In the Woods

"Ah, come on, Ryan, two seconds," Cassie begged. "I've never seen a ring brooch. What does it look like?"

"They said it's probably going to be in the National Museum," Damien told her, flushed with pride. "It's kind of this big, and it's bronze, and it's got a pattern incised into it…" He made vague squiggly motions, presumably intended to indicate an incised pattern, with one finger.

"Draw it for me?" Cassie asked, pushing her notebook and pen across the table to him. Damien drew obediently, brow furrowed in concentration.

"Sort of like this," he said, giving Cassie back the notebook. "I can't draw."

"Wow," Cassie said reverently. "And you found it? If I found something like that, I think I'd explode or have a heart attack or something."

I looked over her shoulder: a broad circle with what appeared to be a pin across the back, decorated with fluid, balanced curves. "Pretty," I said. Damien was indeed left-handed. His hands still looked a size too big for his body, like a puppy's paws.

* * *

"Hunt's out," O'Kelly said, in the corridor. "Original statement says he was having his tea and watching telly with his wife all the Monday night, till he went to bed at eleven. Bloody documentaries, they watched, something about meerkats and one about Richard III-he told us every bloody detail, whether we wanted to know or not. The wife says the same, and the telly guide backs them up. And the neighbor has a dog, one of those little shites that barks all night; he says he heard Hunt shouting out the window at it around one in the morning. Why he wouldn't tell the little fucker to shut up himself… He's sure of the date because it was the day they got the new decking in-says the workmen upset the dog. I'm sending Einstein home, before he has me driven mental. It's a two-horse race, lads."

"How's Sam doing with Mark?" I asked.

"Getting nowhere. Hanly's being snotty as fuck and sticking to the shag-fest story; the girlfriend's backing him up. If they're lying, they're not going to crack any time soon. And he's right-handed, for sure. How about your boy?"

"Left," Cassie said.

"There's our odds-on favorite, then. But that's not going to be enough. I talked to Cooper…" O'Kelly's face pulled into a disgusted grimace. "Position of the victim, position of the assailant, balance of probabilities-more shite than a pigsty, but what it boils down to is he thinks our man's left-handed but he's not willing to say for definite. He's like a bloody politician. How's Donnelly doing?"

"Nervous," I said.

O'Kelly slapped the door of the interview room. "Good. Keep him that way."

* * *

We went back in and set about making Damien nervous. "OK, guys," I said, pulling up my chair, "time to get down to business. Let's talk about Katy Devlin."

Damien nodded attentively, but I saw him brace himself. He took a sip of his tea, though it had to be cold by now.

"When did you first see her?"

"I guess when we were like three quarters of the way up the hill? Higher up than the cottage, anyway, and the Portakabins. See, because of the way the hill slopes-"

"No," Cassie said, "not the day you found her body. Before that."

"Before…?" Damien blinked at her, took another sip of tea. "No-um, I didn't; I hadn't. Met her before that, that day."

"You'd never even seen her before?" Cassie's tone hadn't changed, but I felt the sudden bird-dog stillness in her. "Are you sure? Think hard, Damien."

He shook his head vehemently. "No. I swear. I'd never seen her in my entire life."

There was a moment of silence. I gave Damien what I hoped was a look of mild interest, but my head was whirling.

I had cast my vote for Mark not out of sheer contrariness, as you might think, nor because something about him annoyed me in ways I didn't care to explore. I suppose when you come down to it, given the choices available, I simply wanted it to be him. I had never been able to take Damien seriously-not as a man, not as a witness and certainly not as a suspect. He was such an abject little wimp, nothing to him but curls and stammers and vulnerability, you could have blown him away like a dandelion clock; the thought that all this past month might have stemmed from someone like him was outrageous. Mark, whatever we might think of each other, made an opponent and a goal worth having.