Even though I know what he’s at, the matter-of-fact tone sends something cold into me. I say, ‘I’ve got no problem with you. You’ve never done anything on me.’
He nods. ‘If you’ve got any sense at all,’ he says, ‘you’ll walk away. That’s me giving you my best advice; the same as I’d tell one of my own young fellas, if he was sitting where you are. I didn’t do this, so you’re not going to prove I did. If you try, all you’ll do is fuck yourselves up. Forget leaving the squad; you’ll have to leave the force. Maybe the country.’
We’ve all told a suspect his life is over if he doesn’t do what we want. The cold works its way in deeper anyway. I say, ‘Where’d you meet Lucy?’
After a moment McCann shakes his head, slow and heavy. ‘Your funeral,’ he says. ‘She was in Horgan’s with Aislinn – keeping an eye on her. Aislinn sitting there in her little shiny dress, sucking on her glass and enjoying everyone staring while she picked out who she wanted; and the other one with a puss on her, giving the filthies to anyone who looked twice at Aislinn. Aislinn told me after, she said Lucy dragged her to the pub because she wanted to cry on Aislinn’s shoulder about how she couldn’t get a fella . . .’ The corner of McCann’s mouth goes up; for a second his face looks almost soft. ‘She was a real innocent, Aislinn, in a lot of ways. She was like a kid. She honest to God thought Lucy was looking for a fella. Have you checked Lucy’s alibi?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, and realise what I’ve admitted when I see his grin widen. ‘Rock-solid. Sorry.’
‘But you wondered.’
‘We did our job.’
‘Like you’re just doing your job right now.’ The grin’s turned savage. ‘I’ll bet a hundred quid that Lucy one’s trying to put this on me. What’s she saying? I hit Aislinn? I treated her like shite?’
Me and Steve do the sideways glance again. ‘Not exactly,’ Steve says.
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘not at all.’
McCann’s face has gone back to blank. He wasn’t expecting this.
‘According to Lucy,’ I say, ‘you treated Aislinn like she was made of diamond. What you two had going on wasn’t a few shags. It was the real thing. The big L.’
He laughs, a ferocious bark, loud enough to startle all three of us. He’s trying too hard. ‘Jaysus fuck. You believed that?’
‘Are you saying you never told Aislinn you loved her?’ Before he can answer: ‘Careful. We’ve got texts from Aislinn to Lucy.’
‘Maybe I did. I’ve got news for you, Conway: when a fella who’s trying to get into your knickers says it’s love, there’s a chance he might be bullshitting you. Or has no fella ever bothered?’
‘According to the texts,’ I say, ‘you and Aislinn saw each other a bunch of times in August, but yous didn’t start doing the do until the beginning of September. If you were only there for the riding, what was that all about?’
McCann shuts down again, takes his time weighing up his options. In the end he says, ‘I liked Aislinn. She was a good girl. Sweet. She was looking for thrills, like I told you, but she wasn’t some vampire type getting off on the guts and gore. She hadn’t had an easy life; her da died when she was only little, her ma had multiple sclerosis, Aislinn was one of those carer kids till the ma died a few years back. There hadn’t been a lot of excitement in her life, so she wanted to hear about mine.’
I’d swear he believes that. I can feel Steve clocking it too: we’ve still got our grenade.
She told Rory the same story: dead da, MS ma. No wonder she skidded away from it so fast. Using it to get McCann where she wanted him was one thing; using it on someone she wanted in her real life, that was something else. But the story was getting stronger, getting away from her. It came out anyway.
‘Me and the wife, we’ve been having a rough patch. It was nice to be around a woman who liked my company; nice to have somewhere peaceful to go, no one giving it all that about what a waste of space I am. Made everything that bit easier. That was what it was about, at first. Just the bit of peace.’
The pull at the corner of his mouth says we don’t need to point out the irony here. I say, ‘Where’d you hang out?’
‘I’d pick Aislinn up somewhere near her place, and we’d go for a drive. It was summer; she’d bring food, we’d take it for a picnic down the country. We’d find somewhere with a view where we could sit and talk.’ McCann’s trying to keep his voice flat, but the longing rises up and he can’t force it back down. He stops talking.
‘Aah,’ I say. ‘Sweet. You never brought the poor girl for an actual meal, no? Or a drink, even? Just had her make you sandwiches and sit on the grass getting ants in her knickers?’
‘She never had a problem with it, why should you? We went to her local once. I didn’t like it. Dublin’s still a small town. The wrong person sees you, he tells his missus who tells her ladies’ club pals and one of them’s your wife’s best friend, and bang, you’re sleeping on someone’s sofa.’
‘Because you went for a pint?’ Steve raises his eyebrows. ‘Sounds to me like you knew, deep down, this wasn’t just friendly chats.’
McCann’s lip lifts; it’s meant to be a smile, but it edges on a snarl. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve never been married. “Well, yeah, sweetheart, I did spend the evening on the piss with a gorgeous young blonde, but we were only chatting, honest to God” – you think that’s going to fly? Not with my wife, it’s not.’
Steve gives him a grin for that. ‘Fair enough,’ he acknowledges. ‘I’m starting to think I should stay single.’
‘You and everyone else.’ But the grin fades fast. ‘Me and Aislinn, I’m telling you: it started out innocent.’
‘How’d that change?’
McCann shrugs. He’s turning wary; we’re moving into the edges of dangerous territory.
‘Jesus, Moran,’ I say, in an undertone McCann can hear just fine. ‘He stuck his dick in her, is how that changed. He waited for his chance, and when he got it, he banged her like a cheap drum. You want the guy to draw you a diagram?’
McCann stretches his neck sharply; he doesn’t like that. ‘Jesus yourself,’ Steve tells me, in the same undertone. ‘I’m not asking for their favourite position. I’m just asking what made things go that way. This is the Monk McCann we’re talking about. He didn’t go in there planning to cheat on his missus.’ He gazes hopefully at McCann.
McCann stares back. ‘What do you think made it go that way? Man and a woman spend a bit of time together, they get to fancying each other, one day it gets out of hand—’ I’ve got one eyebrow high. ‘Laugh all you want. You tell me: why would Aislinn be with me if she didn’t want me? Just like you said at the beginning: I’m not rich and famous.’
‘You’re a D,’ I point out. ‘To some people, that could come in useful.’
‘I thought of that. I’m not a fool. I wondered if she might be dodgy and looking to get a cop on side.’
‘So you ran her through the system.’
‘I did, yeah. Go ahead and dob me in to the gaffer, if that’s what it takes to make you feel big. But don’t tell me you’ve never done it.’