Breslin has turned round. He’s staring at me, but he’s managing to stay nice and neutral, ready to keep the matey stuff coming if we let him. When he’s sure I’m done, he says, ‘Why?’
I say, ‘Because me and Detective Moran will take Fallon from here.’
Breslin looks back and forth between us – he’s aiming for big dog who’s been patient with the bold puppies long enough, but him having to look up at us takes some of the oomph out of it. He says, ‘I’m going to need an explanation here.’
I’m opening my mouth on Because this is our fucking case and the next time you try to give me an order you’re getting a knee in the balls, but Steve gets in there first. He says, ‘You’re dead right, man: we need to earn the lads’ respect. And that’s not going to happen if you get our confession for us. We appreciate the offer, but we’re going to have to handle this one ourselves.’
Which I have to admit is better than my version. The second of taken-aback on Breslin’s face gives me my control back. I tell Steve, ‘Detective Breslin knows that, you thicko. Does he look like a rookie to you? He was testing us. He was trying to see if we’d wimp out and offload the tough stuff on someone else when we got the chance, or if we’ve got the nads to actually do our job.’
Steve’s mouth opens. Then he bursts out laughing. ‘Jesus! And me standing here like an eejit, giving you the big speech about earning the lads’ respect. Fair play to you, man; you had me going, all right.’
Breslin’s got a bit of a smile on his mouth, but those pale eyes still moving back and forth between us are cold and expressionless. He doesn’t know whether he believes us or not.
I let myself crack a half-grin. ‘He had me, too, at first. There’s a reason he’s got that stellar rep. Thanks, Breslin: we get the message, loud and clear. We’ll do our job. And once we’ve done it, we’ll see you in the incident room. Case meeting at four.’
I give him a pleasant nod and turn away, to the one-way glass. Overlaid on Rory, Breslin’s reflection stays still, staring at me. My back prickles.
Then he shrugs. ‘I’d love to think you know what you’re doing,’ he says. ‘See you at four.’
The reflection turns and vanishes. The observation-room door clicks shut.
Me and Steve wait, listening, watching Rory fumble in his pocket and find a crumpled tissue and try to mop up the mess that’s his face. Then I go to the door and open it fast. The corridor is empty.
Steve says, ‘I don’t like this.’ His accent’s gone back to normal.
I say, ‘Me neither.’
‘What’s he playing at?’
‘I don’t know.’ I leave the door open. I’m trying to pace, but the observation room is too small; every two steps I’m slamming off a wall. The stink has thickened till it’s like another person in there, shoving us aside. ‘Did you hear him? “I can guarantee you won’t get any more hassle in the squad room . . .” He was trying to bribe us.’
‘Why would he want Fallon charged? This badly?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t think he was one of the ones trying to fuck me up.’ Steve has to see what goes down, what with not being in a coma, but I don’t do heart-to-hearts; this is the first time I’ve talked about this shit straight out, and it doesn’t feel good. ‘But if we charge Fallon too soon, and then it all goes tits-up, and Crowley splatters it all over the country . . .’ Even the thought – the burst of applause in the squad room, the smirk on Roche, the naked relief in O’Kelly’s voice as he explains that this isn’t working out – sends red zigzags across my brain. I say, ‘That’d be one way to put me out of commission.’
Steve has split his plastic water cup and is folding it into shapes. He says, ‘It could be just that: him trying to fuck us up.’ The ‘us’ is cute – no one’s on any campaign to fuck Steve up – but it gives me a quick ridiculous beat of warmth anyway. ‘I’ve never got that vibe off him either, but. I always got the sense he doesn’t give a monkey’s about us, either way.’
‘Me too. But if he was serious about getting rid of us, that’s exactly the sense we would get. Breslin’s no genius, but he’s been at this a long time. He’s well able to hide what he’s at.’
‘Or,’ Steve says. ‘If the gangster thing pans out . . .’
He leaves it there. The sharp crack of folding plastic jabs me in the ear.
Bent cops exist. Fewer in real life than on the telly, but they’re out there. Everything from the guy squaring a speeding fine in exchange for match tickets, to the guy who’s owned by a gang boss, body and soul.
If a gangster boyfriend killed Aislinn, the first thing he or his pals would do is ring their best bitch-boy and tell him to sort it out. The perfect way to sort it out, no loose ends, no worries, would be charging Rory Fallon and closing the case.
‘Breslin,’ I say. I’ve stopped pacing; stopped breathing, almost. ‘Breslin. You think? Seriously?’
Steve lifts one shoulder.
‘Nah. I don’t see it. He’s all about being the big hero. He wouldn’t be able to handle seeing himself as the bad guys’ pet cop. It’d blow his brain cells.’
Steve says, ‘Breslin would find a way to see himself as the hero, no matter what he did. That’s where he starts: with the idea that he’s the good guy, so whatever he’s doing must be right. Then he works backwards from there to figure out how.’
Which is true, but I never thought about it that way before – I’ve never spent this much time thinking anything about Breslin before. I don’t like the feel it gives me, clamped onto the back of my neck. What Steve’s talking about, it’s not just Breslin who thinks that way; we all do. When you badger a statement out of some traumatised witness, or manipulate a mother into giving evidence that’ll put her own kid in jail, you get to enjoy the buzz of winning without tying yourself in knots over the deeper moral subtleties, because you’re the good guy in this story. Steve is shredding that into something different, something tangled and thorny; dangerous.
He says, ‘And he’s the type they go for. Wife, kids, mortgage . . .’
The gang boys don’t bother with the likes of me and Steve, working-class singles on the way up; unless there’s a gambling problem or a coke habit, we don’t come with enough leverage. But Breslin has a high-maintenance blonde wife and three bucktoothed blond boys, like something out of an ad, and a house in a snazzy part of Templeogue. That’s a lot of needs tugging at his sleeves, and a lot to lose if he were to change his mind down the line. Once he was in, even one toe, he wouldn’t be getting out.
Breslin and McCann pull a lot of the big gang murders; they spend a lot of their time talking to seriously hard-core guys. It would be a miracle if, somewhere along the way, someone hadn’t made Breslin an offer.
That same flex to the air that I felt in the squad room, straight lines buckling at the edges of my eyes. My heart is going hard.
I say, ‘Yeah. He is.’