“I want to use her as a detective, mate,” Frank said. “Which is what she is, last time I checked.”
“You want to put her in there so this fella will come back to finish the job. That’s bait.”
“So? Undercovers are bait all the time. I’m not asking her to do anything I wouldn’t do myself in a heartbeat, if—”
“No,” Sam said. “No way.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “What are you, her ma?”
“I’m the lead investigator on this case, and I’m saying no way.”
“You might want to think about it for more than ten seconds, pal, before you—”
I might as well not have been there. “Hello?” I said.
They turned and stared at me. “Sorry,” Sam said, somewhere between sheepish and defiant.
“Hi,” Frank said, grinning at me.
“Frank,” I said, “this is officially the looniest idea I’ve ever heard in my life. You are off your bloody trolley. You are up the wall and tickling the bricks. You are—”
“What’s loony about it?” Frank demanded, injured.
“Jesus,” I said. I ran my hands through my hair and turned full circle, trying to figure out where to start. Hills, fields, spaced-out uniforms, cottage with dead girl: this wasn’t some messed-up dream. “OK, just for starters, it’s impossible. I’ve never even heard of anything like this before.”
“But that’s the beauty of it,” Frank explained.
“If you go under as someone who actually exists, it’s for like half an hour, Frank, and it’s to do something specific. It’s to do a drop-off or a pickup or something, from a stranger. You’re talking about me jumping right into the middle of this girl’s life, just because I look a bit like her—”
"A bit ?”
“Do you even know what color her eyes are? What if they’re blue, or—”
“Give me some credit, babe. They’re brown.”
“Or what if she programs computers, or plays tennis? What if she’s left-handed? It can’t be done. I’d be burned inside an hour.”
Frank pulled a squashed pack of smokes out of his jacket pocket and fished out a cigarette. He had that glint in his eye again; he loves a challenge. “I have every faith in you. Want a smoke?”
“No,” I said, even though I did. I couldn’t stop moving, up and down and around the patch of long grass between us. I don’t even like her, I wanted to say, which made no sense at all.
Frank shrugged and lit up. “Let me worry about whether it’s possible. It might not be, I’ll grant you that, but I’ll figure that out as we go along. What’s next?”
Sam was looking away, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, leaving me to it. “Next,” I said, “it’s somewhere out on the other side of unethical. This girl must have family, friends. You’re going to tell them she’s alive and well and just needs a few stitches, while she’s lying on a table in the morgue with Cooper slicing her open? Jesus, Frank.”
“She’s living under a fake name, Cass,” Frank said, reasonably. “You really think she’s in touch with her family? By the time we track them down, this will all be over. They’ll never know the difference.”
“So what about her mates? The uniforms said she lives with a bunch of others. What if she’s got a boyfriend?”
“The people who care about her,” Frank said, “will want us to catch the guy who did this to her. Whatever it takes. That’s what I’d want.” He blew smoke up at the sky.
Sam’s shoulders shifted. He thought Frank was just being smart-arsed. But Sam’s never done undercover, he had no way of knowing: undercovers are different. There is nothing they won’t do, to themselves or anyone else, to take their guy down. There was no point in arguing with Frank on this one, because he meant what he had said: if his kid were killed, and someone kept that from him in order to get the guy, he would take it without a murmur. It’s one of the most powerful lures of undercover, the ruthlessness, no borderlines; strong stuff, strong enough to take your breath away. It’s one of the reasons I left.
“And then what?” I said. “When it’s over. You tell them, ‘Oops, by the way, we forgot to mention, that’s a ringer; your mate died three weeks ago?’ Or do I keep being Lexie Madison till I can die of old age?”
Frank squinted into the sun, considering this. “Your wound can get infected,” he said, brightening. “You’ll go into the ICU and the doctors will try everything modern medicine can offer, but no go.”
“Jesus Christ on a bike,” I said. I felt like this was all I had said, all morning long. “What on earth is making this seem like a good idea to you?”
“What’s next?” Frank asked. “Come on, hit me.”
“Next,” Sam said, still looking away down the lane, “it’s bloody dangerous.”
Frank raised one eyebrow and tilted his head at Sam, giving me a wicked private grin. For an off-balance second I had to stop myself grinning back.
“Next,” I said, “it’s too late anyway. Byrne and Doherty and Whatsisname with the dog all know there’s a dead woman in there. You’re telling me you can get all three of them to keep their mouths shut, just because it suits you? Whatsisname’s probably told half of Wicklow already.”
“Whatsisname is Richard Doyle, and I’m not planning on getting him to keep his mouth shut. As soon as we’re done here, I’m going to go congratulate him on saving this young woman’s life. If he hadn’t shown great presence of mind by calling us immediately, the outcome could have been tragic. He’s a hero, and he can tell as many people as he likes. And you saw Byrne, babe. That’s not a happy little member of our glorious brotherhood. If I hint that there might be a transfer in it for him, not only will he keep his mouth shut, he’ll keep Doherty’s shut too. Next?”
“Next,” I said, “it’s pointless. Sam’s worked dozens of murders, Frank, and he’s solved most of them, without needing to pull any wack-job stunts. This thing you’re talking about would take weeks to set up—”
“Days, anyway,” Frank amended.
“—and by that time he’ll have someone. At least, he will if you don’t fuck up his investigation by getting everyone to pretend there’s no murder to begin with. All this will do is waste your time and mine and everyone else’s.”
“Would it fuck up your investigation?” Frank asked Sam. “Just hypothetically speaking. If you told the public—just for, say, a couple of days—that this was an assault, not a murder. Would it?”
Eventually Sam sighed. “No,” he said. “Not really, no. There’s not that much difference in investigating attempted murder and actual murder. And, like Cassie said, we’ll have to keep this pretty quiet for a few days anyway, till we find out who the victim is, so things don’t get too confused. But that’s not the point.”
“OK,” Frank said. “Then here’s what I suggest. Mostly you guys have a suspect within seventy-two hours, right?”
Sam said nothing.
“Right?”
“Right,” Sam said. “And there’s no reason why this should be different.”
“No reason at all,” Frank agreed, pleasantly. “Today’s Thursday. Just through the weekend, we keep our options open. We don’t tell civilians it’s a murder. Cassie stays home, so there’s no chance of the killer getting a glimpse of her, and we’ve got our ace up the sleeve if we decide to use it. I find out everything I can about this girl, just in case—that would need doing anyway, am I right? I won’t get in your way, you’ve got my word on that. Like you said, you’re bound to have someone in your sights by Sunday night. If you do, then I back off, Cassie goes back to DV, everything goes back to standard procedure, no harm done. If by any chance you don’t . . . well, we’ve still got all our options.”
Neither of us answered.
“I’m only asking for three days, guys,” Frank said. “No commitment to anything. What damage can that do?”
Sam looked marginally reassured by this, but I wasn’t, because I knew how Frank works: a series of little tiny steps, each one looking perfectly safe and innocuous until suddenly, bam, you’re smack in the middle of something you really did not want to deal with. “But why, Frank?” I asked. “Answer me that and yeah, fine, I’ll spend a gorgeous spring weekend sitting in my flat watching crap telly instead of going out with my boyfriend like a normal human being. You’re talking about throwing huge amounts of time and manpower at something that could well turn out to be completely pointless. Why?”
Frank whipped a hand up to shade his eyes so he could stare at me. “Why?” he repeated. “Jesus, Cassie! Because we can. Because nobody in the history of police work has ever had a chance like this. Because it would be bloody amazing. What, you’re not seeing that? What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you gone desk on me?”
I felt like he had hauled off and punched me in the stomach. I stopped pacing and turned away, looking out over the hillside, away from Frank and Sam and from the uniforms twisting their heads into the cottage to gawp at wet dead me.
After a moment Frank said behind me, softer, “Sorry, Cass. I just wasn’t expecting that. From the Murder gang, sure, but not from you, of all people. I didn’t think you meant . . . I thought you were just covering all the bases. I didn’t realize.”
He sounded genuinely stunned. I knew perfectly well he was working me and I could have listed every tool he was using, but it didn’t matter; because he was right. Five years earlier, one year earlier, I would have been leaping for this dazzling incomparable adventure right alongside him, I’d have been in there checking whether the dead girl’s ears were pierced and how she parted her hair. I looked out at the fields and thought, very distinctly and detachedly, What the fuck has happened to me?
“OK,” I said, finally. “What you tell the press isn’t my problem; you guys fight it out between you. I’ll stay out of the way for the weekend. But, Frank, I’m not promising you anything else. No matter who Sam finds or doesn’t find. This does not mean I’m doing it. Clear enough?”
“That’s my girl,” Frank said. I could hear the grin in his voice. “For a moment there I thought the aliens had planted a chip in your brain.”
“Fuck off, Frank,” I said, turning around. Sam didn’t look happy, but I couldn’t worry about that just then. I needed to get away on my own and think about this.
“I haven’t said yes yet,” Sam said.
“It’s your call, obviously,” Frank said. He didn’t seem too worried. I knew he might have more of a fight on his hands than he expected. Sam is an easygoing guy, but every now and then he puts his foot down, and then trying to change his mind is like trying to push a house out of your way. “Just call it fast. If we’re going with this, for now anyway, we’ll need to get an ambulance out here ASAP.”
“Let me know what you decide,” I told Sam. “I’m going home. See you tonight?” Frank’s eyebrows shot up. Undercovers have an impressive grapevine all their own, but they mostly stay away from the general gossip, in a slightly pointed way, and Sam and I had been keeping things fairly quiet. Frank gave me an amused look, tongue rolling in his cheek. I ignored him.
“I don’t know when I’ll finish up,” Sam said.
I shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“See you soon, babe,” Frank said happily, through another cigarette, and waved good-bye.
Sam walked me back down the field, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine protectively; I got the sense he didn’t want me to have to pass the body on my own. Actually, I badly wanted to have another look at it, preferably by myself and for a long silent time, but I could feel Frank’s eyes on my back, so I didn’t even turn my head as we passed the cottage.
“I wanted to warn you,” Sam said abruptly. “Mackey said no. He was pretty insistent about it, and I wasn’t thinking straight enough to . . . I should’ve. I’m sorry.”
Obviously Frank, like everyone else in my bloody universe, had heard the Operation Vestal rumors. “He wanted to see how I’d take it,” I said. “Checking my nerve. And he’s good at getting what he wants. It’s OK.”
“This Mackey. Is he a good cop?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. “Good cop” isn’t a phrase we take lightly. It means a vast complex constellation of things, and a different one for every officer. I wasn’t at all sure that Frank fit Sam’s definition, or even, come to think of it, mine. “He’s smart as hell,” I said, in the end, “and he gets his man. One way or another. Are you going to give him his three days?”
Sam sighed. “If you’re all right with staying in this weekend, then yeah, I’d say I will. It’ll do no harm, actually, keeping this case under the radar till we’ve some idea what we’re dealing with—an ID, a suspect, something. It’ll keep the confusion down. I’m not mad about giving her friends false hope, but sure, I suppose it could soften the blow—having the few days to get used to the chance that she might not make it . . .”
It was shaping up to be a gorgeous day; the sun was drying the grass and it was so quiet I could hear tiny insects zigzagging in and out among the wild-flowers. There was something about the green hillsides that made me edgy, something stubborn and secretive, like a turned back. It took me a second to figure out what it was: they were empty. Out of all Glenskehy, not one person had come to see what was going on.
Out in the lane, screened from the others by trees and hedges, Sam pulled me tight against him.
“I thought it was you,” he said into my hair. His voice was low and shaking. “I thought it was you.”