The Trespasser (73 page)

Steve catches a sudden deep breath, blows it out again. ‘God,’ he says, and there’s a shake in his voice that he doesn’t bother trying to hide. ‘What a day.’

‘Look on the bright side. We’re never gonna have a worse week than this one.’

That pulls a helpless bark of laughter out of him. ‘You never know. We could get lucky: the Commissioner could get coked up and strangle a hooker.’

‘Fuck that. Someone else can work it. Just Quigley’s speed.’

Steve laughs again, but it’s gone fast. ‘The reason we didn’t see it from the start,’ he says, ‘is because we were thinking like cops. Both of us.’

He leaves it hanging there, like a question. He knows. Here I was so sure I was some secret-agent-level closed book, keeping my big plan all to myself. I watch our breath spread and fade on the air.

‘So,’ Steve says, squinting up at a shadow crossing one of the windows. ‘You putting in your papers?’

I can practically see the might-bes, bobbing like marsh lights over the cobblestones, skimming past the high windows, tricky and beckoning. Me in a suit that makes this one look like a binliner, striding through Harrods after some Saudi princess, one eye on her and the other on everything else. Me stretching out my legs in business class, checking exit routes in the hushed corridors of 24-carat hotels, lounging beside blinding blue sea with a cocktail in one hand and the other on the gun in my beach bag. All the might-have-beens, whirling in and out among the bars of the gate, and gone.

‘Nah,’ I say. ‘I hate paperwork.’

I swear Steve’s head falls back with relief. ‘Jaysus,’ he says. ‘I was worried.’

I never saw that one coming. ‘Yeah?’

His face turns towards me. He’s as startled as I am. ‘Course. What’d you think?’

‘Don’t know. Never thought about it.’ Not once. And I should’ve. For a second I see Breslin in the interview room, practically lifting off his feet with fury,
There’s no fucking way he did this
; Breslin in his dark sitting room, before dawn, muffling his voice on the phone to Stoneybatter station. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve made a bleeding tosser of myself, the last while. A lot of ways.’

Steve doesn’t even try to deny that. ‘You’re all right. We’ve all done it.’

‘I’m not planning on doing it again.’

‘That’ll be nice.’

‘Fuck off, you.’ The cobblestones have lost that misty feel, they’re centuries’ worth of solid again, and the cold air hits my lungs like caffeine. I need to ring Crowley, tell him he’s off the hook for the article, make sure he knows he still owes me a big one and I’m gonna collect. I need to ring my ma and tell her about last night, whether I want to or not. Maybe it’ll give the pair of us a laugh. Maybe Fleas will e-mail me tomorrow, when he sees the headlines:
Hiya Rach, saw your news, delighted everythings workin out for you, have to meet up to celebrate x
. Maybe at the weekend I’ll text Lisa and the rest of my mates, see if they’re about. ‘You know what I need, I need a pint. Brogan’s?’

Steve hitches his satchel up his shoulder. ‘You’re buying. You still owe me for Rory not crying.’

‘What’re you on about? He bawled his eyes—’

‘I thought you were done being a tosser—’

‘Nice try. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna be a pushover—’

‘Ah, good, ’cause I was dead worried about that—’

I take one more look up at the rest of my life, waiting for me inside those neat sturdy squares of gold light. Then we start off across the courtyard, arguing, to get a few pints and a few hours’ kip before it’s time to head back and find out what’s in there.

Acknowledgements

Even more than usual, I owe huge thanks to Dave Walsh, whose insights into the world of detectives gave me everything in this book that’s true to life, and none of the elements that aren’t.

I also owe huge thanks to the consistently amazing Darley Anderson and everyone at the agency, especially Mary, Emma, Rosanna, Pippa and Mandy; Andrea Schulz, Ciara Considine, Nick Sayers and Sue Fletcher, for their immense editorial skill, insight and wisdom; Breda Purdue, Ruth Shern, Joanna Smyth and everyone at Hachette Books Ireland; Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood and everyone at Hodder & Stoughton; Carolyn Coleburn, Angie Messina, the wonderful Ben Petrone, and everyone at Viking; Susanne Halbleib and everyone at Fischer Verlage; Rachel Burd; Steve Fisher of APA, the most patient man in LA; Dr Fearghas Ó Cochláin, for straightening out my haematomas; Sophie Hannah, for pointing me towards the title; Alex French, Susan Collins, Ann-Marie Hardiman, Jessica Ryan, Karen Gillece, Kendra Harpster, Kristina Johansen and Catherine Farrell, for every kind of support from practical to emotional to hilarious; David Ryan, top with smoked ham, bacon strips, ground beef, mushrooms and black olives, bake for ten minutes on pizza stone, serve with German Pilsner; my mother, Elena Lombardi; my father, David French; and, for more reasons every time, the man who can sort out the worst plot tangle before the starters arrive, my husband, Anthony Breatnach.

Also by Tana French

THE SECRET PLACE

The first case involving Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran of the Dublin Murder Squad

‘I know who killed him’

The message is written on a photograph of Chris Harper, a boy found murdered a year ago in the grounds of an exclusive girls’ boarding school.  For Detective Stephen Moran, it could be his longed-for passport to the Dublin Murder Squad.

But don’t they say:  ‘Be careful what you wish for’?

Moran and his irascible new boss Antoinette Conway have one nerve-shredding day to investigate.  And every step they take leads back to a place they hardly dare go – to the ties that bound a group of adolescent girls to Chris Harper and to each other, to their friendships, their feuds, and their deepest, most dangerous secrets.

Read on for an extract from this gripping mystery . . .

Chapter 1

She came looking for me. Most people stay arm’s length away. A patchy murmur on the tip-line,
Back in ’95 I saw,
no name,
click
if you ask. A letter printed out and posted from the wrong town, paper and envelope dusted clean. If we want them, we have to go hunting. But her: she was the one who came for me.

I didn’t recognise her. I was up the stairs and heading for the squad room at a bounce. May morning that felt like summer, juicy sun spilling through the reception windows, lighting the whole cracked-plaster room. A tune playing in my head, me humming along.

I saw her, course I did. On the scraped-up leather sofa in the corner, arms folded, crossed ankle swinging. Long platinum ponytail; sharp school uniform, green-and-navy kilt, navy blazer. Someone’s kid, I figured, waiting for Daddy to bring her to the dentist. The superintendent’s kid, maybe. Someone on better money than me, anyway. Not just the crest on the blazer; the graceful slouch, the cock of her chin like the place was hers if she could be arsed with the paperwork. Then I was past her – quick nod, in case she was the gaffer’s – and reaching for the squad-room door.

I don’t know if she recognised me. Maybe not. It had been six years, she’d been just a little kid, nothing about me stands out except the red hair. She could have forgotten. Or she could have known me right off, kept quiet for her own reasons.

She let our admin say, ‘Detective Moran, there’s someone to see you,’ pen pointing at the sofa. ‘Miss Holly Mackey.’

Sun skidding across my face as I whipped around, and then: of course. I should’ve known the eyes. Wide, bright blue, and something about the delicate arc of the lids: a cat’s slant, a pale jewelled girl in an old painting, a secret. ‘Holly,’ I said, hand out. ‘Hiya. It’s been a long time.’

A second where those eyes didn’t blink, took in everything about me and gave back nothing. Then she stood up. She still shook hands like a little girl, pulling away too quick. ‘Hi, Stephen,’ she said.

Her voice was good. Clear and cool, not that cartoon squeal. The accent: high-end, but not the distorted ugly-posh. Her dad wouldn’t have let her away with that. Straight out of the blazer and into community school, if she’d brought that home.

‘What can I do for you?’

Lower: ‘I’ve got something to give you.’

That left me lost. Ten past  nine in the morning, all uniformed up: she was mitching off, from a school that would notice; this wasn’t about a years-late thank-you card. ‘Yeah?’

‘Well, not
here
.’

The eye-tilt at our admin said
privacy
. A teenage girl, you watch yourself. A detective’s kid, you watch twice as hard. But Holly Mackey: bring in someone she doesn’t want, and you’re done for the day.

I said, ‘Let’s find somewhere we can talk.’

I work Cold Cases. When we bring witnesses in, they want to believe this doesn’t count: not really a murder investigation, not a proper one with guns and cuffs, nothing that’ll slam through your life like a tornado. Something old and soft, instead, worn fuzzy round the edges. We play along. Our main interview room looks like a nice dentist’s waiting room. Squashy sofas, Venetian blinds, glass table of dog-eared magazines. Crap tea and coffee. No need to notice the video camera in the corner or the one-way glass behind one set of blinds, not if you don’t want to, and they don’t. This won’t hurt a bit, sir, just a few little minutes and off you go home.

I took Holly there. Another kid would have been twitching all the way, playing head tennis, but none of this was new on Holly. She headed down the corridor like it was part of her gaff.

On the way I watched her. She was doing a grand job of growing up. Average height, or a little under. Slim, very slim, but it was natural: no starved look. Maybe halfway through getting her curves. No stunner, not yet anyway, but nothing ugly there – no spots, no braces, none of her face stuck on sideways – and the eyes made her more than another blonde clone, made you look twice.

A boyfriend who’d hit her? Groped her, raped her? Holly coming to me instead of to some stranger in Sex Crime?

Something to give you.
Evidence?

She shut the interview-room door behind us, flick of her wrist and a slam. Looked around.

I switched on the camera, casual push of the switch. Said, ‘Have a seat.’

Holly stayed put. Ran a finger over the bald-patch green of the sofa. ‘This room’s nicer than the ones before.’

‘How’re you getting on?’

Still looking around the room, not at me. ‘OK. Fine.’

‘Will I get you a cup of tea? Coffee?’

Shake of her head.

I waited. Holly said, ‘You’ve got older. You used to look like a student.’

‘And you used to look like a little kid who brought her doll to interviews. Clara, wasn’t it?’ That turned her head my way. ‘I’d say we’ve both got older, here.’

For the first time, she smiled. Little crunch of a grin, the same one I remembered. It had had something pathetic in it, back then, it had caught at me every time. It did again.

She said, ‘It’s nice to see you.’

When Holly was nine, ten, she was a witness in a murder case. The case wasn’t mine, but I was the one she’d talk to. I took her statement; I prepped her to testify at the trial. She didn’t want to do it, did it anyway. Maybe her da the detective made her. Maybe. Even when she was nine, I never fooled myself I had the measure of her.

‘Same here,’ I said.

A quick breath that lifted her shoulders, a nod – to herself, like something had clicked. She dumped her schoolbag on the floor. Hooked a thumb under her lapel, to point the crest at me. Said, ‘I go to Kilda’s now.’ And watched me.

Just nodding made me feel cheeky. St Kilda’s: the kind of school the likes of me aren’t supposed to have heard of. Never would have heard of, if it wasn’t for a dead young fella.

Girls’ secondary, private, leafy suburb. Nuns. A year back, two of the nuns went for an early stroll and found a boy lying in a grove of trees, in a back corner of the school grounds. At first they thought he was asleep, drunk maybe. Revved up to give him seven shades of shite, find out whose precious virtue he’d been corrupting. The full-on nun-voice thunder:
Young man!
But he didn’t move.