That whips Breslin around to face me full-on. ‘Yes, Conway. Yes. I do believe him. Partly it’s because of a little thing called loyalty, which you apparently haven’t got the first clue about. He’s my partner; if I catch him with a dead body at his feet and a smoking gun in his hand, it’s my job to believe he’s been framed. But mostly it’s because I know Mac. I’ve known him for a long, long time. You’ll be lucky if you ever have a partner you know like I know Mac. And there’s no fucking way he did this.’
My eyes meet Steve’s for a second. I can’t tell whether Breslin believes that load, or whether he’s convinced himself he does because he needs to be that guy, the noble knight standing by his partner through thick and thin. Probably it’s the second one, which means it’s here to stay. You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that. We could show Breslin video of McCann bashing Aislinn’s face in, and the noble knight would find a way around it.
‘Do you two get that? Is that going into your heads?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘And you called it in to Stoneybatter.’
‘I did, yeah. And just by the way, McCann knew I was doing it, and he agreed. As soon as the initial shock wore off, he started thinking like a cop again. Because that’s who he is. Not a killer. A cop.’
‘Uh-huh. So why’d you wait till five in the morning? If McCann called you as soon as his wife went asleep, we’re talking what, midnight? Why wait five hours?’
Breslin sighs and holds up his hands. ‘OK. You got me. Good for you. I wanted to be sure I’d be there when the case came in to the squad. Obviously McCann wasn’t going to come within a mile of the investigation, or the whole thing could collapse—’
‘Honourable,’ I say. ‘I’m impressed.’
Breslin throws me a filthy look, but he doesn’t bother answering. ‘—but we figured I should keep an eye on things. See if there was a moment when Mac needed to come forward, that kind of— Conway, why are you even bothering to listen to me, if you’re just going to sneer at everything I say? Would you be happier waiting outside while I have an actual conversation with Moran?’
‘See if there was a moment when you could send the investigating detectives off on a wild-goose chase, more like. This week must have been hilarious for you, was it? Watching me and Moran chase our tails—’
Breslin’s across the room so fast I almost flinch. ‘What are you accusing me of? No’ – with a finger in my face, when I start to answer – ‘you be careful. You be very fucking careful.’
I’m done with being very fucking careful. I slap his finger away, hard enough that I see the flare in his eyes when he thinks about hitting me, but no such luck. Steve’s half out of his chair, but he has the sense not to come in. ‘You’ve been obstructing my investigation. That’s not an accusation, that’s a fucking fact. You’ve been playing bent cop, so that if me and Moran found anything linking McCann to Aislinn, we’d have a beautiful dead end to chase till you could get Rory Fallon oven-ready. Waving fifties around, giving Gaffney the brush-off, inventing sketchy phone calls— Did Reilly hand you that too? Go running to you, squealing about how we were looking at gang members—’
Breslin laughs at the top of his lungs, right in my face. ‘You think I needed Reilly for that? The two of you told me yourselves. First you demand to know who ran Aislinn through the system and why. And then Sunday afternoon, Moran, when the gaffer called you in, you know what you left open on your computer? A search for Dublin-based males aged twenty to fifty with a history of gang activity. And Monday morning, Conway, along you came, pouring on the fake concern about whether I was stressed over money troubles. You seriously thought I was too thick to put two and two together?’
In the corner of my eye I can see Steve’s blazing redner. Mine probably matches it. Me poking every shadow with sticks, all ready for a poison nest of spies plotting to get me, and all that was in there was me not being subtle enough and Steve forgetting to hit Exit.
Breslin steps back and spreads his arms. ‘If you think I obstructed your investigation, go ahead and file a complaint. What are you going to put in it? Breslin paid for his sandwich the wrong way? Breslin didn’t want Gaffney hanging off him?’ He’s got a grin on him, a nasty one. ‘If you saw anything dodgy there, kids, it was in the eye of the beholder. If you went chasing after some wild hare, that was all on you. Not my problem.’
Neither of us answers that. I can still smell Breslin’s aftershave.
‘If you don’t have enough to file a complaint,’ Breslin says, ‘then I think you owe me an apology.’
I say, ‘Now we’re gonna tell you our story. And it’s a lot better than yours.’
His face pulls into a grimace of pure disbelief. ‘What are you talking about? This isn’t about who’s got the best story, Conway. This is about what actually happened on Saturday night. And I’ve already told you that.’
‘Humour me. Don’t worry, ours is shorter than yours, too.’
Breslin sighs, long and noisy, and makes a big thing of pushing mugs out of the way so he can settle his arse against the counter. ‘All right,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘Go for it. Blow me away.’
‘Saturday evening,’ I say. ‘McCann had dinner at home and then decided to call round to Aislinn. He hadn’t given her any notice, but that wasn’t supposed to matter: she was supposed to be available whenever he wanted her. He got there sometime after seven-forty, when Rory left the laneway to go to Tesco. McCann went over the wall and in the back door, same as usual.’
Breslin’s nodding away, giving me a wide-eyed stare of disbelief: isn’t this the same story he told us? ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘This is where it gets good. He found Aislinn all dressed up and cooking dinner, and he didn’t get the welcome he was expecting: she obviously didn’t want him there. McCann went out into the sitting room to see what was going on, and he found the table all set for a romantic dinner that he knew bloody well didn’t involve him.’
‘By that point,’ Steve says, ‘his whole life was hanging on Aislinn Murray. He was getting ready to leave his wife, his kids—’
‘I’m guessing Breslin knew that already,’ I say. Breslin rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
‘McCann had ripped up what he thought was going to be the rest of his life,’ Steve says, ‘thrown it away, and rewritten it from scratch around Aislinn.’
‘Gobshite,’ I say, aside to Steve, and see the flash of anger in Breslin’s eye.
Steve says, ‘And she set it on fire.’
‘I wonder how much she told him,’ I say.
‘Not the whole story, anyway. Not the bit about her da. You saw his face when we brought that out. Genuine shock.’
‘Ah, yeah. She never got that far. But I’d say she made it pretty clear that her and McCann were done, and he needed to get the hell out, rapid, so she could bang her new fella in peace.’
‘Ouch,’ Steve says, wincing. ‘No wonder he lost the head.’
‘Anyone would. Anyone. I would.’