Rory takes a deep breath and pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘Right. At noon I was in the shop – I own the Wayward Bookshop, in Ranelagh? Right below my flat, where you – well, your colleagues – came and got me?’
‘Been past it a hundred times, kept meaning to go in,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to do it now, or you’ll be filing complaints about me.’ Me and Breslin have a little chuckle about that. Rory smiles automatically: a good boy, giving us what we expect from him. ‘So how was business yesterday?’
‘Pretty good. Saturdays I get a lot of regulars – mums and dads bringing the kids in to pick out a book, mostly. We’ve got a good children’s section, if you – I mean, I just mean if you were, I’m not—’
He’s blinking away anxiously. ‘I’ll bring the nephews in to you,’ I say. I don’t have nephews. ‘You can recommend them something with dinosaurs. How’s business overall?’
‘It’s all right. I mean . . .’ Rory does a twisty shrug. ‘Bookshops are all having a hard time these days. At least we’ve got regulars.’
Meaning Rory is under pressure. We’ll check what ‘all right’ means to him. ‘I’ll definitely have to bring the nephews in to support you, so,’ I say, smiling. ‘What time did you finish up?’
‘I close at six.’
‘And what’d you do then?’
‘I went back up to my flat and had a shower. I was, um, I had a . . .’ Rory is turning a cute shade of pink. ‘I was going over to a girl’s house for dinner. A woman’s house.’
‘Ohhh yeah,’ says Breslin, tilting his chair back and grinning. ‘My man Rory’s a playa. Tell your Uncle Don the whole story. Girlfriend? Friend with benefits? True love?’
‘She’s . . .’ The pink gets deeper. Rory swipes his palms across his cheeks like he can wipe it away. ‘Well. I don’t know if I’d call her my girlfriend, exactly. We’ve only been on a few dates. But yes, I’m hoping it’ll go somewhere.’
Present tense. Not that that means much; he’s not a fool. I smile at all the adorable young love; Rory manages a smile back.
‘So you made a bit of an effort,’ Breslin says. ‘Right? Tell me you made a bit of an effort, Rory. That shirt’s fine for selling The Gruffalo to soccer moms, but if you want to impress your way into a babe’s – well, into her good books, let’s put it that way – it’s not going to do the job. What’d you wear?’
‘Just a shirt and a pullover and trousers. I mean, they were decent ones, they weren’t—’
Sceptical look off Breslin. ‘What colour? What kind?’
‘A white linen shirt and a light blue pullover, and dark blue trousers? I’m normally a jeans guy, but Aislinn’s . . . I knew she’d be wearing something a bit fancier, so I thought I should too.’
‘Hmm. Sounds like it could’ve been a lot worse. You’ve got decent taste when you try, my son.’ Breslin nods at the overcoat on the back of Rory’s chair. ‘That coat?’
Rory glances uncertainly back and forth between it and Breslin. ‘Yes. I don’t really have another proper winter coat. I got it at Arnott’s, it’s not just some . . . I mean, it’s OK, right?’
‘Not bad,’ Breslin says, squinting critically at the coat. ‘It’ll do. You didn’t wear those gloves with it, though. Did you? You didn’t.’
Rory’s head whips around to the gloves. ‘Yeah, I did. Why? What’s wrong with them?’
‘Yeesh,’ Breslin says, grimacing. He reaches across the table and pokes the gloves with his pen, flips them over. They look clean. ‘Maybe I’m getting old; maybe nowadays all the cool kids go on dates looking like they borrowed their hands off a mountain biker. You really wore these?’
‘It was cold.’
‘So? You’ve got to suffer for style, Rory. You don’t have a black pair? At least those wouldn’t have stuck out like a couple of sore thumbs.’
‘I looked. I thought I had black leather ones, somewhere, but I don’t know where they’ve gone. These were the only ones I could find.’
We’ll look too. ‘Quit hassling the poor guy,’ I tell Breslin. ‘You take the gloves off as soon as you’re in the door anyway, amn’t I right, Rory? Who cares what they look like?’
Breslin rolls his eyes and sits back, shaking his head. Rory throws me a quick grateful glance. We’re turning the interview room into familiar ground – even Breslin’s slaggings are the type Rory has to have taken in school on a regular basis – and that’s settling him. He’s not a helpless little weenie, the way I thought from all that fidgeting and dithering at the start. It’s more complicated than that. Inside his comfort zone, Rory does fine. Take him outside it and he stops coping.
I’m normally a jeans guy . . . Aislinn wasn’t his comfort zone.
I say, ‘So where does Aislinn live?’
‘Stoneybatter.’
‘Convenient,’ I say, nodding. ‘Just a quick hop across the river, and you’re there. How’d you get there?’
‘Bus. I walked down to Morehampton Road – it wasn’t raining yet – and I caught the 39A up to Stoneybatter. It stops practically around the corner from her house.’
‘Whoa whoa whoa. Rewind.’ Breslin’s eyebrows are up. ‘Bus? You took the bus to her place? Way to impress a lady, Rory. Do you not own a car, no?’
Rory’s going all pink and flustered again. I love blushers. ‘No, I do, yeah. Just, I was thinking – I mean, if we had wine with dinner, and if I needed to get home—’
‘You do? What kind of car?’
‘It’s a Toyota Yaris—’
Breslin snorted. ‘Yeah? What year?’
‘2007.’
‘Jesus,’ Breslin says, grinning into his notebook. ‘Now I see why you took the bus. Carry on.’
Rory ducks his head and pokes his glasses up his nose. Apparently he’s the type who takes wedgies meekly. When those guys finally snap, they do it right. I ask, ‘What time did you leave home?’
Rory instantly sits up straighter. He’s so glad to hear me doing the talking instead of Breslin, he’d tell me anything. ‘Quarter to seven.’
Which is the most interesting thing he’s said so far. His appointment with Aislinn was for eight. It doesn’t take an hour and a quarter to get from Ranelagh to Stoneybatter, specially not on a Saturday evening. He could have walked in half the time.
‘And when did you get the bus?’ I ask.
‘Just before seven. One got there as soon as I reached the stop.’
We can check that: CCTV on the bus. I write it down. ‘What time were you due at Aislinn’s place?’
‘Eight, but I – I mean, I didn’t want to be late. If I was early, I could always just walk around for a while.’
‘Brrr,’ I say, making a face. ‘In that weather? Doing what?’
Rory shifts his feet like he can’t get them comfortable. Talking about that extra time is turning him jumpy. I would only love to stamp Rory innocent and chase off after Steve’s gangster, but I can smell it, hot as blood: there’s something here.
He says, ‘I don’t know. Just . . . making sure I could find the house, that kind of thing.’
I look puzzled. ‘But you said her place was practically around the corner from the bus stop. That sounds like you already knew your way around.’