In the Woods

"Is that why"-Sam flicked the phone records with one finger-"the calls between you and Rosalind dry up after Katy died? Two calls on the Tuesday, the day after the killing; one early Wednesday morning, one the next Tuesday, then nothing. Was Rosalind annoyed with you for letting her down?"

"I don't even know how she knew. I was scared to tell her. We'd said we wouldn't talk for a couple of weeks, so the police-you guys-wouldn't connect us up, but she texted me like a week later and said maybe we shouldn't get back in touch because obviously I didn't really care about her. I phoned her to find out what was wrong-and, yeah, of course she was mad!" He was babbling, his voice rising. "I mean, we'll work it out-but, Jesus, she has every right to be mad at me. Katy wasn't even found till Wednesday 'cause I panicked, that could've totally ruined her alibi, and I hadn't…I hadn't…She trusted me so much, she didn't have anyone else, and I couldn't even do one thing right 'cause I'm a fucking wimp."

Cassie didn't answer. Her back was to me; I saw the frail knobs of bone at the top of her spine and I felt grief like a solid weight dragging in my wrists and throat. I couldn't listen any more. That little gem about Katy dancing for attention had knocked all the anger out of me, knocked me hollow. All I wanted to do was sleep, drugged obliterated sleep, let someone wake me when this day was over and the steady rain had washed all this away.

"You know something?" Damien said softly, just before I left. "We were going to get married. As soon as Jessica had, like, recovered enough that Rosalind could leave her there. I guess that's not going to happen now, right?"

* * *

They were with him all day. I knew what they were doing, more or less: they had the gist of the story, now they were going back over it, filling in times and dates and details, checking for any tiny gap or inconsistency. Getting a confession is only the beginning; after that you need to waterproof it, second-guess defense lawyers and juries, make sure you get everything in writing while your guy is feeling talkative and before he has a chance to come up with alternative explanations. Sam is the painstaking type; they would do a good job.

Sweeney and O'Gorman came in and out of the incident room: Rosalind's mobile records, more background interviews about her and about Damien. I sent them to the interview room. O'Kelly stuck his head in and scowled at me, and I pretended to be deep in phone tips. Halfway through the afternoon Quigley came in to share his thoughts on the case. Quite apart from the fact that I had no desire to talk to anyone, least of all him, this was a very bad sign: Quigley's one talent is an unerring nose for weakness, and, apart from the odd embarrassing attempt to ingratiate himself, he had generally left me and Cassie alone and stuck to battening on newbies and burnouts and those whose careers had taken sudden nosedives. He pulled his chair too close to mine and hinted darkly that we should have caught our man weeks earlier, intimated that he would explain how this could have been done if I asked with sufficient deference, sadly pointed out my unconscionable psychological error in allowing Sam to take my place in the interrogation, inquired about Damien's phone records and then cunningly suggested we should consider the possibility that the sister had been involved. I seemed to have forgotten how to get rid of him, and this increased my sense that his presence was not just annoying but horribly ominous. He was like a huge smug albatross waddling around my desk, squawking vacuously and crapping all over my paperwork.

Finally, like the bullies in school, he seemed to recognize that I was too wretched to provide value for money, so he bridled back to whatever he was supposed to be doing, an offended look spread over his large flat features. I gave up on any pretense of filing the phone tips and went to the window, where I spent the next few hours staring out at the rain and listening to the faint, familiar noises of the squad behind me: Bernadette laughing, phones ringing, the rise of arguing male voices suddenly muffled by a slamming door.

It was twenty past seven when I finally heard Cassie and Sam coming down the corridor. Their voices were too subdued and sporadic for me to make out any words, but I recognized the tones. It's funny, the things a change of perspective can make you notice; I hadn't realized how deep Sam's voice was, till I listened to him interviewing Damien.

"I want to go home," Cassie said as they came into the incident room. She dropped into a chair and rested her forehead on the heels of her hands.

"Nearly over," Sam said. It wasn't clear whether he meant the day or the investigation. He went around the table to his seat; on the way, to my utter surprise, he laid his hand briefly, lightly, on Cassie's head.

"How did it go?" I asked, hearing the stilted note in my voice.