The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(11)

‘Any bad habits?’

Conway shook her head. ‘Not even. Mates said he’d had the odd smoke at parties, both kinds, and he got pissed every now and then when they could get their hands on drink, but there was no alcohol in him when he died. No drugs in his system, either, and none in his stuff. No links to gambling. A couple of porn sites in his computer history, at his parents’ gaff, but what do you expect? That’s the worst he ever did, far as we could establish: few puffs of spliff and a bit of online minge.’

The side of her face was calm. Eyebrows a little down, focused on the driving. You’d have said, anyway, she was fine with her f*ckton of nothing: just the way the dice roll, nothing to take to heart.

‘No motive, no leads, no witnesses; after a while we were chasing our tails. Interviewing the same people over and over. Getting the same answers. We had other cases; we couldn’t afford to spend another few months hitting ourselves over the head with this one. In the end I called it quits. Stuck it on the back burner and hoped something like this would turn up.’

I said, ‘How’d you end up as the primary?’

Conway’s foot went down on the pedal. ‘You mean, how’d a little girlie end up with a big case like this. I should’ve stuck to domestics. Yeah?’

‘No. I mean you were a newbie.’

‘So what? You saying that’s why we got nowhere?’

Not fine with it. Covering well enough to keep the squad lads off her back, but a long way from fine. ‘No, I’m not. I’m saying—’

‘Because f*ck you. You can get out right here, get the f*cking bus back to Cold Cases.’

If she hadn’t been driving, she’d have had a finger in my face. ‘No. I’m saying a case like this, a kid, a posh school: yous had to know it’d be a big one. Costello had seniority. How come he didn’t put his name on top?’

‘Because I’d earned it. Because he knew I’m a f*cking good detective. You got that?’

Needle still sliding up, over the limit. ‘Got it,’ I said.

Bit of quiet. Conway eased off the pedal, but not a lot. We had hit the Terenure Road; once the MG got some space, it started showing what it could do. I said, once I’d left enough silence, ‘The car’s a beauty.’

‘Ever drive it?’

‘Not yet.’

Backwards nod, like that matched what she already thought of me. ‘A place like St Kilda’s, you have to come in up here.’ Hand higher than her head. ‘Get the respect.’

That told me something about Antoinette Conway. Me, I’d have picked out an old Polo, too many miles, too many layers of paint not quite hiding the dings. You come in playing low man on the totem, you get people off guard.

‘That kind of place, yeah?’

Her lip pulled up. ‘Jesus f*ck. I thought they were gonna put me through a decontamination chamber, get rid of my accent. Or throw me a cleaner’s uniform and point me at the tradesmen’s entrance. You know what the fees are? They start at eight grand a year. That’s if you’re not boarding, or taking any extracurricular activities. Choir, piano, drama. You have any of that, in school?’

‘We had a football in the yard.’

Conway liked that. ‘One little geebag: I go into the holding room and call out her name for interview, and she goes, “Em, I can’t exactly go now, I’ve got my clarinet lesson in five?”’ That curl rising at the corner of her mouth again. Whatever she’d said to the girl, she’d enjoyed it. ‘Her interview lasted an hour. Hate that.’

‘The school,’ I said. ‘Snobby and good, or just snobby?’

‘I could win the Lotto, still wouldn’t send my kid there. But . . .’ One-shouldered shrug. ‘Small classes. Young Scientist awards everywhere. Everyone’s got perfect teeth, no one ever gets up the duff, and all the shiny little pedigree bitches go on to college. I guess it’s good, if you’re OK with your kid turning out a snobby shite.’

I said, ‘Holly’s da’s a cop. A Dub. From the Liberties.’

‘I know that. You think I missed that?’

‘He wouldn’t send her there if she was turning into a snobby shite.’

Conway edged the MG’s nose past a red light. Green: she floored it. Said, ‘She fancy you?’

I almost laughed. ‘She was just a kid: nine when we met, ten when it went to trial. I didn’t see her after that, till today.’

Conway shot me a look that said I was the kid here. ‘You’d be surprised. She a liar?’

I thought back. ‘She didn’t lie to me. Not that I caught, anyway. She was a good kid, back then.’

Conway said, ‘She’s a liar.’

‘What’d she say?’

‘Dunno. I didn’t catch her out either. Maybe she didn’t lie to me. But girls that age, they’re liars. All of them.’

I thought about saying, Next time you’ve got a trick question, save it for a suspect. Said, instead, ‘I don’t give a damn who’s a liar, as long as she’s not lying to me.’

Conway shifted up a gear. The MG loved it. ‘Tell us,’ she said. ‘What did your little pal Holly say about Chris Harper?’

‘Not a lot. He was just a guy. She knew him from around.’