The blood results from the stains on my shoes and the drop on the altar stone were due back any day. Through the submarine haze in which I was navigating, this was one of the few things that remained clear in my mind. Just about every other lead had crashed and burned; this was all I had left, and I held on to it with grim desperation. I was sure, with a certainty far beyond logic, that all we needed was a DNA match; that if we got it everything else would fall into place with the soft precision of snowflakes, the case—both cases—spreading out before me, perfect and dazzling.
I was aware, vaguely, that if this happened we would need Adam Ryan’s DNA for comparison, and that Detective Rob would very probably vanish forever in a puff of scandal-flavored smoke. At the time, though, this didn’t always seem like such a bad idea. On the contrary: there were moments when I looked forward to it with a kind of dull relief. It seemed—since I knew I had neither the guts nor the energy to extricate myself from this hideous mess—my only, or at least my simplest, way out.
Sophie, who believes in multitasking, phoned me from her car. “The DNA guys called,” she said. “Bad news.”
“Hey,” I said, shooting upright and swiveling my chair around so that my back was to the others. “What’s up?” I tried to keep my voice casual, but O’Gorman stopped whistling and I heard the rustle of Cassie putting down a page.
“Those blood samples are useless—both of them, the shoes and the one Helen found.” She smacked her horn. “Jesus Christ, idiot, pick a lane, any lane!…The lab tried everything, but they’re way too degraded for DNA. Sorry about that, but I did warn you.”
“Yeah,” I said, after a moment. “It’s been that kind of case. Thanks, Sophie.”
I hung up and stared at the phone. Cassie, across the table, asked tentatively, “What did she say?” but I didn’t answer.
That evening, on my walk home from the DART, I rang Rosalind. It went against all my loudest instincts to do this to her—I had wanted, very badly, to leave her alone until she was ready to talk, let her choose her own time for this rather than forcing her back against the wall; but she was all I had left.
She came in on the Thursday morning, and I went down to meet her in Reception, just as I had that first time, all those weeks ago. A part of me had been afraid she would change her mind at the last minute and not show up, and my heart lifted when I saw her, sitting in a big chair with her cheek leaning pensively on her hand and a rose-colored scarf trailing. It was good to see someone young and pretty; I hadn’t realized, until that moment, how exhausted and gray and jaded we were all starting to look. That scarf seemed like the first note of color I had seen in days.
“Rosalind,” I said, and saw her face light up.
“Detective Ryan!”
“It’s just occurred to me,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
She gave me a conspiratorial sideways look. “My teacher likes me. I won’t get in trouble.” I knew I ought to lecture her about the evils of truancy, or something, but I couldn’t help it: I laughed.
The door opened and Cassie came in from outside, tucking her cigarettes into her jeans pocket. She met my eyes for a second, glanced at Rosalind; then she brushed past us, up the stairs.
Rosalind bit her lip and looked up at me, her face troubled. “Your partner’s annoyed that I’m here, isn’t she?”
“Well, that’s not really her problem,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“Oh, it’s all right.” Rosalind managed a small smile. “She’s never liked me very much, has she?”
“Detective Maddox doesn’t dislike you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Detective Ryan, really. I’m used to it. A lot of girls don’t like me. My mother says”—she ducked her head, embarrassed—“my mother says it’s because they’re jealous, but I don’t see how that could be true.”
“I do,” I said, smiling down at her. “But I don’t think that’s the case with Detective Maddox. That had nothing to do with you. OK?”
“Did you have a fight?” she asked timidly, after a moment.
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
I held the door open for her, and we crossed the cobbles towards the gardens. Rosalind’s brow was furrowed thoughtfully. “I wish she didn’t dislike me so much. I really admire her, you know. It can’t be easy being a woman detective.”
“It’s not easy being a detective, period,” I said. I did not want to talk about Cassie. “We manage.”
“Yes, but it’s different for women,” she told me, a little reproachfully.
“How’s that?” She was so young and earnest; I knew she would be offended if I laughed.
“Well, for example…Detective Maddox must be at least thirty, isn’t she? She must want to get married soon, and have children, and things like that. Women can’t afford to wait like men can, you know. And being a detective must make it hard to have a serious relationship, doesn’t it? It must be a lot of pressure for her.”
A vicious twist of unease caught at my stomach. “I don’t think Detective Maddox is the broody type,” I said.
Rosalind looked troubled, little white teeth catching at her bottom lip. “You’re probably right,” she said, carefully. “But you know, Detective Ryan…sometimes, when you’re close to someone, you miss things. Other people can see them, but you can’t.”
That twist tightened. A part of me badly wanted to push her, to find out what exactly it was that she had seen in Cassie and I had missed; but the past week had brought it home to me, with considerable force, that there are some things in this life we are better off not knowing. “Detective Maddox’s personal life isn’t my problem,” I said. “Rosalind…”
But she had darted off, down one of the carefully wild little pathways that ring the grass, calling back over her shoulder: “Oh, Detective Ryan—look! Isn’t it lovely?”
Her hair danced in the sun coming through the leaves, and in spite of everything I smiled. I followed her down the pathway—we were going to need privacy anyway, for this conversation—and caught up with her at a secluded little bench overhung by branches, birds twittering in the bushes all around. “Yes,” I said, “it’s lovely. Would you like to talk here?”
She settled herself on the bench and gazed up at the trees with a happy little sigh. “Our secret garden.”
It was idyllic, and I hated the thought of wrecking it. For a moment I let myself toy with the thought of ditching the whole purpose of this meeting, having a chat about how she was doing and what a beautiful day it was and then sending her home; of being, for a few minutes, just a guy sitting in the sunshine talking to a pretty girl.
“Rosalind,” I said, “I need to ask you about something. This is going to be very difficult, and I wish I knew some way to make it easier on you, but I don’t. I wouldn’t be asking you if I had any other choice. I need you to help me. Will you try?”
Something crossed her face, a flash of some vivid emotion, but it was gone before I could pinpoint it. She clasped her hands around the rails of the bench on either side, bracing herself. “I’ll do my best.”
“Your father and mother,” I said, keeping my voice very gentle and even. “Has either of them ever hurt you or your sisters?”
Rosalind gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stared at me over it, eyes round and startled, until she realized what she had done, snatched her hand away and clasped it tightly around the rail again. “No,” she said, in a strained, compressed little voice. “Of course not.”
“I know you must be frightened. I can protect you. I promise.”
“No.” She shook her head, biting her lip, and I knew she was on the verge of tears. “No.”
I leaned closer and put my hand over hers. She smelled of some flowery, musky scent decades too old for her. “Rosalind, if something’s wrong, we need to know. You’re in danger.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Jessica’s in danger, too. I know you take care of her, but you can’t keep doing that on your own forever. Please, let me help you.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered. Her hand was trembling under mine. “I can’t, Detective Ryan. I just can’t.”
She almost broke my heart. This fragile, indomitable slip of a girl: in a situation that would have crippled people twice her age, she was holding it together by the skin of her teeth, walking a slim tightrope twisted out of nothing but tenacity and pride and denial. That was all she had, and I, of all people, was trying to pull it out from under her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly horribly ashamed of myself. “There may come a time when you’re ready to talk about this, and when that happens, I’ll be right here. But until then…I shouldn’t have tried to push you. I’m sorry.”
“You’re so kind to me,” she murmured. “I can’t believe you’ve been so kind.”
“I just wish I could help you,” I said. “I wish I knew how.”
“I…I don’t trust people easily, Detective Ryan. But if I trust anyone, it’ll be you.”
We sat there in silence. Rosalind’s hand was soft under mine, and she didn’t move it away.
Then she turned her hand, slowly, and interlaced her fingers in mine. She was smiling at me, an intimate little smile with a dare lurking in the corners.
I caught my breath. It went through me like an electric current, how badly I wanted to lean forward and cup my hand around the back of her head and kiss her. Images tumbled in my mind—crisp hotel sheets and her curls falling free, buttons under my fingers, Cassie’s drawn face—and I wanted this girl who was like no girl I had ever known, wanted her not in spite of her moods and her secret bruises and her sad attempts at artifice but because of them, because of them all. I could see myself reflected, tiny and dazzled and moving closer, in her eyes.
She was eighteen years old and she might still end up being my main witness; she was more vulnerable than she would ever be again in her life; and she idolized me. She did not need to find out the hard way that I had developed a tendency to wreck everything I touched. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and disengaged my hand from hers.
“Rosalind,” I said.
Her face had shuttered over. “I should go,” she said coldly.
“I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing you need.”
“Well, you have.” She slung her bag over her shoulder, not looking at me. Her mouth was set in a tight line.
“Rosalind, please, wait—” I reached out for her hand, but she whipped it away.
“I thought you cared about me. Obviously, I was wrong. You just let me think so because you wanted to see if I knew anything about Katy. You wanted what you could get from me, just like everyone else.”
“That’s not true,” I began; but she was gone, clicking down the path with angry little steps, and I knew there was no point in going after her. The birds in the bushes scattered, with a harsh tattoo of wings, as she passed.
My head was spinning. I gave her a few minutes to calm down and then rang her mobile, but she didn’t answer. I left a babbling, apologetic message on her voicemail; then I hung up and slumped back on the bench.
“Shit,” I said aloud, to the empty bushes.