Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

I frowned. ‘That’s not on the sheet.’

‘Don’t buy a telescope, just walk closer to what you want to see.’

I smiled.

‘Never eat yellow snow. Don’t smoke. Wear a bra. Never make eye contact while eating an ice pop.’

I was giggling in bed. Finally he was silent.

‘Okay, I get the point: you think they’re crap. But do you feel better?’

‘Do you?’

I laughed. ‘Yes, I do actually.’

‘I do too,’ he answered eventually, his voice soft and low.

I imagined he was smiling, at least I hoped he was; I could hear it in his voice.

‘Goodnight, Adam.’

‘Goodnight, Christine.’

I slept a little that night, but mostly I couldn’t help thinking: eight days left.

14

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It

Detective Maguire sat across the table from me in an interrogation room in Pearse Street garda station. His eyes were bloodshot, with crinkled bags underneath as though he’d had a hard night partying the night before. Once again I knew this not to be true. He’d grudgingly agreed to see me, warning that for the time being he would merely listen to my story before deciding whether to refer me to his colleagues. I understood that to mean he was acting as a filter; if my complaint wasn’t worth it, he didn’t want to waste garda time. I felt my forehead prickle with sweat. The room was suffocating, with no windows and no ventilation. If I were a suspect I’d have been ready admit to anything, to get out of there. Thankfully, I’d insisted on the door being left open so I could keep an eye on Adam.

‘Are you in the habit of picking up suicide victims?’ Detective Maguire had asked when I arrived with Adam.

‘I’m helping him with a job placement actually.’ It wasn’t a total lie.

I checked the door once again to make sure Adam was still there. He looked bored and tired but at least he was present.

‘You always bring your work home with you?’ he asked.

‘You ever go home?’ I snapped.

I realised too late that he’d been on the verge of opening up for once. My snapping immediately caused him to retreat to his shell; the force field went back up, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, clearly berating himself over his weakness in letting his mask slip.

My response left me feeling guilty; I realised I preferred dealing with the tough Maguire. I didn’t want to relax and start sharing trade secrets with this man.

‘So tell me again, you think a man wearing a black leather jacket and turtle-neck jumper, possibly an Eastern European, smashed your windscreen with a hurley stick because you possibly witnessed a drug sale between this man and a black car with tinted windows – of which you can remember no other details – on a country lane, for which you can’t provide directions or a location because you were playing a game of getting lost. Have I got that right?’ His tone was bored.

‘My friend Julie’s windscreen, not mine, but yes, the rest of that is correct.’ It had taken me three days to make a report about the windscreen, partly because I was helping Amelia with her mother’s funeral arrangements, partly because of my schedule with Adam but mostly because I was avoiding having to spend a single second in Detective Maguire’s company, though in the end I knew he was the one who could help me.

‘Why possibly Eastern European?’

‘He had that look,’ I said quietly, wishing I hadn’t mentioned that part at all. ‘He was enormous, strong jaw, wide shoulders. But then he had a hurley stick, which made him look more Irish …’ I trailed off, my face reddening at the amusement on his face.

‘So if he’d done a perfect somersault he’d have been Russian, and if he’d had a baseball bat that would have made him American? What if he’d come at you with a chopstick? Japanese or Chinese – what do you think?’ He grinned, enjoying his joke.

I ignored him.

‘Can anybody else corroborate your story?’

‘Yes. Adam can.’

‘The suicide man.’

‘The attempted suicide victim, yes.’

‘Any other witnesses who didn’t just try to kill themselves five minutes ago?’

‘He attempted suicide five days ago, and yes, my niece saw it all.’

‘I’ll need her details.’

I thought about it. ‘Sure. Have you got a pen?’

He picked up his biro grudgingly, flicked open his notepad, which was blank despite my having spent the last ten minutes telling him what happened.

‘Shoot.’

‘Her name is Alicia Rose Talbot and you’ll find her at the Cheeky Monkey Montessori, Vernon Avenue, Clontarf,’ I said it slowly.

‘She works there?’

‘No, she attends it. She’s three years old.’

‘Are you fucking with me?’ He slammed the pen down.

Adam peered into the room protectively.

‘No, but I believe you are with me. I don’t think you’re taking this seriously,’ I said.

‘Look, I operate from the place that the most obvious answer is probably the truth. Your story about a Russian drug dealer with a hurley down a country lane has so many ifs and buts, I doubt it has any legs.’

‘But it happened.’

‘Maybe it did.’

‘It did. ’

He was silent.

‘So what’s the most obvious answer then?’ I asked.

‘I heard you left your husband.’

I swallowed, surprised it had taken this direction.

‘The night of the shooting,’ he prompted.

‘What’s when I left got to do with anything?’

He rubbed his stubbled jaw, red raw from too much shaving and not enough moisturising. Then he sat a moment, studying me, and I began to feel as if I were being interrogated.

‘Did it have anything to do with the shooting?’

‘No … yes … maybe,’ I stammered, having realised I didn’t want him to know. ‘Why do you want to know that?’

‘Because.’ He shifted in his chair and started doodling on the pad. ‘I’ve been in this job a long time and – take it from someone who has experience of these things – you shouldn’t let what happens on the job affect what happens in your home life.’

I was surprised. I was about to snap back but instead bit my tongue. It must have taken him a lot to say what he’d said to me.

‘It wasn’t because of what happened with Simon. But thanks. For the advice.’

He studied me for a while in silence, then parked the issue. ‘Do you think your ex-husband has anything to do with the car being damaged?’

‘No way.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because he’s not that type of person. He’s not passionate like that. He doesn’t even support a football team because he can’t believe in anything that much. For his birthday one year his friends got him part of a fence for him to sit on – that’s how devoid of opinion he is. Honestly, if you knew him you wouldn’t be having this conversation. Let’s move on.’

‘How has he been taking you leaving him?’

‘Jesus, Maguire, that has nothing to do with you,’ I shouted, standing up.

‘It may have something to do with your window,’ he said calmly, remaining seated. ‘A husband, recently left by his wife, humiliated, broken-hearted and angry, I’d imagine. He might have been your sweetpea when you were married, but you never know how much people can change. Like the flick of a switch. Has there been any threatening behaviour over the past few weeks?’

My non-answer was a good enough answer for him.

‘But it’s not even my car,’ I protested. ‘He knows that. Smashing it up would affect someone else, not me.’

‘It’s your friend Julie’s, you told me. But you’re driving it. And he’s not exactly thinking rationally now. How does he feel about your friend Julie? Anything to say about her recently?’