The Likeness

“The old ketchup technique,” Frank said, still inspecting his thumbnail with interest. “Turn ’em upside down, give ’em a good shake and hope something comes out.”

“Frank,” I said, and waited till he glanced up at me. “This is my last shot. Tomorrow I come in. Let me have it.”

Frank sighed, leaned his head back against the wall and had a leisurely look around the room; I saw him take in the new graffiti, the bits of exploded pen in the corner. “What I’m curious about,” he said eventually, “is how you’re so sure that one of them did it.”

My blood stopped moving for a second. All Frank had ever wanted from me was one solid lead. If he found out I had that already, I was toast: off the case and into big trouble, faster than you can say Up Shit Creek. I would never even make it back to Glenskehy. “Well, I’m not sure,” I said easily. “But, like you said, they’ve got motive.”

“Yeah, they’ve got motive. Of a kind. But then, so do Naylor and Eddie and a whole bunch of other people, some of whom we presumably haven’t even identified yet. This girl put herself in harm’s way on a regular basis, Cass. She may not have ripped people off financially-although that’s debatable: you could argue that she got her share of Whitethorn House under false pretenses-but she ripped them off emotionally. That’s a dangerous thing to do. She lived at risk. And yet you’re very, very sure which risk caught up with her.”

I shrugged, hands going out. “This is the only one I can go after. I’ve got one day left; I don’t want to ditch this case without giving it everything I’ve got. What are you bitching about, anyway? You’ve always liked them for it.”

“Oh, you picked up on that? I underestimated you, babe. Yeah, I’ve always liked them. But you haven’t. A few days ago you were claiming these four were a bunch of fluffy little bunnies who wouldn’t hurt a fly between them, and now you’ve got that steel-trap look in your eye and you’re working out the best way for us to fuck with their heads. So I’m wondering what it is that you’re not telling me.”

His eyes were on me, level and unblinking. I gave it a second, ran my hands through my hair like I was trying to figure out how to put this. “It’s not like that,” I said, in the end. “I’ve just got a feeling, Frank. Just a feeling.”

Frank watched me for a long minute; I swung my legs and tried to look open and sincere. Then: “OK,” he said, suddenly all business, shoving himself off the wall and heading over to switch the camera back on. “You’ve got a deal. Did you lot bring two cars, or am I going to have to drive Danny Boy all the way back to Glenarsefuck when I’m done with him?”

“We brought both cars,” I said. Relief and adrenaline were making me giddy; my mind was racing through how to work this interview and I wanted to shoot straight up in the air like a firework. “Thanks, Frank. You won’t regret it.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, “well.” He swapped the chairs back around. “Sit. Stay. I’ll get back to you.”

***

He left me there for another couple of hours, presumably while he gave the others everything he’d got, in the hope that one of them would crack and he wouldn’t need to use me after all. I spent the time smoking illegal cigarettes-no one seemed to care-and working out the details of how to do this. I knew Frank would be coming back. From the outside, the others were impregnable, seamless; even Justin would be holding up cool as ice in the face of Frank’s worst. Outsiders were too far away to shake them. They were like one of those medieval fortresses built with such fierce, intricate, defensive care that they could only ever be taken from the inside, by treachery.

Finally the door flew open and Frank stuck his head in. “I’m about to link you up to the other interview rooms, so get in character. Five minutes to curtain.”

“Don’t link Daniel in,” I said, sitting up fast.

“Don’t fuck up,” Frank said, and vanished again.

When he came back I was perched on the table, bending the ink tube of the Biro into a catapult and flipping the broken bits at the camera. “Hey,” I said, brightening up at the sight of him. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Now how could I ever do that?” Frank asked, giving me his very best grin. “I even brought you coffee-milk and two sugars, am I right? No, no, don’t worry about that”-as I hopped off the table and went for the Biro bits-“someone’ll get them later. Sit down and we’ll have a chat. How’ve you been?” He pulled out a chair and shoved one of the Styrofoam cups across to me.

He started out sweet as honey-I’d forgotten what a charmer Frank can be, when he feels like it. You’re looking wonderful, Miss Madison, and how’s the old war wound getting on, and-when I played up to him, gave a stretch to show him how well the stitches had healed-isn’t that a lovely sight, and just the right amount of flirtation in his grin. I threw in eyelash-and-giggle touches, just little ones, to piss Rafe off.