‘I was guessing. It’s – I mean, that’s just, it’s basic – basic common sense, if he didn’t want the neighbours seeing him, that he would—’ Rory’s breath isn’t working right. ‘And the kitchen, that’s where she’s going to be preparing, isn’t it, if I’m coming – which I was, I don’t mean if—’
He’s losing his foothold on that safe story. I say – a touch of worry, not happy with where things are going – ‘Here’s another thing. You talked about the stalker seeing Aislinn singing into her corkscrew. We know from her texts that that’s exactly what she was doing that evening. How did you know about that, unless you were watching her do it?’
Breslin says, before Rory can get enough air to answer, ‘Do me a favour: don’t try and tell us you were guessing. Unless you’re psychic, there’s no way in hell you could guess that. Are you psychic, Rory?’
‘What? No! How could – I don’t—’
‘Well, that’s a relief. So tell us how you knew about the corkscrew.’
Rory shakes his head, panting and wordless. I say, ‘Then I’ll tell you. You watched Aislinn from the back laneway that evening. Am I right?’
After a long moment his head rocks, helplessly, on his neck: yes.
‘That’s how you spent the missing twenty-five minutes.’
Another nod. That one-way glass, splattering light into the corner of my eye again. I hope Steve is behind it. I hope he’s scarlet right up to his hair.
‘Out loud for the tape,’ Breslin says.
Rory finds a pinch of voice. ‘I just wanted to . . . I was just taking a moment. To let it sink in that this was really happening. That’s all.’
‘And the only way you could do that,’ Breslin says, ‘was by peeping through Aislinn’s back window.’
He makes it sound filthy. Rory flinches. ‘I wasn’t— I was just standing there. Being happy. I don’t know how to explain—’
‘I guess I get it,’ I say doubtfully. ‘Sort of. It’s not like you were watching her shower – or were you?’
‘No! Even if I’d wanted to – which I didn’t; I would have left if . . .’ Breslin lets out an amused snort. Rory manages to ignore him by focusing on me. Telling the truth, or telling the story, has given him his breath back. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t have: the bathroom window is frosted. Aislinn was in the kitchen. She had music on – it was too windy for me to hear what, but I could tell it was something upbeat by the way she was dancing around, singing into . . . yeah. The corkscrew.’ A glance at me, too sad for defiance. ‘She was wearing a pink jumper and jeans, and she was taking things out of the fridge and opening them, putting them into pans, and dancing while she did it. After a bit she went out of the kitchen – I waited, and when she came back in she was wearing this blue dress . . . She looked – all blue and gold like that, it was like she’d just appeared in the kitchen, like one of those visions of saints that people used to have centuries ago. And she was smiling. And I couldn’t believe that, in just a few minutes, I would be in there with her. She would be smiling at me.’
The grief goes deep, right to the heart of his voice. That means nothing. ‘And then I thought of the flowers, and I headed for Tesco. And if I hadn’t . . .’ Rory grabs a fast breath through his nose, like he’s been hurt. ‘If I had just remembered that azalea plant, if I had just stayed there watching her— I would have been there. When he came. And I could have, I would have . . .’
His mouth starts to curl up. He presses his knuckles to it. I can feel Breslin clamping down a snide grin at the image of Rory throwing on his cape and tights and beating the shit out of the villain. Rory has presumably run through a couple of hundred variations on that scenario.
He says, through his fingers, ‘But I didn’t do any of that. I skipped off to Tesco like an idiot, and while I was gone someone came along and killed Aislinn. I may have seen him, but I didn’t even take it in, because I was utterly oblivious to everything except my own happy bubble. And when she didn’t answer her door, I waited and waited because I couldn’t find a way to believe that she had changed her mind, when just a few minutes earlier she had been acting like she couldn’t wait to see me. I was standing in the cold, trying to understand how that was possible, while she was lying inside, dead or dying. And in the end, instead of having the brains to realise that something had to be wrong and breaking the door in, I went home to feel sorry for myself. That’s it. That’s what happened.’
‘Jesus, Rory,’ I say reproachfully. ‘Why didn’t you tell us straight out?’
‘Because I know how it sounds! I know it makes me come across like some . . . I can’t expect you to understand what it was actually like.’
‘I’m doing my best. It’d be a lot easier if you’d told us the truth right away.’
‘I’m telling you now.’
Under the table, I touch my foot to Breslin’s ankle. He says, without missing a beat, ‘Well. Part of the truth, anyway. That wasn’t the only time you watched Aislinn. Was it?’
Rory’s eyes flash to him and to me and away to a corner. He picks fast. ‘Yes. That was the first time.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
I say, ‘That’s why you needed your moment out the back, to take in that this was real. Because you’d watched her in that kitchen, and daydreamed about going in there, so many times before. Right?’
‘Just like the guy in your scenario,’ Breslin says. ‘Your hypothetical scenario.’
‘It was hypothetical. You asked me to imagine—’
‘That moment must’ve felt amazing, did it?’ I ask. ‘After all those times when you’d had to turn around and go home again, in the cold . . .’
‘It— Yes, it felt wonderful. But not because I’d been— I wasn’t stalking Aislinn, I wasn’t—’
Rory’s starting to gibber again. ‘Shh,’ Breslin says.
‘What?’
‘Shh.’ Breslin picks up his file. ‘I want to show you something.’
He leans back and leafs through the file at his leisure, pausing occasionally to lick his thumb. Rory watches with his hands clenching the edge of the table, like he’s ready to leap out of his chair, but he keeps his mouth shut. His control isn’t completely gone.
‘Here.’ Breslin throws a handful of photos, big eight-by-tens, across the table. Rory grabs at them and sends them scattering. He catches one, takes one look and makes a high, startled whimper.
Breslin says, ‘Pick up the rest of them.’
Rory doesn’t move. His head is down over the photo, but his eyes aren’t focusing.
‘Pick them up.’
Rory moves automatically, stacking the photos one by one. His fingers are trembling.
‘Look at them.’
He braces himself before he goes through them, but every image still gets a hard blink out of him. Breslin tells the video camera, ‘I’ve just shown Mr Fallon images from CCTV footage taken in Stoneybatter over the past month.’
There’s a silence.
‘Rory. That’s you in those pictures. We can all agree on that, can’t we?’
More silence. Then Rory’s head moves, just a twitch: yes.
‘For the tape.’
‘Yes.’
Breslin leans forward – Rory flinches – and brings down a finger on the top photo, the face staring straight into the Tesco camera. ‘This is you. On the fourteenth of this month.’