‘I’m seeing Lucy tomorrow. I’ll ring Sophie about the folder first thing. If either of them gives us anything solid, then we’ll review.’ I can hear the danger signs rising in my voice. ‘But right now: zero reason. Zero.’
‘The DNA on Aislinn’s mattress.’
‘That didn’t get there on Saturday night, or it would’ve been on the sheets as well. It’s got nothing to do with our case.’
Steve has stopped moving. He’s looking off down the corridor at the window – dark sky, layered in a thick yellowish vapour of light pollution – not at me.
I say, ‘You saw Rory in there. You heard him. Don’t you fucking tell me you still have doubts.’
It takes him too long to answer. I leave him there.
I’m pulling my coat on when it hits me: Breslin made it through the entire afternoon without once trying to hint that he’s on the take.
That should be a relief, but instead it jabs like a needle under a fingernail. As far as I can see, there’s no reason why Breslin should have suddenly, in the couple of hours I was away talking to Aislinn’s exes, decided to ditch his whole ornate cunning plan. He was doing a lovely job of setting me up – a few more nudges and, if it hadn’t been for Fleas, I would have been right in position for the kill shot – and out of nowhere he dropped the whole project and wandered away. I flick back mentally through the day, my chat with McCann, the floaters’ reports, checking for anything that could have made him change course: anything that might have tipped him off that I’d sussed him, or anything that could have made him decide I wasn’t worth owning after all. There’s nothing.
The only possibility left is the one jabbing deeper: Breslin knows, somehow, that there’s no point to that shite any more. The words I’m going to say to the gaffer stink like burning hair all around me, brand my face with their growing shadow. Breslin took one look at me and knew, with those dense-packed twenty years’ worth of detective instincts, that the kill shot had already been fired. He knew I’m worthless now.
Chapter 13
All the way home I’m waiting for something, or someone: another uniform pulling me over, the lamppost guy leaping out in front of my car as I turn onto my road, Fleas sticking his head out of the darkness in my kitchen. Nothing happens. My street is a blank; as soon as I step into the house, I know it’s empty. I clear it anyway.
I’m craving sleep, a lot of it, ideally with someone armed and trustworthy outside my bedroom door, but I’m not going to bed till I know I’m wrecked enough to crash out the second I hit the sheets. There’s a whole list of stuff I’m not gonna think about tonight, but it covers so much territory and I’m so tired that my mind keeps getting mixed up and letting bits slip through. For half a second, before I pull myself up sharp, I wonder what Steve is doing.
There’s fuck-all in my fridge, and me and Fleas killed off my emergency fish fingers. I ring my ma and tell her about Sophie’s vase, which has blood spatter on it because two scumbags broke into an old woman’s gaff and punched her in the stomach till she puked blood, to which my ma says ‘Huh.’ She doesn’t bring up Aislinn and neither do I. While she smokes, I make coffee and a pile of toast, cut the green bit off an old chunk of cheese, and take the lot into the sitting room.
No wind shoving at the window tonight; it’s died down, leaving a thick, still cold. I look out into the dark and think, Come on, motherfucker. Come and get me. I leave the curtains wide open.
I’ve got an e-mail from Fleas. Hiya Rach! Great to hear from you. No news here, all the gang are OK, no one doin anythin special. Kinda busy at the mo but love to meet up sometime when we both have the free time. Take care sunshine xx. Meaning no one in his corner of the underworld is suddenly drowning his sorrows or looking twitchy or sobbing on Fleas’s shoulder about his dead girlfriend. And meaning bye, see you someday maybe.
Sophie’s team didn’t find any dating sites on Aislinn’s laptop, but they haven’t reported back on her work computer yet. I take a look at Random Google Blonde’s accounts. She’s doing well for herself: dozens of messages. About a quarter of them are dick pics, which are presumably meant to send her running for her smelling salts rather than to start off meaningful relationships, although you never know. Most of the rest are one-line nothing, guys shotgunning all the pretty girls who join up, hoping one will bite. Two of them are worth a closer look. No photos, careful wording about no strings and discretion: married guys looking for fun on the side, and looking for a girl who matches Aislinn’s specs to join them.
I’m working on my reply when something moves, in the corner of my eye. I whip around, not fast enough. A big dark shape skims away from my window before I can get a decent look.
I grab my keys and dive for the door. By the time I get it open, the road is empty.
I head for my car, forcing myself to keep the pace casual: just getting something I forgot, no biggie. My breath puffs clouds into the air, but the cold doesn’t touch me. I smell turf smoke and hear cars zipping past the top of the road and feel my leg muscles throbbing to go.
I’m pulling open the car door when the light twitches. There’s someone under the streetlamp at the top of the road: a tall guy, hovering. I slam the car door and take one step in that direction and he vanishes, into the dark around the corner, going at a fair old clip.
I’m pretty sure I’m faster than him, but Stoneybatter is good for twists and laneways, and if he knows his way around, he’s gone. Even if he doesn’t, he can just nip into a pub, turn and stare with the rest if I come bursting in; what am I gonna do about it? I need to nab him on my own turf.
I go back inside, pull the sitting-room curtains almost closed and watch the road through the crack at one side.
If I get another shot, it’ll be my last. One more close call and the guy’s gonna know for sure he’s been burned.
There isn’t a way for me to do this on my own. I run through every backup option I can think of – Fleas, Sophie, Gary, my mate Lisa, all my other mates, the neighbours. I even consider my ma. I swear to God, for a quarter of a second I consider Breslin.
I can’t do it. There’s no one, on all that list, who I can make myself ring up to say Hi, I can’t do this, come help me. To every single one of them, I’d be a different person after that call. The emptiness of my gaff feels dense enough to tilt it on its foundations.
The guy’s got some self-control, at least: it’s twenty-five minutes before a thicker darkness moves in the shadows outside the streetlamp’s circle. In the same second I feel my heartbeat rise to it, I realise that I’ve known all along what I’m gonna do.
The thicker darkness settles and stays. I get out my phone, I take a breath and I ring Steve.
It takes him a few rings to pick up. ‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi. Are you doing anything important?’
‘Not a lot.’