The Trespasser (66 page)

McCann’s eyes have come up to me. ‘You didn’t meet Evelyn Murray. Delicate little thing, the shyest, sweetest – like someone out of an old book, the one who’d die at the end of consumption or one of them things, just because the world was too much for her. Made of glass, Evelyn was.’ To the spreading grin on my face: ‘Fuck you. I wasn’t shagging her. Never laid a finger on her, never would’ve.’

‘Whatever,’ I say. ‘If you cared that much about her, why not pass on the message?’

‘Because finding out her man had run off with a younger model, that would’ve killed her. Smashed her to bits. I wasn’t going to do that to her.’

I say, ‘But you had no problem taking over the rest of her life. Everything she ever did after you walked in her door, every thought that ever went through her head, it had your fingerprints all over it. And you knew it would.’

I’m leaning in, across the table that’s specially chosen to be narrow enough that I can get close, see every coarse hair of this fucker’s stubble, I can smell the tea on his breath and the stale smoke on his clothes and the acrid reek of rage and terror in his sweat, I’m close enough to draw blood a dozen ways. ‘Be honest with yourself, McCann: that’s why you kept your mouth shut. Isn’t it? You couldn’t have Evelyn, but you loved the thought that you owned the rest of her life. Every time she woke up wondering whether Des would walk in the door today, every time she leaped when the phone rang, every night she dreamed he was dead, she belonged to you. Did you think about that sometimes, when your wife was a bitch and you were lying beside her daydreaming about sweet little Evelyn? Did it turn you on, knowing that whatever she was doing at that second, whatever she was thinking, you’d made her do it?’

McCann’s staring at me, those bloodshot blue eyes. I’ve never seen hate like this before, not coming my way. I’ve only ever seen hate this intimate between couples, families. I’ve put my finger right between his ribs, onto his deepest hidden places. I’ve got him.

He says, low and clenched and right into my face, ‘Fuck you to hell. It was for her own sake. You know what her man said about her? For his excuse? Said she’d been suffocating the life out of him for ten years. Said he was going mental, another few months in that house would’ve sent him off his chomp. You think I should’ve told her that? Let
that
own the rest of her life, instead? She wasn’t the kind who could throw that off, move on. It would’ve wrecked her. At least my way let her keep some self-respect, remember her marriage the way she thought it had been. Gave her a chance.’

‘Except,’ I say, ‘you got Aislinn as part of the package. You never even bothered thinking of that, did you? You took over Aislinn’s life, too. Every day was what you’d made it into, and it was shite. Then she grew up and went looking for some answers, and then she found out who had deliberately kept them away from her till it was too late.’

McCann’s mouth opens. We watch the moment when something spired and shining explodes with a tremendous roar inside his mind, jagged shards rocketing everywhere, burrowing deep into every tender spot.

I say, ‘Let me tell you what Aislinn decided, the night you told her that story. She decided it was her turn to make your life into whatever the fuck she wanted. That’s why the two of you started shagging, McCann. Not because hey, dick happens; because Aislinn figured you’d be easier to push around if you were pussy-whipped. And she was right. She nearly had you, didn’t she? When were you going to tell your missus it was over? Was it going to be this week? Today?’

He can’t talk. I lean in even closer and I say, softly and very clearly, ‘The whole thing was a lie. Every time Aislinn kissed you, every time she slept with you, every time she said she loved you, it took everything she had not to puke. She forced herself to go through all that so she’d have her chance to give you what you deserved.’

McCann’s head is down and swaying. His shoulders are hunched like a bleeding animal’s, trying to stay on its feet.

‘Now do you understand why she kept those photos?’

His breathing, like something out of a hospital ward, in the pretty pastel room.

‘You were right: she was going to take them to your wife, if she couldn’t make you leave on your own. One way or another, Aislinn was going to break up your marriage. And then she was going to welcome you with open arms and tell you that your wife never deserved you to begin with and you were better off with someone who’d treat you right. And once the dust settled, once the divorce papers were filed and your kids hated your cheating guts and there was no way your missus would ever let you in the door again, then Aislinn was going to dump you right on your arse and leave you there in the mess that was your brand-new life.’

Nothing, just that thick breathing. This is it. There’s nothing left of McCann; between us and Aislinn, we’ve taken the lot. If he’s going to talk, it’s from this seething nowhere place we’ve brought him to.

Steve says quietly, ‘You were in love with her. Weren’t you?’

McCann’s head lifts. His eyes move across us like he’s blind. His mouth opens and he takes one shallow breath and holds onto it for a long moment before he says, ‘No comment.’

It stays in the air like a dark spot. The room looks skewed to the point of insane, all those cute colours and smarmy little comforts straining to cover the grinning white interview-room bones – table, chairs, camera, one-way glass – underneath.

Steve says, ‘When you walked in on her getting ready for Rory. Did that hit you out of the blue? Or did you already have your suspicions?’

‘No comment.’

‘Talk to us, man. What did she say? Did she tell you to get out and not come back? Did she laugh at you, for thinking a woman like her could love you? What?’

‘No comment.’

He’s not even trying to look at us, not any more. He’s staring at the wall between our heads, blank-eyed, tuning us out so everything we say is just faraway babble. I’ve seen that look before, on rapists, murderers. The ones we’re never going to break, because they know what they are and they’re not fighting it.

‘Where were you last Saturday evening?’ Steve asks.

‘No comment.’

The click of the door handle turning makes me and Steve jump. McCann doesn’t move. Breslin stands in the doorway, rain glittering on his black overcoat, smiling at us all.

Chapter 17

‘Mac,’ Breslin says. ‘You’re wanted in the squad room.’

McCann looks up at him. Their eyes meet for a second that shuts me and Steve out completely.

‘Go on,’ Breslin says. ‘I’ll catch up with you in a few.’

McCann pulls himself out of his chair, joint by joint, and heads for the door. Breslin gives him a quick clap on the shoulder as he passes. McCann nods automatically.

‘Interview terminated at 3.24 p.m.,’ Breslin says, strolling over to the camera. He reaches up and switches it off. As he turns to the water cooler: ‘Well well well. Look who’s best buddies again. Sweet.’

I say, ‘I’d like to know what made you think we weren’t best buddies all along.’

‘You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t give a damn about your relationship right this minute. You just had the brass neck to accuse my partner—’

‘We’ll talk about that when I say so. Right now I want to know which one of the floaters went squealing to you, yesterday morning, told you me and Moran had had a row.’

‘Reilly,’ Steve says. ‘Wasn’t it? We started arguing, he stopped typing.’

I remember that, the sudden heavy silence where that witless clacking had been battering my brain. ‘I told you Reilly was a bright spark,’ Breslin says. ‘Unlike me, apparently. I spent twenty minutes sitting in the Top House before the penny dropped. Fair play to you, Conway: you make a very convincing South Dublin airhead. I didn’t know you had it in you.’ He raises his water cup to me. ‘I was lucky with traffic, though. Got back in time to catch the good parts of the show.’

He must catch a flick of surprise off one of us, because he laughs. ‘You thought I got back from my road trip and came charging straight in to save Mac from you two big scary avengers? I was in the observation room. Because I knew Mac didn’t need saving, seeing as he’s done nothing – well, apart from sticking his dick in the wrong place, which isn’t a hanging offence in my book. But I think we can all agree he’s had a tough few days, so when I saw you two going all out to wreck his head, I figured it might be time to call a halt.’

He wanders over to the table, flicks up the Murray family photo to have a long look. ‘Huh. No wonder Mac didn’t recognise her.’ He flips the photo back at the table, ignores it when it misses and spins to the ground. ‘So,’ he says. ‘All the time I thought we were working together. All the time I was getting a lovely warm feeling about what beautiful interviews we pulled off with Rory. This was what was going on in your heads. Tell me: when you looked in the mirror this morning, you didn’t taste just a little bit of sick in the back of your throats?’

Breslin doing what he does best. It feels strange, somehow it feels like a loss, that I don’t have the faintest urge to punch his face in. ‘And all the time I thought we were working together,’ I say, ‘all the time I was enjoying those beautiful interviews, you were keeping this back. You wanna throw stones?’

His eyes snap wide and he points a finger at me. ‘No no no, Conway. Don’t you try to turn this around on me. You’ve just proved that I was dead fucking right not to let you in. This
interview
 . . .’ His mouth twists up in disgust; he takes a swig of water to wash it away. ‘Go ahead; tell me. What do you think you accomplished with this interview?’

I say, ‘We got enough for a warrant on McCann’s gaff.’

Breslin thinks that over, nodding. ‘A warrant. Nice. And what are you planning on finding in there?’

‘Those brown leather gloves McCann wears all winter? The ones I haven’t seen once this week? Either we’ll find Aislinn’s blood on them, or we won’t find them at all.’

‘Wow,’ Breslin says, raising his eyebrows. ‘Impressive. I’d say Mac would be shitting himself if he heard that. Shall I save you some hassle? Would you like to hear what actually happened?’

‘Love to,’ I say. ‘From McCann, but.’

Breslin clicks his tongue. ‘Not going to happen. Mac’s got more sense than to put it on the record – to be honest, after that little stunt you pulled, I’ll be amazed if he ever wants to talk to either of you again, on or off the record. But I figure it’ll simplify all our lives if you know the facts.’

Steve says, ‘And it’ll be unrecorded, unverifiable, inadmissible hearsay.’

‘Them’s the breaks. Do you want to hear this or not?’

Deep down, I don’t. When McCann left the room he took something with him, some dark savage charge sizzling the air. Without him at its heart, the room’s gone flat and sickly and stupid. I just want to walk out and keep walking, anywhere I don’t have to think about what comes next or look at Breslin’s self-righteous gob. I lean back in my chair and rub my hands over my face, trying to find some of that charge again.

‘OK,’ Steve says. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Don’t do me any favours.’

‘We’d like to know.’

‘Conway?’

‘Why not,’ I say. I take my hands off my face, but I don’t have the energy to straighten up.

Breslin doesn’t join us at the table. He tosses his water cup in the bin, sticks his hands in his pockets and starts pacing, a leisurely stroll, the cool professor explaining something to his enthralled students. ‘Saturday evening,’ he says. ‘Mac had dinner at home with his family, and then he decided to call in to Aislinn. He got there around quarter to eight, give or take – he didn’t check his watch. He went in the back door to the kitchen, same as usual. The lights were on and he could see Aislinn had been in the middle of cooking dinner, but she didn’t call out or come to meet him. Mac went into the sitting room and found her lying there with her head on the fireplace.’

‘Must’ve been a shock,’ Steve says. Breslin shoots him a sharp glance, but Steve’s face is blank.

‘It was, yeah. Obviously.’

‘Most people would’ve gone to bits.’

‘Most civilians would have. Mac was devastated, but he kept it together. That doesn’t make him a killer. It makes him a cop.’

‘He also found the table set for a romantic dinner,’ I say. ‘That must’ve been a shock, too. What’d he make of that?’

Breslin says, in a voice meant to tell me his patience isn’t going to last forever, ‘He didn’t
make
anything of it, Conway. To the extent that he even thought about it, what with his girlfriend’s body lying there on the floor in front of him, he took it for granted the dinner was meant for him, just in case he decided to turn up, which he sometimes did. He thought someone had gained entry to the house, maybe a perv, more likely a junkie – let’s be honest, it’s not the nicest area, is it? – and Aislinn had come off worst. Later, it occurred to him that Aislinn might have been seeing someone on the side and it could have gone wrong; but at the time, that didn’t even come into his head. As Moran just pointed out, he was in
shock
.’

Steve asks, ‘Was Aislinn alive?’

Breslin shakes his head. ‘Mac checked her pulse and her breathing straightaway – so yeah, he probably did get blood on his gloves, and he may even have got rid of them because of that. She was gone.’