The face on him says he expects me to be all moved. ‘Shame you didn’t find out a few weeks earlier,’ I say. ‘You could’ve got your Christmas shopping in.’
‘Is that really necessary?’ He nods at my gun. ‘You must know I have no intention of hurting you. And it does put a damper on the conversation.’
There’s a smile at one corner of his mouth, a smile that he expects to work. A charmer, this guy. Shame that gene skipped a generation.
‘There’s no conversation,’ I say. If Steve had the sense to do what I told him, he’s in his car and well gone by now, too far for this guy to chase him down and try to pump him for info. ‘You’re leaving.’
That takes the smile away. He says, carefully, ‘I realise you must be angry with me—’
‘I’m not angry. I’m done with you. Go on.’ I motion at the door with the gun.
‘No,’ he says. His hands come up towards me. ‘Let me stay. Please. Just for a little while; an hour. Half an hour. If you still want me to leave after that, I will.’
I say, ‘Out. Now.’
‘Wait.’ He hasn’t moved, but his voice sounds like a leap to bar the door. ‘Please. I’m not going to pry. You can tell me as much as you like, or nothing – it’s up to you. And I’ll tell you anything you want to know – you must have questions. Anything. Just ask me.’
Here it is: my deepest and darkest, the one that no best mate or partner or lover will ever know. In that second I see what Aislinn saw. I see the moment she chased over barriers and through muck and out the other side of death; it bursts into my house like ball lightning and it sings in front of me, an arm’s reach away. What’s your name, how did you and my ma meet, why did you go, where have you been, what do you do, tell me all of it, all . . . I see me tilting like a hawk high in warm air, while below me he unrolls all my might-have-beens, for me to circle above at my leisure till every fork and tributary is stamped into my mind, reclaimed and mine. I see him opening his cloak to show me all the lost pages of my story written in silver on the night-sky lining.
‘OK,’ I say. I lower the gun. ‘Yeah: I’ve got questions.’ I can hardly breathe.
‘And I can stay. Half an hour.’
‘Sure. Why not.’
He nods. He waits, gazing at me too intently to blink, hanging for the questions like they’re the best gift I could ever give him.
They would be. This is what my ma was telling me, through all her bullshit fairy tales. If I let him give me the answers, he’ll own me. Everything in my life, past and future, will be his: what he decides to make it into.
I say, ‘How’d you track me down?’
He blinks then.
‘You said anything I want to know.’
He glances at the sofa. ‘May I sit down?’
‘No. First you start answering. Then I’ll see.’
A wry quirk of one eyebrow, like he’s decided to humour an overwrought kid. I use that look on witnesses sometimes. ‘All right. I went to my local shop on Sunday afternoon, to buy my newspaper. While I was in the queue, I glanced at the other papers on the stand. Your photograph was on a front page. I knew as soon as I saw you.’
It sends red straight through me: he’s got no right recognising me. ‘So?’ I say. ‘What’d you do?’
‘I looked you up in the phone book, but you’re unlisted. I was certain your work wouldn’t give me any information. So I rang the paper and asked to speak to the journalist who had written the article. I told him who I was – I could hardly expect him to give me any information otherwise – and that I was hoping to get in touch but uncertain of my welcome.’ A dry glance at the gun. ‘With good reason, apparently.’
‘And he just handed over my address?’ Even for Crowley, that doesn’t ring true; Crowley does nothing for nothing. ‘What’d you give him?’
‘I haven’t given him anything.’
I know that crisp snap of denial, too; too well to fall for it. ‘Yet,’ I say. ‘What’d you promise him?’
He thinks about lying, but he’s too smart to risk it. ‘The journalist said he could provide me with an address for you. In exchange for an interview after our meeting.’
I can just picture it. Top Cop’s Childhood Anguish; side-by-side photos of my shitty block of flats and his detached house in a leafy suburb; ‘All the time she was searching for the truth on the job, she was really searching for me,’ sobs long-lost dad. Not the front page, or anything; part of some glurge spread about fatherless women. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. Crowley wouldn’t even need to publish it; he could just wave it under my nose and demand every scoop I ever have, and know I would hand them over.
I say, ‘And you said yeah, sure, no problem.’
‘I wasn’t overjoyed about the prospect. Baring my soul for some tabloid isn’t something I ever envisioned myself doing. But I would have done much more than that to find you.’
He doesn’t come across like an idiot, although you never can tell. I say, ‘Or you could have just rung up my work and asked for me. Or sent me a letter.’
‘I could have, yes.’ He runs a palm down one cheek and sighs. ‘I’ll be honest. I wanted the chance to observe you for a while, before making that commitment.’
Meaning he wanted the chance to decide whether I was good enough to contact. If I’d had a fella in a shiny tracksuit, half a dozen screaming brats and a smoke hanging off my lip, he could have turned around and gone home: no harm, no foul, story ended before it began.
Maybe he even believes that’s why he did it this way, but I don’t. I know exactly what he was at. Playing this the approved way – break the news nice and gently from a distance, have a few careful getting-to-know-you phone calls, meet on neutral territory when everyone’s comfortable with it, all that shite – that would’ve let me decide when and whether. This guy was never going to do that. He wanted this situation – wanted me – on his terms, start to finish. Unlucky for him, that gene didn’t skip a generation.
I say, ‘So you spent the next three days hanging around outside my gaff like a peeper.’
That flares his nostrils. ‘I don’t enjoy admitting it. But I said I would tell you anything you asked. I hope now you realise I meant it.’
‘Your journalist buddy gets nothing. First thing tomorrow, you ring him and tell him you had the wrong woman. And make it convincing.’
His head lifts. Pride looks good on him and he knows it. ‘I gave him my word.’
He wants me to beg, or stamp my foot and remind him he owes me more than he owes some hack. I laugh, one crack – I’m not going to give him more. ‘What’s he gonna do, sue?’
‘Obviously not. But I prefer to fulfil my obligations.’ When the corner of my mouth lifts: ‘And I don’t think either of us particularly wants him as an enemy.’
‘Trust me: you’d rather have him for an enemy than me. You think I don’t have friends on the force around your way? You want to spend the rest of your life being pulled over and breathalysed every time you get in your car? Brought in for questioning every time a kid says the bad man had brown skin?’