Remembering the doll’s name would have been adorable in the groom’s speech; in this context, it’s well over the line into creepy. Rory’s smiling faintly, back at the Aislinn in his memory. ‘I told her the whole story. The two of us saw the other little girl taking Caramel away, so we escaped from our families and followed her and her mother onto a bus and all the way into town, running after her down O’Connell Street, into Clery’s – I said a Guard went after us, but we dodged and hid inside a huge umbrella, and we foiled a pickpocket by tripping him up with the point of the umbrella . . . It turned out that the pickpocket had just robbed the little girl’s mother’s wallet, and they were so grateful to us, the little girl didn’t even mind giving Caramel back to Aislinn. And she and her mother brought us home in a horse-drawn carriage.’
Holy Jaysus. By this time I would have been out of the restaurant and halfway home, on the phone to my mate Lisa, breaking my shite laughing and swearing off relationships for life. ‘I see what you mean about the date going great guns,’ I say, smiling away. ‘That must’ve been lovely.’
‘It was. I’m sure it sounds silly, but at the time it felt—’ His chin goes up defiantly. ‘It felt magical. As if the whole thing had actually happened, but somehow we’d both forgotten, and telling the story was bringing it to life again. Aislinn was laughing, adding in bits of her own; she kept saying, “We must have been starving, maybe the man at the doughnut kiosk in O’Connell Street gave us doughnuts,” and “Maybe a dog almost sniffed us out under the umbrella, and we threw a bit of doughnut to make it go away . . .” Like I said: she was happy with me making up stories around her. She encouraged it. She brought it out in people.’
He makes it sound like the whole thing was as unthinking and cute as a smile, just Aislinn skipping along among the daisies scattering happy daydreams wherever she went. I’m not so sure. I think of her in Missing Persons that day, pelting me with everything that should have started my mind wandering off down stories: the mystery, the tears, the snippets of info about what her dad had been like, the scraps of childhood reminiscence. If I had bitten – and maybe I would have, if the Daddy crap hadn’t rubbed me up the wrong way – I would have been a lot more likely to give her what she was after: And then the genius detective solved the poor orphan girl’s problem, and they all lived happily ever after. It worked on Gary. Aislinn knew how to use her knack.
She didn’t get me. I raise a mental finger at her and say to Rory, ‘And you’re thinking that might have had something to do with what happened to her.’
Rory is nodding hard. ‘Yes. Yes. The thing about daydreams is that they don’t last. One brush up against reality, and that’s the end of them. I know I must sound ridiculously spacy to someone like you, but I do understand that much.’
A sudden slice to his voice, and a sharp flash of his eyes; gone almost too fast to catch, but I was watching. Rory isn’t fluffy clouds and adorable endings straight through; he’s got something solid and keen-edged at the centre. Just like Aislinn. That combination made the two of them a perfect match, and then it turned on them.
‘For someone like me,’ Rory says, ‘that’s not a problem. I spend half my time in my head anyway, always have. I realise that, too.’ That edge again. ‘So when I bang up against reality and it bursts my bubble, that’s not the end of the world. I’m used to it. Deep down, I was expecting it all the time.’
Which sounds a lot like a sideways explanation for why it couldn’t have been me, honest, Detective. You get them a lot. Mostly you get them from killers. I nod along, concentrating hard on all these valuable insights.
Rory says, ‘But a lot of people aren’t like that. It took me a while to realise, when I was younger: some people spend all their time focused on what’s actually happening.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say. Confidentially: ‘You get a lot of cops like that. No imagination.’
That gets an automatic half-smile, but Rory’s too deep in his story to pay much attention to me. ‘So if a man like that were to run into Aislinn, he wouldn’t know how to prepare for the fact that his bubble was, almost definitely, going to burst. And when it did . . .’
‘I get you,’ I say, doing a little focused frown. ‘At least, I think I do. Tell me what you’re picturing. Specifics.’
Rory draws patterns on the table with one fingertip. He says, slowly, ‘I think he was someone who wouldn’t even have come onto your radar, because he knew Aislinn so briefly. They meet in a nightclub, maybe, or through her work, and they get talking. Maybe he gets her phone number and they meet up for a drink, or maybe it never even gets that far. But his mind’s already gone wild spinning stories, and he’s intoxicated by the feeling – especially since, to him, it’s brand-new.’
By now Breslin is waiting in the observation room, rolling his eyes and muttering at me to get a move on, while our coffee goes cold. He can do some deep breathing. If Rory needs all day to talk himself into this, then he’s gonna get all day.
‘And then, for whatever reason, Aislinn decides not to go any further with the relationship.’ Rory looks up at me. His fingers are pressing down hard on the tabletop. ‘If you’re not used to that reality check, it’s devastating. It’s like I imagine cold turkey would feel to a heroin addict: actual physical upheaval, as well as psychological. Your body and your mind, floundering.’
‘So he goes after her?’ I say.
Rory shakes his head vehemently. ‘No. Not like that. Someone who would do that, attack a woman just for breaking up with him after an evening or two – that’s a monster. A psychopath. And Aislinn wouldn’t have got involved with a monster to begin with. Just because she enjoyed daydreaming, that doesn’t mean she was oblivious to reality. This man must have been a decent guy. Things just got out of control.’
Your average innocent guy whose girlfriend’s been murdered, he’s gonna picture the killer as a foaming animal who deserves seven kinds of electric chair. Rory can’t afford to. ‘That makes sense, yeah,’ I say, taking notes and nodding. ‘So what does he do?’
‘If he can’t be with Aislinn, at least he needs more material for the daydreams. Something to feed them. She’s mentioned where she works, so he starts hanging around outside there, to see her come out. One evening he follows her home.’ Some new charge is revving up underneath Rory’s voice, powering it, swelling it. I don’t need to nudge him, not any more. ‘And once he knows where she lives, it becomes an addiction. He can’t stay away. He tries, but every few days he finds himself straying towards Stoneybatter, before he realises he’s going to do it. He finds himself wandering around the streets thinking about her feet touching those same pavements; buying chocolate bars he doesn’t want, just to shop where she does. He finds himself outside her house, watching her while she makes cups of herbal tea and does her ironing.’
He’s keeping close to the truth, staying parallel, almost touching. Smart choice: it makes the story ring almost true.