you’ve said so far points towards anyone at all. That tells me you’re skipping something, along the way.”
I gave him my defiant Lexie glare, chin out. “No I’m not.”
“Sure you are. And the really interesting question, as far as I’m concerned, is why.” Frank shoved his chair back and started a leisurely stroll around the interview room, hands in his pockets, making me shift again and again to watch him. “See, call me crazy, but I figured we were on the same side here, you and me. I thought both of us were trying to find out who stabbed you and put that person away. Am I crazy? Does that sound crazy to you?”
I shrugged, twisting to keep an eye on him. He kept circling. “Back when you were in hospital, you answered every question I asked-not a bother, no hesitation, no messing about. You were a lovely witness, Miss Madison, lovely and helpful. But now, all of a sudden, you’re not interested any more. So either you’ve decided to turn the other cheek on someone who almost killed you-and forgive me if I’m wrong, but you don’t look like a saint to me- or there’s something else, something more important, getting in the way.”
He leaned against the wall behind me. I gave up on watching him and started picking nail polish off my thumbnail. “So I have to ask myself,” Frank said softly, “what could possibly be more important to you than putting this person away? You tell me, Miss Madison. What’s important to you?”
“Good chocolate,” I said, to my thumbnail.
Frank’s tone didn’t change. “I think I’ve got to know you pretty well. When you were in hospital, what did you talk about, every day, the second I got in your door? What was the one thing you kept asking for, even when you knew you couldn’t have it? What was the one thing you were dying to see, the day you got out? What had you so excited you nearly burst your stitches jumping around at the thought?”
I kept my head down, bit at the nail polish. “Your friends,” Frank said, very quietly. “Your housemates. They matter to you, Miss Madison. More than anything else I can think of. Maybe more than getting the person who stabbed you. Don’t they?”
I shrugged. “Course they matter to me. So?”
“If you had to make that choice, Miss Madison. If, let’s just say, just for the hell of it, you remembered that one of them had stabbed you. What would you do?”
“I wouldn’t have to make that choice, because none of them would hurt me. Ever. They’re my friends.”
“That’s exactly my point. You’re protecting someone, and I don’t see that being John Naylor. Who is there that you’d protect, except your friends?”
“I’m not protecting-”
Before I even heard him move he had come off the wall and slammed both hands down on the table beside me, his face inches from mine. I flinched harder than I meant to. “You’re lying to me, Miss Madison. Do you honestly not realize how bloody obvious that is? You know something important, something that could blow this case wide open, and you’re hiding it. That’s obstruction. It’s a crime. It can land you in jail.”
I jerked my head back, shoved my chair away from him. “You’re going to arrest me? For what? Jesus, I’m the one who got hurt here! If I just want to forget all about it-”
“If you want to get yourself stabbed every day of the week and twice on Sunday, I don’t give a flying fuck. But when you waste my time and my officers’ time, that’s my business. Do you know how many people have been working this case for the past month, Miss Madison? Do you have the faintest clue how much time and energy and money we’ve put into this? There’s not a chance I’m going to let all that go down the toilet because some spoiled little girl is too wrapped up in her friends to give a fuck about anything or anyone else. Not a chance in hell.”
He wasn’t faking. His face thrust hard up to mine, the hot blue sizzle in his eyes: he was raging and he meant every word, to me, to Lexie, probably even he didn’t know which. This girl: she bent reality around her like a lens bending light, she pleated it into so many flickering layers that you could never tell which one you were looking at, the longer you stared the dizzier you got. “I’m going to break this case,” Frank said. “I don’t care how long it takes: the person who did this is going down. And if you don’t pull your head out of your arse and realize how important this is, if you keep playing stupid little games with me, you’re going down right alongside him. Is that clear?”
“Get out of my face,” I said. My forearm was up between us, blocking him. In that second I realized that my fist was clenched and that I was as angry as he was.
“Who stabbed you, Miss Madison? Can you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know? Let’s see you do it. Tell me you don’t know. Come on.”
“Fuck that. I don’t have to prove anything to you. I remember running, and blood on my hands, and you can do whatever you want with that. Now leave me alone.” I slumped down in my chair, shoved my hands in my pockets and stared at the wall in front of me.
I felt Frank’s eyes on the side of my face, his fast breathing, for a long time. “Right,” he said, at last. He eased back slowly, away from the table. “We’ll leave it at that, then. For now.” And he left.
It was a long time before he came back-another hour, maybe, I’d stopped watching the clock. I picked up the Biro bits, one by one, and arranged them in pretty patterns on the edge of the table.
“Well,” Frank said, when he finally decided to join me. “You were right: that was fun.”
“Poetry in motion,” I said. “Did it do the job?”
He shrugged. “It rattled them, all right; they’re antsy as hell. But they’re not cracking, not yet. Another couple of hours might do it, I don’t know, but Daniel’s starting to get restless-oh, very politely, of course, but he’s been asking how much longer we think this might take. I figure if you want any time with the other three before he walks out, you’d better take them now.”
“Thanks, Frank,” I said, and meant it. “Thank you.”
“I’ll keep him as long as I can, but I’m not guaranteeing anything.” He took my coat off the back of the door and held it for me. As I slid into it he said, “I’m playing fair with you, Cassie. Now let’s see you play fair with me.”
The others were downstairs in the lobby. They all looked gray and eye-baggy. Rafe was at the window, jiggling one knee; Justin was huddled in a chair like a big miserable stork. Only Abby, sitting up straight with her hands cupped in her lap, looked anything like composed.
“Thanks for coming in,” Frank said cheerfully. “You’ve all been very, very helpful. Your mate Daniel is just finishing up a few things for us; he said you should go ahead, he’ll catch you on the way.”
Justin started upright, like he’d just been woken up. “But why-” he began, but Abby cut him off, her fingers coming down across his wrist.
“Thanks, Detective. Call us if there’s anything else you need.”
“Will do,” Frank said, giving her a wink. He had the door open for us, and was holding out his other hand to shake good-bye, before anyone caught up enough to argue. “See you soon,” he said to each of us, as we passed.
“Why did you do that?” Justin demanded, as soon as the door closed behind us. “I don’t want to leave without Daniel.”
“Shut up,” Abby said, giving his arm a squeeze that looked casual, “and keep walking. Don’t turn around. Mackey’s probably watching us.”
In the car, nobody said anything for a very long time.
“So,” Rafe said, after a silence that felt like it was filing my teeth. “What did you talk about this time?” He braced himself, a tiny jerk of his head, before he turned to look at me.
“Leave it,” Abby said, from the front.
“Why Daniel?” Justin wanted to know. He was driving like someone’s lunatic granny, switching back and forth between bursts of suicidal speed-I was praying we wouldn’t run into a traffic cop-and patches of obsessive carefulness, and his voice sounded like he might be about to cry. “What do they want? Have they arrested him?”
“No,” Abby said firmly. There was obviously no way she could have known that, but Justin’s shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
