Steve waits.
I say, ‘We need to talk to the gaffer.’
Chapter 18
Me and Steve, back in the gaffer’s office. It’s down the end of a corridor; with the click of the door, the silence closes around us and we’re a thousand miles from the rest of the squad. The layers of tat and clutter close in, too: spider plant, golf trophies, framed crap, stacks of pointless old files, and there’s a brand-new snow globe holding down a heap of paper on the desk, souvenir of some grandkid’s holiday. In the middle of it all, O’Kelly, taking off his reading glasses to look at us.
He says, ‘Breslin was in. He says you’ve hit a wall with the Aislinn Murray case; time to take a step back, hope ye catch a break somewhere down the road.’
He gets it bang on, gruff and not exactly delighted with us, but holding back from the bollocking because Breslin told him we’ve done a good job. For a second there I could almost believe it’s real, and all the rest is our imagination. The rush of fury pulls a sharp breath into me.
The gaffer watches us.
I say, ‘McCann killed Aislinn Murray.’
Not one muscle of O’Kelly changes. He says, ‘Sit down.’
We turn the spare chairs towards his desk and sit. The crisp whirl and click of Steve placing his chair is full up tight with that same fury.
‘Let’s hear it.’
We tell him what happened, while the darkness thickens at the window. We keep it very clear and very cold, no commentary, just fact stacked neatly on top of fact, the way the gaffer likes his reports. He picks up the shitty snow globe and turns it from angle to angle between his fingers, watching the shavings of plastic snow tumble, and listens.
When we’re done he says, still inspecting the snow globe, ‘How much of that can you prove?’
‘Not enough to put him away,’ Steve says. He’s barely holding down the savage edge of sarcasm: Don’t be worrying, it’s all grand. ‘Not even enough for a charge.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘McCann’s connection to the old case is on file,’ I say. The anger’s slicing through my voice, too, and I’m not even trying to hide it. ‘Gary O’Rourke and I can both confirm that Aislinn was trying to track down the story on her father. The affair’s solid: we’ve got forensics and the best mate’s statement, plus McCann admitted it. And we’ve got the best mate’s evidence that Aislinn was only stringing him along. When it comes to Saturday evening, we’ve got nothing but Rory Fallon’s statement about seeing McCann, which is worth bugger-all. McCann’s saying nothing. Breslin says McCann found her dead, but no one’s going to confirm that on record.’
O’Kelly’s eyes flick up to me. ‘Breslin said that.’
‘An hour ago.’
He swivels his chair, with a long low creak, to the window. He could be staring out over the courtyard, at the slope of cobblestones and the proud high-windowed rise of the building opposite, the old solid shapes he has to know by heart; only for the darkness.
Steve says, like it’s punched its way out of him, ‘He rang you Sunday morning. Before you gave us the case.’
One flicker of the gaffer’s eyelids. Except for that, we could think he didn’t hear.
‘We were a gift,’ I say. ‘The perfect stooges. Moran’s a newbie, Conway’s fighting a bad rep. Easy to point them in the wrong direction; if they come up with something you don’t like, easy to twist their arms, make them back off and shut their gobs. Worst comes to worst, easy to smear them bad enough that no one’ll listen to a word they say.’
O’Kelly ought to reef me out of it, for talking to my gaffer like that. He doesn’t even turn. The desk lamp slides gold light down the brass desk plaque saying DET. SUPT. G. O’KELLY.
After a long time he says, ‘Breslin said it was a mate of his.’
Neither of us answers.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out delicately, the way you do when you’re dying of a cough, afraid if you do it wrong you might explode. ‘Five in the morning, he rang me. He said his friend, one of his best friends, he had called round to his girlfriend that night. Found her in her sitting room unconscious, bet up. Pretty sure another boyfriend did it. I said, “What are you dragging me out of my bed for? Call it in, get the uniforms and the paramedics over there, see you in the morning.” Breslin said he was going to call it in as soon as we hung up. But then he said to me, “My friend’s got a wife and kids. He can’t be linked to this, gaffer. It’ll wreck his life. We need to keep him out of it.” ’
O’Kelly lets out a small, humourless snort of laughter. ‘I said don’t be giving me that shite about my friend; we all know what that means. But Breslin said no. He swore up and down: it’s not me, gaffer. You know me, I don’t step out on my missus. I’ll put you on to her, she can tell you I’ve been with her and the kids all weekend . . . A lie that size, from a fella I know the way I know Breslin, I wouldn’t have missed it. I believed him.’
He moves; the chair creaks sharply. ‘I said, “Your mate says he didn’t put a finger on her, just walked in and found the damage done. Do you believe him?” And Breslin said he did, yeah. Hundred per cent. Two hundred. A thousand. He wasn’t lying then, either. And Breslin’s no eejit. He’s had plenty of practice spotting bullshit stories.’
There’s a second of silence, while we all let that lie there.
‘I asked him, “Then what are you getting into hysterics about? If your friend did nothing and saw nothing, there’s no reason his name should ever come into this. The bird’ll wake up and tell the uniforms who gave her the slaps, they’ll pull the fella in, she’ll refuse to press charges, everyone’ll go home; rinse and repeat a month or two down the line. Your mate’s grand. I hope it scared him shitless enough that he’ll keep it in his trousers from now on.” ’
The cough breaks through. We wait while O’Kelly pulls a tissue out of his pocket and presses it to his mouth, makes ferocious revving noises to clear his throat.
He says, ‘But Breslin was worried. He said his mate hadn’t checked to see was the girl breathing. Too shaken up, too afraid of being snared; he’d just legged it out of there and rung Breslin. They had no way of knowing how long she’d been lying there. If she was dead, then his mate was fucked. He’d be dragged in, dragged through the muck, lose everything. All because he’d stuck his mickey in the wrong hole.’