The Trespasser

Chapter 11

Aislinn knew how to pick them. Her exes make Rory look like an entire theme park’s worth of thrills and spills. The first guy is an accountant for a software company that had a rough ride through the recession, going by the worn-out carpet and the water stains on the ceiling, but the buzz in the office says things are picking up. He met Aislinn in a sandwich queue when they were nineteen and went out with her for six months, but they both made it clear from the start that they weren’t looking for anything serious; when they got bored they drifted off in their separate directions, no hard feelings and no let’s-stay-friends. He remembers Lucy, vaguely, but they never had any problems and he can’t think of any reason why she would have a grudge against him. He’s nice-looking, in a forgettable way, and he seems like a nice guy; he says Aislinn was a nice girl, they had a nice time together, now he has a nice fiancée who he took for a nice dinner on Saturday night and he’s never even looked Aislinn up on Facebook.

The second ex is maybe half a notch less boring. He works in a call centre, in a massive corporate office building plonked down in a field in the middle of nowhere; someone’s genius business-park idea that got smashed in the crash, or someone’s carefully planned tax loss. Four of the five floors are empty; the fifth has a few dozen drones in one corner, talking too loud because there’s no one to be disturbed. For our chat, the guy brings me to some executive corner office, bare, with a film of dust covering the bed-sized desk. He met Aislinn through Lucy, five years back, when he was still trying to make it as a lighting operator. They had been going out for eight months, and he was starting to think this could be something special, when she dumped him. She said, and he believed her, that it was because she felt the same way: this was getting real, and what with looking after her sick mother, Aislinn didn’t have the spare time or energy for something real. No contact since, not till he saw her on the news two nights back. He drifted out of touch with Lucy, too, when he quit theatre; not on bad terms, they just weren’t particularly close to start with and didn’t bother hanging out any more. On Saturday evening he was at a gig – we’ll check the alibis, but I’m not expecting any surprises. The shock and the sadness and the tinge of wistful might-have-been ring true, but so does the distance: Aislinn was in this guy’s past. He wasn’t chasing her, looking to relight the fire, getting pissed off when he saw her preparing for a date that didn’t include him.

Which is exactly what I expected. The interviews were good ones; I Cool Girled the exes into opening up about stuff they never planned on spilling. None of it is any use to me.

I walk back to my car through wide cold hush, the sound of wind in long grass building up from farther away than I can see, rolling in across the empty fields, over me and on. Normally it would make me edgy – too much nature gives me the creeps – but at last my head has the wiped-clean clarity I was looking for in my run, this morning. For the first time in days, maybe months, I can think.

I can’t shake the feeling that it’s because I’ve run Steve out of it. Without him at my elbow – tugging and yammering and pointing in every direction, peppering me with bits of babble that might or might not mean something and I have to figure out which – I finally have room to see straight. Under all that, all the maybes and the mirages, there are only two things worth seeing.

Rory Fallon, the sad little wimp. He’s it; all there is to this case. That’s why it keeps spitting up great clots of nothing: because there’s nothing else to find.

And the second thing: this is my last case in Murder. I can outmanoeuvre Breslin and McCann and Roche and the whole foaming mob, for one more day, one more week, one more month; but sooner or later I’m going to put a toe wrong, and they’ll have me. I think of a boxer, ducking and weaving away from every punch, faster and faster, till one blink and bang, blackness.

I’m not going to wait for the knockout, give Breslin or Roche or whoever the chance to do his smirking lap of honour around me. I’m going on my own terms. I’ll finish this case and finish it right, tie Rory Fallon down so tight the best defence barrister in the country couldn’t wriggle him free, go out with my head up. Then I’ll ring my mate with the security firm and ask him if that job is still on the table. And somewhere in there, I’m gonna tell O’Kelly to fuck himself and punch Roche’s teeth in.

For a second I wonder whether, while I was getting everything else arseways, I could have got Steve wrong. I wonder – not that it matters now – if this is what he was trying to distract me from, all along; if he didn’t want me to notice that I was done. If the poor optimistic eejit actually liked working with me, just like I thought. If he had the same sappy daydreams, us taking down some Hannibal Lecter together without breaking a sweat, shooting our cuffs and swapping a nod and striding off to the next uncrackable case that needed the best of the best. The twinge that gives me is sharp enough that I hope I’m wrong.

The car is cold. Even after I slam the door, I can still hear that unceasing roll of wind through too much grass. Part of me wants to floor it out of there, but I can’t think of anything I’m in a hurry to reach.

When I get back to the incident room, Steve is still gone. The floaters are eating lunch and bitching about some news story bitching about cops. Breslin is at his desk, with his chair tilted back and his feet up, finishing a sausage roll and flicking through the Courier.

‘Ah,’ he says, bringing his chair legs down and tossing his paper on the desk, when he sees me. ‘Just the woman I’ve been waiting for. Been doing anything interesting?’

‘Aislinn’s exes,’ I say, peeling my coat off. ‘Nothing worth hearing. We’ll check the alibis and cross them off the list.’ The Courier’s front-page headline says who was coming to dinner? Someone’s told Crowley about Aislinn’s date.

Breslin swings his feet off his desk. ‘I need to stretch my legs after that,’ he says, patting his stomach. ‘Let’s go for a stroll.’

‘I’ve got notes to type up.’

‘They can wait.’ Lower: ‘I’ve got something that can’t.’

Maybe he’s gonna offer to cut me in on his imaginary sideline. I don’t bother putting much thought into whether to play along, seeing as it doesn’t matter either way, and his way gets me out of that incident room. ‘Why not,’ I say, and enjoy the flick of surprise on his face as I turn around and head back out the door.

‘So I talked to Rory’s exes,’ Breslin says, on our way down the corridor. I wonder where we’re going for his chat. It’s hit me this week, for the first time, how little privacy we all have from each other. People come and go in the canteen, the squad room, the locker room; the interview rooms have observation windows and audio feeds. I never realised before how you would need the squad to be part of you, close and reliable as your own body, in order to survive it.

‘And?’ I say.

Breslin grins. ‘How did he put it? His usual type is more “casual” than Aislinn? I’m sure they’re all very nice girls, but my God, I wanted to march the whole lot of them into some makeover show and tell the stylists to bring out the heavy artillery.’ He heads down the stairs at a jog. ‘You know those godawful hairy ethnic hoodies that students used to wear back in the nineties, to show you they were planning to go backpacking in Goa someday? I swear the last ex was actually wearing one of those.’

‘They give us anything?’

‘Yes and no. All of them say Rory was a perfect little gentleman: never hit them, never yelled at them, no controlling behaviour, no jealous rages, no turning nasty when he didn’t get his way, none of that.’ He turns down the corridor and cracks the door of Incident Room E, the shitty ex-locker-room. Empty. ‘In here.’

He holds the door for me. I get the message: in here, where I would be already if it wasn’t for Breslin helping me out. The place is hot and still stinks of sweaty gym gear; the tiny whiteboard is stained where someone used the wrong kind of marker, and all the chairs look sticky. I don’t sit down.

‘But here’s the interesting part,’ Breslin says, closing the door behind us. ‘Two of the exes, including the most recent one, say they dumped Rory because he was too intense. One girl’s exact words were “too full-on”; the other one said he was “taking things way too quickly”. I thought she was being coy, but it turned out she wasn’t talking about sex: she had no problem shagging his brains out on the second date, God bless her. The young people nowadays don’t know how good they’ve got it.’

‘So what was she talking about?’

‘Basically, by the time they’d been seeing each other for a few months, Rory was starting to think this was some great epic romance, while the girl was still deciding whether she even wanted a serious relationship. She says she really liked him, but she was only twenty-four; she was just looking for a few laughs and some intellectual conversation – she’s doing a PhD in Russian literature – with plenty of sex thrown in. She wasn’t ready for someone who kept talking about how amazing it would be to go around the world together.’ Breslin examines the wall by the door, flicks away a speck of something and leans against it. ‘So she dumped him. The other girl said the same thing, give or take. I keep hearing how women are dying for a guy who’s not scared of commitment, but it looks like Rory might be a little too much of a good thing.’

According to Aislinn’s second ex, when the relationship started getting real, she was out of there – although she blamed that on the sick ma. ‘So when Rory told us him and Aislinn fell madly in love at first sight,’ I say, ‘that doesn’t mean Aislinn felt the same way.’

‘Exactly. Remember what he said about their date at Pestle? Every time he thought they were getting on like a house on fire, she’d go quiet on him and he’d have to kick-start the conversation again? That sounds to me like the other side of the story – if only we could hear it – would go, “He kept getting way too intense, but hey, he’s a nice guy, so I tried to give him every chance…” ’

‘The only thing is,’ I say, ‘that doesn’t fit with what the best mate told us. She was positive that Aislinn was head over heels. And those texts on Aislinn’s phone, about how excited she was, getting ready for Rory to come over? There’s no hint anywhere that she was backing away. If Rory was full-on, Aislinn was fine with that.’

Breslin pulls out his phone, which is the size of his head and in a flashy stainless-steel case, and spins it in his hand. He says, ‘I’ve got to admit something here. I’ve been going back and forth all morning on whether to share this with you or not.’

Yesterday, I might have bitten. Instead I keep my mouth shut and wait.

When he realises I’m not gonna beg, he sighs, spinning the phone again. Light flashes off it in oily grey streaks. ‘I’m a team player, basically. People have this idea of me as some high achiever, but I’m actually a big believer in teamwork. But that only flies if the other people on your team are working the same way. Do you get where I’m going here, Conway?’

I say, ‘I’m thick. Go ahead and spell it out for me.’

Breslin pretends to think that over. The heat and the stench are inflating into a solid thing pressing in on us. ‘You’re sure you want to hear this?’

‘You’re the one who says you’ve got something to tell me. Yeah, I’m positive I want you to just spit it out, instead of wiggling around it dropping hints.’

Breslin sighs again. ‘OK,’ he says, as a big favour. ‘Here you go: you go into every interaction treating the other person like your enemy. Now we both know in some cases you’ve got decent reasons for that, but even when you’ve got no reason at all, you’re straight into attack mode. That creates an atmosphere where even the most dedicated team player is going to think twice before he shares anything with you.’

In other words, it’s my fault he’s been concealing evidence from the lead D. Even if there was still a reason to play along, I’ve got nothing left to do it with. ‘Spit it or don’t,’ I say. ‘If you’re not going to, then tell me, so I can go type up my notes.’

He stares me out of it. I can’t even be arsed giving him a stare back. He’s gonna tell me; he’s only dying to. He’s just seeing what he can wring out of me in exchange.

‘Conway,’ he says, putting in all the ferocious patience he can fit. ‘Do you take my point here? At least tell me you get my point.’

‘Yeah. I’m a bitch. I knew that already.’ I move to go.

‘All right,’ Breslin says, smooth but fast. ‘I guess I’ve got to know you well enough, this week, that I can take the rest as read.’

‘Whatever.’

‘Our boy Reilly. Remember how he was pulling CCTV footage for Stoneybatter?’

After a moment I take a step back, away from the door.

‘Well,’ Breslin says, with a touch of a smile to show we’re buddies again. ‘Reilly’s turned out to be a bit of a bright spark. While he was at it, he pulled the last four weeks – or as much as he could get; some places had taped over it. And he stayed in till five this morning with his finger on the fast-forward button.’

The slithery fuck. I say, ‘He better have a very good reason why I’m hearing this from you, not from him.’

‘Ah, well. I’m going to ask you to cut the kid some slack there. I get the feeling he wanted to impress me.’ Breslin almost manages to hold back the fat, self-satisfied smirk. ‘No harm in that. Get in a few more years on the squad and you’ll have newbies flexing their guns for you, too.’

I get the message: If you last another few years. I say, ‘What’d he get?’

‘Here’s a taster,’ Breslin says. ‘This is just a quick clip I shot off the monitor; there’s more where it came from.’

He swipes, taps, and holds out the phone to me. I take it.

Fuzzy colour footage, but I’m in the shop often enough that I recognise it straightaway: Tesco on Prussia Street. And I recognise the skinny guy taking a bottle of Lucozade out of the fridge and bringing it over to the self-checkout. The delicate profile, the angle of the head, the slight hunch to the shoulders, the drifting way his hands move: I spent hours focusing on every detail of him, just two days ago.

I say, ‘That’s Rory Fallon.’

‘Him or his clone. And have a look at this.’

Breslin leans in, pinches the screen bigger and homes in on the time stamp. 9.08 p.m., 14/01/2015. Two weeks back.

I say, ‘Rory told us he had to look up the nearest Tesco on his phone, Saturday night.’

‘He did. He also gave us the very definite impression that he’d never been to Stoneybatter before.’ On the screen, Rory scoops his change out of the checkout machine and glances around. For a second he looks straight into the camera. His eyes, blurred and wide and intent, stare like he can see me staring back. ‘But like I said, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got him within a few minutes’ walk of Aislinn’s house at least three other times this month. His car went past a camera on Manor Street last Thursday evening, he bought his Sunday paper in the corner shop on the eleventh of January, and he had a pint in Hanlon’s on the fifth.’

Rory squirming when we talked about his side trip to Tesco. I thought it was the timeline that was making him twitchy, but it was a lot more than that. Rory hadn’t needed to look up local shops on his phone. He already knew them by heart.

‘And that’s not counting the times Reilly didn’t spot, and the times that didn’t get caught on CCTV, and the times more than four weeks ago.’ Breslin takes his phone back. ‘Talk about “too full-on”,’ he says. ‘Rory’s been stalking Aislinn.’

I say, ‘Looks like it.’

‘He wasn’t bringing nutritious meals to Stoneybatter’s senior citizens. Anything innocent, he would’ve told us by now.’ He slides the phone into his pocket. ‘Now, wasn’t that worth sticking around for?’

‘I’m gonna have a chat with Reilly,’ I say. ‘Then I want to see the rest of that footage. Then I’ll pull Rory back in and I’ll see what he’s got to say.’

‘Why don’t we make that we. You and I, we’ll see what he’s got to say.’

‘I’m OK on my own. Thanks.’

Breslin’s eyebrows go up on that. ‘On your own? What about Moran?’

‘He’s out.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Breslin says. ‘You’re making him shake his trees by himself now, yeah? I thought your patience was wearing thin, all right.’

‘Moran’s well able to take care of business on his own. He doesn’t need me to hold his hand.’

Breslin’s scanning me, amused. He says, ‘I could’ve told you that you and Moran weren’t right for each other.’

I say, ‘I didn’t ask.’

‘Give that kid a dozen witnesses and a DNA match and a video of the murder going down, and he’d spend the next year making totally positively sure that the scumbag didn’t have a long-lost twin and the witnesses weren’t confused and no one spit in the DNA, just in case. I’m not knocking it; there are cases that need that approach. But you, on the other hand: you want to get stuff done.’

‘I do, yeah. That’s why I’m gonna go sort out Reilly and have a look at that footage, instead of having the chats about life in here. See you later.’

‘Jesus Christ, Conway, can you un-bunch your panties just for one minute? I’m on your side here. You keep acting like I’m the enemy. I don’t know where you got that idea, but I’d like to put it to bed.’

‘Breslin,’ I say. ‘I appreciate you showing me the footage, and all that shite. But I’m gonna assume anyone on this squad is the enemy, unless I’ve got stone-cold proof that he’s not. I’m pretty sure you can understand why.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Breslin says. He cracks the door and checks the corridor: no one there. ‘I understand exactly why. In fact, I understand a lot better than you do. Do you want to know the story I heard about you?’

He thinks he sounds tempting. I say, ‘Why don’t you just assume it was all bollix, and we’ll go from there.’

‘I do assume it’s all bollix. But you still need to hear it.’

‘I’ve made it thirty-two years without giving a shite about other people’s bitching. I think I can manage a while longer.’

‘No. You can’t. Every time you walk into the squad room, when you think you’re just checking your e-mail and drinking coffee, this story is what the lads are hearing in their heads. As far as they’re concerned, this is who you are. And how’s that working out for you?’

He wants to tell me the story, badly. Him and McCann have worked hard to make me think he’s just a big-hearted guy, but that kind of offer – here, let me take a chunk of your life and rewrite it my way – that never comes out of the goodness of anyone’s heart. I say, ‘When I need a hand, I’ll let you know.’

‘It’ll sting. I’m not going to lie to you.’ Breslin has his sympathetic face on, but I’ve seen it before, in interview rooms. ‘I can see why you might not want to deal with that.’

‘I don’t. I don’t want to deal with anything except my cases. And I want that word with Reilly.’

I go for the door, but Breslin stretches out an arm to block my way. ‘You had a run-in with Roche, your first week,’ he says. ‘Remember that?’

‘Barely. Old news.’

‘Except it’s not. You underestimated Roche. Not long after, he told us that back when you were in uniform, you fucked up big-time. You were supposed to be guarding some drug dealer while your partner did a sweep of his house; you took off the cuffs so the suspect could go behind a hedge and take a piss, and he did a legger. Then you told your partner – Roche didn’t name names; he’s too smart for that – that if he put anything in the report, you’d have him up for sexual assault, claim he’d been grabbing your tits in the patrol car.’

Breslin lowers his arm and takes one deliberate step to the side, out of my way. I don’t move, just like he knew I wouldn’t.

‘When your partner wrote you up anyway,’ he says, ‘you followed through: went to your gaffer. The shit hit the fan, the report got rewritten your way, your partner’s stuck in blue for the rest of his career, and you got three weeks’ paid leave to recover from the trauma of it all. Is any of this sounding familiar?’

The three weeks I spent being Fleas’s cousin. And before that, there was a suspect – some idiot off his face on speed; I don’t even remember his name, that’s how big an impression the whole thing made – who did a runner on me and my partner. My partner was a good guy, in the uninspired way that stamps BLUE FOR LIFE on your forehead from your first day. Roche did his research, made sure the story tasted of truth just enough that people would swallow it whole.

Breslin says, ‘About half the squad believes it. And they want you gone, asap, before you pull the same shite on one of them. They’re very, very serious about it.’

He’s watching me under his eyelids for a tear, a tremor, a sign that I want to kick Roche’s teeth out the back of his skull. ‘I was right,’ I say. ‘I could’ve survived just fine without knowing that. Thanks, though. I’ll keep it in mind.’

That snaps his eyes open. ‘You’re taking this very lightly, Conway.’

‘Roche is a shitball. That’s not exactly breaking news. What do you want me to do? Faint? Cry?’

‘It wasn’t an easy choice, telling you this. I’m a very loyal person. There are plenty of people who would see this as a betrayal of the squad – and this squad means a lot to me. I want you to at least show a little appreciation for what I’ve done here.’

Another minute and he’ll have himself worked into a full froth of outrage, and I’ll have that to clean up before I can go back to business. ‘I appreciate it,’ I say. ‘I do. I just don’t get why you’re telling me.’

‘Because someone needs to. Your partner should’ve done it months ago – come on, Conway, of course Moran knows; you think Roche let him get through his first week without cornering him to tell him what he’d hooked up with?’ He’s still scanning for a reaction, cold hungry cop-eyes above the touch of smirk. Breslin’s aiming to end this chat with me sobbing my little heart out or punching walls or both. All the energy he’s putting into it; what a waste. ‘Your partner’s supposed to have your back. We wouldn’t need to have this conversation if he’d done his bloody job.’

I say, ‘Maybe he didn’t see any reason why I needed to know.’

‘What the hell? Of course you fucking need to know. You need to know now - no, fuck that: you needed to know months ago. You’re on your last legs here. Are you getting this, Conway?’ Breslin’s leaning in, too close, the hulking loom he uses on suspects wobbling on the edge of a confession. ‘You’ve still got a shot, but it’s your last. If you pull your head out of your arse and quit treating me like the enemy, then we’ll have this case put to bed by the end of the week. I’ll be able to vouch for you in the squad room, and my word actually carries a fair bit of weight there. And then, if you can manage to act civil to the lads, then you’ll be sorted, and you’ll be an asset to the squad – and like I said, that means something to me. But if you keep blocking me because you’ve got some martyr complex going on, then this case is going to go to shit, and I’m not going to be on your side any more, because I don’t like being associated with cases that have gone to shit. And then, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re fucked.’

He leans back against the wall again, sticking his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s your call.’ The knight in shining armour, all ready to rescue me, if only I would let him.

I don’t get rescued. I’ll take help, no problem, just like I took it off Gary and off Fleas. Rescue – where you’re sinking for the third time, you’ve tried everything you’ve got and none of it’s enough – rescue is different.

If someone rescues you, they own you. Not because you owe them – you can sort that, with enough good favours or bottles of booze dressed up in ribbons. They own you because you’re not the lead in your story any more. You’re the poor struggling loser/helpless damsel/plucky sidekick who was saved from danger/dishonour/humiliation by the brilliant brave compassionate hero/heroine, and they get to decide which, because you’re not the one running this story, not any more.

I had Breslin wrong all the way. He’s not out to sink me, not necessarily. He’s out to own me.

This is what McCann was softening me up for, with his salvaged statement sheet and his heart-of-gold routine. Maybe Breslin has some squad split in the works, him against Roche, and he’s building up his team. Maybe he’s got a hint that the gaffer is putting in his papers – the golden boy would know – and he figures bringing the bad girl into line would boost his chances for the job. Maybe he’s got nothing specific lined up, just figures I’m an easy opportunity and I’ll come in useful somehow, down the line.

I could laugh, if I had the energy. I’m not gonna come in useful to anyone, not on this squad.

Breslin taps his phone pocket. ‘Conway,’ he says, more gently. ‘I didn’t have to share this with you, remember? I could have just pulled Rory in myself and gone at him solo. I’m sharing because I think it’s better for everyone if you and I work together. Better for the case, for the squad, for you – and yeah, better for me.’ He smiles, putting in just the right balance of fatherly warmth and professional respect. ‘Let’s face it, Conway: you and I, we make a good team. We did nice work together on Rory, Sunday afternoon. With this’ – the phone pocket again – ‘we can do a lot better.’

I’m gearing up to tell him where to stick his rescue effort, when I realise it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to worry about Breslin rescuing me, owning me, sinking me, any of that fancy crap; whatever he has in mind for me, I won’t be here for it. He’s right, we’re good together, and all of a sudden I’m free to use that, without going into a tailspin about consequences like Rory bloody Fallon himself. This quitting thing is fun; I wish I’d thought of it months ago.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s do it. But we don’t bring up that footage till I give the word. I want to save that.’

‘No problem. You call it.’ Breslin grins at me. ‘This is going to be a lot of fun, Conway. When we show Rory this, he’s going to wet his frilly knickers.’

‘It’s better than that,’ I say. Breslin raises a questioning eyebrow. ‘We’ve been looking for a motive, or at least something that could’ve triggered the attack. Right?’

Breslin blows air out of one corner of his mouth. ‘Well. You have. I still don’t actually care why he did it, as long as we can show that he did it.’

‘Rory gets over to Aislinn’s place,’ I say, ‘all amped up for the big night. He’s a bit early, but that’s no big deal; she lets him in, they’re delighted to see each other. And then, somehow, the stalking comes out. Maybe he lets something slip that tells Aislinn he knows Stoneybatter. Or maybe she mentions having seen him around the area, and he doesn’t cover it fast enough.’

It feels good, coming up with a story. I can see why everyone’s so hooked on it. I’ve got the whole scene playing out in front of me like another video clip, but one I can tweak and nudge till everything about it suits me right down to the ground. ‘Either way, Aislinn’s not happy. She’s already been having doubts about how full-on Rory is; she dismissed those, but this takes him over the line into whacko territory. She tells him to leave, and he loses the head.’

Breslin has his lips pursed and he’s nodding away. ‘I like this,’ he says. ‘I like it a lot. Conway, I think you’re onto something here. I knew there was a reason I had faith in you.’

I say, ‘Let’s see what Rory thinks of it.’

Breslin smiles at me, a great big warm smile like I’m the best thing he’s seen in months. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s get out of here. This place stinks.’

I could drink the air in the corridor in one swallow, after that snot we’ve been breathing. Breslin shuts the incident-room door behind us with a neat contemptuous slam that says, You won’t be needing this place any more.

Back in the incident room, I ring Rory and ask him, all friendly and casual, if he would mind giving us a hand by coming in for another quick chat. I’m all ready to knock down a bunch of excuses about how he can’t leave the shop and he’s got an appointment and he doesn’t feel well, but he falls over himself agreeing to come in straightaway. He’s just desperate to prove he’s on our side, but I’m so unused to things being easy that it feels unnatural, almost creepy, like the world has slid a notch sideways and won’t click back to reality. I want sleep, a lot of it.

Steve is still out. I catch some autopilot part of me actually hoping he’ll show up before Rory does – I’ll have to start off the interview with Breslin, what with him bringing me that footage, but I can swap Steve in before we get to the final push; we’ll get a confession off Rory, show that ditzy fool Steve that I was right all along, he’ll apologise and we’ll go for a pint and everything will go back to normal- This is when my brain catches up and remembers that things aren’t going back to normal, not ever again. The incident room lurches, light jumping and stuttering, the hum of the computers rising like sirens.

When I beckon Reilly over to my desk, he doesn’t even bother faking an apology, just puts on a blank pig-face and stares over my shoulder, waiting for me to be done. I was all geared up to take his head off, but looking at that face barely hiding a sneer, all I can think of is Steve: Steve, on that old case years back, getting that key piece of info and pinning it to his lapel instead of bringing it home to the lead D. Reilly makes me sick. I don’t want him ripped to pieces any more; all I want is him out of my sight. When I tell him to go back to the floater pool, his face – sneer slapped right off, raw burn of anger and humiliation rising – doesn’t even give me a drop of satisfaction. The other floaters pretend they’re concentrating on work while he gathers up his stuff and leaves, slamming the door on his way out. Breslin lounges at his desk and watches me, eyes hooded, pen between his teeth, all ready to tell me whether I’ve done the right thing or not. I don’t ask.

The footage shows exactly what Breslin said it did: Rory, wandering around Stoneybatter when he shouldn’t have been. I send Meehan to head over there, pull all the December CCTV footage he can get – there won’t be much left – and start watching. Then I pick out the best shots of Rory, with time stamps, and print them off.

The phone on my desk rings: Bernadette, to say Rory Fallon is downstairs. ‘He’s here,’ I say to Breslin.

‘Let’s do it,’ he says, shoving his chair back. ‘See you later, boys. We’ll bring you back a nice scalp.’

The floaters glance up and nod, too quickly, scared I’ll rip the throat out of anyone who makes eye contact. On my monitor, a blurry black-and-white Stoneybatter street moves in jumps – runner frozen in one corner of the screen, teleported to the opposite side in a blink; Alsatian caught in mid-piss, then vanished – till I hit Stop. The computers and the whiteboard and the floaters billow and shrink around the edges like thin fabric underwater, drifting farther away all the time.