I could have followed official policy and reported to my superintendent that I felt other officers were discriminating against me and creating a hostile workplace environment. Apart from the obvious – that would have been the perfect way to make things worse – I’d rather shoot my own fingers off than go running to the gaffer whining for help. So when this little shiteball called Roche slapped my arse, I nearly broke his wrist. He couldn’t pick up a coffee cup without wincing for days, and the message went out loud and clear: I wasn’t going to roll over, belly-up and wiggling and panting for whatever the big dogs wanted to do to me.
So they went shoulder to shoulder and started pushing me out of the pack. Subtle stuff, at first. Somehow everyone knew about my cousin who’s in for dealing smack. Fingerprint results never made it to me, so I never found out about the link between my case and a whole string of burglaries. One time I raised my voice at a lying alibi witness; nothing major, no worse than everyone else does all the time, but someone must have been watching behind the one-way glass, because it was months before I could interview a witness without the squad room wanting to know – just slagging, all a great big laugh – Did you shout it out of him, Conway, bet you had him shiteing his kax, is he gonna get compensation for the hearing loss, the poor bastard’ll think twice before he agrees to talk to the cops again won’t he? By this time even the guys who’d been grand were smelling the blood in the air around me, pulling back from trouble. Every time I walked into the squad room, I walked into a thud of instant, total silence.
Back then, at least I had Costello. Costello was the oldest inhabitant, it was his job to show newbies the ropes, and he was sound; no one was going to turn it up too high while Costello had his eye on me. A few months later, Costello retired.
In school I had my mates. Anyone who messed with me was messing with them too, and none of us was the type you wanted to mess with. When a rumour went round that my da was in prison for hijacking a plane, and half the class wouldn’t sit next to me in case I had a bomb, we tracked down the three bitches who had started it and beat the shite out of them, and that was the end of that. In Murder, once Costello went and until Steve came on board, I was all on my own.
Before the door closed behind Costello, the lads stepped it up. I left my e-mail open on my computer, came back to everything wiped: inbox, sent box, contacts, gone. Some of them refused to switch into interviews with me when it was time to shake things up, You’re not sticking me with her, I’m not taking the blame when she fucks up; or they needed every warm body for a big search, except mine, and sniggered Couldn’t track an elephant through snow just too loud on their way out the door. At the Christmas party, where I knew better than to have more than one pint, someone got a phone snap of me with my eyes half shut; it was on the noticeboard next morning, labelled ‘ALCOCOP’, and by the end of the day everyone knew I had a drink problem. By the end of the week, everyone knew I had got rat-arsed drunk, puked on my shoes and given someone – the name varied – a blowjob in the jacks. No way for me to know which one of the lads was behind it, or which two or five or ten. Even if I stick it out in the force till retirement, there’ll still be people who believe all that shite. As a rule I don’t give a fuck who thinks what about me, but when I can’t do my job because nobody trusts me enough to go near me, then I start caring.
All of which is why Steve was the one ringing his contact for Lucy Riordan’s info. You pick up useful pals along the way, for moments when an official request would take too long, and a few months back I was making nice with this kid who worked for Vodafone; until one day I rang him to find out who owned a mobile number, and he stammered and dodged and tied himself in knots and couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. I didn’t bother asking for explanations. I already knew; not the details, like who had got onto him or what they had threatened him with, but enough. So Steve rings the mobile companies when we need info, and Steve runs interviews when I’m too wired to trust myself. And I keep telling myself those fuckers will never get to me.
My voicemail message is from Breslin, of course; lucky me. ‘Conway. Hi.’ Breslin has a good voice – deep, smooth, the newsreader accent that tells you Mummy and Daddy forked out for school fees to make sure he wouldn’t have to meet people like me and Steve – and does he know it. I think he fantasises about doing movie-trailer voiceovers that start ‘In a world . . .’ ‘Good to be working with you guys. We need to touch base as soon as possible; give me a bell when you get this. I’ll head down to the crime scene, take a quick look-see at what we’ve got. If we don’t cross paths there, I assume we’ll have talked by the time I’m done. We’ll take it from there.’ Click.
Steve shoots me finger-guns and a wink. ‘Yeahhh, baby. Touch my base.’
I snort before I can stop myself. ‘You know what it feels like? It feels like he’s sticking his tongue right out of the phone down your ear.’
‘And he’s positive it just made your day.’
We’re snickering like a pair of kids. Breslin brings it out in us; he takes himself so seriously you’re never gonna live up to it, so we don’t try. ‘Because before he rang you, he spritzed the good eau de cologne on his magic tongue. Just for you.’
‘I feel all special now,’ Steve says, hand on heart. ‘Don’t you feel special?’
‘I feel like I should’ve brought my ear lube,’ I say. ‘What’ll keep him out of our hair for another while?’
‘Incident room?’ Which isn’t a bad idea all round: someone needs to nab us an incident room, and Breslin will get one of the good ones with an actual whiteboard and enough phone lines, while me and Steve would get dumped with the two-desk shithole that used to be the locker room and still smells like it. ‘But nothing’s going to keep him away for long. In fairness, the interviews are why the gaffer has him on board; he’s going to want to be there for them.’
‘Don’t be giving me “in fairness”. I’m not in the humour to be fair to bloody Breslin.’ Actually, I’m in a better mood; I needed that laugh. ‘Incident room is good. We’ll go with that.’
‘Don’t be biting his head off,’ Steve warns me.
‘I’m not gonna bite his head off. Why shouldn’t I bite his head off, if I feel like it?’ Breslin isn’t one of the worst by a long shot – mostly he ignores the pair of us – but that doesn’t mean I have to like him.
‘Because we’re stuck with him? Because that’ll be a lot harder if he’s in a fouler with us from the start?’
‘You can smooth him down. Stick your tongue in his ear.’
I ring Breslin’s voicemail again – if I have to deal with Breslin, phone tag is the ideal way to do it – and leave him a message back. ‘Breslin, Conway here. Looking forward to working with you.’ I shoot Steve an eyebrow: See, I can do nice. ‘We’re going to pick up the guy who was due at the vic’s house for dinner and bring him back to base for the interview. Could you meet us there? We’d really value your angle on this one.’ Steve mimes a blowjob; I give him the finger. ‘On the way to his place we’re going to have a quick chat with the vic’s best friend, in case there’s anything we should know. Can you use that time to set us up with an incident room, since you’ll be heading back to the squad anyway? Thanks. See you there.’