In the Woods

When they finally left-Sam nodding to me, briefly, over his shoulder-I waited in the empty incident room until I was sure they must have started the interrogation, and then I went looking for them. They were in the main interview room. I ducked into the observation chamber furtively, ears burning, like someone diving into an adult bookshop. I knew this was going to be the very last thing in the world I wanted to see, but I didn't know how to stay away.

They had made the room as cozy as humanly possible: coats and bags and scarves thrown on chairs, the table strewn with coffee and sugar packets and mobile phones and a carafe of water and a plate of sticky Danishes from the café outside the castle grounds. Damien, bedraggled in the same oversized sweatshirt and combats-they looked like he'd slept in them-hugged himself and stared round, wide-eyed; after the alien chaos of a jail cell, this must have seemed a bright haven to him, safe and warm and almost homey. At certain angles you could see a fuzz of fair, pathetic stubble on his chin. Cassie and Sam were chattering, perching on the table and bitching about the weather and offering Damien milk. I heard footsteps in the corridor and tensed-if it was O'Kelly he would kick me out, back to the phone tips, this no longer had anything to do with me-but they went past without breaking stride. I leaned my forehead against the one-way glass and closed my eyes.

They took him through safe little details first. Cassie's voice, Sam's, weaving together dexterously, soothing as lullabies: How did you get out of the house without waking up your mam? Yeah? I used to do that, too, when I was a teenager… Had you done it before? God, this coffee's horrible, do you want a Coke or something instead? They were good together, Cassie and Sam; they were good. Damien was relaxing. Once he even laughed, a pathetic little breath.

"You're a member of Move the Motorway, right?" Cassie said eventually, just as easily as before; nobody but me would have recognized the tiny lift in her voice that meant she was getting down to business. I opened my eyes and straightened up. "When did you get involved with them?"

"This spring," Damien said readily, "like March or something. There was a thing on the department notice-board in college, about a protest. I knew I was going to be working at Knocknaree for the summer, so I felt sort of…I don't know, connected to it? So I went."

"Would that be the protest on the twentieth of March?" Sam asked, flipping through papers and rubbing the back of his head. He was doing solid country cop, friendly and not too quick.

"Yeah, I think so. It was outside the government buildings, if that helps." Damien seemed almost eerily at ease by this point, leaning forward across the table and playing with his coffee cup, chatty and eager as if this were a job interview. I'd seen this before, especially with first-time criminals: they're not used to thinking of us as the enemy, and once the shock of being caught has worn off they turn light-headed and helpful with the sheer relief of the long tension breaking.

"And that's when you joined the campaign?"

"Yeah. It's a really important site, Knocknaree, it's been inhabited ever since-"

"Mark told us," Cassie said, grinning. "As you can imagine. Was that when you met Rosalind Devlin, or did you know her before?"

A small, confused pause. "What?" Damien said.

"She was on the sign-up table that day. Was that the first time you'd met her?"

Another pause. "I don't know who you mean," Damien said finally.

"Come on, Damien," Cassie said, leaning forward to try to catch his eye; he was staring into his coffee cup. "You've been doing great all the way; don't flake out on me now, OK?"

"There are calls and texts to Rosalind all over your mobile-phone records," Sam said, pulling out the sheaf of highlighted pages and putting them in front of Damien. He gazed at them blankly.

"Why wouldn't you want us knowing you guys were friends?" Cassie asked. "There's no harm in that."

"I don't want her dragged into this," Damien said. His shoulders were starting to tense up.

"We're not trying to drag anyone into anything," Cassie said gently. "We just want to figure out what happened."

"I already told you."

"I know, I know. Bear with us, OK? We just have to clear up the details. Is that when you first met Rosalind, at that protest?"

Damien reached out and touched the mobile records with one finger. "Yeah," he said. "When I signed up. We got talking."

"You got on well, so you stayed in touch?"

"Yeah. I guess."