Crowley says – the fear’s vanished; he’s straight back into hyena mode – ‘You mentioned having a bit of news for me.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I say. My focus is back; this is gonna be fun. ‘Have I got a scoop for you. You’re gonna love this.’
Crowley whips out his voice recorder, but I shake my head. ‘Nah. This is non-attributable. It comes from sources close to the investigation. Got it?’ ‘Sources close to the investigation’ means cops. I don’t want McCann and Breslin thinking Lucy’s been talking.
He gets pouty, but I sit back and have a watch of Steve jabbing manically at his phone screen. In the end Crowley sighs and puts the recorder away. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Good man,’ I say, sitting up again. ‘Get a load of this. Aislinn Murray, right?’ Crowley nods, filling up with drool, hoping I’m about to tell him she was raped in creative ways. ‘She was having an affair. With a married guy.’
Crowley’s only delighted to settle for that. He does a man-of-the-world head-shake. ‘I knew she was too good to be true. Knew it. Girls who look like that, my God, they think they can get away with anything. Sometimes – oops, so sorry, Your Highness! – it doesn’t work out like that.’
He’s already rewriting the story in his head, whizzing through his best euphemisms for ‘homewrecking nympho who got what she deserved’. Steve says, ‘It gets better. Guess what her fella does for a living.’
‘Hmmm.’ Crowley pinches his chin and thinks. ‘Well. Obviously a girl like that would have liked money. But I’d hazard a guess that she was even more aroused by power. Would I be right?’
Me and Steve are well impressed. ‘How come you’re not doing our job?’ Steve wants to know. ‘We could do with that kind of smarts on the squad.’
‘Ah, well, not everyone’s the type who can work for The Man, Detective Moran. I think we must be talking about a politician. Let me see . . .’ Crowley steeples his fingers against his lips. He’s got the whole story rolling out in his head, ready for ink. ‘Aislinn’s job wouldn’t have taken her into those circles, so they must have met socially, meaning he’s young enough to be out and about—’
‘Even better than that,’ I say. I have a quick glance around the pub, lean across the table and head-beckon Crowley in. When him and his patchouli reek get close enough for a whisper: ‘He’s a cop.’
‘Even better,’ Steve says, ditching his phone and leaning in beside me. ‘He’s a detective.’
‘Even better,’ I say. ‘He’s a Murder detective.’
‘Not me,’ Steve adds. ‘I’m single. Thank Jaysus.’
We both sit back and smile big wide smiles at Crowley.
He stares at us, sticky little mind racing while he tries to work out our angle and whether we’re bullshitting him. ‘I can’t run that,’ he says.
I say, ‘You’re going to run it.’
‘I can’t. I’ll be sued. The Courier will be sued.’
‘Not if you don’t name names,’ Steve reassures him. ‘There’s two dozen of us on the squad, all guys except Conway here, and most of them are married. That’s, what, sixteen or seventeen people it could be? You’re safe as houses.’
‘I have contacts who would be furious. I’m not going to sabotage my career.’
‘Everyone on Murder already hates you, man,’ Steve points out, going back to his game. ‘Except Roche and Breslin, and just to ease your mind, it’s not them. So it’s not like you’re going to burn any bridges.’
‘You’ll be a hero,’ I say. ‘Ireland’s bravest investigative journalist, daring to take on The Man and strike a blow for truth and transparency, never even thinking about the risk to himself. It’s gonna be great.’
‘Think how much hoop you’ll get,’ Steve says. Crowley throws him a look of disdain.
I say, ‘The story runs tomorrow. A married detective, not involved in investigating Aislinn Murray’s murder but in a position very close to that investigation, was having an affair with her. If we need you to throw anything else in there at some stage, we’ll let you know.’
And the brass will have no choice: there’ll be an internal investigation. It won’t find enough for charges, any more than we did, but at least McCann won’t be prancing back to his marriage and his lifetime Murder billet like none of this ever happened. Aislinn’s getting the job done in the end. I wonder if some part of her realised, in dark glints during the long nights when she couldn’t sleep for planning, that this was the only way it could go down.
I ask, ‘Is that all clear?’
Crowley’s shaking his head, but it’s at us and our crudeness and our general inferiority as human beings; we all know he’s gonna do it. ‘Great,’ I say. I shove my stool back and stand up; Steve kills his game. ‘See you round.’ And we leave Crowley and SARTRE to get to work on his brand-new scoop.
Outside, the air is mild enough to trick you into turning your face to it, looking for warmth. It’s only five o’clock, but it’s dark and the streets are starting to shift into their evening buzz, clumps of smokers laughing outside the pubs, girls hurrying home swinging shopping bags to get ready for the night out. ‘I want to ask you something,’ I say to Steve. ‘Do you know who pissed in my locker, that time?’
I never told him about that, but he doesn’t pretend it’s news. He watches me steadily, hands in his overcoat pockets. ‘Not for definite. No one’s going to talk about that around me.’
‘Breslin said—’ Breslin said of course Steve would’ve heard the stories, of course Steve would’ve told me if he’d been on my side. Breslin said a load of stuff. I shut my trap.
Steve hears the rest anyway. He says matter-of-factly, ‘Everyone knows I got here because you put in a word for me. They see us working together. No one’s going to try messing with that. They’re not thick.’
It catches me with a warmth that almost hurts. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘No.’
Steve says, ‘From what I’ve walked in on, but, the locker was Roche.’
‘How about the poster with my head Photoshopped onto the gash pic?’
‘Yeah. Roche.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘OK.’ I turn in a circle, looking up at the city lights painting the clouds a tricky grey-gold. ‘All the other shite? Not the small stuff. The real shite.’
‘Like I said: I wouldn’t know. But I’ve never heard anything to say anyone else was in on it.’
I say, ‘You never told me.’
That gets a flick of one corner of his mouth. ‘’Cause you would’ve listened, yeah?’
Steve hanging on to his precious gangster story for dear life, building it bigger and fancier and twirlier, waving his arms for me to look. Here I thought he was trying to cheer me up so I wouldn’t get him in the lads’ bad books. All along he was hoping, if he could just come up with a good enough alternative, maybe he could snap me out of convincing myself the whole case – the whole squad – was one great big conspiracy to shaft me. I can’t decide which of us is the bigger spa.
‘Huh,’ I say. The air smells tasty and restless, all those places you could spend your evening, all the things waiting to happen inside those beckoning open doors. ‘Would you look at that.’
‘What?’
‘I just wish I’d copped earlier. Is all.’