‘Did you meet Rory again after that?’
‘No, that was it. Aislinn’s only seen him a few times. She was taking it slow.’ Lucy’s head ducks to her cigarette, a long pull. We’ve just brushed past whatever she’s hiding. We leave a silence, but this time she drops nothing into it. Instead she asks, ‘Are you . . . ? I mean, do you think Rory was the one who . . . ?’
The question’s natural enough, but all of a sudden her voice is full up and leaping with things I can’t catch, and the flash of her eyes under her fringe is too fast and too intent. This means more to her, or means something more urgent, than it should.
Steve says, ‘What do you think? Would he be your guess?’
‘I don’t have a guess. You’re the detectives. Is he your prime suspect, or whatever you call it?’
‘Was there anything specific about Rory that set off your radar?’ I ask. ‘Made him seem like someone to be careful of?’
Lucy’s twitching to ask again, but she knows better. Smart, capable and used to thinking on her feet: whatever she’s keeping back, we’ll be lucky to get to it. She takes another drag of her smoke. ‘No. Nothing. He seemed like a nice guy. Kind of boring – I thought, anyway – but Ash was obviously seeing something I missed, so . . .’
‘She ever say anything indicating that he frightened her? Pressured her? Tried to control her?’
Lucy’s shaking her head. ‘No. Seriously. Nothing like that, ever. It was always how lovely he was and how relaxed she was around him, and how she couldn’t wait to see him again. Are you thinking—’
I say, ‘Then I’ve gotta be straight with you, Lucy. It doesn’t make sense that you were this worried about Aislinn. Texting her to be careful, yeah, sure, I can see that. But taking one look at us and figuring we had to be here about her? When you just told me Rory seemed like a good guy, no threat? Nah. When we showed up, you should’ve been wondering if the guy downstairs was dealing, or if someone got stabbed outside last night, or if one of your family was mugged or hit by a car. There’s no way your mind should’ve gone straight to Aislinn. Unless there’s something about her that you’re not telling us.’
Lucy’s smoke is right down to the butt. She grinds it out in the ashtray, taking her time, but she’s not stonewalling; she’s deciding. The light through the window is filling out; it’s ruthless on her, scraping away what should be offbeat-pretty, turning her to nothing but eyebags and mascara smudges on white.
She says, ‘Is it OK if I get a glass of water? My head’s killing me.’
‘No problem,’ I say. ‘We’re in no hurry.’
She takes her time running the tap in the kitchenette, her back to us; cups water in her hands and ducks her face into them, stays there while her shoulders lift and fall once. She comes back holding a pint glass in one hand, wiping water off her face with the other wrist and looking a couple of notches more alive. When she sits down she says, ‘OK. I think Ash might’ve been seeing someone else. As well as Rory.’
That flash of her eyes again, checking our reactions, too ferociously intent. Me and Steve don’t look at each other, but you can feel your thoughts click together like glances. Steve thinking I knew it, I knew something was weird here; me thinking Not a fucking chance I’m gonna get my run today.
Steve says, ‘What was his name?’
‘I don’t know. She never said.’
‘Not even a first name?’
Lucy’s shaking her head hard enough that her fringe falls forward. She shoves it back again. ‘No. She never even actually said she was seeing anyone else. It’s just a feeling I got; I don’t know anything specific. OK?’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Fair enough. What gave you that feeling?’
‘Just stuff. Like the last few months – way before Ash met Rory – I’d ask if she wanted to meet up for a drink, and she’d say no, she couldn’t, but without any reason why not – and normally she’d have been like, “Can’t, I’ve got Pilates” or whatever. Or she’d say yes, and then at the last minute she’d text me like, “Change of plans, can we do it tomorrow instead?” She was around a lot less, mainly. And she got her hair done a lot more, and her nails – they were always perfect. And when someone’s around less, and gets more high-maintenance . . .’ Lucy shrugs. ‘Mostly it’s a new relationship.’
Aislinn cancelling her restaurant date with Rory, with just a few hours to go. I thought she was showing him who was boss.
I feel it again, that faint pulse that caught at me in Aislinn’s kitchen when Steve showed me the cooker. A pulse like hunger, like dance music: something good, away on the horizon, tugging. I can feel the beat of it hitting Steve’s blood too.
He says, ‘How long ago did this start?’
Lucy draws tight lines in the condensation on her glass and has a think, either about the actual answer or about the one she wants to give us. ‘Maybe five or six months ago. Towards the end of summer.’
‘Any idea where they might have met? Work? Pub? Hobby?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Who else did Aislinn hang out with, besides you?’
Lucy shrugs. ‘She went for a drink with people from work, sometimes. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.’
‘What about hobbies? She have any?’
‘Not serious ones. She’s been doing a bunch of evening classes, the last couple of years: she did salsa for a while, and then some image and styling thing, and she learned a bit of Spanish . . . Last summer I think she was doing cooking. She liked the people, but she never talked about any guy in particular. There was never anyone she mentioned that bit too often, nothing like that.’
Aislinn Murray is sounding like more and more of a laugh riot. I say, ‘I’ve gotta tell you, Lucy, this is coming across pretty weird to me. You and Ash, you were best friends since you were kids, but she tells you nothing about her fella?’
Her eyes come up, wary. ‘I said we’ve been friends since we were kids. I didn’t say we were best friends.’
‘No? Then what were you?’
‘Friends. We hung out in school, we stayed in touch when we grew up. We didn’t have a Vulcan mind meld.’
Steve has this lovely mix of worried and reproachful growing on his face. He says, ‘You know how we got your name? Aislinn had you down as her emergency contact. When you’re picking that, you pick someone who you think cares about you.’
Lucy’s head jerks away from the reproachful frown. ‘Her mum died a few years back, her dad’s not around, she’s an only kid. Who else was she going to put?’
Lying again. For some reason she’s trying to make the friendship sound like a leftover stuck to her shoe, but the layer of warmth when she talked about Aislinn’s idiot rules said different. I say, ‘You’re also the person Aislinn texted and rang most often. Like you said, she didn’t have a lot of mates. She thought of you as her closest friend, all right. Did she know you didn’t feel the same way?’