The Hunter

Nealon makes it easy for her. He putters about, boiling the kettle and keeping up the steady stream of talk, complaining cheerfully about the downsides of the job, staying in B & Bs and leaving the missus to mind the kids, spending his time annoying people who’ve all got better things to do than talk to the likes of him. Lena watches him and thinks of Cal, and how he must have done this a thousand times. He would have done it well; she can see him at it.

“And it’s not like on the telly,” Nealon informs them, pouring tea for himself and Lena, “where you have the one chat with someone and you’re done. In real life, you have the chats with everyone, and then one fella comes back to you saying he needs to set a few things straight. And o’ course you’ve been going off his statement when you talked to other people, so then you’ve to start all over again. D’you take milk? Sugar?”

“Just milk, thanks. D’you get that often?” Lena asks helpfully. “People changing their stories?”

“Wouldja stop,” Nealon tells her, passing her a big stained mug that says dad joke champion on the side. “You wouldn’t believe how often. People get caught on the hop, if you get me, the first time we talk. They feel like they’re on the back foot, and they keep things to themselves, or they come out with some load of aul’ rubbish. And then they go home and think, What the hell was I at? Then it takes them ages to come back in and put things right, ’cause they’re afraid they’ll get in trouble.”

Trey glances up at him, nervous, but she can’t hold his eyes. “Do they get in trouble?”

Nealon looks surprised. “God, no. Why would they?”

“Wasting your time.”

Nealon, pulling up his chair behind the desk, laughs. “Sure, that’s most of this job: wasting my time. Filling in this form and that form, and I know no one’ll ever look at the bleedin’ things, but it has to be done anyway. Come here, can I have one of those crisps?”

Trey holds out the packet across the desk. “Lovely,” Nealon says, selecting a crisp with care. “Cheese-and-onion’s your only man. Think about it this way: say some fella feeds me a load of rubbish, and then he’s got the sense to come back and clear it up before I go making an eejit of myself. Now, if I give him hassle, word’ll get around, and the next person who needs to set the record straight, they’re going to keep their lip zipped, aren’t they? But if I just shake his hand and thank him, nice and polite like, then the next person won’t have any problem coming in to me. And everyone’s happy. D’you get me?”

“Yeah.”

“When everyone’s happy,” Nealon says comfortably, leaning back in his chair and balancing his mug on his belly, “I’m happy.”

Trey glances over her shoulder at Lena. Lena nods encouragingly. She’s trying to look like a respectable pillar of the community, but she’s not in practice.

“What I told you that day,” Trey says, and dries up. Her face is pinched with tension. Nealon slurps his tea and waits.

“About hearing lads talking. The night your man died.”

Nealon cocks his head to one side. “Yeah?”

“Made that up,” Trey says, to her Coke can.

Nealon gives her an indulgent grin and a finger-wag, like he just caught her mitching off school. “I knew it.”

“You did?”

“Listen, young one, I’ve been doing this job since you were in nappies. If I couldn’t spot someone giving me the runaround, I’d be banjaxed altogether.”

“Sorry,” Trey mumbles. She’s got her head well down, picking at the skin around her thumbnail.

“You’re grand,” Nealon tells her. “Tell you what: you can fill out my expense claim for me, and we’ll call it quits. How’s that?”

Trey manages a small puff of a laugh. “There you go,” Nealon says, smiling. “So come here to me: was any of that story true?”

“Yeah. The morning stuff, how I found him. That part all happened like I said.”

“Ah, lovely,” Nealon says. “That’ll save us some hassle. How about the night before?”

Trey twists one shoulder.

“Did you go out at all?”

“Nah.”

“Don’t be picking at your nails,” Nealon tells her. He’s clearly come to the conclusion, after meeting Johnny, that Trey must be craving a father figure. “You’ll give yourself an infection. Did you hear voices outside?”

Trey obediently flattens her hands on her thighs. “Nah. Made up that part.”

“See headlights? Hear a car?”

“Nah.”

“We’ll start over, so,” Nealon says cheerfully. “You just slept through the night, is it? Then woke up early and brought the dog for a walk?”

Trey shakes her head. “Say it out loud,” Nealon reminds her, tapping the voice recorder. “For this yoke here.”

Trey gives the recorder a nervy glance, but she takes a breath and keeps going. “I did wake up in the night. Like I said. ’Cause I was hot. Just lay there for a while—I was thinking about getting up and watching the telly, only I couldn’t be ars— bothered. After a bit…”

She stops and glances over at Lena. “You’re grand,” Lena reassures her. “Just tell him the truth, is all.”