Lennon breathed deep to quash his anger.
Gordon said, ‘Do you hear me?’
Lennon closed his eyes, clenched his fists. He opened his eyes again and stared hard at Gordon. ‘I hear you.’
‘Good.’ Gordon stepped back and straightened his tie. ‘Now listen, you need to head back to Ladas Drive. There’s real work to do, no more of this pissing about.’
‘What sort of work?’
‘I need you to prep an interview for me.’
‘An interview? Who?’
‘The other kid,’ Gordon said. ‘I got the call just before you arrived.’
‘What other kid?’
‘He handed himself in this morning,’ Gordon said, smiling. ‘The other kid who was at Declan Quigley’s house the night he was killed. The one we’ve been looking for. I need you to pull together all the notes, all the photographs, everything we’ve got on the Quigley killing. I want pictures of his mate with his neck broken, that knife in his hand. I’ll be done here in an hour, and I want it all waiting for me when I interview him. I want to wave those photos under his nose, scare the living daylights out of him. I want a confession before the end of the day. So, what are you waiting for? Get going.’
Lennon put pages and photos together into piles on Gordon’s desk, the pictures on one side, the notes on the other. The photograph of Brendan Houlihan lay on top, the boy staring back at him with dead eyes. His hand lay at his side, tucked beneath his thigh, a blade just visible between his fingers and the fabric of his tracksuit bottoms. The dirt on his other side, where it shouldn’t have been.
‘Too easy,’ Lennon said.
He stood there, his eyes closed, running it over in his head. No, it was a stupid idea, he’d be in deep shit. He lifted the desk phone anyway, dialled the duty officer.
‘Is the kid in the interview room yet?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the duty officer said. ‘The solicitor just arrived to look after him. They’re ready to go as soon as DCI Gordon gets back.’
‘No,’ Lennon said. ‘DCI Gordon just called me.’
‘Did he? I didn’t put him—’
‘On my mobile. He’s been held up. I’ve to go ahead with the interview.’
The duty officer remained silent for a few seconds, then said, ‘And?’
‘And that’s all.’ Lennon fought the quiver in his voice. ‘I’m doing the interview.’
‘Knock yourself out,’ the duty officer said, and the line clicked dead in Lennon’s ear.
Colm Devine, eighteen, pale and terrified. He fiddled with the discarded cellophane wrapping from the cassette tape he’d just inspected in an effort to hide the trembling. He failed. Edwin Speers, the duty solicitor, sat beside him. He looked bored.
Lennon peeled the cellophane from the second cassette case, took the tape from the box, and inserted it in the recorder. He hit record, and the twin decks whirred.
Devine stared at the tabletop as Lennon went through the formalities of rights and warnings required for an interview under caution. The solicitor picked dirt from beneath his fingernails.
Lennon took a pen, ready to make notes. ‘You know why you’re here, Colm.’
Devine croaked, tried again. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘Then you know how serious this is.’
‘Yeah,’ Devine said.
‘You were a friend of Brendan Houlihan, who was found dead at the scene of a murder of another man, Declan Quigley, three nights ago.’
‘Yeah,’ Devine said.
‘Were you with Brendan Houlihan on the night he died?’
Devine hesitated. Speers put a hand on his skinny forearm. ‘No comment,’ Devine said.
Lennon glanced at the solicitor.
‘When was the last time you saw Brendan Houlihan?’
‘No comment,’ Devine said.
‘Were you with a group of youths who were involved in a fight at the intersection of the Lower Ormeau Road and Donegall Pass on the night Brendan Houlihan died?’
‘No comment,’ Devine said.
Lennon put the pen down. ‘Colm, did Mr Speers here tell you to say “no comment” to everything?’
Devine swallowed. No comment.’
Lennon stared hard at Speers. ‘I’m guessing he did. Do you know why he did that?’
Speers coughed and fidgeted.
‘He did that because he’s the duty solicitor. A duty solicitor is only here to fill that chair and hopefully keep you from doing something stupid. In reality, he knows if you wind up in front of a judge, it’ll be with a different solicitor, someone who actually knows what they’re doing, who actually cares about your rights.’
Speers stiffened. ‘Here, now—’
‘When you’re in court, you’ll look as guilty as sin because you clammed up now. Mr Speers wants out of here so he can go for lunch, or a round of golf, or whatever he has to do that’s more interesting than babysitting you. If you sit there and say “no comment” to everything, he’s on his way quicker and you think you haven’t said anything to incriminate yourself.’
Speers wagged a finger. ‘Listen, I won’t sit here and—’
‘Problem is, Colm, that thing I said earlier about not saying something you later rely on in court? That’s the truth. You sit here now and say nothing but “no comment”, it makes you look guilty. I’ll think you’re hiding something, and so will a judge, and so will a jury. This isn’t shoplifting we’re talking about, Colm. It’s not stealing a car, or even punching some poor bastard in the mouth outside a pub. We’re talking about murder, here. We’re talking about a life sentence.’
Speers stood up. ‘Detective Inspector Lennon, I must ob—’
‘Thirteen, fourteen years, minimum. You’ll be in your thirties by the time you get out.’
A high whine came from Devine’s throat.
‘And it’ll be hard time. It won’t be a young offenders’ place, no holiday camp like you’ve been in before. It’ll be Maghaberry. You know who Declan Quigley was mixed up with? Their boys in Maghaberry won’t let that go. You’ll be lucky to—’
Speers stood and slapped the table. ‘Don’t you dare threaten my cl—’
‘You’ll be lucky to make it halfway through the sentence. So stop telling me “no comment”, for Christ’s sake. Tell me what happened that night. This is your last chance to get out of this, Colm. Stop messing around and tell me or you’ll wind up in—’
‘I never done it!’ Tears sprang from Devine’s eyes.
Lennon sat back. ‘Then tell me,’ he said.
Devine’s shoulders hitched as he sobbed. Speers sat down and put an arm around them. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he said. He stared back at Lennon. ‘You have the right to be silent, no matter what the officer says.’
Lennon said, ‘Tell me, Colm.’
Devine sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Brendan was my mate. Since we were wee lads. We went to school together. We were supposed to go to Ibiza next year. He’d just got a job. He was going to pay for me and everything. It’s not fair. It was just a fight with the Huns, that’s all.’
Lennon sat forward, lowered his voice. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘We were just chucking stones and bottles, the usual stuff. The Huns was throwing them back.’
‘By “Huns” you mean Protestant youths from Donegall Pass.’
‘Aye,’ Devine said. ‘No one got hurt, like. No one even got hit. Then the peelers came, and we ran. Me and Brendan got split up from everyone else and the car came after us. We went into this alley. We could hear the cops coming behind us. We were trying gates to see if any of them wasn’t locked. We got to this one near the far end and it was open. Brendan went in front of me and it was dark, I could see nothing. Then I heard him falling, a crack like he hit his head. Then I skidded, it was all slippy, and I landed on my back. Then something heavy was on me and I couldn’t breathe.’