In the Woods

She was obviously in no state to drive, so she left her Vespa where it was parked and rode back to work in the front of the van. Sam drove. Rosalind went in the back, with the rest of us. She had settled down once Sweeney got the cuffs on her; she sat rigid and outraged, not saying a word. Every breath I took smelled of her cloying perfume and of something else, some overripe taint of rot, rich and polluting and possibly imaginary. I could tell from her eyes that her mind was working furiously, but there was no expression on her face; no fear or defiance or anger, nothing at all.

By the time we got back to work O'Kelly's mood had improved considerably, and when I followed him and Cassie into the observation room he didn't attempt to send me away. "That girl reminds me of a young fella I knew in school," he told us reflectively, as we waited for Sam to finish going through the rights sheet with Rosalind and bring her up to the interview room. "Shaft you six ways till Sunday without blinking an eye, then turn around and have everyone convinced it was all your own fault. There's mad people out there."

Cassie leaned back against the wall, spat on a bloodstained tissue and scrubbed again at her cheek. "She's not mad," she said. Her hands were still shaking.

"Figure of speech, Maddox," O'Kelly said. "You should go get the war wound seen to."

"I'm fine."

"Fair play to you, all the same. You were right about that one." He clapped her awkwardly on the shoulder. "All that about making the sister sick for her own good; would you say she actually believes that?"

"No," Cassie said. She refolded the tissue to find a clean bit. "'Believe' doesn't exist for her. Things aren't true or false; they either suit her or they don't. Nothing else means anything to her. You could give her a polygraph and she'd pass with flying colors."

"She should've gone into politics. Hang on; here we go." O'Kelly jerked his head at the glass: Sam was showing Rosalind into the interview room. "Let's see her try to get out of this one. This should be good for a laugh."

Rosalind glanced around the room and sighed. "I'd like you to ring my parents now," she told Sam. "Tell them to get me a lawyer and then come down here." She pulled a dainty little pen and diary out of her blazer pocket, wrote something on a page, then ripped it out and handed it to Sam, as if he were a concierge. "That's their number. Thank you so much."

"You can see your parents once we've finished talking," Sam said. "If you want a lawyer-"

"I think I'll see them sooner than that, actually." Rosalind smoothed her skirt over her backside and sat down, with a little moue of distaste at the plastic chair. "Don't minors have the right to have a parent or guardian present during an interview?"

There was a moment when everyone froze, except Rosalind, who crossed her knees demurely and smiled up at Sam, savoring the effect.

"Interview suspended," Sam said curtly. He whipped the file off the table and headed for the door.

"Jesus Christ on a bike," said O'Kelly. "Ryan, are you telling me-"

"She could be lying," Cassie said. She was staring intently through the glass; her hand had closed into a fist around the tissue.

My heart, which had stopped beating, resumed at double speed. "Of course she is. Look at her, there's no way she's under-"

"Aye, right. Do you know how many men have landed in jail for saying that?"

Sam banged the observation-room door open so hard it bounced off the wall. "What age is that girl?" he demanded, of me.

"Eighteen," I said. My head was spinning; I knew I was sure, but I couldn't remember how. "She told me-"

"Sweet Jesus! And you took her word for it?" I had never seen Sam lose his temper before, and it was more impressive than I would have expected. "If you asked that girl the time at half past two, she'd tell you it was three o'clock just to fuck with your head. You didn't even check?"

"Look who's talking," O'Kelly snapped. "Any one of ye could have checked, any time in the past God knows how long, but no-"

Sam didn't even hear him. His eyes were locked on mine, blazing. "We took your word because you're supposed to be a bloody detective. You sent your own partner in there to get crucified, without even bothering-"