Steve nods. ‘We need to search Aislinn’s gaff anyway.’
‘That’ll work. Let’s go.’
He bins his Kit Kat wrappers, because he was brought up right. ‘While we’re in Stoneybatter, fancy showing me round your locals?’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe they went for the odd pint.’
The floaters look like they’re absorbed in their jobs, but I keep my voice down anyway. It’s getting to be a habit. ‘Who? Aislinn and her fella? A guy having a secret affair, you think he’s going to be snogging the girlfriend down the pub?’
‘They were seeing each other for around six months, according to Lucy. You can’t spend six months just staying in and shagging.’ Steve digs around the desk, finds a photo of Aislinn and sticks it in his coat pocket. ‘The pubs’ll be opening soon. Come on.’
I stay put. ‘Even if he exists, they wouldn’t have gone to one of my locals. Lucy said Aislinn was all about the fancy club scene; a pub in Stoneybatter wouldn’t have been her thing. To put it mildly.’
‘So less chance of being spotted. And if he’s married, then they were doing their shagging at Aislinn’s place; if they got stir-crazy and snuck out for a quick pint, it’d be somewhere around there.’ Steve throws his coat on, glancing at the window. ‘The fresh air’ll do us good.’
‘We don’t have fresh air in Stoneybatter. We’re too cool for that culchie crap. And you think a barman’s going to remember some chick who looked exactly like half the twenty-something women in Dublin?’
‘You remembered her. And barmen have good memories for faces.’ Steve pulls my coat off the back of my chair and holds it up, valet-style. ‘Humour me.’
‘Give me that,’ I say, whipping the coat off him, but I put it on. ‘And sort those.’ I jerk my chin at Steve’s printouts and flick him a warning look. He starts organising the paper into a stack.
Gaffney is looking over. I say, ‘Gaffney, spread the word: case meeting at half-five. And go find Breslin. You’re supposed to be shadowing him, remember? What are you even doing here?’
‘But he said—’ Gaffney looks petrified; the poor bastard is seeing his career going splat all over the carpet. ‘I did shadow Detective Breslin, like, all yesterday evening, and this morning – I was taking notes for him, and he was explaining to me how ye work, and all . . . It was only when he was heading out – he said I was grand to work on my own now, and you’d probably be needing me here more than he needed me out there, so, I mean . . .’
Breslin was right, obviously: Gaffney is well able to pull financials and make phone calls without someone holding his hand, or he wouldn’t be in the floater pool to begin with. But he’s also well able to take notes during interviews, and Breslin isn’t the type to turn down the obedient PA that he deserves; not unless he wants the freedom to nudge witnesses his way, with no one else there to notice.
Gaffney has run down and is staring at me pathetically. There’s no point sending him after Breslin; Breslin will find some excuse to slither out of it, or he just won’t answer his phone. ‘You’re grand,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve got plenty of jobs to keep you going.’
Gaffney starts trying to come up with something grateful, but I’m already headed for the door. Behind me, I hear the click of Steve’s desk drawer locking, for whatever that’s worth.
Chapter 7
Me and Steve head for the car pool and our shitty Kadett. The web of laneways behind Dublin Castle is hopping: students dragging their hangovers towards Trinity College, business types talking too loud into too-big phones so we can all be blown away by their Bulgarian property deals, yummy mummies out for shopping sprees and skangers out for pickings. It feels good getting out onto the street, where any danger coming our way won’t be personal, and I hate that.
‘So,’ I say, once we’re a safe distance into the flow of people. ‘Breslin doesn’t want company today. He wants to be all on his ownio for those interviews.’
‘For the interviews,’ Steve says, sidestepping a couple having complicated relationship problems in Russian, ‘or for whatever else he’s doing. Not long before you got in, right? Breslin’s mobile rang. He had a look and got this face on him—’ Steve does a clamped jaw and flared nostrils: Breslin, pissed off and trying to cover it. ‘He took the call outside. But before he got all the way out the door, he said, “Don’t ring this phone.” ’
He’s right: maybe not the interviews. Maybe there’s something else Breslin has to do, or someone else he has to meet, along the way; something, or someone, that doesn’t need Gaffney. My adrenaline kicks.
‘You want to know what he did yesterday evening?’ I say. ‘He went schmoozing Sophie for the scene reports and Aislinn’s electronics.’
Steve’s eyebrows go up. I say, ‘It could mean nothing. I had a word with him: he says he was bored, went looking for something to do – and obviously he’s going to go after the thing that could turn him into the big hero here. But . . .’
‘But he wanted that stuff.’
‘Yeah. Badly enough to go behind our backs, even though he had to figure we’d find out.’
‘Did he get anything out of Sophie?’
‘Nah. There’s not a lot to get. Stains on Aislinn’s mattress, but even if we get DNA and it’s not hers, it could be years old; no way to know. It didn’t get there on Saturday night, anyway, or it’d be on the sheets as well, and they’re clean.’ The adrenaline is moving me at a clip that sends even the big-phone types dodging out of our way. ‘The only thing is, the places you asked Sophie to check, the bed frame and the jacks seat? They’re too clean. No prints, just smudges. Sophie says our guy could’ve wiped the place down—’
‘Ah, score!’ Steve does a fist-pump. ‘No reason why Rory would be wiping down the bed frame, when that was his first time in the house—’
‘Yeah yeah yeah, you’re a genius. Or Aislinn could’ve just been a clean freak. Sophie says it plays either way.’
Steve still looks pleased with himself. ‘Anything else?’
‘You mean that says Aislinn’s other fella was real?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not so far. No sign of him on Facebook, not on her mobile, not on her e-mail.’ A junkie has cornered two lost-looking backpacker types and is hassling them for cash; I snap my fingers in his face and point off down the road, without bothering to break stride or find my ID, and he takes one look at us and bobbles off obediently. ‘If he exists, they must’ve made their appointments by ESP.’
‘Or Aislinn deleted all their messages,’ Steve points out. ‘Or he did. I’ve only started cross-checking the phone records, and I’m still waiting on the e-mails.’