‘Howya,’ I say. ‘Shame we didn’t manage to talk along the way. Reception’s a bastard.’
Breslin hasn’t moved from the doorway. ‘Sounds like you need a new phone, Detective Conway. But let’s move past that. We’re all here now.’
‘We are, yeah,’ I say. ‘You got a look around the scene?’
‘Yeah. Ten-a-penny lovers’ tiff. Let’s see how fast we can clear it and get back to the good stuff, shall we?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Steve says easily, before I can open my mouth. ‘Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.’
‘No problem.’ Breslin gives Steve a gracious nod. ‘We’re in Incident Room C.’
Incident Room C has a whiteboard bigger than my kitchen, enough computers and phone lines for a major incident investigation, a lovely view over the gardens of Dublin Castle, and PowerPoint facilities just in case you get the urge to show slides. Steve and I have only ever been inside it as someone else’s floaters. ‘Nice one,’ I say.
‘Only the best.’ Breslin heads over to the glass for a look at Rory. ‘After all this, I’m just hoping the best friend – what’s her name? – gave you something good.’
‘Lucy Riordan,’ Steve says. ‘Background info, basically. Aislinn’s childhood wasn’t great: the da walked out, the ma had some kind of breakdown, Aislinn took on the carer role. It left her pretty sheltered – not a lot of life experience, not a lot of confidence. The ma died a few years back and Aislinn started coming out of herself, but she was still catching up, still pretty na?ve. Just the type who’d miss a few red flags.’
‘And were there red flags?’
‘Not that Lucy knows of. Aislinn and Rory met at a book launch six or seven weeks back; they were both smitten, but Aislinn was playing it cool. Rory seemed like a nice guy, seemed to be treating Aislinn well. Lucy never got the sense he was a threat.’
‘No shit,’ Breslin says, examining Rory, who’s started jiggling one knee under the table. ‘Little wimp, isn’t he? He doesn’t look like he could punch out his granny. No reason why Lucy Whatsername should know that those can be the most dangerous ones, if they feel like they’ve been disrespected. It’s not her job to know that; it’s ours. What else?’
Steve shakes his head. ‘That’s about it.’
Breslin’s eyebrows go up. ‘That’s all the best mate had? What about other boyfriends? Disgruntled exes? Jealous women? Work enemies?’
We’re both shaking our heads now. ‘Nope,’ I say.
‘Come on, guys. Girls talk – am I right, Conway? I don’t even want to imagine what my missus tells her gal pals over the Chardonnay. The vic must’ve given your Lucy something juicier than that.’
‘According to Lucy, they weren’t that kind of close. They were mates because they had been since they were kids, and because Aislinn had no other friends, but they didn’t have a lot in common and they didn’t spill their guts to each other.’
Breslin thinks about that, leaning back against the glass and pinching his bottom lip. ‘You don’t think she’s keeping anything back?’
Me and Steve look at each other blankly. Steve shakes his head. ‘Nah.’
‘Lucy’s no idiot,’ I say. ‘She knows she needs to give us whatever she’s got. The only thing I wondered . . .’ I let it trail off. ‘Probably nothing.’
‘Hey, share with the class, Conway. Don’t worry about sounding stupid; we’re blue-skying here.’
What a tosspot. ‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘I wondered if Lucy might’ve had a thing for Rory herself. She was all about what a great guy he was. I mean, maybe he is, but if my mate had just been killed, I’d be feeling at least a little bit dodgy about the new boyfriend.’
‘Huh,’ Breslin says. ‘Has this Lucy got an alibi for last night?’
‘Yeah. She works at the Torch Theatre; she was there at half-six in the evening, in company constantly from then till four this morning. We’ll verify it, but like I said, she’s no idiot; she wouldn’t have given us something we could break that easily.’
‘Well then. We’ll check for contact between her and our boy there, in case she’s mixed up in the motive somehow; but unless some contact shows up, I’m not seeing any way her hypothetical crush could be relevant to us. Are you?’ Me and Steve shake our heads, nice and humble. ‘Good brainstorming, though. Anything else come up?’
‘That’s the lot,’ I say.
‘Well,’ Breslin says, on the edge of a sigh but managing to restrain himself. ‘I guess your little side trip was worth a shot. Background info’s never really a waste. Now, though, I suggest we get our arses in gear and get stuck into the serious stuff. That sound good to you two?’
‘Sounds great,’ I say. Which it does: another sixty seconds of this and I’m gonna knee the fucker in the guts. ‘I’ll lead the interview, with you backing me up, Detective Breslin. Detective Moran, you observe from here, and be ready to switch in if I decide we need to mix it up a little.’
Steve nods. Breslin shoots his cuffs. ‘Come to Papa,’ he says to the one-way glass.
I say, ‘This is only a preliminary interview. I’m not looking for a confession; we can push for that once we’ve got forensics, post-mortem results, all the good stuff to throw at him.’ And once me and Steve have done enough private digging to know what we’re dealing with here. ‘Right now I’m just looking to put the outlines in place. What Rory’s like, what the relationship was like, his take on Aislinn, his story on last night. I want to know if he’ll admit to talking to anyone between eight last night and five this morning; if our guy didn’t call this in himself, he told someone who did, and we need that someone. I want his coat and his gloves – the techs got black wool fibres off the body, and they say our guy probably wore non-shedding gloves, which matches what Rory’s got in there; so if we can convince him to hand them over for testing and save us fucking around with a warrant, I’ll be a very happy camper. In a perfect world he’d let us go through his gaff and take any other coats and gloves we find, but I don’t want to get him uptight today, so if that doesn’t come easy, we’ll leave it and go the warrant route. OK?’
Breslin considers that. ‘Mm,’ he says. ‘OK; that’s one way to work it. The other way would be to try and knock this sucker on the head as fast as we can. I’m not saying I have any problem with being assigned to this case – that’s fine, happy to help out. I’m just saying I’ve put my other cases on hold to be here, and there’s a limit to how much time I want to put into a bog-standard domestic. I’m sure you guys feel the same. Am I right?’