Joe went for a picnic somewhere, and she started asking him what Missing Persons had been like, because it sounded so incredibly mysterious – she had it all planned; she’d written out her questions and learned them off by heart, she made me run lines with her the way actors do. She let Joe tell her a couple of stories while she gasped in the right places. She waited for him to come up with a bad one – some teenager who OD’d – and then she said ohmyGod, the family must’ve been totally in bits! How did he deal with it when the families were really upset? Because she’d never be able to deal with families who were going through something like that, she’d just totally go to pieces, but she was sure Joe was just amazing at getting people through the absolute worst time of their lives, right? And once he’d told her some story about that, Ash said she betted that sometimes, when they didn’t find the missing person, Joe stuck around for the family even after the case was officially over, because she knew he wouldn’t just leave them to pick up the pieces themselves, right? And next thing you know . . .’
Lucy grinds out her smoke. Her voice has changed; she’s wrung it dry, making sure nothing seeps in there that might break out of control. She says, ‘It was that easy. They hadn’t even finished their sandwiches, and Joe was telling her all about this poor woman whose husband ran off on her, left her with a little girl. The woman was the delicate type, Joe said – Aislinn could see him getting all misty, remembering – she wasn’t able for a nasty shock like that. He went all out, trying to get the poor woman some answers, and he finally tracked down the husband. In England, living with some younger woman.’
I say, ‘That had to hurt.’
‘Yeah. It wasn’t exactly what Ash had been hoping to hear.’ A twitch of Lucy’s mouth, like a flinch. ‘But she could have handled it. She was ready for something like that; not as ready as she thought she was, but she would’ve dealt with it . . . Only Joe kept talking. He said he rang the guy up, gave him a bit of hassle about shirking his responsibilities, asked what they were supposed to tell the wife. And the guy said something along the lines of, “Just tell her I’m OK. Tell her I’m so sorry. And I’ll get in touch when things settle down a bit.” Which Joe knew he wouldn’t; apparently the ones who do a runner without even leaving a note, they’re the ones who never find the exact right moment to get back in touch.’
‘Huh,’ I say. Gary said – I’m pretty sure Gary believed – that Des Murray told the cops to say nothing, not one word, to his wife. ‘Only Joe didn’t pass on the message to Mrs Murray.’
‘No,’ Lucy says. ‘What Joe did was, Joe decided it wouldn’t be good for her to hear that. The poor helpless little woman wasn’t able for that kind of news, don’t you know; she would have been destroyed. He decided she’d be better off knowing nothing at all.’ That tic at the corner of her mouth again. ‘So that’s what he told her: nothing. He was very proud of himself, for taking the whole thing off her shoulders.’
I just bet he was. At least when I palmed Aislinn off on Gary, I had the basic honesty not to do it for her own good. I did it because I felt like it, and fuck her. ‘What did Aislinn do when she heard that?’
‘She told me she almost smashed her glass and put the sharp end in Joe’s throat, only her hands felt too weak to do it. So instead she said to him – all wide-eyed, all thrilled to hear such an amazing story – she said he had been so right, that had been so brave of him, so wise, that woman had been so lucky he was on the case. And then she told him she was getting a headache, and would he mind terribly if she went home and had a sleep? And he drove her back home and told her to take a Nurofen, and they both waved goodbye.’
‘And she rang you straightaway,’ I say. ‘Yeah?’
‘No. She came here. She was . . .’ Lucy catches a hiss of breath, remembering. ‘I’ve never seen her like that. I’ve never seen anyone like that. She was so furious she was screaming into the sofa cushions – all dolled up in this pink flowery dress, screaming, “How dare he, how dare he, who the fuck does he think he is” – mascara all over her face from crying, and her hair coming down out of this fancy twist, and she was beating the cushions with her fists, she was biting at them . . . Do you get that at all? I mean, do you get why she was raging?’
She’s staring at me. ‘Yeah, I do,’ I say. ‘I get it, one hundred per cent. He had no right to make that call.’
She keeps up the stare, eyes flicking back and forth across my face. I say, ‘It would’ve been one thing if Aislinn’s da had been dead from the time he went missing. McCann wouldn’t have been taking anything away from her by keeping his mouth shut. But her da was alive. She could’ve got in touch with him any time. Her ma might not have lost the plot, if she’d known what was going on.’
Lucy says, ‘More than that.’ And waits, to see if I get it.
I do. I say – and I hear my voice saying it, into the small cluttered room that’s getting colder – ‘Aislinn had been thinking McCann kept his mouth shut for his own sake. Because a cop car hit her da, or because finding him would fuck up some big investigation. She could handle that; people do selfish shit, other people get caught in the crossfire, that’s life. But then she found out McCann had done it because of her and her ma. Because he’d decided their lives should play out this way. Her and her ma, they weren’t just collateral damage. They were the target.’
The light through the window is hitting me in the face, relentless, stripping me bare. I manage not to blink or move away.
Lucy nods: I’ve passed. ‘Right. Fuck whether they might actually have an opinion, right? What they might want? He was the cop, he had the right to decide that for them. They weren’t even people; they were just extras in his hero film. That was what had Aislinn losing her mind. That.’
Her voice has filled out again, ripe and pulsing with Aislinn’s anger and her own. She’ll tell me anything.
All that rubbish from the gaffer about me not being good enough with witnesses. This witness, who’s got every reason to shut down on me, she trusts me enough to give me everything she’s got. I wish that could still make me, even the smallest part of me, feel anything other than sad.