Tana French: The Trespasser

Two beats – one look at the gaffer, one at us – and he understands. His shoulders shift and roll forward as he gets ready for the fight.

‘Moran,’ O’Kelly says. ‘Give McCann a chair.’

I stand up with Steve and we move to the side, against the wall. For a second it looks like McCann’s going to stay standing, but then he yanks Steve’s chair farther from us and sits down. Legs wide, feet braced, chin forward.

O’Kelly says, ‘You should have told me.’

A fast raw flush springs up on McCann’s cheekbones. He opens his mouth to spew out a flood of reasons, excuses, justifications, whatever. Then he shuts it again.

‘How long have I been your gaffer?’

After a moment McCann says, ‘Eleven years.’

‘Any complaints?’

McCann shakes his head.

‘Have I had your back, along the way? Or have I hung you out to dry when things got tough?’

‘Had my back. Always.’

O’Kelly nods. He says, ‘A civilian who’s fucked up, he tries to hide it from his boss. A D in trouble, he goes to his gaffer.’

McCann can’t look at him. The flush deepens. ‘I should’ve. Straightaway. I know that.’

O’Kelly waits.

‘Sorry.’

‘OK,’ the gaffer says. He gives McCann the curt nod that means You’re off the hook, don’t fuck up again. ‘We’re talking now, anyway. And I want to know what in holy hell has been going on here. These two’ – he jerks his chin at me and Steve – ‘they’re trying to tell me you went pussy-blind: Aislinn Murray was out to fuck you over, you were thinking with your mickey, the whole thing went to shite. Is that true? This whole five-star clusterfuck, it’s all because you weren’t getting enough blood flow to the brain?’

McCann’s jaw moves. He doesn’t like that.

‘Because I know you – or anyway I thought I did – and I say it’s bollix. These two have come up with some story they like, and they’re making everything they get fit the story.’

It tracks cold right down into my stomach, like swallowed ice. The story we told him, the true one, it’ll never leave this room. By the time we walk out, O’Kelly and McCann between them will have sliced it to pieces and sewn it up into something unrecognisable, to set loose into the outside world. I knew it was coming, but it still hits home.

‘Fact is, everything they’ve got plays a couple of different ways.’

One fast glance from McCann.

O’Kelly holds up a thumb. ‘The photos of your notes. It’s a safe bet Aislinn was going to take those to your wife, but all that says is she wanted you for herself. Nothing to say why.’

Thumb and finger. ‘That fairy tale yoke she left for her mate. That just says she felt trapped – and I don’t blame her; you’re a fucking eejit, putting the girl in that situation, like she wanted to spend the rest of her life being your bit on the side – and she was angry with you, wanted to turn the tables so you couldn’t get away from her.’

A quick double blink from McCann. This is reaching him. Any second now, he’ll be jumping on board with whatever O’Kelly’s got planned.

Another finger. ‘Rory Fallon. Aislinn could’ve been trying to get you out of her head. She had enough sense to know the two of ye were a bad idea all round.’

McCann’s looking at him now. The drowning-man hope struggling on his face is terrible.

‘Maybe this is just me doing my own wishful thinking. I don’t want to believe you’d make a mess like this one, drag the whole squad into it, just for the sake of a ride. For you to fuck up this badly, then you and Aislinn, that had to be the real thing.’

Shame, mixed in with the hope.

‘We can’t ask Aislinn what was going on in her head. You’re the only other person who was there; if anyone knows, it’s you. So you tell me, McCann. Was it the real thing? Or are we all sitting here because you fancied a fuck?’

The clench of anger in his voice pulls it out of McCann. ‘It was real. I’m not that bloody stupid.’

‘Real,’ the gaffer says. And waits for more.

‘Maybe Aislinn did go into it wanting to fuck me over. Probably. Maybe she ended the same way – that mate of hers persuaded her, or, I don’t know. But there was a while in there…’

McCann rubs his eyes. In the merciless light they look red and sore, like he’s got an infection starting. He says, ‘I couldn’t believe it was happening. To me. I thought I knew the rest of my life like it had already happened. All the decisions that make a difference, I’d made them before I was twenty-five – the job, the wife, the neighbourhood, having kids. All that was left was for me to sit there and watch them play out. No twists left; no surprises.’

He lifts his head to look over at me and Steve. ‘You won’t get it now, you two. You’re still young enough that anything could happen. But you’ll find out. It’s like being in a film, one of those third-rate ones where by halfway through you know exactly where it’s headed, every step; you can’t remember why you’re even bothering to watch the rest. Because it’s there, just; because there’s nothing else to do. And then…’

He blinks hard, like that might clear his eyes.

‘And all of a sudden someone lifts you right out of it and drops you into a different film. Different music, different colours. She was brighter. Always bright colours. And anything could happen.’

Steve says, ‘So what you told us about just liking her company, that was bollix. You knew from the start that this was something special.’

McCann shakes his head. ‘Nah. I didn’t think that way. Not at first. I just… I loved being with her. Nothing more than that; I never thought of doing more than that. Just seeing her listen to my stories like they mattered. It reminded me of how I used to feel about the job, way back when. The look on her face: when I pulled a good case, I used to feel like that. Like what I did changed things.’

I risk a glance at the gaffer. His face is steady; the shadows of wrinkles and eye sockets turn it unreadable.

‘OK,’ Steve says, keeping the scepticism level well below bitchy. ‘So how did that change?’

‘One night,’ McCann says. He brushes a hand over his cheek, like something fine and cobwebby is catching at him. ‘One night. August. Aislinn said some guy had chatted her up at her evening class. Just in passing, she mentioned it – she wasn’t into him, she’d turned him down. But that was when it hit me: a girl like that, of course she’s going to want a fella. Not just someone for picnics and talk; a man who loves her. A man in her bed. Hit me like a ton of bricks, because I knew once she got him, I’d be gone.’

She made him think it was his idea, Lucy said. She did a good job of it.

‘And then I thought: why not me? Why not? We were loving each other’s company, couldn’t get enough. There was chemistry there – even I could tell that. The way she looked at me, the way her breathing went when we accidentally got close- There was something.’

A sharp glance at me and Steve. That faint stinging red has come up on his cheekbones again. ‘Probably it sounds pathetic to you: just a middle-aged fool head over heels for some young one, oldest story in the world. You weren’t there.’

Every murderer says that to us, sooner or later. You weren’t there. You don’t understand. There’s a small dry chip of silence while no one points that out.

I say, ‘It was that easy? You said, “Hey, let’s give it a go,” and Aislinn said, “Sure, why not?” ’

McCann shakes his head heavily. ‘I don’t know how I made it happen. You two, you keep talking like she hunted me down, but it wasn’t- She didn’t want to be some homewrecker. It took me a while to convince her she was doing no harm that hadn’t been done years ago. When I finally, when we finally… that was when I realised: she honest to God cared about me. She… It…’ A quick involuntary catch of breath. ‘That blew me away. Just blew me away.’