Tana French: The Trespasser

The wonder in his voice. He sounds like a teenager, lifting with joy and amazement, he sounds so tender you could bruise him with one wrong touch. Time after time it’s left me gobsmacked, how people will tell you things they should keep locked inside for life; how ferociously they need the story to be out in the air, in the world, to exist somewhere outside their own heads.

He says, ‘It was real. All that shite you’ve got, that means nothing. One time I fell getting over her wall, scraped up my knee. Aislinn knelt down in front of me and washed it, so gentle. You think she’d’ve done that if she only hated my guts? Maybe she did, some of the time, but she loved me as well. People are complicated. She was more complicated than I realised.’

He’s giving me and Steve a stare that’s a challenge. No takers. The whole thing is pure double-dipped fantasy, but the last thing we want to do is take it apart. Me and Steve, scrabbling so hard to pull the true story out of the tangle, we forgot the false ones come with their own ferocious, double-edged power.

The gaffer nods. ‘I would’ve put money on that. Nice to know I’m not losing the bit I have.’ He resettles himself in his chair, adjusts his waistband over his belly. ‘Now we’ve got that cleared up,’ he says. ‘Let’s talk about Saturday night.’

McCann opens his mouth, but O’Kelly lifts a hand. ‘No. Hang on. That’s not what I’m asking you.’

McCann shuts up.

‘Breslin told these two you found Aislinn dead. But he told me that you – that his mate , I mean – didn’t even check for a pulse. Why?’

A shake of McCann’s head, baffled and wary. This isn’t what he was expecting. Not what I was expecting, either. I’m not sure, any more, that I have the foggiest clue what the gaffer is at.

‘He wanted me thinking the mate was a civilian, is why. So he said the mate panicked and did a runner, the way a civilian would. The way no D would, ever.’ O’Kelly shoots a sharp glance at McCann, under his eyebrows. ‘You happy with that?’

A humourless twist of McCann’s mouth. ‘Not happy with any of this.’

‘You shouldn’t be. You let Breslin paint you as a civilian, to keep you out of hassle with your gaffer. How does that sit with you?’

McCann’s jaw moves. ‘Not great.’

‘Good. Because it’s not sitting great with me, either.’ O’Kelly leaves that for a moment, but McCann’s got nothing to add. ‘And then, a minute ago, you said Aislinn made you feel the way you used to feel on a good case: like what you did mattered.’

Nod.

‘Used to feel, you said. Meaning not any more.’

McCann’s eyes are on the floor.

‘Since when?’

‘Don’t know. A couple of years back.’

‘What happened?’

O’Kelly’s leaning forward, elbows on the desk, as close as he can get. Me and Steve aren’t moving. We’re not even in the room. This is between McCann and O’Kelly.

McCann says, ‘It wasn’t the job. It was me. What I said before: somewhere in there, it started feeling like everything I’d ever do was already set in stone. Middle of a big interview, out of nowhere I’d get this feeling like my mouth was moving by itself, like I was reading off a script and there was no way I could change it. It’d hit me that it didn’t matter who was sitting in my seat, asking the questions; the ending would be the same if it was me, Winters, O’Gorman, anyone. Felt like I was vanishing. It wasn’t that I stopped seeing myself as a D. I stopped seeing myself at all.’

The gaffer says, heavily, ‘I should’ve spotted that.’

McCann says urgently, ‘It never made a difference on the job, gaffer. I never slacked. No matter what, I gave it a hundred per cent.’

‘I know.’ O’Kelly leans back in his chair, runs a hand over his mouth. ‘What were you planning? Transfer off the squad? Hold out till you had your thirty and retire?’

McCann’s face upturned to him, like a kid’s, begging. ‘No. Gaffer, no. I thought midlife crisis, I’ll work through it, come out the other side, get my head back- I wasn’t going anywhere. Here till they drag me out.’

O’Kelly says – not brutal, just quiet and simple – ‘That’s out now.’

McCann bites down on his lip.

‘I can’t have you on the squad.’

After a long time, the smallest slice of a nod.

‘And I can’t palm you off on some other squad. Not knowing what I do.’

That nod again.

‘And the story’s going to come out, one way or another. Aislinn’s mate: we can keep her quiet for a while, but sooner or later she’ll cop that the case is going nowhere, and she’ll find herself a journo to talk to.’ O’Kelly doesn’t look at me and Steve, doesn’t act like he even knows we’re there, but I wonder. ‘And we’ll have the Garda Ombudsman jumping down our throats. There’ll be two inquiries, minimum: ours, and theirs. Breslin’ll be for the chop.’ That pulls a quick in-breath through McCann’s nose, jerks his head back. ‘What do you expect? Withholding evidence, and there’s that phone call to Stoneybatter to prove it. He’ll be lucky if he’s not up on charges.’

‘Gaffer,’ McCann says. The raw desperation gashing his voice open; I can’t look at him. ‘It’s not Breslin’s fault. He did nothing, only stood by me. Please-’

‘I won’t be able to do anything for Breslin, McCann. I’m for the chop, too.’ No self-pity in O’Kelly’s voice; these are facts, no different from fingerprint results or alibi times. ‘Unless I put in my papers before the investigation finishes up. In which case I won’t be around to give Breslin a dig-out.’

‘Christ,’ McCann says, barely above a whisper. ‘Ah, Christ, gaffer. I’m sorry.’

‘No. Don’t be getting maudlin on me. It’s done now.’ O’Kelly’s face across the desk, all unmovable grooves and crevices, like something carved a long time ago to send a message I can’t read. ‘You’ve got a choice. You can go out like a scumbag. Or you can be a D one more time.’

The silence goes on for so long. The office has changed, shifted, the same way the cosy interview room did. Crayon drawings, tiny flakes stirring in the snow globe. Thin skin stretched over clean bones and clacking teeth.

McCann says, quietly, ‘Saturday evening, after dinner, I told my wife I was going for a pint and I headed over to Aislinn’s house. I went in through the kitchen; saw the dinner cooking, but I didn’t think anything of it. There was music playing, dancy stuff, Aislinn didn’t hear me come in. I went out into the sitting room calling her – quiet, like always, so the neighbours wouldn’t hear – and I saw the table, set for two. Wineglasses. Candle. I thought it was for us. Should’ve known. I’m never over to her on Saturdays – mostly my wife wants to go out to a restaurant, only that evening she had a headache; no way Aislinn would’ve guessed I was coming. But all I could think about was seeing her.’

I risk a flash of sideways glance at Steve and meet him risking one at me, wide-eyed. We’re the only ones gobsmacked here. McCann’s voice doesn’t even hold a flicker of surprise at what he’s doing. The moment he walked into this room, he knew what O’Kelly would want from him. Breslin knew, too; that’s why they didn’t come to the gaffer with a version that had McCann in it, beg him to thin-blue-line it all away. Me and Steve were the only fools who didn’t get it.

‘And then she came out of the bedroom,’ McCann says. ‘Bright blue dress, beautiful; winter evening like that, nothing but grey and damp, and then this blue that’d light up your whole head… Her hair down, she knew I loved it like that. Putting an earring in one ear. I went to go to her, I…’ His hands come up, sketching the offer of an embrace.