In the Woods (63 page)

“And how long has this been going on?”

“Five years,” Cassie said, “off and on.” Five years earlier Cassie and I had never met, hadn’t even been posted in the same part of the country, and I realized suddenly that this was for O’Kelly’s benefit, to prove herself a liar in case he had any lingering suspicions about us; realized, for the first time, quite what a fine and double-edged game she was playing.

“I would need to know it was over, of course,” Rosalind said, “before I could think about covering up for you.”

“It’s already over. I swear, it is. He . . . he ended it a couple of weeks ago. For good, this time.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, that’s not really your choice.”

Cassie took a breath. “I don’t know why,” she said. “That’s the honestto-God truth. I’ve tried my best to ask him, but he just says it’s complicated, he’s mixed up, he’s not able for a relationship right now—I don’t know if there’s someone else, or. . . . We’re not speaking to each other any more. He won’t even look at me. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was trembling badly.

“Listen to that,” O’Kelly said, not quite admiringly. “Maddox missed her calling. Should’ve gone on the stage.”

But she wasn’t acting, and Rosalind smelled it. “Well,” she said, and I heard the tiny smirk in her voice, “I can’t say I’m surprised. He certainly doesn’t talk about you like a lover.”

“What’s he say about me?” Cassie asked, helplessly, after a second. She was flashing her unarmored spots to draw the blows; she was deliberately letting Rosalind hurt her, maul her, delicately peel back layers of pain to feed on them at her leisure. I felt sick to my stomach. Rosalind held the pause, making her wait. “He says you’re terribly needy,”

she said at last. Her voice was high and sweet and clear, unchanging. “ ‘Desperate’ was the word he used. That’s why you were so obnoxious to me: In the Woods 395

because you were jealous of how much he cares about me. He did his best to be nice about it—I think he felt sorry for you—but he was getting very tired of putting up with your behavior.”

“That’s bollocks,” I hissed furiously, unable to stop myself. “I never—”

“Shut up,” Sam said, at the same moment as O’Kelly snapped, “Who gives a fuck?”

“Quiet, please,” said the tech politely.

“I did warn him about you,” Rosalind said, reflectively. “So he finally took my advice?”

“Yeah,” Cassie said, very low and shaky. “I guess he did.”

“Oh, my God.” A tiny note of amusement. “You’re really in love with him, aren’t you?”

Nothing.

“Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Cassie’s voice sounded thick and painful, but it wasn’t until she blew her nose wetly that I understood that she was crying. I had never seen her cry. “I never thought about it until—I just—I’ve never been that close to anyone. And now I can’t even think straight, I can’t . . .”

“Oh, Detective Maddox.” Rosalind sighed. “If you can’t be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.”

“I can’t tell.” Cassie was barely getting the words out. “Maybe I . . .” Her throat closed up.

The van felt subterranean, nightmarish, walls tilting dizzily inwards. The disembodied quality of the voices lent them an added knife-edge of horror, as if we were eavesdropping on two lost ghosts locked in some eternal and unalterable battle of wills. The door handle was invisible in the shadows, and I caught O’Kelly’s hard warning glance. “You wanted to be here, Ryan,”

he said.

I couldn’t breathe. “I should go in.”

“And do what? It’s going according to plan, for whatever that’s worth. Settle.”

A small, terrible catch of breath, on the speakers. “No,” I said. “Listen.”

“She’s doing her job,” Sam said. His face was unreadable in the dirty yellow light. “Sit down.”

The tech raised a finger. “I wish you’d control yourself,” Rosalind said, with distaste. “It’s awfully hard to have a sensible conversation with someone who’s hysterical.”

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“Sorry.” Cassie blew her nose again, swallowed hard. “Look—please. It’s over, it wasn’t Detective Ryan’s fault, and he’d do anything for you. He trusted you enough to tell you. Couldn’t you just—just leave it? Not tell anyone? Please?”

“Well.” Rosalind considered this. “Detective Ryan and I were very close, for a while. But the last time I saw him, he was awfully rude to me, too. And he lied to me about those two friends of his. I don’t like liars. No, Detective Maddox. I’m afraid I really don’t feel that I owe either of you any favors at all.”

“OK,” Cassie said, “OK. OK. Then what if I could do something for you, in exchange?”

A little laugh. “I can’t think of anything I could possibly want from you.”

“No, there is. Just give me five more minutes, OK? We can cut down this side of the estate, down to the main road. There is something I can do for you. I swear.”

Rosalind sighed. “You’ve got until we get back to my house. But you know, Detective Maddox, some of us do have morals. If I decide I have a responsibility to tell your superiors about this, you won’t be able to bribe me into keeping quiet.”

“Not a bribe. Just—help.”

“From you?” That laugh again; the cool little trill I had found so enchanting. I realized I was digging my nails into my palms.

“Two days ago,” Cassie said, “we arrested Damien Donnelly for Katy’s murder.”

A fraction of a pause. Sam leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Then:

“Well. It’s about time you took your mind off your love life and paid some attention to my sister’s case. Who’s Damien Donnelly?”

“He says he was your boyfriend, up until a few weeks ago.”

“Well, obviously, he wasn’t. If he had been my boyfriend, I think I would have heard of him, don’t you?”

“There are records,” Cassie said carefully, “of a lot of phone calls between your mobiles.”

Rosalind’s voice froze over. “If you want a favor from me, Detective, then accusing me of being a liar isn’t really the best way to go about it.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Cassie said, and for a second I thought her voice would crack again. “I’m just saying that I know this is your personal business, and you don’t have any reason to trust me with it—”

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“That’s certainly true.”

“But I’m trying to explain how I can help you. See, Damien does trust me. He talked to me.”

After a moment, Rosalind sniffed. “I wouldn’t be too excited about that. Damien will talk to anyone who’ll listen. It doesn’t make you special.”

Sam nodded, one quick jerk: Step one.

“I know. I know. But the thing is, he told me why he did this. He says he did it for you. Because you asked him to.”

Nothing, for a long time.

“That’s why I asked you to come in,” Cassie said, “the other night. I was going to question you about it.”

“Oh, please, Detective Maddox.” Rosalind’s voice had sharpened, just a touch, and I couldn’t tell whether this was a good or a bad sign. “Don’t treat me as if I’m stupid. If you people had any evidence against me, I’d be under arrest, not standing here listening to you cry about Detective Ryan.”

“No,” Cassie said. “That’s the thing. The others don’t know yet, about what Damien said. If they find out, then yeah, they’ll arrest you.”

“Are you threatening me? Because that’s a very bad idea.”

“No. I’m just trying to . . . OK. Here’s the thing.” Cassie took a breath.

“We don’t actually need a motive, to try someone for murder. He’s confessed to doing it; we’ve got that part on the record, on video, and that’s all we really need to put him in jail. Nobody needs to know why he did it. And, like I said, he trusts me. If I tell him he should keep his motive to himself, he’ll believe me. You know what he’s like.”

“Much better than you do, actually. God. Damien.” Possibly this is a testament to my stupidity, but I still had the capacity to be taken aback by the note in Rosalind’s voice, something far beyond contempt: rejection, utter and impersonal. “I’m really not worried about him. He’s a murderer, for heaven’s sake. Do you think anyone will believe him? Over me?”

“I believed him,” said Cassie.

“Yes, well. That doesn’t say much for your detective skills, does it?

Damien’s barely intelligent enough to tie his own shoelaces, but he came out with some story and you just took his word for it? Did you really believe that someone like him would be able to tell you how this actually happened, even if he wanted to? Damien can only handle simple things, Detective. This wasn’t a simple story.”

“The basic facts check out,” Cassie said sharply. “I don’t want to hear the 398

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details. If I’m going to be keeping this to myself, then the less I know the better.”

A moment’s silence, as Rosalind evaluated the possibilities of this; then the little laugh. “Really? But you’re supposed to be a detective, of some sort. Shouldn’t you be interested in finding out what actually happened?”

“I know as much as I need to. Anything you tell me won’t do me any good anyway.”

“Oh, I know that,” Rosalind said brightly. “You won’t be able to use it. But if hearing the truth puts you in an uncomfortable position, that’s really your own fault, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have got yourself into this situation. I don’t think I should be expected to make allowances for your dishonesty.”

“I’m—like you said, I’m a detective.” Cassie’s voice was rising. “I can’t just listen to evidence about a crime and—”

Rosalind’s tone didn’t change. “Well, you’ll just have to, won’t you? Katy used to be such a sweet little girl. But once her dancing started to get her all that attention, she got awfully above herself. That Simone woman was a terrible influence on her, really. It made me very sad. Someone had to put her in her place, didn’t they? For her own good. So I—”

“If you keep talking,” Cassie snapped, too loudly, “I’m going to caution you. Otherwise—”

“Don’t you threaten me, Detective. I won’t warn you again.”

A beat. Sam was staring into space, one knuckle caught between his front teeth.

“So,” Rosalind resumed, “I decided the best thing would be to show Katy that she wasn’t really anything that special. She certainly wasn’t very intelligent. When I gave her something to—”

“You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so,” Cassie broke in, her voice shaking wildly, “but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence.”

Rosalind thought about this for a long time. I could hear their feet crunching in fallen leaves, Cassie’s sweater grating faintly against the mike at each step; somewhere a wood dove cooed, cozy and contented. Sam’s eyes were on me, and through the gloom of the van I thought I saw condemnation in them. I thought of his uncle and stared back.

“She’s lost her,” said O’Kelly. He stretched, heavy shoulders rolling back, and cracked his neck. “It’s the bloody caution that does it. When I was coming up there was none of this shite: you gave them a few digs, they told you In the Woods 399

what you wanted to know, that was good enough for any judge. Well, sure, at least we can get back to work now.”

“Hang on,” Sam said. “She’ll get her back.”

“Listen,” Cassie said at last, on a long breath, “about going to our boss—”

“Just a moment,” Rosalind said coldly. “We’re not finished.”

“Yes we are,” Cassie said, but her voice wavered treacherously. “As far as Katy goes, we are. I am not going to just stand here and listen to—”

“I don’t like people trying to bully me, Detective. I’ll say whatever I like. You’re going to listen. If you interrupt me again, this conversation is over. If you repeat it to anyone else, I’ll make it clear to them exactly what kind of person you are, and Detective Ryan will confirm it. Nobody will believe a word you say, and you’ll lose your precious job. Do you understand?”

Silence. My stomach was still heaving, slowly and horribly; I swallowed hard. “The arrogance of her,” Sam said softly. “The fucking arrogance.”

“Don’t knock it,” O’Kelly said. “It’s Maddox’s best shot.”

“Yes,” Cassie said, very low. “I understand.”

“Good.” I heard the prim, satisfied little smile in Rosalind’s voice. Her heels tapped on tarmac; they had turned onto the main road, heading down towards the entrance of the estate. “So, as I was saying, I decided that someone needed to stop Katy from getting too full of herself. It really should have been my mother and father’s job, obviously; if they had done it, I wouldn’t have had to. But they couldn’t be bothered. I think that’s actually a form of child abuse, don’t you—that kind of neglect?”

She waited until Cassie said tightly, “I don’t know.”

“Oh, it is. It made me very upset. So I told Katy that she should really stop doing ballet, since it was having such a bad effect on her, but she wouldn’t listen. She needed to learn that she didn’t have some kind of divine right to be the center of attention. Not everything in this world was all about her. So I stopped her from dancing, now and then. Do you want to know how?”

Cassie was breathing fast. “No. I don’t.”

“I made her sick, Detective Maddox,” Rosalind said. “God, you mean you hadn’t even figured out that much?”

“We wondered. We thought maybe your mother had been doing something—”

“My mother?” That note again, that dismissal beyond contempt. “Oh, please. My mother would have got herself caught within a week, even with 400

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you people in charge. I mixed juice with detergent, or cleaning things, or whatever I felt like that day, and I told Katy it was a secret recipe to improve her dancing. She was stupid enough to believe me. I was interested to see whether anyone would work it out, but nobody did. Can you imagine?”

“Jesus,” Cassie said, barely above a whisper.

“Go, Cassie,” Sam muttered. “That’s grievous bodily harm. Go.”

“She won’t,” I said. My voice sounded strange, jerky. “Not till she has her on murder.”

“Look,” Cassie said, and I heard her swallow. “We’re about to go into the estate, and you said I only had till we got back to your house. . . . I need to know what you’re going to do about—”

“You’ll know when I tell you. And we’ll go in when I decide to go in. Actually, I think we might go back this way, so I can finish telling you my story.”