Breslin throws me a finger-snap and a point. ‘Exactly, Conway. They do. I was about to point that out myself. And all the KAs agree that their pal Rory was head over heels about Aislinn: he hadn’t shut up about her since they first met. They say it like it’s a good thing: aww, look, he was so smitten he would never do anything bad to his sweetie! I don’t think it’s occurred to them that there’s a fine line between smitten and obsessed.’ He glances up from pulling his notebook out of his pocket. ‘Nice to hear one of you two admitting that the obsessed boyfriend on the scene might actually be a suspect. Detective Conway, do I get the sense you’re getting just a leetle bit tired of tree-shaking?’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘It’s good exercise. But like you say, unless something big falls out, Rory’s what we’ve got. A bit more solid evidence, and we’ll be good to go. Did you run the voices past the guy at Stoneybatter who took the call?’
‘Yeah, about that. Just a word in your ear, Conway . . .’ Breslin glances at the floaters and lowers his voice. ‘You need to learn how to allocate resources appropriately. I know that sounds like boring manager-type crap, but you’re running investigations now; like it or not, you’re a manager. And it doesn’t take a Murder D with twenty years’ experience to hit Play half a dozen times.’
Someone’s ego wouldn’t fit through the door of Stoneybatter station. Steve moves again. ‘Got it,’ I say sheepishly. ‘Will we send Gaffney? Just so he knows he’s not in your bad books?’
‘Now you’re thinking like a lead D. Let’s do that. You tell him, so he knows who’s boss around here; how’s that?’ Breslin gives me his wise-teacher smile, which is kind and crinkly and would make me feel warm all over if I was dumber than a bag of hair.
‘Thanks,’ I say, all grateful. ‘That’d be great.’ I swivel my chair around – without looking at Steve, in case one of us gets the giggles – and call, ‘Gaffney. Over here. Job for you.’
Gaffney nearly falls over his own chair, he’s in such a hurry to get over to us. ‘Here you go,’ Breslin says, tossing him a voice recorder. ‘Those are voice samples: Rory Fallon, his brothers and all his male pals.’ He lifts an eyebrow at me and tilts his chin towards Gaffney, to make sure it’s obvious that he’s cueing me.
I say, ‘Take that down to Stoneybatter station and see if any of the voices ring a bell with your man. If he’s got any doubts, organise a voice lineup. Can you do that?’
Gaffney’s holding the recorder to his chest like it’s precious. ‘I can, yeah. No bother. I will. I’ll do that.’ He’s so busy head-flipping back and forth between me and Breslin, trying to work out who’s the boss here, he can barely make sentences.
‘Thanks,’ Breslin says, whipping out the smile. ‘Do me a favour: pick me up a sandwich on your way back. Ham, cheese and salad on brown, no onion. I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch, and I’m starving.’ He throws me and Steve another wink, as he pulls out cash to give Gaffney. ‘Sorry, no change.’
It’s a fifty. I’m close enough to see where he took it out of: a solid wad of them, in his shirt pocket, tucked inside a crumpled white envelope.
I was right about my voice message giving Gary a kick up the arse: five minutes later my phone lights up with his name. No way am I gonna take this call with Breslin sitting five feet away, and no way am I gonna make a big deal of taking it outside. I mutter, ‘Fuck’s sake, Ma, I’m at work,’ to myself, swipe Reject Call and shove the phone back into my pocket too hard. I glance across, doing embarrassed, to see if Breslin heard; his eyes are on the statement he’s typing up, but he’s got a twitch of a grin on his face.
I wait fifteen minutes – I’d love to leave it longer, but it’s five o’clock, and we’ve got the case meeting at half past – before I head out of the incident room, leaving my coat and my bag behind. With a bit of luck Breslin will assume I’m ringing my mammy back. I don’t look at Steve. I’m hoping I don’t need to.
Outside it’s dark; the whitish floodlights and the thick cold, and the odd civil servant scurrying home with his collar turned up, give the huge courtyard a queasy, ominous feel, some looming futurescape I’ve stumbled into by mistake and can’t find the way out of. I find a shadow, wrap my suit jacket tight and watch the clock on my phone.
Four minutes later the door opens and Steve nips out, trying to keep a massive armful of paper under control and close the door behind him without letting it bang. ‘About time,’ I say, catching a page that’s escaping.
‘Let’s get out of here. I’m supposed to be photocopying this shite. If Breslin goes looking for me—’
‘That’s the best you could come up with? Come on, quick—’ We dodge around the corner of the building, laughing at our bold selves like schoolkids mitching, which I suppose is better than thinking too hard about the fact that Incident Room C is supposedly all mine and yet here I am freezing my hole off.
You can see the gardens from our windows, and in the courtyard we might meet Gaffney coming back from Stoneybatter. We head up to the square outside the main Castle buildings, where only tourists go – not that there are any tourists in this weather – and find a corner out of the wind. The buildings feel a hundred feet tall around us; the floodlights strip out colour and texture till they could be made of anything, beaten metal or slick plastic or thin air.
Steve dumps his paper on the ground, with a foot on the pile to stop it blowing away. He’s in his shirtsleeves; he’s gonna freeze. I hold the phone between us, dial and hit speaker.
‘Hey,’ Gary says. ‘You got the stuff, yeah?’
Gary is ten years older than me and perfect for his job. A big chunk of Missing Persons is getting people who stay far from cops to talk to you – street hookers to tell you about the new girl who matches that teenager on the news, homeless addicts to drop by and mention the guy who tried to sleep on their patch last night and looked a lot like that poster and do they get a reward? Everyone talks to Gary, and he’ll talk to anyone, which is one reason I pointed Aislinn his way. Another big chunk of the job is wrangling the friends and families, and Gary can calm down a room just by walking into it; I once saw him trace an idiot teenage runaway in ten minutes flat, by getting her hysterical idiot best friend to chill out enough to remember the internet boyfriend’s name. He’s a big guy, he looks like he could build a shed if you needed one, and he has the kind of voice – quiet, deep, a touch of countryside – that makes you want to close your eyes and fall asleep to the sound of it. Just hearing that voice winds me down a notch.
‘Hey,’ I say. Gary’s in the Missing Persons squad room: I can hear the weave of chat, someone giving out, someone else laughing, a mobile ringing. ‘Yeah, I got it. You’re a gem. Just a couple of quick questions, OK? And do me a favour: can you go somewhere private?’
‘No problem. Hang on a mo—’ The creak of his chair, some comment with a grin built in from one of the other lads, ‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ from Gary. ‘Smart-arsed little bollix wants to know if my prostate’s giving me hassle,’ he tells me. ‘Young people nowadays; no respect.’
‘Awww, Gar. It’s OK. I respect you.’
‘At least you don’t mock my prostate. Never mock a man’s prostate. That’s dirty.’
‘Below the belt, yeah?’