Rory risks a fast glance at me. ‘Don’t you . . . ? Do you know yet?’
I sigh and give my head a massage, while I have the hair down. ‘To be honest with you, no, we don’t. We’ve followed a load of lines of investigation, and I can’t go into details, but basically none of them are taking us anywhere. That’s why we’re calling back the people who were closest to Aislinn: we’re hoping someone will be able to give us a fresh idea, kick-start things.’
Rory says, still wary, ‘I’d only known her a couple of months.’
‘I know, yeah. But a connection like you and Aislinn had, that counts more than years of sitting next to her in work and chatting about internet kitty pics.’ I get the tone right: no syrup, just direct and clean and matter-of-fact. ‘You understood her. That was obvious, last time we talked. You weren’t just seeing some blonde with a faceful of fancy makeup; you saw straight through all that. You saw who she really was.’
Rory says quietly, ‘That’s what it felt like.’
‘That’s valuable, man. Me, I’m never going to meet Aislinn. I’m relying on people like you to show me who she was. That’s how we’ll figure out what could’ve happened to her.’ I’ve forgotten all about putting my hair back up; too earnest about this conversation, too far into off-duty chat mode. ‘And I’d say you’ve thought about nothing else, the last couple of days. Am I right?’
Rory bites at his lips. After a moment: ‘More or less. Yes.’
‘And the last couple of nights.’
A nod.
‘Hang in there,’ I say gently. ‘I know what it’s like. At first it feels like it’s taken over your whole life, yeah? And you’re never going to get your head above water again?’
The breath and the wariness go out of Rory together. His shoulders fall forward; he pushes his fingers up under his glasses to rub at his eyes. ‘I haven’t slept. I don’t do well with no sleep, but I can’t . . . I’ve just been walking up and down my living room, hours and hours – my legs are killing me. Late last night something happened in the street outside, a man shouting, and I thought I was having a heart attack; I genuinely thought I was going to die, right there leaning against my wall. I haven’t been able to open the shop, I haven’t even been able to go out of my flat, in case I make a fool of myself by fainting if someone slams a car door.’ He gives me a glance that’s meant to be defiant. ‘I suppose you think that’s pathetic.’
I do, but even more, I think it’s gonna be useful. ‘Me?’ I say, startled. ‘Jesus, no. I’ve seen a lot of people go through this. The way you’re feeling, that’s par for the course.’
‘When you rang . . . I was actually relieved, do you know that? Which is obviously ridiculous, but all I could think was that now I don’t have to spend the day . . .’ His voice wavers. He presses his fingertips to his mouth.
‘You’re doing me a favour, too,’ I say, with just the right amount of sympathy in the smile. ‘In this weather, I’m a lot happier in here than out doing door-to-door.’
‘All I can do is think about it. How it might have happened. I’ve come up with dozens of scenarios. That’s why I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, those are all I can see.’
‘Thank Jaysus,’ I say, heartfelt. And when Rory looks up, eyes widening: ‘That’s what we do, yeah? We come up with theories on how this could have happened, and then we try to match them to the facts. Only this time none of them are matching, and I have to admit, I’ve run out of theories. I’ve been going mental trying to come up with more. If you’ve got any new ones, then for Jaysus’ sake, throw them my way.’
That would give Steve a laugh: me, begging for all the if-then-maybe fantasy crap this guy can dish out. The thought of Steve jabs me up under the ribs hard enough to mess with my breath.
Rory manages a small, tugged-down smile. ‘How long have you got?’
‘Tell you what: start with your best shot. The one that, deep down, you think is actually what happened. If it’s any good . . . Jaysus, I’ll owe you big-time. And if it doesn’t fly, and that fella’s still not back with the coffee, you can throw the next one at me.’
He looks at me like I might be setting him up for some point-and-laugh joke. ‘Seriously?’
‘Of course, seriously,’ I say. ‘I told you: we rang you because we need all the help we can get. Anything you’ve got is better than a load of nothing. Unless you figure it was, like, aliens.’
This time the smile is almost real. ‘No aliens,’ Rory says. ‘I promise.’ I sit up and pull out my notebook, ready to catch the pearls of wisdom. ‘Well. This is the one I keep coming back to. The thing about Aislinn . . .’
Saying her name makes him flinch. He takes off his glasses and polishes them, turning me and the room blurry and soft, easy to talk to. ‘The thing you have to understand about Aislinn,’ he says, ‘is that she was the kind of person who made you daydream. When you were with her, you found yourself coming up with stories.’ His back is straightening already; I’ve got him on home ground. ‘I wondered if it was because she was a daydreamer herself – I could tell she was; it takes one to know one – but it was more than that. It was because she didn’t mind slipping into your daydream. Coming along for the ride. She liked it.’
Which sounds like a load of bollix to me: no one likes being turned into a bit part in someone else’s fantasy. If that reaches my face, Rory can’t see it, not with his glasses off; but he says, like he heard me thinking, ‘She did. Just to give you an idea: when we went for dinner, I said to her that it felt like we’d known each other for years. Aislinn said yes, she felt the same way – she said something like “Maybe we did meet, somewhere along the way. It’s a small country . . .” So I said, “Maybe we played together when we were little. Six, maybe. In a playground, in autumn. Maybe you’d brought your doll along . . .” Aislinn was smiling, and she said she always did bring her doll to the playground, a grubby old thing called Caramel. So I said, “Maybe you put Caramel down on a bench, so she could watch you on the swings, and I was on the swing next to yours. And then another little girl came along and thought Caramel had been abandoned, and picked her up . . .” ’