Tana French: The Trespasser

The problem with Steve taking contradiction so nicely is that I feel like I have to live up to him. ‘True enough. No wonder she got herself killed.’ Sometimes I worry that if I work with Steve for too long, I’m gonna turn into a sweetheart.

With her pal Lucy, though, Aislinn dropped the hard-to-get act. Yesterday evening, 6.49:

Omigod I’m so excited it’s ridiculous!!! Getting ready singing into corkscrew like teenager w hairbrush. Am I pathetic or wha??

Lucy came back to her straightaway. Depends what you’re singing

Beyoncé:-D

Could be worse… tell me it’s not Put a ring on it

Nooo!!! Run the world!

Ah well then you’re golden. Just don’t feed him on celery and ryvita, you don’t want him fainting from hunger before you can have your wicked way with him:-D

Ha ha so funny. Making beef wellington

Ooo get you!! Gordon ramsay

Hello it’s just from Marks & Sparks!

Ah gotcha. Have loads of fun. And be careful ok?

Stop worrying!! Tell you everything tomorrow xxx

That one went out at 7.13. Just time for Aislinn to put on the last layer of makeup, the last layer of hairspray, stick her M &S dinner into the cooker, swap Beyoncé for mood music and light the scented candle, before the doorbell rang.

‘“Be careful,” ’ Steve says.

When we talk to Lucy, she’ll explain why she was worried: how Rory got aggressive that time in the pub when he thought Aislinn was looking at another guy, or how he made her keep her coat on in the restaurant because her dress showed her cleavage, or how he used to go out with a friend of a friend and the word was he had slapped her around but Aislinn figured it was exaggerated and he was a lovely guy and all he needed was someone who treated him properly. ‘Same old story,’ I say. ‘Next time my ma asks me why I’m still single, I’m gonna tell her about this case. Or the last one. Or the one before that.’

Slam-dunk lovers’ tiff, just like the uniforms figured. Our boy Rory practically lay down on a platter and stuck an apple in his mouth for us. I’ve known this was coming since back in the squad room, but some thicko part of me still feels it like a kick in the teeth.

Domestics are mostly slam-dunks; the question isn’t whether you can arrest your guy, or girl, it’s whether you can build a case that’ll hold up in court. A lot of people love that – it pretties up your solve rate, looks good to the brass – but not me: it means domestics get you fuck-all respect from the squad, where I could do with it, because everyone knows the solve came easy. Which is also the other reason they piss me off: they’ve got a whole special level of idiotic all to themselves. You take out your wife or your husband or your Shag of the Day, what the fuck do you think is gonna happen? We’re gonna be standing there with our mouths open, scratching our heads at the mind-blowing mystery of it all, Duh, I dunno, musta been the Mafia ? Surprise: we’re gonna go straight for you, the evidence is gonna pile up way over your head, and you’re gonna wind up with a life sentence. If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world.

One thing on that phone, though, doesn’t fit on that rock-bottom level of stupid. After the happy-clappy texts with Lucy, nothing in or out for almost an hour. Then, at 8.09 p.m., a text from Rory: Hi Aislinn, just checking that I’ve got the right address? I’m outside 26 Viking Gardens but no one’s answering the door. Am I in the right place?

The text’s flagged as unread.

Steve taps the time stamp. ‘He wasn’t running late, anyway. No reason for her to turn off the cooker.’

‘Mm.’

8.15 p.m., Rory rang Aislinn. She didn’t pick up.

He rang her again at 8.25. At 8.32 he texted her: Hi Aislinn, wondering if I’ve got the weeks mixed up? I thought I was due over for dinner tonight but it seems like you’re not around. Let me know the story whenever you get the chance? Unread again.

‘Yeah, right,’ I say. ‘He knows damn well he hasn’t got the weeks mixed up. If he needed to double-check, the appointment’s right there in his messages.’

Steve says, ‘He’s trying to make it sound like, whatever’s gone wrong, it has to be his fault. He doesn’t want to piss Aislinn off.’

‘Or else he knows we’ll be reading these, and he wants to get it through to us loud and clear that he’s a meek little nice guy who could never do anything like punch his date in the face even if he was in the house which obviously he never was, swear to God, Officer, just look at his phone, see all these messages?’

A lot of domestics try to get smart like that: take one look at what they’ve done, and start setting up a story. Sometimes it even works – not on us, but on a jury. Rory Fallon pitched it nicely: enough messages to show he was really trying to get hold of Aislinn, honest, but nothing after the 8.32 text, so he doesn’t come across like a stalker. Again, not rock-bottom stupid.

‘Narrows down time of death, either way,’ Steve says. ‘She was texting Lucy at thirteen minutes past seven. By ten past eight, she was down.’

‘Either way?’ That makes me look up from the phone. ‘What, you think these could be legit?’

Steve does something noncommittal with his chin. ‘Probably not.’

‘Come on . Someone just happened to walk in looking to kill her, at the exact moment when Rory was due to arrive for his beef Wellington? Seriously?’

‘I said probably not. Just… we’ve got a couple of weird things, now. I’m keeping an open mind.’

Oh, Jesus. Little Stevie, bless his heart, is trying to convince us both that we’ve landed ourselves something special, so that our day will brighten up and I’ll turn that frown upside down and quit talking about my mate’s security firm and we’ll all live happily ever after. I can’t wait for this case to be over.

‘Let’s go pick up Rory Fallon and find out,’ I say. If we’re in luck and the pathetic-wimp version of Rory is the right one, he might even spill his guts in time for me to get in a run and some food before I crash out.

That gets Steve’s attention. ‘You want to go straight for him?’

‘Yeah. Why not?’

‘I was thinking the vic’s best friend – Lucy. If she knows anything, it’d be good to have it before we start on Rory. Go in there with all the ammo we can get.’

Which would be the perfect way to work this if it was a proper murder case, with one of those cunning psychopaths lurking in the shadows daring us to take our best shot, instead of some gobshite who got his knickers in a twist and threw a tantrum at his girlfriend and who deserves every short cut we can find. But Steve is giving me the hopeful puppy-dog eyes, and I figure what the hell: he’ll have his own burnout soon enough, no point dragging him down into mine. ‘Why not,’ I say. I lock Aislinn’s phone and drop it back into its evidence bag. ‘Let’s go talk to Lucy Riordan.’

Steve slams the oven door. The waft of air shoots through the kitchen, charred and rich with meat about to rot.

Sophie is squatting beside the fireplace, swabbing the bloodstain. ‘We’re getting out of your hair,’ I tell her. ‘You find anything we should know about, give us a bell.’

‘Will do. No surprises so far. Your vic did a pretty serious clean-up for her little dinner date – practically every surface in here’s been wiped – which is nice: if your guy left prints, we can show they hadn’t been there long. So far we’re getting bugger-all, though; looks like you could be right about him having his gloves on. Keep your fingers crossed.’