twice.”
I grimaced. “I bet it had. And I bet I can guess what they said, too. Most people had me written off as a burnout before I’d even cleared out my desk. I know you took a chance sending me in here, Frank. I’m not sure how much you heard…”
“This and that.”
“But you’ve got to know we fucked up royally, and there’s someone on the streets right now who should be doing life.” The hard catch in my voice: I didn’t have to fake it. “And that sucks, Frank, it really does. I wasn’t about to let that happen again, and I wasn’t going to have you thinking I’d lost my nerve, because I haven’t. I thought if I could just get this guy-”
Frank shot off the sofa like he’d been spring-loaded. “Get the-Jesus, Mary and Elvis, you’re not here to get bloody anyone! What did I tell you, right from the beginning? The one thing you have to do is point me and O’Neill in the right direction, and we’ll do the rest. What, was I not clear enough? Should I have fucking written it down for you? What?”
If it hadn’t been for the others in the next room, the volume would have been through the roof-when Frank is mad, everyone knows all about it. I did a small quick flinch and got my head at an appropriately humble angle, but inside I was delighted: being bollocked out of it as a disobedient subordinate was a huge improvement on being batted around like a suspect. Getting overenthusiastic, needing to prove yourself after a bad slipup: those were things Frank could understand, things that happen all the time, and they’re venial sins. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Frank, I’m really sorry. I know I got carried away, and it won’t happen again, but I couldn’t stand the thought of blowing my cover and I couldn’t stand the thought of you knowing I let him get away and Jesus, Frank, he was so close I could taste him…”
Frank stared at me for a long moment; then he sighed, collapsed back onto the sofa and cracked his neck. “Look,” he said, “you brought another case with you onto this one. Everyone’s done it. No one with half a brain does it twice. Sorry you caught a bad one, and all that, but if you want to prove something to me or anyone else, you’ll do it by leaving your old cases at home and working this one properly.”
He believed me. From the first minute of this case, Frank had had that other one hanging like a question mark in a corner of his mind; all I had needed to do was mirror it back to him at the right angle. For the first time ever, Operation Vestal, bless its sick dark heart, was actually coming in useful.
“I know,” I said, looking down at my hands twisted together in my lap. “Believe me, I do.”
“You could have blown this whole case, do you realize that?”
“Tell me I didn’t fuck it up terminally,” I said. “Are you going to pick the guy up anyway?”
Frank sighed. “Yeah, probably. We don’t have much choice, at this point. It would be nice if you could join us for the interview-you might be able to contribute something good on the psychological front, and I think it could be useful to put our man face to face with Lexie and see what happens. Do you think you can manage to do that without leaping across the table and knocking his teeth in?”
I glanced up fast, but there was a wry grin at one corner of his mouth. “You’ve always been a funny guy,” I said, hoping the wave of relief wouldn’t leak into my voice. “I’ll do my best. Get a big table, just in case.”
“Your nerve is just fine, you know that?” Frank told me, picking up his notebook and fishing his pen back out of his pocket. “You’ve got enough bloody nerve for three people. Get out of my sight before you annoy me again, and send in someone who won’t turn my hair gray. Send Abby.”
I headed out to the kitchen and told Rafe that Frank wanted to see him next, just out of boldness and to show Frank I wasn’t scared of him, even though I was; of course I was.
“Well,” said Daniel, when Frank had finished doing his thing and steered Doherty off, presumably to break the good news to Sam. “I think that went well.”
We were in the kitchen, tidying up the teacups and eating the leftover biscuits. “But that wasn’t bad at all,” Justin said, amazed. “I was expecting them to be horrible, but Mackey was actually nice this time.”
“God, though, the local goon,” Abby said, reaching over me for another biscuit. “He spent the whole time staring at Lex, did you see that? Cretin.”
“He’s not a cretin,” I said. Doherty had amazed me by getting through a full two hours without calling me “Detective,” so I was feeling charitable. “He just has good taste.”
“I still say they’ll do nothing,” said Rafe, but not bitchily. Whether it was something Frank had said to them, or just the relief of getting his visit over with, they all looked better: looser, lighter. The sharp-edged tension of last night had faded away, at least for now.
“Let’s wait and see,” Daniel said, bending his head to a match to light his cigarette. “At least you’ll have an exciting story to tell Four-Boobs Brenda, next time she backs you against the photocopier.” Even Rafe laughed.
We were drinking wine and playing 110, that night, when my mobile rang. It startled the bejasus out of me-it wasn’t like any of us got calls on a regular basis-and I almost missed the call, trying to find my phone; it was in the coat closet, still in the pocket of the communal jacket after last night’s walk. “Hi,” I said.
“Miss Madison?” said Sam, sounding deeply self-conscious. “It’s Detective O’Neill here.”
“Oh,” I said. I had been heading back to the sitting room, but I reversed and leaned up against the front door, where there was no chance of the others picking up his voice. “Hi.”
“Can you talk?”
“Sort of.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“For definite?”
“Totally.”
“Jesus,” Sam said, on a deep rush of breath. “Thank God. That prick Mackey heard the whole thing, did you know that? Didn’t ring me, didn’t say a word, just waited for this morning and headed down to you. Left me sitting on my arse in the incident room, like an eejit. If this case doesn’t wind up soon, I’m going to end up splattering that fucker.”
Sam almost never swears unless he’s full-on furious. “Fair enough,” I said. “I’m not surprised.”
A moment’s pause. “The others are there, right?”
“More or less.”
“I’ll keep it short. We sent Byrne to watch Naylor’s house, have a look at him when he came home from work this evening, and the man’s face is in bits-the three of ye did a good job, by the sound of things. He’s my fella, all right. I’m pulling him in tomorrow morning-into the Murder squad, this time. I don’t care about spooking him, not any more. If he gets itchy feet, I can hold him on breaking and entering. Do you want to come in, have a look?”
“Sure,” I said. A big part of me wanted to wuss out: spend tomorrow in the library with the others around me, eat lunch in the Buttery watching rain fall outside the windows, forget all about what might be happening just up the road, while I still could. But whatever this interview turned out to be, I needed to be there for it. “What time?”
“I’ll catch him before he goes to work, have him in here from about eight. Come whenever you like. Are you… You’re OK with coming into the squad?”
I’d forgotten even to worry about that. “No problem.”
“He fits the profile, doesn’t he? Bang on.”
“I guess,” I said, “yeah.” In the sitting room there was a comical groan from Rafe-he had obviously just made a mess of his hand-and a burst of laughter from the others. “You bastard,” Rafe was saying, but he was laughing too, “you sly bastard, I fall for it every time…” Sam is a good interrogator. If there was something to get out of Naylor, odds were he would get it.
“This could be it,” Sam said. The hope in his voice made me flinch, the intensity of it. “If I play my cards right
