Tana French - The Trespasser

‘Only the best.’ Breslin heads over to the glass for a look at Rory. ‘After all this, I’m just hoping the best friend – what’s her name? – gave you something good.’

‘Lucy Riordan,’ Steve says. ‘Background info, basically. Aislinn’s childhood wasn’t great: the da walked out, the ma had some kind of breakdown, Aislinn took on the carer role. It left her pretty sheltered – not a lot of life experience, not a lot of confidence. The ma died a few years back and Aislinn started coming out of herself, but she was still catching up, still pretty naïve. Just the type who’d miss a few red flags.’

‘And were there red flags?’

‘Not that Lucy knows of. Aislinn and Rory met at a book launch six or seven weeks back; they were both smitten, but Aislinn was playing it cool. Rory seemed like a nice guy, seemed to be treating Aislinn well. Lucy never got the sense he was a threat.’

‘No shit,’ Breslin says, examining Rory, who’s started jiggling one knee under the table. ‘Little wimp, isn’t he? He doesn’t look like he could punch out his granny. No reason why Lucy Whatsername should know that those can be the most dangerous ones, if they feel like they’ve been disrespected. It’s not her job to know that; it’s ours. What else?’

Steve shakes his head. ‘That’s about it.’

Breslin’s eyebrows go up. ‘That’s all the best mate had? What about other boyfriends? Disgruntled exes? Jealous women? Work enemies?’

We’re both shaking our heads now. ‘Nope,’ I say.

‘Come on, guys. Girls talk – am I right, Conway? I don’t even want to imagine what my missus tells her gal pals over the Chardonnay. The vic must’ve given your Lucy something juicier than that.’

‘According to Lucy, they weren’t that kind of close. They were mates because they had been since they were kids, and because Aislinn had no other friends, but they didn’t have a lot in common and they didn’t spill their guts to each other.’

Breslin thinks about that, leaning back against the glass and pinching his bottom lip. ‘You don’t think she’s keeping anything back?’

Me and Steve look at each other blankly. Steve shakes his head. ‘Nah.’

‘Lucy’s no idiot,’ I say. ‘She knows she needs to give us whatever she’s got. The only thing I wondered…’ I let it trail off. ‘Probably nothing.’

‘Hey, share with the class, Conway. Don’t worry about sounding stupid; we’re blue-skying here.’

What a tosspot. ‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘I wondered if Lucy might’ve had a thing for Rory herself. She was all about what a great guy he was. I mean, maybe he is, but if my mate had just been killed, I’d be feeling at least a little bit dodgy about the new boyfriend.’

‘Huh,’ Breslin says. ‘Has this Lucy got an alibi for last night?’

‘Yeah. She works at the Torch Theatre; she was there at half-six in the evening, in company constantly from then till four this morning. We’ll verify it, but like I said, she’s no idiot; she wouldn’t have given us something we could break that easily.’

‘Well then. We’ll check for contact between her and our boy there, in case she’s mixed up in the motive somehow; but unless some contact shows up, I’m not seeing any way her hypothetical crush could be relevant to us. Are you?’ Me and Steve shake our heads, nice and humble. ‘Good brainstorming, though. Anything else come up?’

‘That’s the lot,’ I say.

‘Well,’ Breslin says, on the edge of a sigh but managing to restrain himself. ‘I guess your little side trip was worth a shot. Background info’s never really a waste. Now, though, I suggest we get our arses in gear and get stuck into the serious stuff. That sound good to you two?’

‘Sounds great,’ I say. Which it does: another sixty seconds of this and I’m gonna knee the fucker in the guts. ‘I’ll lead the interview, with you backing me up, Detective Breslin. Detective Moran, you observe from here, and be ready to switch in if I decide we need to mix it up a little.’

Steve nods. Breslin shoots his cuffs. ‘Come to Papa,’ he says to the one-way glass.

I say, ‘This is only a preliminary interview. I’m not looking for a confession; we can push for that once we’ve got forensics, post-mortem results, all the good stuff to throw at him.’ And once me and Steve have done enough private digging to know what we’re dealing with here. ‘Right now I’m just looking to put the outlines in place. What Rory’s like, what the relationship was like, his take on Aislinn, his story on last night. I want to know if he’ll admit to talking to anyone between eight last night and five this morning; if our guy didn’t call this in himself, he told someone who did, and we need that someone. I want his coat and his gloves – the techs got black wool fibres off the body, and they say our guy probably wore non-shedding gloves, which matches what Rory’s got in there; so if we can convince him to hand them over for testing and save us fucking around with a warrant, I’ll be a very happy camper. In a perfect world he’d let us go through his gaff and take any other coats and gloves we find, but I don’t want to get him uptight today, so if that doesn’t come easy, we’ll leave it and go the warrant route. OK?’

Breslin considers that. ‘Mm,’ he says. ‘OK; that’s one way to work it. The other way would be to try and knock this sucker on the head as fast as we can. I’m not saying I have any problem with being assigned to this case – that’s fine, happy to help out. I’m just saying I’ve put my other cases on hold to be here, and there’s a limit to how much time I want to put into a bog-standard domestic. I’m sure you guys feel the same. Am I right?’

I mainly feel he should shut his trap and do what the lead D tells him, but I catch the pop-eyed panic on Steve’s face. It makes me want to laugh, which takes me off the boil. ‘That’s a point,’ I say, pleasantly. ‘Let’s do this: for now, we’ll take it slow, like I was saying. As soon as I think we can afford to ramp it up, I promise I’ll give the word. Fair enough?’

Breslin doesn’t look pleased, but after a moment he shrugs. ‘Suit yourselves. In that case, can we get started while there’s still some of the shift left?’ And, when I straighten up off the table: ‘You might want to do something about that first, Detective. Unless it’s part of your cunning plan.’

‘That’ is a dab at the corner of his mouth. I rub at my face: a flake of egg yolk, which I’ve obviously been wearing since that breakfast roll. ‘Thanks,’ I say, partly to Breslin and partly to my partner Captain Eagle-Eye. He makes an apology face back.

‘First impressions and all that jazz. If we’re ready now, let’s rock and roll.’

Breslin holds the door open for me to leave the observation room first, so I can’t get a last word with Steve behind his back – not that we need to swap meaningful whispers, but still. The corridor should fold around me like home, scuffed sludge-green paint and worn carpet and all; should feel like my marked track through my own territory, leading me straight and safe to the enemy neatly arranged in my interview-room crosshairs. Instead it feels like an unflagged trail through No Man’s Land, pocked with ankle-breaking mud holes and booby-trapped all the way.

Everyone has an interview shtick. One guy on the squad does a beautiful line in Father Confessor, piling on the guilt and waving absolution like a doggy treat; another one does Narky Headmaster, staring over his glasses and snapping out questions. I do Warrior Woman, ready to rush out with her guns blazing and avenge all your wrongs, if you’ll just tell her what they are, and her flipside Stroppy Man-Hating Bitch when we want to piss off a rapist or a Neanderthal; I also do Cool Girl, who’s one of the lads and stands her round and has a laugh, who guys can talk to when they wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to another fella. Steve does Nice Boy Next Door and variations. With women, Breslin does Gallant Gentleman, taking their coats and bending his head to listen to every word; with guys he does Chief Jock, your best pal but you better stay on his good side or he’ll flush your head down the jacks. We size up the target and wheel out the one that we think has the best chance.