I kept one eye on my watch and the other on the one-way glass. Five minutes had never lasted so long, but they were lasting even longer for Conor. That taut control had exploded into pieces: he was shifting his arse like the seat was heating up, drumming his feet, biting his cuticles bloody. Richie watched him with interest and said nothing. Finally Conor demanded, “Who was that?”
Richie shrugged. “How would I know?”
“What you’ve been waiting for, he said.”
“We’ve been waiting for a lot of things.”
“Hospital. What hospital?”
Richie rubbed at the back of his neck. “Man,” he said, halfway between amused and embarrassed, “don’t know if you’ve missed this, but we’re working on a case here, yeah? We don’t go around telling people what we’re at.”
Conor forgot Richie existed. He propped his elbows on the table, folded his fingers across his mouth and stared at the door.
I gave him another minute. Then I came in fast, slammed the door and told Richie, “We’re in business.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Beautiful.”
I swung a chair around to Conor’s side of the table and sat down, my knees practically touching his. “Conor,” I said, slapping the phone down in front of him. “Tell me who you think that was.”
He shook his head. He was staring at the phone. I could feel his mind speeding, caroming at wild angles like a race car gone out of control.
“Listen carefully, fella: as of now, you do not have time to dick me around. You may not know it yet, but all of a sudden you are in a big, big hurry. So tell me: who do you think that was?”
After a moment Conor said, low, into his fingers, “Hospital.”
“What?”
A breath. He made himself straighten up. “You said. A hospital.”
“That’s better. And why do you think a hospital would be ringing me?”
Another head-shake.
I slapped the table, just hard enough to make him jump. “Did you hear what I just said about dicking me around? Wake up and pay attention. It’s five in the bloody A.M., there’s nothing in my world except the Spain case, and I just got a call from a hospital. Now why the fuck do you think that might be, Conor?”
“One of them. One of them’s in that hospital.”
“That’s right. You fucked up, son. You left one of the Spains alive.”
The muscles in his throat were clenched so tight that his voice came out a hoarse rasp. “Which one?”
“You tell me, fella. Who would you like it to be? Go on. If you had to choose, which one of them would it be?”
He would have answered anything to make me go on. After a moment he said, “Emma.”
I leaned back in my chair and laughed out loud. “That’s adorable. Really, it is. That sweet little girl: you figure maybe she deserved a shot at life? Too late, Conor. The time to think about that was two nights ago. Emma’s in a morgue drawer right now. Her brain’s in a jar.”
“Then who—”
“Were you out at Brianstown night before last?”
He was half out of his chair, clutching the edge of the table, crouched and wild-eyed. “Who—”
“I asked you a question. Night before last. Were you out there, Conor?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I was there. Who—which—”
“Say please, fella.”
“Please.”
“That’s better. The one you missed was Jenny. Jenny’s alive.”
Conor stared at me. His mouth opened wide, but all that came out was a great rush of breath, like he had been punched in the stomach.
“She’s alive and kicking, and that was her doctor on the phone, telling me she’s awake and wants to talk to us. And we all know what she’s going to say, don’t we?”
He barely heard me. He gasped for air, again and again.
I shoved him down into his seat; he went like his knees had turned liquid. “Conor. Listen to me. I told you that you’ve got no time to waste, and I wasn’t joking. In just a couple of minutes, we’re going to head over to the hospital to talk to Jenny Spain. And as soon as that happens, I will never again in my life give a damn about anything you have to say. This is it: your last chance.”
That reached him. He stared, slack-jawed and wild.
I pulled my chair even nearer, leaned in till our heads were almost touching. Richie slid around and sat on the table, close enough that his thigh pressed against Conor’s arm. “Let me explain something to you,” I said, quiet and even, straight into his ear. I could smell him, sweat and a wild tang like split wood. “I happen to believe that basically, deep down, you’re a decent guy. Everyone else you meet from here on in, every single person, is going to believe you’re a sick, sadistic, psychopathic bastard who should be skinned alive and hung out to dry. I may be losing the bit I have, and I may end up regretting this, but I don’t agree. I think you’re a good guy who somehow ended up in a shit situation.”
His eyes were blind, but that got a tiny twitch of his eyebrows: he was hearing me. “Because of that, and because I know nobody else is going to give you a break, I’m willing to make you a deal. You prove me right, tell me what happened, and I’ll tell the prosecutors you helped us out: you did the right thing, because you felt remorse. When it comes time for your sentencing, that’s going to matter. In a courtroom, Conor, remorse equals concurrent sentences. But if you show me that I’m wrong about you, if you keep on dicking me around, that’s what I’m going to tell the prosecutors, and the whole lot of us are going to go for broke. I don’t like being wrong about people, Conor; it pisses me off. We’ll charge you with everything we can think of, and we’ll go for consecutive sentences. Do you know what that means?”
He shook his head: clearing it or saying no, I couldn’t tell which. I get no say in the sentencing and not a lot in the charges, and any judge who would give out concurrent sentences on dead children needs a straitjacket and a punch in the gob, but none of that mattered. “That means three life sentences in a row, Conor, plus a few years on top for the attempted murder and the burglaries and the destruction of property and whatever else we can whip out. We’re talking about sixty years, minimum. How old are you, Conor? What are your odds of seeing a release date that’s sixty years away?”
“Ah, he might see it,” Richie objected, leaning in to examine him critically. “They look after you, in prison: don’t want you getting out early, even if it’s in a coffin. I’ve gotta warn you, man, the company’s gonna be shite—you won’t be let into the general population ’cause you’d last about two days, you’ll be in the secure unit with all the pedos, so the conversation’s gonna be pretty fucked-up—but at least you’ll have loads of time to make friends.”
That twitch of his eyebrows again: that had got through. “Or,” I said, “you could save yourself a lot of hell, right here. With concurrent sentences, do you know how many years we’re talking about? Around fifteen. That’s bugger-all. How old will you be in fifteen years?”
“My maths isn’t great,” Richie said, giving him another interested once-over, “but I’d say maybe forty-four, forty-five? And I don’t have to be Einstein to figure out there’s a massive difference between getting out at forty-five and getting out at ninety.”
“My partner the human calculator is spot on, Conor. Forty-whatever is still young enough to have a career, get married, have half a dozen kids. Have a life. I don’t know if you realize this, old son, but that’s what I’m putting on the table here: your life. But this is a one-time-only offer, and it expires in five minutes. If your life’s worth anything to you, son, anything at all, better start talking.”
Conor’s head fell back, exposing the long line of his throat, the soft spot at its base where the blood beats just below the skin. “My life,” he said, and his lip curled in something that could have been a snarl or a terrible smile. “Do whatever you want to me. I don’t give a damn.”
He planted his fists on the table, set his jaw and stared straight ahead, into the one-way glass.