The Trespasser (69 page)

He does a bad fake startle and puts the book down. Steve is a surprise, but Crowley covers OK: ‘Ah,’ he says, holding out his hand and giving Steve a gracious smile, ignoring me, to put me in my place. ‘Detective Moran.’

‘Howya,’ Steve says, without taking Crowley up on the handshake. He thumps down on a stool, long legs sprawled everywhere, pulls out his phone and gives it his full attention.

I can see Crowley trying to figure this out. I sit down opposite him, prop my elbows on the table and my chin on my fingers, and smile at him. ‘Howya.’

‘Yes,’ he says, with a nice mix of distaste and wariness; he’s not getting the feed of desperation I promised him. ‘Hello.’

‘Nice articles you’ve been running. I’ve never been on the front page before. I feel like Kim Kardashian.’

‘Hardly,’ Crowley says, eyeballing me. ‘You liked the photo?’

‘Crowley,’ I say. ‘You’re after making a bad mistake.’

This isn’t going the way Crowley expected, but he holds up well – after all, he’s still got the upper hand, whether I behave myself or not. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. If you don’t want to look like a bully in the eyes of the nation—’ Steve has fired up some game that’s a mixture of beeping noises and cherry bombs; Crowley twitches, but he manages to hang on to his train of moral outrage. ‘—then don’t try to bully the agents of free speech. It really is that simple.’

‘Nah nah nah. I’m not here about the photo. My problem is a guy who saw the photo. He rang you up looking for my address, and you gave it to him.’

‘Haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,’ Crowley says. He folds his pudgy little hands on the table and smirks at me. ‘How is your father, by the way?’

While I’m still being puzzled, Steve’s head snaps up and he lets out a great big snort of laughter. ‘He did not. Did he?’

Crowley’s eyes zip back and forth between us. The smirk’s fading. This is why I wanted Steve along: if I was here to beg Crowley to keep my deepest family secret just between us, I wouldn’t have brought company. ‘Who didn’t do what?’ I demand. ‘And you, where do you know my da from?’

‘Your man who rang you,’ Steve says, to Crowley. ‘He didn’t actually tell you he was Conway’s
da
. Did he?’

‘Ah, for fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘Seriously?’

Steve starts to laugh properly. Crowley shoots him a poison look. ‘That’s what he said. He said he’d lost touch a long time back and wanted to reconnect.’

‘And you fell for it?’ I demand. ‘Just like that?’

‘He seemed legit. I didn’t see any reason to doubt him.’

‘You’re supposed to be a
journalist
,’ Steve points out, still grinning. ‘Doubt’s supposed to be your
thing
.’

‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘I don’t even like you, and I’m scarlet for you.’

‘You got played, man,’ Steve says, shaking his head and going back to his game. ‘Played like a pound-shop kazoo.’

‘Crowley,’ I say. ‘You’re a walking fucking lobotomy. The guy who rang you isn’t my da’ – Steve starts laughing again on that. ‘He’s a scumbag from up North who I helped put away for a few years, and when he saw that photo it occurred to him that this was his big chance to get his own back. And you gave him my fucking home address.’

A lot of the air goes out of Crowley.

‘He’s been casing my gaff ever since,’ I say, ‘and last night I found him in my sitting room. You figure he was just there for the chats?’

‘“Conwaaay,” ’ Steve says, in his deepest voice. ‘“I am your faaather.” ’

‘Luckily for everyone,’ I say, ‘I sorted the situation. He’s not gonna be back. The only problem I’ve got left is you. Me and my partner, we’ve been trying to decide what to charge you with.’

‘Conspiracy to commit burglary,’ Steve suggests, jabbing away at his phone. ‘And assault, depending on whether your man was only planning on leaving a chocolate log in Conway’s fridge or whether he was hoping to do very bad things to her personally. Or accessory before the fact. Or we could go for the lot, just for laughs, and see what sticks.’

Crowley’s gone even paler and sweatier than usual. He says, ‘I want to talk to my solicitor.’

‘You’re in deep shite here,’ I tell him. ‘Lucky for you, though, I’ve got a use for you.’

‘I’m serious. I want to talk to my solicitor
right now
.’

‘Hey, genius,’ Steve says, zapping something with a nuke noise and a flourish. ‘Tell us: does this look like an interview room?’

‘No. Because I’m not under arrest. I know my rights—’

‘Course you do,’ Steve says. ‘Since you’re not under arrest, you’ve got no right to a solicitor. You’ve got the right to leave any time you like, obviously.’ I shift my stool back helpfully, making room for Crowley to go. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it, but. If you do, we’ll take this to our boss, and then you will be under arrest. And then you can have any solicitor you like.’

Crowley starts to get up. When we watch him with interest and don’t try to stop him, he changes his mind.

‘Or,’ I say, ‘you can do me a quick favour, and we’ll forget the whole thing. I’ll even throw you a bit of a scoop, just to show there’s no hard feelings.’

‘I’d go with that one,’ Steve advises him. ‘If it was me, like.’

‘The favour,’ Crowley says. Most of the pompous puff has leaked out of his voice. ‘What’s the favour?’

‘You’ve been showing up at way too many of my crime scenes, the last while,’ I say. ‘Who’s been tipping you off?’

Crowley nearly crumples off his bench with relief. He tries to cover by pursing his lips and doing scruples. Me and Steve wait.

‘I’m not the kind of person who stirs up trouble—’ That makes Steve snort. ‘Unless it’s morally
necessary
.’

‘It is, of course,’ Steve says cheerfully. ‘You spill, Conway sorts out whatever beef the lads have with her, everyone gets to concentrate on catching criminals, justice is served. Plus you don’t have to waste your time fighting charges; you can keep on fighting the good fight instead. It’s morally all tickety-boo.’

‘I’m not going to rat you out to your buddies,’ I say. ‘You can keep your cosy little relationships going. I just want to know who’s fucking me about.’

Crowley makes a face at hearing Language out of a girl, but he’s smart enough to keep his gob shut. He taps his lips with one fingertip and leaves another few seconds for his scruples to impress us. Then he sighs. ‘Detective Roche lets me know when he thinks I might take an interest in one of your cases.’

No surprise there. ‘Roche and who else?’

After a moment he says, reluctantly – hates to jeopardise his beautiful new friendship – ‘Detective Breslin rang me on Sunday morning. He mentioned the Aislinn Murray case.’

‘Yeah, we already knew that. Is he the one who gave you my home address? Or was that Roche?’

‘I got it from a contact.’

‘What kind of contact?’

‘You can’t make me reveal my sources. I know you people would love to turn this country into a totalitarian—’

Steve pumps his fist and goes ‘Yesss!’ at the phone. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘You were saying? Totalitarian something?’

I say, ‘This wasn’t a journalistic source, moron. This was someone helping you to help a criminal break into my
house
. You think that’s protected?’

‘It could be. You don’t know what else he told me.’

‘Crowley. You want me to ask them instead?’

He shrugs like a teenager in a sulk. ‘All
right
. Breslin.’

The little fucker. I should’ve punched him when I had the chance. ‘How’d you get it out of him?’

‘Oh, please. I didn’t put him on the
rack
. When he rang me about the Aislinn Murray case, he told me you had a terrible tendency to dither – I’m only quoting.’ Crowley holds up his hands and smirks at me. ‘He said you could take months to close the most blindingly obvious case. Normally that would be your problem, but this time Detective Breslin was stuck on the case with you, and he didn’t want his name associated with that nonsense. He needed pressure put on you to actually do your job – quoting again, Detective, only quoting! So I came up with a little bit of pressure.’

‘No better man,’ Steve says, to his phone. ‘We could hardly think straight, we were that pressurised. Amn’t I right, Conway?’

Crowley shoots him a suspicious look. ‘And then, when the man claiming to be your father rang me—’

I say, ‘That’s why you were falling over yourself to believe he was actually my da. Here I thought it was just because the idea of shoving your greasy fingers into my private life gave you such a hard-on, you couldn’t think straight. But you were figuring, if this guy was legit, then siccing him on me would turn up the pressure another notch. And you’d get a pat on the head and a nice treat from your handler. Am I right?’

Crowley prisses up his mouth. ‘The tone you’re taking is inappropriate and it’s deliberately inflammatory. I’m under no obligation to—’

‘You can stick my tone up your hole. You rang Breslin and drooled down the phone to him about how you could fuck up my personal life till my head was so wrecked, I’d sign off on anything; all you needed was my home address. And he couldn’t wait to hand it over. Am I missing anything out?’

He has his arms folded and he’s refusing to look at me, to show me that my behaviour is unacceptable. ‘If you already know everything, why ask me?’

‘Oh, but I don’t know everything, not yet. Roche’s been siccing you on my cases, Breslin did it the once. Who else?’

He shakes his head. ‘That’s all.’

‘Crowley,’ I say, warning. ‘You don’t get to buy your way out of this by throwing me two names. Spill, or the deal’s off.’

Crowley does what’s meant to be wounded nobility, but comes out looking like indigestion. ‘I actually know when transparency is important, Detective Conway – and there are plenty of Guards who can’t say that. Other detectives do contact me – there actually are some who care about the public’s right to know – but not about your cases.’

I can’t tell what sends up the sudden wild spurt of anger: the chance that he’s lying, or the chance that he’s telling the truth. I go in close across the table and I say, right into his face, ‘Don’t you fuck with me. Whoever you’re skipping, I will find out, d’you get me? And you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder and wishing you’d gone for a career cleaning the jacks in Supermac’s.’

‘I’m not! I’m not skipping anyone. Detective Roche, and this time Detective Breslin. That’s it.’ It’s the fear on Crowley’s face that convinces me. He adds, bitchily, ‘I’m sure you think you’re interesting enough to deserve a mass conspiracy, but apparently not everyone agrees.’

My head feels strange, weightless. All this time I’ve been thinking the whole squad’s out for my blood, the squad room is a curtain swelling with the enemy army behind it, I’m the lone fighter lifting her sword and knowing she’s going down. Except every time I pull back the curtain, all I find is the same one wanker.

The lads throwing slaggings my way: I took it for granted the edges were sharpened deliberately and smeared with poison, carefully constructed to slice till I dropped. It never occurred to me that it was just slagging, with a bit of extra edge because I don’t get on with most of them and because – ever since that first arse-slap off Roche, half of them watching, none of them saying a word – I haven’t tried. Fleas, hinting to see whether I fancied coming back to Undercover: I assumed it was because he knew I was crashing and burning in Murder, I never once thought it could be just that we were good together and he misses me. Steve, spinning his what-ifs and watching them whirl, considering all their glinting angles: I thought, for a few hours in there I actually believed, he was using them to lure me over a cliff-edge so he could watch me go splat and wave bye-bye from the top. I’m glad my skin means him and Crowley won’t see the blush.

I was doing exactly the same thing as Aislinn: getting lost so deep inside the story in my head, I couldn’t see past its walls to the outside world. I feel those walls shift and start to waver, with a rumble that shakes my bones from the inside out. I feel my face naked to the ice-flavoured air that pours through the cracks and keeps coming. A great shiver is building in my back.

Crowley and Steve are both watching me, waiting to see if I’m gonna let Crowley off the hook. Steve’s game is yelping for attention.

‘OK,’ I say. I want to walk out, but I’m not done here. I shove everything else to the back of my mind. ‘OK. We’ll go with that.’

Crowley says – the fear’s vanished; he’s straight back into hyena mode – ‘You mentioned having a bit of news for me.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I say. My focus is back; this is gonna be fun. ‘Have I got a scoop for you. You’re gonna love this.’

Crowley whips out his voice recorder, but I shake my head. ‘Nah. This is non-attributable. It comes from sources close to the investigation. Got it?’ ‘Sources close to the investigation’ means cops. I don’t want McCann and Breslin thinking Lucy’s been talking.

He gets pouty, but I sit back and have a watch of Steve jabbing manically at his phone screen. In the end Crowley sighs and puts the recorder away. ‘I suppose so.’