Steve raises his cup to Breslin. ‘Don’t worry, man. We’ll make sure the gaffer knows you did your best to light a fire under us.’
‘Whoa there. Hang on a second. You think this is about me?’ Breslin switches to a nice mix of stunned and wounded. ‘You seriously think that’s what I’m worried about? My rep?’
‘Ah, God, no,’ Steve says, giving him a big sweet smile. ‘Your rep’s amazing – stellar, is that the word I’m looking for? It’d take more than the likes of us to mess it up. I’m just saying, don’t worry: we’ll make sure credit goes where credit’s due.’
‘This isn’t about me. I don’t work like that. This isn’t even about you – if it was just your reps on the line, then sure, I’d try to stop you making a hames of this for your own sakes, but in the end I’d have to let you make your own choices. This is about the squad. If you take a month to get up the balls to charge Mr Obvious in there, the media won’t be yelling about how Conway and Moran need to get their act together; they’ll be yelling about how the Murder squad needs to start taking its job seriously and actually protecting the public from scumbags. I’m hoping you two have at least enough loyalty to give a damn about that.’
Breslin’s worked himself up into enough of a righteous lather that I can’t tell whether he actually thinks he means that shite. I say, ‘How’s the squad gonna look if we charge the wrong guy?’
‘Having to drop the charges,’ Steve says, doing a cringe-face. ‘Public apology, more than likely. Media yelling about how the Murder squad’s a shower of incompetent wankers who don’t care who they lock up as long as they get the solve. Witnesses afraid to come to us, in case they end up in cuffs because we’re in such a hurry to charge anyone we can get our hands on . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘Not good, man. For the squad, like.’
Breslin sighs again. ‘Conway. Moran,’ he says, changing tack to go gentle. ‘The guy is guilty as sin. Take it from someone who was putting scumbags away when you two were kids filling out your application forms for Templemore: he’s our man. The question here isn’t whether he did it. The question is whether you two are able to do what needs doing.’
I say, ‘We’ll all just have to keep our fingers crossed. Won’t we?’
‘OK. Listen.’ Breslin leans back against the wall, gives us both the smile that melts witnesses. ‘I know you guys haven’t been getting an easy ride around here. Probably you thought I’d missed that, or didn’t care, but you’d be surprised how many of us are pulling for you. I’ve always said you’ll make a great pair of Murder Ds, once you find your feet.’
‘Thanks, man,’ Steve says. Steve gets basically no hassle, except what rubs off from me; Breslin just wants the pair of us paranoid. ‘That means a lot.’
‘Not a problem. You’ve just got to get past the routine bullshit. Newbies get hazed; it’s part of the job. It’s not personal.’
The slimy bastard is too thick to realise he used the same words to Rory Fallon, five minutes back, or else he thinks we are. And he thinks we’re thick enough to believe our shitpile is just routine, or desperate enough to pretend we do.
‘The lads just need to see whether you can take the heat. And this?’ Breslin points at the one-way glass. ‘This is your chance to show them. I know all the silly shite has to have knocked your confidence, but if schoolkid crap can take you to the point where you don’t trust your own judgement enough to charge a slam-dunk like this one, maybe you’d be better off back in blue. Yeah, that sounds harsh’ – lifting a hand like one of us tried to break in, which we didn’t – ‘but it’s what you need to hear.’
I know better than to look at Steve. In the corner of my eye he’s still peacefully swinging his legs and drinking his water, but I can feel him knowing better than to look at me.
Breslin wants us to charge Rory Fallon. He wants it badly. It could be because he’s sick of babysitting the kindergarten case, wants to wind it up and go back to his pal McCann and their PhD-level fancy conspiracies and gang-boss shootings. Could be because he wants to shake himself in front of O’Kelly – It took those two a month to crack their last domestic, with me on board it takes them a day, now give my ego a hand job and put me up for promotion. Could be just that he’s so in the habit of arm-twisting, he can’t get through his day without that buzz. But.
I’ve been taking it for granted that whoever threw me to Crowley did it on the spur of the moment, for kicks, like whoever dropped my phone in my coffee back when I still left it on my desk. It didn’t occur to me, till this moment, that a lot more thought could have gone into it.
Creepy Crowley is whipping this case up into a big one, and someone is egging him on. If I fuck up spectacularly, like for example if I charge Fallon when there’s some great big chunk of exonerating evidence that somehow managed to vanish on its way to my desk, and if the papers somehow happen to get hold of the story, the whole country will explode with it. And there’ll be the excuse the squad’s gagging for: I’ll be gone.
In an interview, this is where I’d be on my feet, stopping the tape – Interview paused at 2.52 p.m., Detectives Conway and Moran leaving the interview room – and getting me and Steve the hell out of there. We need a chat, right now. I watch Breslin blandly and wait to see what comes next.
‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ Breslin says. ‘Moran, you go have a look through the CCTV, see if you can pick up Rory Fallon leaving the vic’s place last night and track him through town – maybe we can figure out where he ditched the gloves. Meanwhile, Conway and I will have another go at Rory, try for a confession – shouldn’t be a problem to us, am I right?’ He gives me a big pally grin and, I swear to God, an actual clap on the shoulder. I nearly punch the presumptuous fucker. ‘Even if we don’t get it, no big deal: we’ve got plenty on him already. We arrest him, charge him, I get to tell the lads that when the chips are down you two can do the business, and I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be getting any more hassle in the squad room. Everyone’s a happy camper.’
He’s a hair away from spelling it out for us: You go along with me on this, and I’ll sort out the lads for you. This isn’t just because he wants to get back to McCann, or because he wants to look pretty for the gaffer. He’s itching to get Fallon charged.
And he’s positive we’re gonna jump on the deal. He’s already tightening his tie and heading for the door.
I say, ‘Here’s what we’ll do. Deasy and Stanton are making a list of Rory Fallon’s KAs. If Rory’s our boy, then the guy who called it in will be on that list. I’d like you to have chats with them all, see if you can identify the caller. Start with best mates and brothers if he’s got them. If there’s no joy there, you can work your way down.’