‘You might be right. Let’s find out.’
‘What . . . ?’ Rory’s voice wobbles. He clears his throat and tries again. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Ah,’ Breslin says. ‘This is going to get complicated, Rory, so stop me if you’re not following. According to you, you got on the 39A just before seven, and got off it in Stoneybatter just before half-seven. Walked around to Viking Gardens to make sure of the route – that brings us to, say, 7.32. Headed up to Tesco for flowers: we’ve timed it at around a seven-minute walk, so you’d have got there by 7.40.’
Rory has stopped tracking Breslin’s stroll. He’s rigid, feet braced on the floor, staring ahead.
‘Your statement says you spent “a couple of minutes” in Tesco; let’s say you left around 7.43. Another seven or eight minutes to get back to Viking Gardens, maybe less since you said you were hurrying: you’d have been at Aislinn’s door by 7.50. Are you with me?’
‘If you’re not,’ I say, ‘get Bres to write it down for you. Make him earn his wages.’
Rory says, without looking at me, ‘I’m following perfectly well.’
‘You are, of course,’ Breslin says heartily. ‘Except you told us you got to Aislinn’s just before eight. What’d you do with the extra eight or nine minutes?’
And his shoulders slacken again. Rory thinks he’s off the hook; he’s loosening, body and mind, with relief. ‘I haven’t got a clue. I mean, God, maybe I got off the bus a little later than I thought, or took a bit longer choosing the flowers; or maybe I reached Aislinn’s a few minutes earlier than I thought. Or all of those. I don’t really notice exact times; I haven’t been trained to, the way you have. I couldn’t tell you within eight minutes what time it is now, or how long we’ve been here.’
Breslin rubs at his nose, embarrassed. ‘When you put it like that . . .’
‘See?’ I say, to both of them. ‘No big deal.’
‘Professional deformation,’ Breslin says, with a rueful little laugh at himself. I laugh too, Rory lets out a slightly hysterical half-laugh, we all laugh together. ‘I swear to God, sometimes I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like being normal. I mean, a normal person couldn’t lose track of, like, hours, right? Or even half an hour? You couldn’t have got to Aislinn’s house at half-eight and thought it was eight o’clock. Ten minutes would be about the limit?’
‘I suppose,’ Rory says. He remembers his coffee and takes a quick, covert sip. ‘Probably.’
‘Huh,’ Breslin says, turning over his piece of paper. ‘I’ve got another timeline right here – get more of that coffee down you, you’re going to need it.’
‘So am I,’ I say, raising my mug to Rory and throwing him a wink. ‘Hang in there, man. The list’s gotta end sometime.’
‘Yeah, yeah. The sooner you two quit bitching, the faster we get through this.’ Breslin moves round to my side of the table, getting into firing position. ‘So. This timeline is built around CCTV. Which says you got on the bus at ten to seven, Rory, and you got off it in Stoneybatter at quarter past. That doesn’t exactly match what you told us, but hey, like we said: a few minutes here, a few minutes there, to normal people . . .’ He smiles at Rory, who’s still relaxed enough to smile back. ‘Except after that, the next time we can confirm your location is when you were caught on Tesco’s CCTV paying for the flowers, at 7.51.’
Rory’s smile is gone. He’s starting to cop on.
Breslin’s voice is getting more weight to it, words coming down on the table with thick cold thuds. ‘Like we said, from Aislinn’s place to Tesco is about a seven-minute walk. So if you were paying for the flowers at 7.51, you had to leave Viking Gardens by around 7.40. That leaves your movements unaccounted for from 7.15, when you got off the bus, until 7.40. Twenty-five minutes, Rory. We’ve just established that even a normal person couldn’t lose track of twenty-five minutes. Do you want to tell me what you were doing for those twenty-five minutes?’
Rory is staring at the space between me and Breslin. He’s clenched into one tight knot; his mouth barely moves when he says, ‘I’ve already told you.’
‘I thought you had,’ I say, miffed. The thought of losing his lovely ally makes his breathing speed up, but he doesn’t look at me. ‘But now it looks like you’ve been feeding us a great big heap of shite. You want to try again, before we decide you might have a reason for not wanting us to know what you were doing that night?’
‘I’ve told you what I did. I can’t help it if it doesn’t match your timeline.’
It’s not a bad strategy: pick a story, plant your feet on it and don’t budge, no matter what. Once you start shifting, we can shove you off balance, push you step by step to where we want you. We need Rory shifting.
Breslin swings his chair to the table and sits down in one fast sweep. I sit back: let him work it for now, while Rory wonders if I’m still his pal. He says, ‘How’d you know Aislinn didn’t have curtains in her kitchen?’
That gets through: Rory jerks and stares. ‘What?’
‘And the laneway out the back. How’d you know about that?’
‘The— I didn’t. I mean, I don’t. What lane—’
‘You described your theoretical stalker watching Aislinn cook the dinner and get out wineglasses: stuff she would have done in the kitchen, which is at the back of the house. You didn’t have him watching her set the table, which is in the living room at the front. In other words, you knew the stalker would have been able to watch from the back of the house.’
Rory blinks wildly, bewildered. Breslin says, grinning, ‘Dude, see that glass there? I was right behind it, listening, for your whole chat. Antoinette’s a top-notch detective, but she’s . . . how’ll I put this without getting a punch?’
‘Careful, you,’ I say.
‘Easy, tiger,’ Breslin says, leaning away and holding up a hand to block me. ‘Let’s just say she’s a little more willing than I am to believe that you’re on our side. She’s an optimist: she’s been hoping all along that this case would turn out to be some great big fascinating mystery.’ A slant of side-eye towards me, a hair’s breadth of grin that could mean anything. ‘Me, I’ve been around longer. I’m a suspicious guy – more of that professional deformation we were talking about. So I keep an eye on things. I heard just about every word you said. And I’m asking you: how did you know the stalker would have been watching Aislinn in her kitchen, unless you were the stalker?’