The Trespasser

by Tana French

‘Yeah. That type doesn’t do a lot for me, but a couple of the lads would’ve brought out the army to comb the country for her husband, if they could’ve. Tracking down a few mobiles, interviewing a few extra witnesses . . . that was nothing.’

  He remembers a lot about this woman, for someone who wasn’t into her. I keep my mouth shut – Gary brings out my nice side. ‘So it wasn’t because anyone suspected Murray might’ve been involved with gangs?’

  Gary laughs. ‘Jesus, no. Nothing like that. Pure as the driven snow, Murray was. When it came to the law, at least.’

  I throw Steve a look. He grimaces: still unconvinced. He’s got his hands tucked into his armpits to keep them warm.

  I roll my eyes and say, into the phone, ‘You sure you would’ve heard?’

  ‘Thanks a bunch, Antoinette.’

  ‘Come on, Gar, you know I’m not being a bitch here. But you had to be, what, twenty-six, twenty-seven? Out of uniform for like three weeks? The lead Ds weren’t necessarily telling you everything that went through their heads.’

  The faint clinking of Gary stirring his coffee. He says, ‘Is that what it was like when you were here? You figure I held stuff back from you, just to keep the rookie in her place?’

  I say, ‘No. You would’ve told me.’

  Missing Persons isn’t like Murder. In Missing Persons, you don’t work your case aiming to take down a bad guy; you work it aiming to get a happy ending. If it even looks like there might be a bad guy to take down, mostly it’s not your problem any more – say a body shows up looking dodgy, you hand it straight over to Murder. You can go your entire career without ever using your handcuffs. That attracts a whole different type from Murder or Sex Crime, the squads where your mind is focused on the kill shot and happy endings aren’t on the menu, and it makes for a whole different atmosphere. Missing Persons was never my kind of place, but just for a second I’m swamped by how badly I want to be back there. I can smell the good coffee, hear Gar hamming up ‘Bring Him Home’ after a happy ending while everyone shouts at him to shut up and take it to X Factor; I’m coming up with new places to hide that rubber hamster. Like a little kid, wanting to run home to Mammy as soon as the going gets tough. I make myself sick.

  ‘Yeah, I would’ve,’ Gary says. ‘It was the same back then: if the lead Ds were thinking gangs, they would’ve told me. Where’d this gang idea come from?’

  I keep my head angled away from Steve, in case that burst of wimp shows on my face. ‘Murray’s daughter, the one I sent to you when she came asking about him? She’s after turning up murdered.’

  ‘Huh,’ Gary says, surprised but not shocked. ‘God rest. She seemed like a sweet kid, way back when; sweet girl, when she came in to me. You think she got involved with a gang?’

  ‘Not really. It looks like the boyfriend threw a tantrum, but there’s some loose ends we want to clear up, just in case. We were wondering if she went looking for Daddy and trod on someone’s toes.’

  ‘No reason she would’ve. There’s nothing that would’ve pointed her anywhere dodgy.’

  I really wanted Gary to tell me that something, anything, was dodgy here. I can feel it soaking through me along with the cold, just how badly I wanted it. I can’t tell whether I knew all along that he wasn’t going to.

  Steve whispers, ‘The Ds. Why’d they keep their mouths shut?’

  ‘Second thing,’ I say. ‘Any reason why yous didn’t just tell them at the time where Daddy had gone?’

  Gary makes an exasperated noise, through a mouthful of coffee. ‘Antoinette. I wasn’t joking you about the back-seat driving. It wasn’t your case; how they worked it isn’t your problem. You start shooting your mouth off about how you would’ve done it differently, all you’ll do is piss people off. You think you can afford that?’

  Meaning word is getting around. Missing Persons have been informed that I’m poison. Even if I wanted to transfer back there, the gaffer probably wouldn’t take me. He knows I’m good, but no one wants a D who brings hassle with her. Whether it’s her own hassle or other people’s is beside the point.

  I say, ‘So don’t make me go shooting my mouth off. Quit the hush-hush crap and tell me what was going on, and I won’t have to talk to the other Ds.’

  ‘There isn’t any hush-hush crap. By the time they tracked Murray down, I wasn’t working the case any more – I was only on board for the initial push – so I don’t know all the details. All I heard is, they found him in England, tucked up in his love nest with the bit on the side. One of our lads gave him a bell: he was happy as a pig in shite, no intention of coming home, and he didn’t want anyone telling his wife and kid anything. So they didn’t.’

  Gary takes the silence for disapproval – which it isn’t: I wouldn’t have got involved in that mess, either. It’s some thicko part of me still hoping this isn’t the whole story. He says, ‘We’re not family therapists here. You know that. It’s not our job to sort out some fella’s love triangle; it’s our job to find the fella, and they did. They marked the case closed and moved on.’

  Steve makes a wry face, up at the flat dark windows staring back: that’s still getting to him. I ask, ‘Without even telling the wife that Desmond was alive? You said she had all the Ds wrapped around her finger, jumping through hoops to bring her answers; but when they actually find some, they don’t let her anywhere near them?’

  ‘I’m just telling you what I heard. And I’m telling you not to go giving anyone shite about it. What’s it got to do with your case, either way?’

  ‘Nothing, probably. Like I said: just tying up loose ends. Shaking trees.’ I flick an eyebrow at Steve, who narrows his eyes at me: Very funny. ‘One last thing. I know it’s been a couple of years, but can you tell me what you said to Aislinn when she came in to you?’

  Gary slurps coffee and thinks back. ‘She had a fair idea we knew more than we’d told her and her mam. She said her mam had died and she was desperate to find her dad. According to her, him vanishing had messed up her entire life. She wanted to track him down, look him in the eye and make him tell her why he did it. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen after that – she said something about once he saw her he’d remember how close they’d been, maybe they could have each other back . . . But even if it didn’t work out that way, according to her, once she knew the story she could move on. Make a life of her own.’

  Sweet jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. I’m on Des Murray’s side here. He probably split because the alternative was braining his whole sappy family with a poker. ‘What’d you give her?’

  ‘I told her I couldn’t disclose any information from the investigation. But . . . sure, you saw her. She was in bits. She was trying not to cry, but she was right on the edge of it. She was begging me; for a second there I was scared she was going to go down on her knees on the floor of the interview room. In the end I put in a call, had a mate run Desmond Murray through the UK system, just to see was he dead or alive. No point in her chasing him all over the world if he was six feet under.’

  Aislinn was Mammy’s daughter, all right; she might have looked helpless, but she knew how to make people do what she wanted. Even I ended up handing over Gary’s name and shift schedule. I’m liking her less all the time.

  Gary says, ‘And I thought, if he was still alive, I might drop her a hint that she’d do better hiring a private detective in England. Sure, what harm?’

  Missing Persons: happy-ending junkies, the lot of them. ‘And?’

  ‘And he was dead. A few years back. Nothing suspicious, he just died – heart attack, I think.’

  And that’s Daddy out of the picture. I almost laugh out loud with relief. Instead I elbow Steve and mouth See? He shrugs: It was worth a shot. I roll my eyes.

  Gary says, ‘Left a missus – well, give or take: he never married your one he ran off with, seeing as he wasn’t divorced from Aislinn’s mam, but they were still together – and three kids.’

  ‘How much did you tell Aislinn?’

  He blows
out air. ‘Yeah, that wasn’t an easy one. I figured it’d be a bit of a shock to the missus and the half-sibs, Daddy’s past life turning up on their doorstep – and since the dad wasn’t around for Aislinn to talk to, it’s not like knowing the whole story would’ve got her what she wanted anyway. But I wasn’t going to just throw the poor girl back onto the street – “Off you go and keep looking for your dad, good luck with that!” She had a right to know her father was dead.’

  Steve turns up his palms with a flourish: Exactly. I mime wanking. ‘So you told her.’

  ‘Yeah. Just that much: that the system showed him as deceased. And that I didn’t have any other info.’

  ‘How’d she take it?’

  ‘Not great.’ I can hear the grimace in Gary’s voice. ‘To be honest, she went bloody mental – which was fair enough, I suppose. She was hyperventilating, for a minute there I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance, but I had her hold her breath and she got it together again.’

  ‘No better man for it,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, well. Sort of. She was still frantic – shaking, whimpery noises, all that. She wanted to know why no one had told her – had the lads been lying to her ma or were they really that useless, how had they missed something that I’d found in ten minutes flat . . . I told her the lads were good Ds, but sometimes an investigation hits a wall no matter how good you are, and info from other sources can take a while to make it onto the system . . .’

  It’s instinct, as automatic as blinking when sand flies in your eye: a civilian accuses another cop of fucking up, you deny it. Whether she’s right is beside the point. You open your mouth and a lovely reassuring cover story comes out, smooth as butter. It’s never bothered me before – it’s not like a grovelling apology would have done Aislinn any good, or done anything at all except waste everyone’s time – but today everything feels dodgy, ready to blow up in my face at the wrong touch; nothing feels like it’s on my side.

  I say, ‘Did she believe you?’

  Gary makes a noncommittal noise. ‘Not sure. I just kept talking, trying to talk her down. I gave it loads about how at least now she had closure so she could move on, how she had every right to make a wonderful life for herself; and I went on about how her dad sounded like a lovely man and he’d obviously loved her a lot, and whatever had happened I was sure it had broken his heart to leave her . . . That kind of stuff. She didn’t look convinced – to be honest, I’m not sure she heard most of it – but I got her calmed down in the end.’ That voice, doing its job; he could’ve read her the duty roster and it would have done the same. ‘Once she was fit to drive, I sent her home. That’s it. See? There was nothing in there that could’ve made her think gangs.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ I say, at Steve, who shrugs again. His eyes are on a guy hurrying towards the main gate, too far away to recognise in this light, but the guy is fighting the wind for his scarf and doesn’t even glance our way. ‘Thanks, Gar. I appreciate it.’

  ‘So can you go ahead and leave the other Ds alone? If you won’t do it for your own sake, do it because you owe me one. I don’t need them jumping down my throat about passing you their case files.’

  Meaning Gary doesn’t need me getting my cooties all over him. Part of me understands completely: no one wants to catch the plague. The rest of me wants to go over there, deck the fucker and tell him to grow a pair.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘Can you send that young fella back to pick up your file?’

  ‘No problem. He’ll be over to you now.’

  ‘Nice one. Thanks again. Catch you next week for those pints, yeah?’

  ‘Next week’s a bit mental. I’ll give you a ring when things settle down, OK? Good luck with the case. Sorry I wasn’t more use to you.’ And Gary’s gone, back to the squad room with his mug of real coffee, to take slaggings about his prostate and sing musicals and go after happy endings.

  He won’t be ringing me, and it sticks in deeper and sharper than I was ready for. I pretend putting my phone back in my pocket needs my full concentration. Steve bends to mess around with his pile of alibi paper. I can’t tell whether he’s actually being tactful, in which case I might have to kill him.

  ‘So,’ I say briskly, ‘the gang theory’s out, at least as far as Des Murray’s concerned. If the Ds had had suspicions they didn’t want to put in the file, Gary would’ve known. Des Murray went off with his bit on the side. End of story.’

  ‘Sure,’ Steve says, straightening up. ‘But Aislinn didn’t know that.’

  ‘So? Gary’s right: there’s no reason she would have been thinking gangs. None. Zero.’

  ‘Not if she was thinking straight, no. But she wasn’t thinking— No, Antoinette, listen.’ He’s leaning in close, talking fast. ‘Aislinn was a fantasist. Remember what Lucy said, about when they were kids? When things were bad, Ash came up with mad stories to make them better. She had to, didn’t she? In real life, all she did was get pushed around by other people’s decisions. The one place where she had any power, the one place where she got to make the calls, was her imagination.’

  He’s forgotten all about being cold. ‘So she built up this whole fantasy: she was going to go on a quest and find her daddy, and she’d throw herself into his arms and her life would be OK again. That fantasy was what kept her going. And then your mate Gary blew it right out of the water.’

  I say, ‘You make it sound like he torched a poor helpless kiddie’s favourite dolly. Aislinn was a grown adult – and by that time, her ma was dead. She could do whatever she wanted with her life. She didn’t need the Daddy fantasy any more; it was only holding her back. Gary did her a favour.’

  Steve’s shaking his head. ‘Aislinn hadn’t a clue how to do what she wanted with real life. She’d had no practice. You heard Lucy: she was only starting to play with that in the last year or two – and even then it was fantasy stuff, doing herself up like something out of a magazine and going to fancy clubs . . . So when Gary killed off her reunion fantasy, she would’ve needed a new one, ASAP. And a gang story would’ve been perfect.’

  His face is lit up with it; he can see the whole thing. You have to love the guy. Where I’m seeing a dead end, he’s seeing a brilliant new twist to his amazing story. I wish I could take my holidays inside Steve’s head.

  ‘Maybe she decided her dad had been a witness to a gang hit, so he needed to get out of town fast, before the gang tracked him down – something like that. Plenty of drama, plenty of thrills, a great reason why her dad left and why he never came back to find her—’

  ‘Doesn’t explain why he couldn’t Facebook her, somewhere along the way,’ I point out. ‘“Hiya, sweetums, Daddy’s alive, love you, bye.” ’

  ‘He was scared to, in case the gang was watching her Facebook account and they went after her. Yeah, I know it’s bollix’ – when I snort – ‘but Aislinn might not have. There’s a million ways she could’ve explained that away to herself. And you know the next chapter of the fantasy? The next chapter’s going to star Aislinn as the brave daughter who goes into the heart of gangland to learn her da’s secret. Guaranteed.’

  ‘Learn it how? By walking into some radge pub and asking if anyone here knows anything about Desmond Murray?’

  Steve’s nodding fast. Another civil servant trudges past, but he doesn’t even notice; too hypnotised by his sparkly story. ‘Probably not far off. Anyone who reads the news would be able to figure out a few names of gang pubs. Aislinn goes into one for a drink—’

  ‘You think she had balls that size? I wouldn’t be happy doing that, and I can handle myself a lot better than she could.’ This idea is annoying me: us, two grown-ass professional Ds, chasing some idiot’s Nancy Drew fantasy all around town. My job is dealing with stories that actually happen, getting them by the scruff of the neck and hauling them clawing and biting to the right ending. Stories that only happened inside someone’s pretty little head, floating bits of white fluff that I’ve got no way to grab hold of: those aren’t su
pposed to be my problem.

  ‘It’s not about having big balls. It’s about how deep she was in the fantasy. If that’s her place, where she’s in control, then she’s not going to believe it could go wrong. Like a little kid – that’s what Lucy said, remember? In Aislinn’s head, she’s the heroine. The heroine might get into hassle, but she always gets herself out again.’

  ‘And then what? She just sits in the pub hoping the right guy comes up to her?’

  ‘The way she looks, someone’s going to come up to her. No question. She flirts away, comes back another night, gets to know his pals; once she finds a guy who looks promising, she targets him. Actually—’ Steve’s hand whips up, fingers snapping. ‘You know something? Maybe that’s why she looked like that. We’ve been thinking she lost the weight and got the new clothes just because she wanted a fresh start, but what if it was part of a bigger plan?’

  ‘Huh,’ I say, considering that. It actually gives me my first fleck of respect for Aislinn. Anyone who turns herself into Barbie because that’s the only way she feels worthwhile needs a kick up the hole, but someone who does it for a revenge mission deserves a few points for determination.

  ‘The timeline would fit,’ Steve says. ‘According to Lucy, Aislinn started the makeover stuff two years ago, give or take. That’d put it not long after she talked to Gary and had to change her plan—’ That finger-snap again. He’s practically bouncing up and down. ‘Jesus: her gaff. You know how she had no family photos? This could be why. She didn’t want her boyfriend recognising a photo of her dad.’ Steve’s eyes are shining. I’m actually starting to hope we never pull a really good case; the excitement would make him widdle on my leg. ‘And that’s why she ditched the scumbag for Rory: she finally figured out there was nothing he could tell her. It all fits, Antoinette. It does.’

  ‘Or else,’ I say, ‘the whole gang thing is bollix straight through. Once she talked to Gary and found out that her hugs and hot cocoa with Daddy weren’t gonna happen, Aislinn took down the family photos because they wrecked her buzz, and she decided she just wanted a nice happy-ever-after fantasy. The kind where the ugly duckling gets a makeover, turns into a beautiful swan and finds herself a handsome prince. Except the handsome prince turned out to be a big bad ogre. That fits, too.’