‘I do think the Ds should’ve told the family. It would’ve saved us a shitload of time and hassle.’
Steve glances up at that. ‘They should’ve told the family, full stop. Even if there was dodgy stuff in the background, they should have dropped a hint that he was alive.’
‘Maybe.’ I start tapping my half of the file back into a stack. ‘I’ll ring Gary, ask him what the story was.’
‘You don’t think they should’ve?’
‘I don’t know. Do I look like the Pope to you? Fancy moral decisions aren’t my job.’
‘What would you have done if it was your case? Would you have kept your mouth shut? Seriously?’
‘I would’ve transferred to Murder. Where this kind of shite doesn’t come up.’
‘I’d’ve told them,’ Steve says. I go to dump my paper back in the box; he takes it off me, adds it to his and keeps flipping. ‘No question. Aislinn’s own da? Your woman’s husband? They had a right to know. If they’d known what they were dealing with, it might not have messed up their lives, or anyway not as much.’
I’m pulling out my phone, but that brings my head round. ‘Yeah? Because what? Unless they know where Daddykins is, they’ve got no choice except to lock themselves in the gaff and sit around obsessing about him? There’s no way they could get on with their lives, no?’
It comes out with more edge than I meant it to. Steve stops messing with paper. ‘Come on. I didn’t say that. Just . . . if they’re spending half their time waiting for the da to walk back in the door, and the other half picturing him dumped someplace up the mountains, then yeah, their heads are gonna be wrecked.’
I dial Gary’s number and keep an eye on the door for Breslin. ‘Then they shouldn’t have spent their time like that. The Ds didn’t force them to. Get a hobby. Knit something.’
Steve starts to say, carefully, ‘I don’t think it’s—’ but I hold up a finger: the phone’s ringing.
Voicemail again. I refuse to start worrying about why Gary doesn’t want to talk to me. ‘Hey, Gary, it’s Antoinette. We got the stuff; thanks. We’ve had a look; your guy can pick it up any time.’ I’m not about to hand that box over to any of our floaters. ‘And give me a ring when you get a chance, yeah? I’ve just got a couple of follow-up questions, and I’d rather run them past you than go chasing anyone else. Talk then.’
I hang up. ‘If he doesn’t want me hassling the original Ds, that should get his attention. And if there was anything dodgy going on, he’ll let me know, to make me quit poking around.’
‘This is all the main stuff,’ Steve says, holding up the stack of pages he’s pulled out of the file. ‘I want photocopies. Just in case.’ He sweeps a handful of random paper off his desk, shoves the statements into the middle and heads off at a casual lope, no hurry, nothing worth noticing here.
I kick the file box under our desk, till Gary can send the crap-suit kid to pick it up. There’s no reason Breslin shouldn’t see it – there’s nothing to see, as far as we can tell – but I don’t want him to. I tell myself that’s just good sense, no matter what: if there’s nothing in the file, I don’t need Breslin giving us flak for wasting our time. Then I spread out Rory’s financials again and pretend to be fascinated by them, for the benefit of Breslin’s pocket poodle, whoever that is.
My instincts are good – not bragging: every D’s are, specially every D who makes it as far as Murder – and I know how to use them. They’ve come through for me when all the solid detective work in the world would have run me into a brick wall. But this time they’re being bugger-all use. Not that they’re out of commission – every sensor is firing wildly, red lights flashing, beeping noises everywhere – but they just keep sweeping, can’t pin anything down. Rory’s keeping something back, but I can’t tell whether it’s the murder or not; Breslin’s fucking with us, but I can’t figure out why. I feel like I’m missing the bleeding obvious here, but the harder I concentrate, the more all the signals turn to noise. Something is scrambling them.
Another D, one with more experience than me, would be well able to do that. The other thing Ds are good at, as well as using their own instincts: wrecking other people’s. Suspects don’t make mistakes because they’re morons, or at least not all of them. They make mistakes because we know how to baffle them into it.
Someone wants me to make a mistake. And I’m a couple of hundred miles out to sea with all my systems going haywire.
That doesn’t faze me too much, not in itself. Danger isn’t the thing scrambling my signals; it’s the only thing keeping me clear-headed enough that I have a chance of navigating my way out of this. I watch Steve, heading back between the desks with a brand-new blue folder sticking out from his handful of random paperwork, and I really hope he works the same way.
Chapter 9
Breslin gets in not long after, banging open the incident-room door and telling the world, ‘Jesus Christ, the suspect’s mates. Bloody history teachers everywhere. Anyone want to know about the curve of murder rates since the foundation of the Free State?’
It’s like being a teenager and seeing someone you fancy: that slam of electricity, straight through the breastbone and in. ‘Howya,’ I say.
The floaters give Breslin the laugh he’s looking for, but he doesn’t bother acknowledging it; his eyes are on me and Steve. ‘Any updates?’
‘Cooper rang,’ I say.
‘And?’
‘And two possibilities. Either a great big bodybuilder gave her a hell of a punch, she went over backwards and smashed her head on the fireplace. Or else someone – wouldn’t need to be a bodybuilder – gave her a push, she fell on the fireplace with no serious damage done, and he went after her and punched her while she was down.’
That stops Breslin moving, and for a second his face goes blank. Behind the blank, his mind is going ninety. Same as me and Steve, he has trouble picturing Rory getting that hardcore, and he’s not happy about it.
He covers it fast, though. ‘Bodybuilder,’ he says, with a wry snort. ‘No harm to Cooper, but what a typical lab-jockey thing to say. If he’d spent any time in the trenches, he’d know that even a wimp like Rory can come up with one good punch, if he’s pissed off enough.’
Which is what I thought, but coming out of him it sounds like something I shouldn’t fall for. ‘Maybe,’ I say.
Breslin threads his way between the desks to us, giving Stanton a clap on the shoulder along the way. ‘We’ll have to ask Rory, won’t we? We’ll have fun with that, next time we get him in.’
‘He won’t know what’s hit him,’ Steve says helpfully. The blue folder has vanished into the paper on his desk.
‘Any more than she did,’ Breslin says, inevitably, but his heart isn’t in it. ‘I hear you’ve been getting deliveries. Anything nice to share with the group?’