The Trespasser

Chapter 6

First thing Monday morning, I get to track down my witness from the scumbagfest, haul him out of bed and coax him into coming in to the squad to give his statement all over again, this time with narky jabs about how he pays my wages – via the dole, somehow – and how I should have more respect than to go wasting his time like this. We both know that if I tell him to shut his face, he’ll develop a bad case of amnesia about Saturday night. Even this little fucker can smell weakness off me. A couple of slaps would sort out his attitude, but I make myself save them for someone who matters.

Only half my mind is on him anyway. The day started off strange. It was still dark when I was leaving my gaff, thick cold fog filling the road, rolling it back to its secretive Victorian self: cars faded to smudges, lit windows and streetlamps hanging in the middle of nothing. And a guy at the top of the road, just standing there, on a morning when no sane person would be just standing. He was too far away for me to catch much; just a tall guy, facing my way, with a dark overcoat and a dark trilby and a set to his shoulders that said he wasn’t young. Last night’s adrenaline shot hit me again. I thought of the report on the guy climbing over Aislinn’s wall: medium build, dark coat, the neighbour thought he might be middle-aged … By the time I manoeuvred my car out of the parking space and gunned it up the road, he was gone.

What sent something extra through me, what leaves me edgy and watching cars in my rear-view mirror all the way to the car pool and to the scumbag’s place and back to work with him whining in the back seat, was the overcoat. Steve was right, there are a lot of guys who wear dark overcoats. They include just about every D I know.

There are a few reasons why a D could be staking out my road. Some of them are a lot more fun than others.

Just to brighten my day, Creepy Crowley is still trying to pump Aislinn into the story of the year. He’s dug up a couple more photos of her – all post-makeover; Crowley and his readers don’t get into a panting lather over dumpy brunettes in polyester skirt-suits – and a flood of hot-button clichés to pour over them, and he’s got the front page of the Courier all to himself. A fair bit of it is hints about the cops, specifically me, not taking this seriously because we’re too busy protecting the politicians and the elite to care about decent working people. Crowley has somehow got hold of a blurry shot of me back in uniform, policing a protest; the protest was a couple of hundred people rightfully pissed off about an emergency room closing and there was zero aggro, but there I am with a stab vest and a baton, which is all Crowley needs to prove his point. Unless we make the collar soon, the brass are gonna start feeling the pressure, they’re gonna kick the gaffer, and the gaffer is gonna kick me.

I walk the scumbag witness out – he’s still bitching about his ruined lie-in – and watch him light a smoke and slope off. It’s headed for ten o’clock; the day is as strong as it’s going to get, all feeble grey light choked with cloud. I lean against the wall outside, ignoring the cold biting through my suit jacket, and ring Sophie while I’ve got some privacy. I figure a drug lord’s fat fingerprint in Aislinn’s bedroom, or even a nice bloodstain on one of Rory’s gloves, would do a lot to put my day on the right track.

‘Hey,’ Sophie says. ‘OK if I put you on speaker? This vase needs to make it back to Galway in one piece for the O’Flaherty case, and I swear the idiots on evidence transport use this stuff for football practice, so I’m packing it myself. In a year’s supply of bubble wrap. I’m in my office, so no one’s going to hear us.’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘You got the stuff from our suspect, yeah?’

‘Yeah. The grey nylon gloves and black wool coat he was wearing, and navy-blue trousers, two white linen shirts, a pale blue pullover, red wool gloves, wool Fair Isle gloves – seriously – and black wool scarf from his flat. Plus fingerprints.’ Sophie does something that sounds like ripping off a piece of gaffer tape. ‘Just so you know: Breslin rang me yesterday evening. He was looking for all the scene reports, plus Aislinn’s electronics.’

The rough stone prods at my back through my jacket. ‘What’d you give him?’

‘What do you think I am? I gave him fuck-all. He came on like a headhunter, telling me how delighted he was that I was working this case, how none of the other techs are up to my standard – what kind of idiot thinks bitching about my mates is going to get on my good side?’ Tape ripping again. ‘I told him none of our reports were ready, what with this case not being the only one in the whole world, and the computer guys hadn’t even started on the electronics. Which was true, or near enough. Breslin wasn’t pleased, but he kept right on schmoozing. I swear, by the end of it I thought he was going to send me flowers.’

‘I’m gonna have a nice chat with Breslin,’ I say. I could kiss Sophie. ‘How far have you actually got?’

‘Reports are ready whenever you want them. I got my guys to work late. I figured if you’re trying to keep this stuff away from that arselick – and I don’t need to know why, I’m just saying – it might be useful if you were a couple of steps ahead of where he’d expect.’

‘It is,’ I say, lifting a mental finger at Breslin. ‘You’re a gem. Find anything good?’

Sophie makes a noise like a shrug. ‘The black fibres on the vic’s body are consistent with your suspect’s coat, but that’s not as special as it sounds: they’re common as muck, they’d probably be consistent with half the black wool coats in this town. No match to his scarf. No blood on any of his stuff – meaning if he is your boy, those aren’t the gloves he was wearing when he did the job. Sorry.’

‘Them’s the breaks,’ I say. No surprise there: even Rory’s bright enough to spot a bin and dump bloody gloves in it. ‘We’ll keep looking. Anything new from the scene?’

‘Most of it you can read in the reports – a load of miscellaneous unidentified fibres, that kind of shite. We’ll cross-check them with fibres from your suspect’s place, in case of secondary transfer – a fibre from his carpet gets on his coat and from there onto her sofa, or wherever – and we’ll check your suspect’s stuff for fibres from the vic’s place, but we haven’t got to that yet. Dammit-’ Rustling and a thump: Sophie fighting with her roll of bubble wrap. ‘There’s just one thing that’s a little on the weird side. The place is clean.’

‘She was having her new fella over for dinner. She cleaned up.’

‘Not that kind of clean. I mean, that too; it looks to me like she was the housekeeping type to begin with – the top of the wardrobe’s got almost no dust on it, that kind of Stepford crap – and then she did a full blitz for her date with Romeo. But I’m talking about fingerprints. You know how Moran wanted me to check the places an ex might’ve touched? The headboard, under the toilet seat?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nothing. No prints on the headboard, not even the vic’s – and it’s gloss paint, it should hold prints. The doorknobs, the bathroom sink, the toilet seat, the fridge door, the condom packet in her bedside table: nothing but smudges.’

I say, ‘Somebody wiped the place down.’ The ghostly gangster boyfriend is starting to cast a shadow. Gang boys know all about wiping a place down for prints. Rory, who’d never been in that house before, wouldn’t need to.

Sophie makes a noncommittal sound. ‘Maybe. Or maybe Ms Stepford was just hardcore about cleaning. Either one would fit. I figured you’d be interested anyway.’

‘I am,’ I say. ‘Any fluids on the bed?’

‘Yeah. The sheets were clean, but we found stains on the mattress. Could be just her own sweat – you were there; she kept the place tropical – but if we’re lucky, some of it’ll be semen, or at least someone else’s sweat.’ Energetic rustling: Sophie is wrapping another layer around her vase. ‘Even if we get DNA, though, there’s no way to tell when it was deposited. If you can find out when she bought the mattress, you can get an outside limit, but beyond that…’

‘Keep me up to speed on the DNA,’ I say. I’m not getting my hopes up; that condom packet says we’ll be lucky if anyone’s semen ever made it onto the mattress. ‘Thanks, Soph. What about Aislinn’s electronics? Anything there?’

‘Most of it’s your basic bullshit. Nothing good on her mobile – searches on clothes shops and nightclubs, cutesy game apps full of fluttery fairies. No one who looks interesting in any of her photos, but I’ll send you copies so you can see for yourself. Her Facebook is all selfies and which-Hunger-Games-character-are-you quizzes and “Repost this if you hate cancer” – what the fuck is that supposed to do? If enough people like the post, cancer’ll just take the hint and become extinct?’

‘Get us the login details, yeah? We need to check out her Facebook friends.’

‘No problem,’ Sophie says. ‘It doesn’t look like she had any best buddies on there – no private messages or anything; it all looks like colleagues and old classmates, the type where you post on their timeline once a year telling them they look amazing in their birthday pic – but knock yourselves out.’

If the gangster boyfriend is out there, he’s doing a nice job of being invisible; but then, he might. ‘What about her e-mail? Any love notes, sex talk, setting up appointments, anything like that? From Rory Fallon or anyone else?’

‘Nothing like that. The Gmail account linked to her phone is full of order confirmations and special offers from fashion sites, mainly. The lovey-doviest it gets is some cousin in Australia who sticks x’s at the end of her e-mails. You still looking at exes?’

‘Keeping an open mind,’ I say. A clot of tourists wander past with their heads tipped back and their jaws hanging, staring up at the Castle buildings. One of them points a camera in my direction, but I throw him a stare that almost melts his lens, and he backs off.

‘We’re only seeing what she left on there,’ Sophie reminds me. ‘She could have deleted anything that reminded her of the ex. E-mails, texts, photos.’

‘I know.’ Or he could have, on Saturday night. ‘We’ll get onto the phone company and get her records – I’d say Steve’s doing that now. Send me her e-mail account details – cc Steve – and can you talk to her e-mail providers? Get the logs, so we can compare them to what’s actually left on her accounts?’

‘My computer guy’s got friends in high places. I’ll get him onto it as soon as I’ve finished this fucking vase. You should see it: four feet tall, porcelain pug dogs sticking out everywhere, covered in blood spatter. Which actually improves it.’

‘What about my vic’s laptop? Tell me there’s something good on her laptop.’ I’m cold; tasteless instant coffee from the incident-room kettle is starting to sound good.

‘You want interesting evidence, get me an interesting victim. This woman lived a boring life. She spent a lot of time online, but she wasn’t playing in any dodgy corners of the internet, as far as we can tell – my computer guy had a good look through the last couple of months of her history. A lot of time – like, a lot – on travel sites: she was reading up on Australia, India, California, Portugal, Croatia… She ran some searches on evening classes in Dublin, looked at arts courses in universities, did a load of shopping for discount designer clothes, read all the coverage on a couple of gangland trials. Desperate for thrills; fuck knows she wasn’t getting them anywhere else.’

Which is what I thought when I found Aislinn’s little true-crime library. I’ve forgotten all about coffee. ‘Right,’ I say, keeping that out of my voice. ‘Can you remember what cases?’

‘Francie Hannon, and Whatsisname with his tongue cut out. I’d forgotten what a field day the papers had with that one. I think it gave some of the reporters an actual hard-on.’

Both those guys were from the same gang, a nasty bunch of northside boys run by a raving psycho called Cueball Lanigan. Both of them were Breslin and McCann’s cases.

‘Sounds like it did the business for our vic, too,’ I say. If Aislinn got mixed up with Cueball’s boys, she got off lightly. ‘Anything else on the laptop?’

More energetic bubble-wrap rustles from Sophie. ‘She read a lot of fan fiction. The sappy kind, not the sexy kind; my guy was sort of disappointed about that. He said he stopped reading after one where Juliet wakes up early, and she and Romeo live happily ever after.’

‘Cute,’ I say. ‘Any dating sites?’

‘Nah.’

‘Message boards?’

‘Nope. And my guy says no one’s been messing with the internet history.’

‘Can you take the search back a bit further? We need her history for at least the last six months. A year would be even better.’

Sophie blows out air. ‘You sure? If you piss off my computer guy, he’s gonna send you a list of every single URL she ever visited. You’ll spend the rest of your lives checking out every page of every designer-outlet website in the universe.’

‘That’s why God invented floaters,’ I say. ‘Was that it for the laptop, yeah?’

‘Don’t rush me,’ Sophie says, through tape. ‘I’m getting to the good part. My guy went through her documents – the only mildly interesting thing in there is that she updated her CV a couple of months ago: looks like she was considering switching jobs. And he had a look at her photos. Most of them are the same stuff that’s on her phone, selfies in clubs; but there’s one folder that’s password-protected. It was created last September and it’s called “MORTGAGE”, but who the hell takes photos of her mortgage? And puts a password on them?’

I don’t even need coffee any more; I’m well awake. September: long before Aislinn met Rory, and not long after, according to Lucy, she hooked up with her secret squeeze. ‘Camouflage folder name,’ I say. ‘To turn off anyone who went looking through her stuff. How are you doing on getting in there?’

‘No joy yet. My guy’s thrown the dictionary at that folder, tried various combinations of Aislinn’s name and DOB, and nada.’

‘Did you try the password from her Facebook account?’

‘We haven’t got it. Facebook and her Gmail were both already open on her phone; we reset her passwords by answering her security question – her mother’s maiden name, for Christ’s sake – so we can get in on other machines if we want, but we don’t have the original passwords. And the providers won’t have them, either; they’re encrypted.’

‘Is your guy still working on it?’

‘Yeah, and he’s going to crack it. This chick wasn’t Jason Bourne; no chance she was up to my guy’s standards. I’m just telling you: she was at least a little bit serious about keeping this folder locked down.’

‘I’ve got faith in you and your guy,’ I say. The adrenaline is rising inside me again; no matter how hard I try to stamp it down, part of me is picturing Sophie’s guy cracking the password and coming up with both hands full of pics of Aislinn riding Cueball Lanigan, with Breslin counting cash in the background. ‘Let me know when you get in there, OK?’

‘As soon as.’ Sophie rips one more strip of tape and slaps it down. ‘That’ll have to do. I swear, this thing’s ugly enough, I kind of hope they do smash it. The world would be a better place.’

I go looking for Breslin. Bernadette says he’s in the building, but there’s no sign of him in the squad room – the chat deflates to flat stares when I open the door, rises up again under a layer of sniggers when I close it behind me – and he’s not in the canteen. I head upstairs to check the incident room.

I’m on the landing when I hear that smooth voiceover drawl coming down the stairwell. Breslin, somewhere up above me, talking low.

I stop dead. Then I move carefully – the stairs are wide white marble, part of the old castle, every sound echoes – till I can see through the banisters. Breslin and McCann, at the top of the stairs, close together.

I’m meant to be grabbing any chance for chats with these two, but McCann doesn’t look like he’s in a chatty mood. He’s slumped into his suit, hands stuffed in his pockets. Breslin is lounging against the banister rail with his back to me. From the line of his shoulders I can tell the casual slouch is taking effort.

McCann is muttering something that includes the words ‘that bitch’. He sounds like he means it.

‘I’m on it,’ Breslin says. ‘You sit tight and leave it to me. OK?’

McCann moves like his suit is clammy. ‘She doesn’t like being pushed around. If you try to-’

‘I’m not going to push her around. It’s not about that. It’s about making her see that she’s really only got one option here.’

McCann swipes his fingers along his eyebags, head falling back.

Breslin says, ‘I’ll sort her out. Everything’s going to be back to normal in no time.’

As McCann brings his head up to say something, he catches my black suit against the white of the stairs, and goes still. ‘Bres,’ he says.

Breslin turns around, and a blank look slams down across his gob. ‘Detective Conway,’ he says. ‘Nice of you to call in.’

‘I had some leftovers from Saturday night to take care of,’ I say. ‘This isn’t the JFK assassination; I’m not gonna clear my whole schedule for it. I need a word with you.’

‘Let’s do that. Walk with me. Mac: later, yeah?’ McCann nods without looking up. Breslin gives him a clap on the shoulder and heads past me, down the stairs.

I follow him. When I look back, McCann is still on the landing, staring at nothing.

‘McCann and his missus have been going through a bit of a rough patch,’ Breslin says confidentially, under the clatter of our footsteps. ‘You’ve probably heard the phone calls, right?’

I make a noise that could mean anything. We’ve all heard the phone calls: McCann muttering through a clenched jaw about being home earlier tonight, while his head sinks lower and lower over his desk and the lads snicker just loud enough.

‘She doesn’t like the job. Doesn’t like the hours, doesn’t like him coming home with his head full of dead little kids, all the usual – hard to blame her, right? McCann thinks she’s winding up to an ultimatum: he transfers out, or she kicks him out.’

I nod along. It’s bollix. This squad gossips like a bingo hall, but no one ever bothers filling me in. The two of them were talking about me: either how to make me close this case, or how to get me off the squad. The only question is why. ‘Huh,’ I say. ‘What’s he gonna do?’

‘Well, he’s not crazy about either of those options, obviously. I said I’ll have a chat with his missus, settle her down. We’ve all been friends a long time; she knows I’ve got their best interests at heart.’ Breslin does the benevolent smile of a guy who’s got everyone’s best interests at heart. ‘I’m going to need your word on something, Conway. This doesn’t go any further. McCann doesn’t want his private life splashed all over the squad. You shouldn’t have heard any of that’ – the reproachful finger-wag is a nice touch – ‘but since you did, you need to treat it with respect.’

‘I don’t do gossip,’ I say. ‘I leave that to the lads.’ I’m itching to punch Breslin in both his faces, but I wanted a chat with him, and here it is. ‘You think you’re gonna get it sorted out?’

‘Oh, yeah. They’re mad about each other, underneath it all; they just need a little reminder of that. It’ll be fine in no time. McCann’s just worried.’

‘Yeah. The pair of yous looked a bit stressed, all right.’

Breslin stops and gives me a stare. ‘Me? What’s that supposed to mean?’

I lift my hands. ‘I’m only saying.’

‘This is what stressed looks like to you?’ He’s pointing at his gob, which is halfway between disbelieving and disgusted. ‘Your radar might need some recalibrating, Conway. What would I be stressed about?’

I shrug. ‘How would I know?’

Breslin’s not moving. ‘No. You can’t throw out something like that and then backpedal when I call you on it. What would I be stressed about?’

Stressed and defensive as hell, too, which is interesting. I decide not to point out that part. ‘Whatever. The usual. Work. Money. Life.’

‘My life is great, thanks very much. I love my work, unlike some – and if you think a few days with you and Ginger Boy is enough to change that, you’re flattering yourself. Financially, I’m fine – better than fine; not a care in the world. I’m a happy man. OK?’

‘Man,’ I say. ‘I’m only making small talk.’

Breslin stares me out of it for a long moment. Then: ‘All right.’

He heads off down the stairs again, making me follow. ‘Just a tip, Conway: we’ve all got our fortes. Small talk may not be yours.’

‘Maybe not,’ I say. So much for my heart-to-heart with Breslin. ‘Anything you want to tell me about yesterday evening?’

‘Rory’s big brothers came in for the chats. The reports are on my desk, if you want to take a look, but there’s nothing good in there. They both say Rory is a New Man who respects women and would never God forbid hit one; he’s been dumped a few times – surprise, surprise – and he just got depressed about it, never angry. They know the bookshop’s not in great financial shape; they claim Rory would have come to them for a loan if he needed one, not to his new bird, but they’re both skint as well, so I don’t see why he’d bother. I got both of them on tape so we can play them to Whatsisname at Stoneybatter, but to be honest with you I’ll be surprised if he IDs them. I think they genuinely are as clueless as they’re making out.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘Did you ring Sophie Miller looking for Aislinn’s electronics?’

Breslin’s face turns to me, eyebrows lifting in a warning. ‘Yeah. Is that a problem?’

‘I said me and Steve were on those.’

He stops on the landing so he can give me a proper stare. ‘Ah, Conway, come on. I get that you want to keep the good stuff for yourselves, but this isn’t playschool; you don’t get to call dibsies on your special toys. This is the real world. What matters is getting the job done.’

‘Yeah. And we’re well able to do that.’

‘Not last night, you weren’t. The two of you were home getting your beauty sleep – I know, I know, double shift, but the fact remains, you weren’t here, were you? And I was. I finished up with Rory’s brothers, I set up appointments with the rest of his KAs, I put in a call for his phone records, and then I had a little time on my hands. So I decided to use it. You should be thanking me, instead of getting your knickers in a twist.’

I say, ‘Did you find out anything useful?’

Breslin eyes me. He says, ‘Miller didn’t have anything ready.’

‘Right. That’s why I’m not thanking you. Also because I like knowing who’s doing what in my investigation, so I don’t make a tit of myself trying to get something done and being told someone else already did it.’

Breslin’s jaw moves. ‘Conway. You need to chill out. Just bear in mind that I’ve got a lot more experience than you do. If I do something, I think you can take it on trust that it’s in the best interests of the investigation.’

‘No,’ I say. I can hear Steve in my head going We need to get on with Breslin, but I want to see what happens. ‘I’m bearing nothing in mind. Unless I missed your promotion, we’re on the same squad, and this is my investigation. Which means you’re the cheeky little bollix who’s getting above himself, and you’re the one who needs to bear in mind who’s who here.’

For a second I think I’ve taken it too far, but Breslin forces his face into weary resignation, like a teacher who should never have expected better from that problem student. ‘OK, Conway. Next time I consider contributing a little extra to your investigation, I’ll be sure and run it by you first.’ Eye-roll. ‘Does that make you feel better?’

‘Yeah. It does.’

‘Good. So could you maybe pull that stick out of your arse?’

‘I… Jaysus.’ I dial it right back, turn all sheepish. ‘I didn’t mean to…’ I glance down the corridor, making sure no one’s heard me being a bad little D. ‘It’s not easy, you know? Having someone like you on board. It’s pretty intimidating. I don’t always manage to… yeah. Manage to deal with it right.’

‘Well,’ Breslin says. He takes his time thinking that over, to teach me a lesson, but he’s puffing out with self-satisfaction. ‘I suppose I can see that. That’s no excuse for getting defensive, though. We’re on the same team here.’

‘I know, yeah. I apologise.’ I won’t lick arse for the sake of getting wankers to like me, but for the sake of getting wankers, I can slurp with the best. ‘And I do appreciate the help, and the advice. Even if I’m not the best at showing it.’

Breslin nods. ‘All right,’ he says, all magnanimous. ‘We’ll say no more about it.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘I’ve got appointments with more of Rory’s KAs. If that’s still all right with you.’

He’s smiling, although there’s an edge underneath. ‘That’d be great,’ I say. ‘Thanks a million. See you later.’

And I give him a humble duck of my head and start back up towards the incident room. McCann is gone off the upstairs landing. I’m on the top floor and turning down the corridor before I hear Breslin’s footsteps start again, echoing around the stairwell in slow cold claps.

The incident room is getting on grand without me, which probably should feel like a good thing. The floaters are busy little bees and making sure it shows: Gaffney is scribbling, Meehan’s finishing up a phone call; Kellegher and Reilly are hunched towards their monitors, fast-forwarding through jerky CCTV footage. Stanton and Deasy are somewhere else, presumably at Aislinn’s work. Steve has our boss desk all to himself, he’s turned it into a nest of printouts and Kit Kat bars, and he’s whistling peacefully while he works his way through them. He looks happy.

‘Morning, all,’ I say, throwing my stuff onto my desk. The floaters whip out smiles like they love me. If anyone’s got to any of them – and someone almost definitely has: whatever Breslin’s agenda is, the first thing he would need is at least one floater in his pocket – they’re good at hiding it.

‘Howya,’ Steve says. ‘Sorted?’

‘Yeah.’ I didn’t give him details, just said I wanted some extra from the scumbag witness, and he didn’t ask. ‘Anything I should know?’

‘Sophie e-mailed us some stuff, just now.’ He lifts a page.

‘I was talking to her, yeah.’ I sling my coat over the back of my chair. ‘One of her guys is gonna wangle us Aislinn’s e-mail records. Have you got her phone logs?’

‘Yeah. My guy at Meteor sent them over.’ Steve examines his heaps of paper, pats the right one. ‘Breslin pulled Rory’s; he says there’s nothing that jumps out, no calls to anyone but Aislinn on Saturday night, no call to Stoneybatter station yesterday morning, and no link to Lucy Riordan. He’s working on getting the actual texts, see if there’s anything in there.’

‘Gaffney,’ I say. ‘Any word on the number that called it in?’

Gaffney jumps. ‘Yeah – yes; I’ve done that, yes. I got hold of the number. But it’s unregistered.’

Steve says, ‘I can’t see any reason why Rory would have a spare unregistered mobile. One that didn’t show up in the search of his flat.’

While most of the gang boys have more unregistered phones than they can keep track of. ‘You never know,’ I say. ‘But yeah: it looks like Rory probably wasn’t the one who called it in. We’ll pull full records for the phone, see if those give us some clue who owns it. Moran, can you get onto that?’

Steve nods, writing. Gaffney looks wounded, but that’s tough: if that phone log is full of calls to drug dealers, me and Steve need to know before anyone else does.

‘Meehan,’ I say, ‘you were timing the route Fallon says he took around Stoneybatter. How’d that go?’

‘According to Fallon’s statement,’ Meehan says, spinning his chair round to face us, ‘he got off the bus just before half-seven, and he knocked on Aislinn’s door just before eight – that part’s confirmed by the witness who was walking his dog. So that’s half an hour for the whole walk – from the bus stop to the top of Viking Gardens, up to Tesco and buy flowers, back down to her house. When I went at a normal pace, it came out at twenty-seven minutes. When I went as fast as I could without actually running, I knocked six minutes off that.’

I say, ‘Meaning Rory could have had almost ten minutes to spare.’

‘More,’ Steve says. ‘Here’s the good part. Stanton pulled CCTV from the 39A route and had a look, first thing this morning. Rory got on the bus at ten to seven, not just before seven like he told us, and he got off it at quarter past, not just before half. He could’ve misremembered, or just been estimating the times, but…’

‘But he was obsessing about being late to Aislinn’s,’ I say, ‘in case she got her feelings hurt and dumped him and his life was ruined or whatever. Nah: he didn’t estimate, and he didn’t misremember. He’s got anything up to twenty-five minutes unaccounted for, and he was fudging because he doesn’t want us knowing that.’ That blood-smell flares at the back of my nose again. He’s so tempting, Rory, all fluffy and big-eyed and just begging for the killer bite; it would be so satisfying to hammer on his door, drag him back in and shove his face up against the CCTV screen. ‘Good. When we bring him back in, he’d better have a great explanation for what he was doing. Have we got footage from the area yet?’

‘Yeah,’ Kellegher says, leaning back from his monitor. Kellegher is long, freckly, laid-back, and useful enough that he’s going to end up on the squad sooner or later. ‘The bad news is, there’s no cameras between the 39A stop and Viking Gardens, or between Viking Gardens and the Tesco – so we can’t verify Fallon’s route, or the timing. But we’ve got him buying the flowers in Tesco. He paid at 7.51, which matches his story.’

‘No surprise there,’ I say. ‘He had to know Tesco would have him on camera; he wouldn’t lie about that. We need to widen the area of Stoneybatter where we’re pulling CCTV. Whatever Rory was doing in that missing time, it could have taken him off the route he gave us. Reilly, you can get on that.’ Meehan reaches for the book of jobs.

Reilly glances out the window – it’s getting ready to rain – and back at his monitor. ‘I’m not done watching what we’ve got.’

Reilly was a year behind me in training college. He’s a lot less useful than Kellegher, but I’m guessing he’ll make the squad sooner, just going by how beautifully he’d fit in with this shower. ‘Kellegher can finish that up,’ I say. ‘With twenty minutes to spare, Fallon could have got, say, half a mile off the route he gave us. Do a half-mile radius, to start with. See you later.’

Reilly’s chin moves and he gives me a piggy stare, but he heaves himself out of his chair and starts disentangling his coat. ‘Kellegher,’ I say. ‘Tell me you’ve got some good news to go with that.’

‘Some, yeah. We’ve picked up Fallon in four locations between Stoneybatter and Ranelagh, on his way home. I’ve mapped them up there.’ Kellegher nods at a new map on the whiteboard, complete with X’s and arrows and a halo of grainy time-stamped photos. ‘They’re consistent with his statement.’

I take a look. The slight guy in the black overcoat has his head down, against the rain and his bad evening, but it’s Rory, all right. In the earliest shot, on the northside quays, there’s a smashed-looking bunch of flowers sticking out of his armpit; by the time he gets across the river into Temple Bar, it’s gone.

‘Do we ever get a look at his hands?’ I ask.

‘Nah. In his pockets.’

‘Meehan,’ I say. ‘I need you to time Fallon’s route home. I want to see if he could have taken a detour anywhere along the way – gone off to ditch his gloves, or called in to a mate. Kellegher: what pace is he going on the CCTV?’

‘Brisk, I’d call it,’ Kellegher says, considering the Temple Bar shot, where Rory’s been shouldered off the pavement by a howling stag do wearing fake tits and waving beer cans. ‘Not jogging or anything, but he wanted to get home, all right. Yeah: brisk.’

‘You heard the man,’ I tell Meehan. ‘Viking Gardens to the Wayward Bookshop, nice and brisk, and record the times when you hit the places where the CCTV caught Rory.’

‘I’m going to get fit on this one,’ Meehan says, pushing his chair back.

‘Make it brisk enough and you might beat the rain,’ I say. ‘Thanks. Kellegher, how much of that footage have you got left to watch?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘When you’re done, go have chats with the people who were at the book launch where Aislinn and Rory met. See how it looked: whether one of them was doing the chasing, whether either of them said anything interesting about the other, anything you can pick up. Yeah?’

Meehan scribbles that in the book on his way out. Kellegher gives me the thumbs-up and hits fast-forward on the CCTV – little dark figures spin and bobble down the street like wind-up toys. I go back to our desk and have a look over Steve’s shoulder.

‘These are Aislinn’s phone logs,’ he says, tapping a pile of paper, ‘and this is the stuff Sophie e-mailed us, what was on the actual phone. I want to cross-check, see if anyone deleted anything along the way.’

‘Great minds,’ I say. ‘I was going to say that to you.’ Lower: ‘We need a chat. Not here.’ Having to take my chats out of my own incident room is fucked up, but there’s no way to know which of the floaters belong to Breslin.

Steve nods. ‘We need to search Aislinn’s gaff anyway.’

‘That’ll work. Let’s go.’

He bins his Kit Kat wrappers, because he was brought up right. ‘While we’re in Stoneybatter, fancy showing me round your locals?’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe they went for the odd pint.’

The floaters look like they’re absorbed in their jobs, but I keep my voice down anyway. It’s getting to be a habit. ‘Who? Aislinn and her fella? A guy having a secret affair, you think he’s going to be snogging the girlfriend down the pub?’

‘They were seeing each other for around six months, according to Lucy. You can’t spend six months just staying in and shagging.’ Steve digs around the desk, finds a photo of Aislinn and sticks it in his coat pocket. ‘The pubs’ll be opening soon. Come on.’

I stay put. ‘Even if he exists, they wouldn’t have gone to one of my locals. Lucy said Aislinn was all about the fancy club scene; a pub in Stoneybatter wouldn’t have been her thing. To put it mildly.’

‘So less chance of being spotted. And if he’s married, then they were doing their shagging at Aislinn’s place; if they got stir-crazy and snuck out for a quick pint, it’d be somewhere around there.’ Steve throws his coat on, glancing at the window. ‘The fresh air’ll do us good.’

‘We don’t have fresh air in Stoneybatter. We’re too cool for that culchie crap. And you think a barman’s going to remember some chick who looked exactly like half the twenty-something women in Dublin?’

‘You remembered her. And barmen have good memories for faces.’ Steve pulls my coat off the back of my chair and holds it up, valet-style. ‘Humour me.’

‘Give me that,’ I say, whipping the coat off him, but I put it on. ‘And sort those.’ I jerk my chin at Steve’s printouts and flick him a warning look. He starts organising the paper into a stack.

Gaffney is looking over. I say, ‘Gaffney, spread the word: case meeting at half-five. And go find Breslin. You’re supposed to be shadowing him, remember? What are you even doing here?’

‘But he said-’ Gaffney looks petrified; the poor bastard is seeing his career going splat all over the carpet. ‘I did shadow Detective Breslin, like, all yesterday evening, and this morning – I was taking notes for him, and he was explaining to me how ye work, and all… It was only when he was heading out – he said I was grand to work on my own now, and you’d probably be needing me here more than he needed me out there, so, I mean…’

Breslin was right, obviously: Gaffney is well able to pull financials and make phone calls without someone holding his hand, or he wouldn’t be in the floater pool to begin with. But he’s also well able to take notes during interviews, and Breslin isn’t the type to turn down the obedient PA that he deserves; not unless he wants the freedom to nudge witnesses his way, with no one else there to notice.

Gaffney has run down and is staring at me pathetically. There’s no point sending him after Breslin; Breslin will find some excuse to slither out of it, or he just won’t answer his phone. ‘You’re grand,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve got plenty of jobs to keep you going.’

Gaffney starts trying to come up with something grateful, but I’m already headed for the door. Behind me, I hear the click of Steve’s desk drawer locking, for whatever that’s worth.