I was so used to saying no to every question that I was about to say it again, automatically, when I remembered. “Actually, there was. Back, um, before Christmas? This guy, he came into her shop and got chatting to her, and then he kept coming back and not leaving for ages. And trying to get her to go for a drink. Even after she said no. It made her pretty—” Un-something, unhappy, no— “She didn’t like it. His name was Niall Something, he’s in finance at the—”
Martin was nodding. “Melissa told us about him, all right. We’ll be checking him out, don’t you worry. Give him a bit of a scare while we’re at it, wha’?” He winked at me. “Do him good, even if he’s not our fella. Did you have any run-ins with him? Warn him off?”
“Not a run-in, exactly. But yeah, after a few goes of this, I told Melissa to text me next time he came in. And then I ran down from work and told him to get lost.”
“How’d he take it?”
“I mean, he wasn’t pleased. There wasn’t any, we weren’t shouting or shoving or . . . but he got pretty stroppy with both of us. He left, though. And he didn’t come back.” I had no compunction about siccing the Guards on Niall Whatever. He had been a ridiculous, puffy-faced wanker who informed me that if Melissa had actually wanted to get rid of him, she would have done it, ergo the fact that he was there meant that she wanted him to be. I would have laughed—he obviously wasn’t dangerous, he was all hot air—if it weren’t for Melissa’s tense white face, the hunted strain in her voice when she’d told me about him. The fierce surge of protectiveness had been so strong that I didn’t care if she was overreacting; I was actually disappointed that I hadn’t needed to punch the little prick.
“Sounds like you handled it. Fair play to you.” Martin resettled himself more comfortably, one ankle propped on the other knee. “You said you went down from work to run him off. You work in an art gallery, am I right?”
“Yeah. I do the PR.” The mention of the gallery made my stomach do a small sideslip. If they had talked to Melissa, they might have talked to Richard—maybe I should just come clean, before they sprang something on me? but I really didn’t think Richard would want to get me into trouble, and anyway I was too muddled to be clear on what exactly I had done, I knew Tiernan and I had fucked up and got Gouger thrown out but—
“Ever bring home any of the art?”
“No. Never.”
“Any reason someone might think you did? Does anyone ever bring it out of the gallery? To show a buyer, maybe?”
“It doesn’t work that way. If a buyer gets a, a private viewing, it’s in the office. We’re not insured to carry the art around.”
“Ah,” Martin said. “The insurance lads; of course. Get their noses into everything. Never thought of that. Anyone at work that you don’t get on with?”
“No. It’s not that kind of place. Everyone gets on fine.” Or had, anyway, but—
“What about at home? Have you got anything valuable that they might have been after?”
“Um—” The barrage of questions was starting to disorientate me; he kept switching topics, and it was taking all my concentration to keep up. “I guess my watch—I have this antique gold watch that used to be my grandfather’s, he collected them? And I didn’t get like the, the fanciest one, because one of my cousins is older than me, Leon? he doesn’t look like it, but he’s actually . . .” I had lost track. It took me an agonizingly long time, while the detectives watched me with polite interest, to remember what I was supposed to be talking about. “Right. Yeah. I think mine could be worth maybe a grand.”
“Beautiful, those old watches,” Martin said. “I don’t like the modern stuff, all those Rolex yokes; no class. Do you wear it out and about? Would people have seen it on you?”
“Yeah, I wear it. Not always—mostly I just check the time on my phone? But if, for an opening or a, a meeting or . . . then yeah.”
“Were you wearing it the other night?”
“No. I mean”—meeting with Richard, a little extra gravitas—“yeah, I think I had it on that day. But then I probably, when I went to bed, it should be on my bedside table— Did they take it?”
Martin shook his head. “Couldn’t tell you for sure. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember seeing a gold watch, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.” The thought of these guys rummaging around in my apartment sent a twist through my stomach, and then a much colder and more urgent one: I had that hash, and—shit—hadn’t there been some coke left over from that Paddy’s Day party? But surely if they had been planning to give me hassle over that, they would have mentioned it by now— “How about your car?” Martin asked.
“Oh,” I said. My car hadn’t even occurred to me. “Yeah. It’s a BMW coupe—I mean, it’s a few years old, but it’s probably still worth— Did they take it?”
“They did, yeah,” Martin said. “Sorry. We’ve been keeping a lookout for it, but no joy yet.”
“The insurance’ll sort you out, no problem,” Flashy Suit told me comfortingly. “We’ll give you a copy of the report.”
“Where were the keys?” Martin asked.
“In the living room. On the, the”—word gone again—“the sideboard.”
He blew air out of the side of his mouth. “In full view of the windows, man. Ever leave the curtains open?”
“Mostly. Yeah.”
Martin grimaced. “You’ll know better next time, wha’? Did you have them open last Friday evening?”
“I don’t—” Getting home, going to bed, everything in between, it was all blank, a black hole big enough that I didn’t even want to get near it—“I don’t remember.”
“Did you have the car out that day?”
It took me a moment, but: “No. I left it at home.” I had figured that, whatever happened with Richard, I was going to want a few pints.
“In the car park in front of the building.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you drive it most days?”
“Not really. Mostly I walk to work, if the weather’s OK, save the hassle of parking in town? But if it’s raining or, or I’m running late, then yeah, I drive. And if I go somewhere at the weekend. Maybe two days a week? Three?”
“When was the last time you had it out?”
“I guess—” I knew I had stayed home for a few days before that night, couldn’t remember exactly how long— “The beginning of that week? Monday?”
Martin lifted an eyebrow, checking: You positive? “Monday?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember. Maybe it was over the weekend.” I got where he was going with this. The car park was open to the road, no gate. Martin thought someone had scoped out my car, clocked me getting into it, watched the windows till he identified my apartment, and then come looking for the keys. In spite of the element of creepiness—me sprawled contentedly on my sofa eating crisps and watching TV, eyes at the dark crack between the curtains—I liked that theory, an awful lot better than I liked my Gouger one. Car thieves weren’t personal, and they were hardly likely to come back.
“Anything else valuable?” Martin asked.
“My laptop. My Xbox. I think that’s it. Did they—”
“Yeah,” Flashy Suit said. “Your telly, too. That’s the standard stuff: easy to sell for a few bob. We’ll keep the serial numbers on file, if you’ve got them, but . . .”
“What we’re trying to figure out,” Martin said, “is why you.”
They both looked at me, heads cocked, expectant half smiles.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Because I’m on the ground floor, I guess. And my alarm wasn’t on.”
“Could be,” Martin agreed. “Crime of opportunity. That definitely happens, all right. But there’s plenty of other ground floors out there. Plenty of other people who don’t set their alarms. At this stage, we have to keep asking ourselves: could there be any other reason why they picked you?”
“Not that I can think of.” And when they kept up the mild, expectant, matching gazes: “I haven’t done anything. I’m not involved in, in crimes or anything.”
“You’re sure. Because if you were, now would be the time to get ahead of it. Before we find out some other way.”
“I’m not.” This was starting to freak me out: what the hell did they think I had been doing? dealing drugs? selling kiddie porn on the dark web? “You can ask anyone. Check me out whatever way you want. I haven’t done anything.”
“Fair enough,” Martin said agreeably, settling back in his chair with one arm looped easily over the back. “We have to ask.”
“I know. I get that.”