Richie nodded again. He pulled off his jacket and three heavy jumpers and dropped them on a chair, leaving him narrow and gangly as a teenager in a long-sleeved navy T-shirt that had been washed thin. He stood at the glass, no fidgeting, and watched the guy hunch lower over the table until I checked my watch and said, “Go.” Then he ran a hand through his hair so it stood up on end, got two cups of water from the cooler, and went.
He did it nicely. He went in holding out a cup and saying, “Sorry, man, I meant to bring this in to you before, only I got caught up . . . Is that all right for you? Would you have a cup of tea instead, yeah?” His accent had got thicker. The class thing had occurred to him, too.
Our man had jumped half out of his skin when the door opened, and he was still catching his breath. He shook his head.
Richie hovered, looking fifteen. “You sure? Coffee?”
Another head-shake.
“Grand. You’ll let me know if you need more of this, yeah?”
The guy nodded and reached for the water. The chair rocked under his weight. “Ah, hang on,” Richie said. “He’s after giving you the dud chair.” Quick surreptitious glance at the door, like I might be behind it. “Go on: swap over. Have this one.”
Our man shuffled awkwardly across. Probably it made no difference—all the chairs in the interview rooms are chosen to be uncomfortable—but he said, so low I barely heard him, “Thanks.”
“No problem. Detective Richie Curran.” He held out a hand.
Our man didn’t take it. He said, “Do I have to tell you my name?” His voice was low and even, good to listen to, with a slight rough edge like it hadn’t got much use lately. The accent gave me nothing; he could have been from anywhere.
Richie looked surprised. “Do you not want to? Why not?”
After a moment he said, to himself, “. . . make any difference . . .” To Richie, with a mechanical handshake: “Conor.”
“Conor what?”
A fraction of a second. “Doyle.” It wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Come morning we would find either his house or his car, or both, and strip them to the bones looking for, among other things, his ID. All we needed for now was something to call him.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Doyle. Detective Kennedy’ll be here in a while, then yous can get started.” Richie balanced the edge of his arse on a corner of the table. “I’ll tell you now, I’m only delighted you showed up. I was dying to get out of there, I was. I know people pay good money to go camping up by the sea and all, but the countryside isn’t my style, know what I mean?”
Conor shrugged, a small, jerky movement. “It’s peaceful.”
“I’m not mad about peaceful. City boy, me; give me the noise and the traffic any day. And I was freezing my bollix off, as well. Are you from up there, are you?”
Conor glanced up sharply, but Richie was slugging at his water and watching the door, just making small talk while he waited for me. Conor said, “No one’s from Brianstown. They just move there.”
“That’s what I meant: are you living there, yeah? Jaysus, you couldn’t pay me enough.”
He waited, all mild innocuous curiosity, till Conor said, “No. Dublin.”
Not local. Richie had knocked out one angle and saved us a lot of hassle right there. He raised his cup in a cheerful toast. “Up the Dubs. No better place. And wild horses couldn’t drag us away, amn’t I right?”
Another shrug. “I’d live down the country. Depending.”
Richie hooked an ankle around a spare chair and pulled it over for his feet, getting comfortable for an interesting chat. “Would you, seriously? Depending on what?”
Conor wiped a palm up his jaw, hard, trying to pull it together: Richie was nudging him off balance, poking little holes in his concentration. “Dunno. If you had a family. Space for the kids to play.”
“Ah,” Richie said, pointing a finger at him. “There you go, see. I’m a single man: I need somewhere I can get a few drinks in, meet a few girls. Can’t live without that, know what I mean?”
I had been right to send him in. He was relaxed as a sunbather and doing a beautiful job. I was willing to bet that Conor had gone into that room with the intention of keeping his lip firmly zipped, for years if necessary. Every detective, even Quigley, has knacks, little things that he does better than anyone else around: we all know who to call if we want a witness reassured by the expert, or a quick bit of intimidation done right. Richie had one of the rarest knacks of all. He could make a witness believe, against all the evidence, that they were just two people talking, the same way the two of us had talked while we waited in that hide; that Richie was seeing not a solve in the making, not a bad guy who needed locking up for the good of society, but another human being. It was good to know.
Conor said, “That gets old, the going out. You stop wanting it.”
Richie’s hands went up. “Take your word for that, man. What do you start wanting instead?”
“Something to come home to. A wife. Kids. A bit of peace. The simple stuff.”
It moved through his voice, slow and heavy, like a shadow looming under dark water: grief. For the first time, I felt a flick of empathy for the guy. The disgust that came with it almost shot me into the interview room to get to work on him.
Richie held up crossed index fingers. “Sooner you than me,” he said cheerfully.
“Wait.”
“I’m twenty-three. Long while to go before the biological clock kicks in.”
“Wait. Nightclubs, all the girls made up to look exactly like each other, everyone pissed off their heads so they can act like someone they’re not. After a while, it’ll make you sick.”
“Ah. Got burned, yeah? Brought home a babe and woke up with a hound?”
Richie was grinning. Conor said, “Maybe. Something like that.”
“Been there, man. The beer goggles are a bastard. So where do you go looking for chicks, if the clubs don’t do it for you?”
Shrug. “I don’t go out much.”
He was starting to turn his shoulder to Richie, block him out: time to change things up. I went for the interview room with a bang: sweeping the door open, spinning a chair over to face Conor—Richie slid off the table and into a chair next to me, fast—throwing myself back in it, shooting my cuffs. “Conor,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’d love to get this sorted out fast enough that we can all get some sleep tonight. What do you say?”
Before he could come up with an answer, I held up a hand. “Whoa, hang on there, Speedy Gonzalez. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say, but you’ll get your turn. Let me share a few things with you first.” They need to be taught that you own them now; that from this moment on, you’re the one who decides when they talk, drink, smoke, sleep, piss. “I’m Detective Kennedy, this is Detective Curran, and you’re just here to answer some questions for us. You’re not under arrest, nothing like that, but we need a chat. I’m pretty sure you know what all this is about.”
Conor shook his head, one heavy shake. He was dropping back towards that weighted silence, but I was fine with that, for the moment anyway.
“Ah, man,” Richie said reproachfully. “Come on. What d’you think it’s about? The Great Train Robbery?”
No response. “Leave the man alone, Detective Curran. He’s only doing what he was told, aren’t you, Conor? Wait your turn, I said, and that’s what he’s doing. I like that. It’s good to have the ground rules clear.” I steepled my fingers on the table and examined them thoughtfully. “Now, Conor, I’m sure spending your night like this doesn’t make you a happy man. I can see your point there. But if you look at this properly, if you really look at it, this is your lucky night.”
He shot me a look of pure jagged incredulity.
“It’s true, my friend. You know and we know that you shouldn’t have been setting up camp in that house, because it’s not yours, now is it?”
Nothing. “Or maybe I’m wrong,” I said, with the corner of a grin. “Maybe if we check with the developers, they’ll tell us you put down a nice big chunk of deposit, will they? Do I owe you an apology, fella? Are you on that property ladder after all?”
“No.”