“Like I said. We’ll find out. Until then-”
“I know. Keep my gob shut about it.”
Richie swung his jacket on and started poking at the knot in his tie, trying to check it without ruining it. I said, “Looking good. Let’s go find the Super.”
He had forgotten all about Quigley. I hadn’t. The part I hadn’t told Richie: Quigley doesn’t go near a fair fight. His personal talent is a hyena’s nose for anything weak or bleeding, and he doesn’t take people on unless he’s positive he can take them down. It was obvious why he was targeting Richie. The newbie, the working-class boy who needed to prove himself half a dozen different ways, the smart-arsed kid who couldn’t keep a leash on his tongue: it was easy and safe, to goad him along while he talked himself into trouble. What I couldn’t work out, what might have worried me if I hadn’t been floating on such a good mood, was why Quigley was targeting me.
O’Kelly was a happy camper. “The very men I’ve been waiting for,” he said, swiveling his chair to face us, when we knocked on his office door. He pointed at chairs-we had to clear away stacks of e-mail printouts and holiday applications before we could sit down; O’Kelly’s office always looks like the paperwork is on the verge of winning- and held up his copy of our report. “Go on. Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
I gave him the rundown. “The little fucker,” O’Kelly said, when I was done, but without much heat. The Super’s worked Murder for a long time and seen a lot of things. “The confession checks out?”
I said, “What we’ve got checks out, yeah, but he started looking for his sleep break before we could get into details. We’ll take another shot at him later, or tomorrow.”
“But the little fucker’s our man. You’ve got enough that I can go to the media, tell them the people of Brianstown are safe in their beds again. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Richie was looking at me too. I said, “It’s safe out there.”
“That’s what I like to hear. I’ve been beating back the reporters with a stick; I swear half the little bastards are hoping the fucker’ll strike again, keep them in a job. This’ll put a stop to their gallop.” O’Kelly leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh and aimed a stubby forefinger in Richie’s direction. “Curran, I’m going to hold my hand up and say I didn’t want you on this one. Did Kennedy tell you that?”
Richie shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Well, I didn’t. Thought you were too green to wipe your own arse without someone holding the jacks roll for you.” In the corner of my eye I caught the twitch of Richie’s mouth, but he nodded gravely. “I was wrong. Maybe I should use rookies more often, give those lazy lumps out there something to think about. Fair play to you.”
“Thanks, sir.”
“And as for this fella”-a thumb-jerk at me-“there’s men out there that would’ve told me not to let him within a mile of this one, either. Make him work his way back up, they said. Make him prove he’s still got what it takes.”
A day earlier I would have been starving to find the fuckers and stuff that down their throats. Now the six o’clock news would do it for me. O’Kelly was watching me, sharp-eyed. “And I hope I’ve done that, sir,” I said smoothly.
“I knew you would, or I wouldn’t have risked it. I told them where they could stick it, and I was right. Welcome back.”
“Good to be back, sir,” I said.
“I bet it is. I was right about you, Kennedy, and you were right about this young fella here. There’s plenty of lads on this squad that would still be holding their dicks in their hands and waiting for a confession to land in their laps. When are you charging your little fucker?”
I said, “I’d like the full three days. I want to be sure we don’t leave any cracks in this one.”
“That,” O’Kelly told Richie, “that’s our man Kennedy all over. Once he’s got his teeth into someone, God help the poor bastard. Watch and learn. Go on, go on”-a magnanimous wave of his hand-“take all the time you need. You’ve earned it. I’ll get you the extensions. Anything else you want, while you’re at it? More men? More overtime? Just say the word.”
“We’re all right for the moment, sir. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
“Do that,” O’Kelly said. He nodded at us, squared off the pages of our report and tossed it onto a stack: conversation over. “Now get out there and show the rest of that shower how it’s done.”
Out in the corridor, a safe distance from O’Kelly’s door, Richie caught my eye. He said, “So does this mean I’m allowed to wipe my own arse now, yeah?”
Plenty of people take the piss out of the Super, but he’s my boss and he’s always looked out for me, and I take both of those seriously. “It’s a metaphor,” I said.
“I got that. What’s the jacks roll meant to be?”
“Quigley?” I said, and we went back into the incident room laughing.
Conor’s place was a basement flat, in a tall brick house with the paint peeling off the window frames; his door was at the back, down a flight of narrow steps with rusted railings. Inside, the flat-bedroom, tiny living-room-cum- kitchen, tinier bathroom-looked like he had forgotten it existed a long time ago. It wasn’t filthy, or not quite, but there were cobwebs in the corners, food scraps in the kitchen sink and things ground into the linoleum. The fridge was ready-meals and Sprite. Conor’s clothes were good quality but a couple of years old, clean but half folded in crumpled heaps at the bottom of the wardrobe. His paperwork was in a cardboard box in a corner of the living room-bills, bank statements, receipts, all tossed in together; some of the envelopes hadn’t even been opened. With a little work, I could probably have put my finger on the exact month when he had let go of his life.
No obviously bloody clothes, no clothes in the washing machine, no clothes hanging up to dry; no bloody runners-no runners at all-but the two pairs of shoes in the wardrobe were a size ten. I said, “I’ve never seen a guy his age who doesn’t own a single pair of runners.”
“Ditched them,” Richie said. He had flipped Conor’s mattress up against the wall and was running a gloved hand over the underside. “I’d say that was the first thing he did, when he got home Monday night: got some clean clothes on and dumped the dirty ones as quick as he could.”
“Which means nearby, if we’re lucky. We’ll get a few of the lads to start searching the neighborhood bins.” I was going through the heaps of clothes, checking pockets and feeling seams for damp. It was cold in there: the heating-a plug-in oil heater-was off, and a chill struck straight up through the floor. “Even if we never find the bloody stuff, though, it could still come in useful. If young Conor tries to go for some kind of insanity defense-and let’s face it, that’s basically the only option he’s got left-then we point out that he tried to cover up what he’d done, which means he knew it was wrong, which means he was as sane as you and me. Legally, anyway.”
I put in a call for some lucky searchers to do bin duty-the flat was near enough to underground that I had to go outside to get a signal on my phone; Conor wouldn’t have been able to talk to his friends even if he had had any. Then we moved on to the sitting room.
Even with the lights on, the room was dim. The window, at head-level, looked out on a flat gray wall; I had to crane my neck sideways to catch a narrow rectangle of sky, birds whirling against heavy cloud. The most promising stuff-a monster computer with cornflakes in the keyboard, a battered mobile-was on Conor’s desk, and it was stuff we couldn’t touch without Kieran. Beside the desk was an old wooden fruit crate, with a tattered label of a dark- haired girl holding up an orange and smiling. I flipped the lid off. Inside was Conor’s stash of souvenirs.
A blue checked scarf, faded from washing, with a few long pale hairs still caught in the weave. A half-burnt green candle in a glass jar, filling the box with the sweet, nostalgic scent of ripe apples. A page from a palm-sized notepad, crumples carefully smoothed out: a phone doodle, fast strong strokes, a rugby player running with the ball in his elbow. The mug, a cracked tea-stained thing painted with poppies. The handful of elastic bands, arranged as neatly as treasure. A kid’s crayon drawing, four yellow heads, blue sky, birds overhead and black cat sprawled in a flowering tree. A green plastic magnet shaped like an X, faded and chewed. A dark-blue pen with gold curly writing:
I reached out one finger and pushed the scarf away from the bottom corner of the drawing. EMMA, in those wobbly capitals, and beside it the date. The rust-brown that smeared the sky and the flowers wasn’t paint. She had
