Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(68)

Stephen picked a stray dead leaf off the bench and started folding it carefully along the veins. “Can I talk to you straight? Like we were off duty. Man to man.”

I spread my hands. “We are off duty, Stephen my friend. Hadn’t you noticed?”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. At ease, mate. Say whatever springs to mind. No repercussions.”

His eyes came up from the leaf to meet mine, level and gray and intelligent. “Word is you’ve got a personal interest in this case. A double interest, now.”

“That’s hardly a state secret. And?”

“What it sounds like to me,” Stephen said, “is you want me to spy on this murder investigation and report back to you.”

I said cheerfully, “If that’s how you want to look at it.”

“I’m not mad about the sound of that.”

“Interesting.” I found my cigarettes. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

Not as green as he had looked on paper. No matter how badly the kid wanted to be in my good books, he was nobody’s bitch. Normally I would have approved of this, but right that minute I wasn’t in the mood for doing dainty footwork around his stubborn side. I lit up and blew smoke rings up into the smudgy yellow light of the lamp. “Stephen,” I said. “You need to think this through. I presume you’re worried about three aspects of this: the level of commitment involved, the ethics, and the potential consequences, not necessarily in that order. Am I right?”

“More or less, yeah.”

“Let’s start with the commitment. I won’t be asking you for in-depth daily reports on everything that goes on in that squad room. I’ll be asking you very specific questions that you’ll be able to answer with a minimum expenditure of time and effort. We’re talking two or three meetings a week, none of which need to last more than fifteen minutes if you’ve got something better to do, plus maybe another half hour’s worth of research before each meeting. Does that sound like something you could manage, just hypothetically speaking?”

After a moment Stephen nodded. “It’s not about having better things to do—”

“Good man. Next, possible consequences. Yes, Detective Kennedy would quite probably have the mother of all hissy fits if he found out you and I were talking, but there’s no reason why he should. It ought to be obvious to you that I’m very, very good at keeping my mouth shut. How about you?”

“I’m not a squealer.”

“I didn’t think so. In other words, the risk of Detective Kennedy catching you and sending you to the naughty corner is minimal. And, Stephen? Keep in mind that’s not the only possible consequence here. Plenty of other things could come out of this.”

I waited till he asked, “Like what?”

“When I said you had potential, I wasn’t just blowing smoke up your arse. Remember, this case won’t last forever, and as soon as it ends, you go back to the floater pool. Looking forward to that?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only way onto a squad. It needs doing.”

“Following up on stolen cars and broken windows, and waiting for someone like Scorcher Kennedy to whistle for you so you can fetch his sandwiches for a few weeks. Sure, it needs doing, but some people do it for a year and some people do it for twenty. Given the choice, when would you, personally, want to get out of there for good?”

“The sooner the better. Obviously.”

“That’s what I thought. I guarantee you, I will in fact be noticing exactly how you work, just like I said I would. And every time a place opens up on my squad, I remember people who’ve done good work for me. I can’t guarantee the same for my friend Scorcher. Tell me something, just between the two of us: does he even know your first name?”

Stephen didn’t answer. “So,” I said, “I think that takes care of potential consequences, don’t you? Which leaves us with the ethics of the situation. Am I asking you to do anything that might compromise your work on the murder case?”

“Not so far.”

“And I don’t plan to. If at any point you feel that our association is jeopardizing your ability to give your full attention to your official assignment, just let me know and you won’t hear from me again. You’ve got my word on that.” Always, always give them a free out that they’ll never have a chance to use. “Fair enough?”

He didn’t look reassured. “Yeah.”

“Am I asking you to disobey anyone else’s orders?”

“That’s splitting hairs. OK, Detective Kennedy hasn’t told me not to talk to you, but that’s only because it hasn’t even occurred to him that I might.”

“So? It should’ve occurred to him. If it hasn’t, that’s his problem, not yours or mine. You don’t owe him anything.”

Stephen ran a hand through his hair. “I do, though,” he said. “He’s the one that brought me onto this case. Right now, he’s my boss. The rule is, I take orders from him. No one else.”

My jaw dropped. “The rule? What the . . . ? I thought you said you had your eye on Undercover. Were you just hand-jobbing me there? Because I don’t like being hand-jobbed by boys, Stephen. I really don’t.”