McCann’s head lifts. His eyes move across us like he’s blind. His mouth opens and he takes one shallow breath and holds onto it for a long moment before he says, ‘No comment.’
It stays in the air like a dark spot. The room looks skewed to the point of insane, all those cute colours and smarmy little comforts straining to cover the grinning white interview-room bones – table, chairs, camera, one-way glass – underneath.
Steve says, ‘When you walked in on her getting ready for Rory. Did that hit you out of the blue? Or did you already have your suspicions?’
‘No comment.’
‘Talk to us, man. What did she say? Did she tell you to get out and not come back? Did she laugh at you, for thinking a woman like her could love you? What?’
‘No comment.’
He’s not even trying to look at us, not any more. He’s staring at the wall between our heads, blank-eyed, tuning us out so everything we say is just faraway babble. I’ve seen that look before, on rapists, murderers. The ones we’re never going to break, because they know what they are and they’re not fighting it.
‘Where were you last Saturday evening?’ Steve asks.
‘No comment.’
The click of the door handle turning makes me and Steve jump. McCann doesn’t move. Breslin stands in the doorway, rain glittering on his black overcoat, smiling at us all.
Chapter 17
‘Mac,’ Breslin says. ‘You’re wanted in the squad room.’
McCann looks up at him. Their eyes meet for a second that shuts me and Steve out completely.
‘Go on,’ Breslin says. ‘I’ll catch up with you in a few.’
McCann pulls himself out of his chair, joint by joint, and heads for the door. Breslin gives him a quick clap on the shoulder as he passes. McCann nods automatically.
‘Interview terminated at 3.24 p.m.,’ Breslin says, strolling over to the camera. He reaches up and switches it off. As he turns to the water cooler: ‘Well well well. Look who’s best buddies again. Sweet.’
I say, ‘I’d like to know what made you think we weren’t best buddies all along.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t give a damn about your relationship right this minute. You just had the brass neck to accuse my partner—’
‘We’ll talk about that when I say so. Right now I want to know which one of the floaters went squealing to you, yesterday morning, told you me and Moran had had a row.’
‘Reilly,’ Steve says. ‘Wasn’t it? We started arguing, he stopped typing.’
I remember that, the sudden heavy silence where that witless clacking had been battering my brain. ‘I told you Reilly was a bright spark,’ Breslin says. ‘Unlike me, apparently. I spent twenty minutes sitting in the Top House before the penny dropped. Fair play to you, Conway: you make a very convincing South Dublin airhead. I didn’t know you had it in you.’ He raises his water cup to me. ‘I was lucky with traffic, though. Got back in time to catch the good parts of the show.’
He must catch a flick of surprise off one of us, because he laughs. ‘You thought I got back from my road trip and came charging straight in to save Mac from you two big scary avengers? I was in the observation room. Because I knew Mac didn’t need saving, seeing as he’s done nothing – well, apart from sticking his dick in the wrong place, which isn’t a hanging offence in my book. But I think we can all agree he’s had a tough few days, so when I saw you two going all out to wreck his head, I figured it might be time to call a halt.’
He wanders over to the table, flicks up the Murray family photo to have a long look. ‘Huh. No wonder Mac didn’t recognise her.’ He flips the photo back at the table, ignores it when it misses and spins to the ground. ‘So,’ he says. ‘All the time I thought we were working together. All the time I was getting a lovely warm feeling about what beautiful interviews we pulled off with Rory. This was what was going on in your heads. Tell me: when you looked in the mirror this morning, you didn’t taste just a little bit of sick in the back of your throats?’
Breslin doing what he does best. It feels strange, somehow it feels like a loss, that I don’t have the faintest urge to punch his face in. ‘And all the time I thought we were working together,’ I say, ‘all the time I was enjoying those beautiful interviews, you were keeping this back. You wanna throw stones?’
His eyes snap wide and he points a finger at me. ‘No no no, Conway. Don’t you try to turn this around on me. You’ve just proved that I was dead fucking right not to let you in. This interview . . .’ His mouth twists up in disgust; he takes a swig of water to wash it away. ‘Go ahead; tell me. What do you think you accomplished with this interview?’
I say, ‘We got enough for a warrant on McCann’s gaff.’
Breslin thinks that over, nodding. ‘A warrant. Nice. And what are you planning on finding in there?’
‘Those brown leather gloves McCann wears all winter? The ones I haven’t seen once this week? Either we’ll find Aislinn’s blood on them, or we won’t find them at all.’
‘Wow,’ Breslin says, raising his eyebrows. ‘Impressive. I’d say Mac would be shitting himself if he heard that. Shall I save you some hassle? Would you like to hear what actually happened?’
‘Love to,’ I say. ‘From McCann, but.’
Breslin clicks his tongue. ‘Not going to happen. Mac’s got more sense than to put it on the record – to be honest, after that little stunt you pulled, I’ll be amazed if he ever wants to talk to either of you again, on or off the record. But I figure it’ll simplify all our lives if you know the facts.’
Steve says, ‘And it’ll be unrecorded, unverifiable, inadmissible hearsay.’
‘Them’s the breaks. Do you want to hear this or not?’
Deep down, I don’t. When McCann left the room he took something with him, some dark savage charge sizzling the air. Without him at its heart, the room’s gone flat and sickly and stupid. I just want to walk out and keep walking, anywhere I don’t have to think about what comes next or look at Breslin’s self-righteous gob. I lean back in my chair and rub my hands over my face, trying to find some of that charge again.
‘OK,’ Steve says. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Don’t do me any favours.’
‘We’d like to know.’
‘Conway?’
‘Why not,’ I say. I take my hands off my face, but I don’t have the energy to straighten up.
Breslin doesn’t join us at the table. He tosses his water cup in the bin, sticks his hands in his pockets and starts pacing, a leisurely stroll, the cool professor explaining something to his enthralled students. ‘Saturday evening,’ he says. ‘Mac had dinner at home with his family, and then he decided to call in to Aislinn. He got there around quarter to eight, give or take – he didn’t check his watch. He went in the back door to the kitchen, same as usual. The lights were on and he could see Aislinn had been in the middle of cooking dinner, but she didn’t call out or come to meet him. Mac went into the sitting room and found her lying there with her head on the fireplace.’
‘Must’ve been a shock,’ Steve says. Breslin shoots him a sharp glance, but Steve’s face is blank.
‘It was, yeah. Obviously.’