"That'd be a first," Cassie said automatically, and my heart lifted. She opened the book-she loves Emily Brontë-and ran her fingers over the title page.
"Am I forgiven? I'll go down on my knees if you like. Seriously."
"I would love to make you do it," Cassie said, "but somebody might see you, and the grapevine would blow a fuse on that one. Ryan, you little bastard. You ruined my perfectly good sulk."
"You couldn't have kept it up anyway," I said, enormously relieved. "You would have cracked by lunchtime."
"Don't push it. Come here, you." She held out an arm, and I bent and gave her a quick hug. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome," I said. "And I really mean it: no more obnoxiousness."
Cassie watched me as I took off my coat. "Look," she said, "it's not just that you've been a pain in the hole. I've been worried about you. If you don't want to deal with this any more-no, listen-then you could swap with Sam, go after Andrews and let him take the family. He's got far enough that any of us could take over; it's not like we're going to need help from his uncle or anything. Sam won't ask questions, you know what he's like. There's no reason for you to drive yourself nuts over this."
"Cass, I'm genuinely, honest-to-God fine," I said. "Yesterday was a huge wake-up call. I swear on anything you can think of, I've worked out how to deal with this case."
"Rob, remember how you said to kick you if you got too weird about this one? This is me kicking you. Metaphorically, for now."
"Look, give me one more week. If by the end of next week you think I'm still not handling this, I'll swap with Sam. OK?"
"OK," Cassie said finally, though she still looked unconvinced. I was in such a good mood that this unexpected protective streak, which normally would have given me the fidgets, seemed very touching; probably because I knew it was no longer necessary. I gave her shoulder a clumsy little squeeze on the way to my desk.
"Actually," she said, as I sat down, "this whole Sandra Scully thing has one major silver lining. You know how we've been wanting to get our hands on Rosalind and Jessica's medical records? Well, we've got Katy showing physical signs of abuse, Jessica showing psychological signs and now Jonathan admitting to rape. I think there's a good chance we've got enough circumstantial stuff to pull the records."
"Maddox," I said, "you're a star." This was the one thing that had been nagging at me, the fact that I had made a fool of myself by sending us off on a wild-goose chase. Apparently it hadn't been that pointless after all. "But I thought you thought Devlin wasn't our guy."
Cassie shrugged. "Not exactly. He's hiding something, but it could be just abuse-well, not just, you know what I mean-or he could be covering for Margaret, or…I'm not as sure as you are that he's guilty, but I'd like to see what's in those records, that's all."
"I'm not sure either."
She raised an eyebrow. "You seemed pretty sure yesterday."
"Speaking of which," I said, a little awkwardly, "do you have any idea whether he's filed a complaint on me? I don't have the bollocks to check."
"Because you apologized so nicely," Cassie told me, "I'm going to overlook that wonderful setup line. He didn't say anything about it to me, and anyway you'd know if he had: you'd be able to hear O'Kelly all the way to Knocknaree. That's why I'm assuming Cathal Mills hasn't filed anything on me for saying he had a teeny weenie, either."
"He won't. Can you seriously see him sitting down with some desk sergeant and explaining that you suggested he might have a limp mini-dick? Devlin's a different story, though. He's half off his trolley right now anyway-"
"Don't be bitching about Jonathan Devlin," Sam said, bouncing into the incident room. He was flushed and overexcited, his collar twisted and a forelock of fair hair tumbling into his eyes. "Devlin is The Man. Honestly, if I didn't think he might take me up wrong, I'd snog the face off him."
"You'll make a lovely couple," I said, putting down my pen. "What's he done?" Cassie spun her chair around, a smile of anticipation starting on her face.
Sam pulled out his chair with a flourish, dropped into it and swung his feet up onto the table like a private eye in an old movie; if he had had a hat, he would have sent it spinning across the room. "He's only after picking Andrews out of the voice lineup. Andrews and his lawyer nearly had a conniption about it, and Devlin wasn't best pleased to hear from me either-what the hell did ye say to him?-but they all did it in the end. I rang Devlin up-I figured that was the best way; you know how everyone always sounds different down the phone?-and I got Andrews and a bunch of the lads to say a few sentences from the phone calls: 'Nice little girl you've got there,' 'You have no idea what you're messing with…'"
He shoved the lock of hair away with his wrist; his face, laughing and open, was triumphant as a little boy's. "Andrews was mumbling and drawling and all sorts, trying to make his voice sound different, but my main man Jonathan picked him out in five seconds flat, not a bother on him. He was yelling at me down the phone, wanting to know who it was, and Andrews and his lawyer-I had your man Devlin on speakerphone so they could hear it themselves, I didn't want any arguments later-they were sitting there with faces on them like a pair of slapped arses. It was brilliant."
"Oh, well done, you," Cassie said, leaning across the table to high-five him. Sam, grinning, held up his other palm to me.
"To be honest, I'm delighted with myself. It's nowhere near enough to charge him with the murder, but we can probably bring some kind of harassment charge-and it's definitely enough for us to hold him for questioning and see how far we get."
"Have you kept him in?" I asked.
Sam shook his head. "I didn't say a word to him after the lineup, just thanked him and said I'd be in touch. I want to let him worry about it for a while."
"Oh, that's underhanded, O'Neill," I said gravely. "I wouldn't have thought it of you." Sam was fun to tease. He didn't always fall for it, but when he did he got all earnest and stammery.
He gave me a withering look. "And, as well, I want to see if there's any chance I can tap his phone for a few days. If he's our boy, I'd bet he didn't do it himself. His alibi checks out, and anyway he's not the type to mess up his fancy gear doing his own dirty work; he'd hire someone. The voice ID might get him panicky enough to ring his hit man, or at least say something stupid to someone."
"Go through his old phone records again, too," I reminded him. "See who he was talking to last month."
"O'Gorman's already on it," Sam said smugly. "I'll give Andrews a week or two, see if anything turns up, and then pull him in. And"-he looked suddenly bashful, caught between shame and mischief-"you know how Devlin said Andrews sounded locked on the phone? And how we wondered if he was a little tipsy yesterday? I think our boyo might have a bit of a drinking problem. I wonder what he'd be like if we went to see him at, say, eight or nine in the evening. He might be-you know…more likely to talk, less likely to call his lawyer. I know it's bad to take advantage of the man's failing, but…"
"Rob's right," Cassie said, shaking her head. "You've got a cruel streak."
Sam's eyes rounded in dismay for an instant; then the penny dropped. "Feck the pair of ye," he said happily, and spun his chair round in a full circle, feet still in the air.
We were all giddy that night, giddy as children given an unexpected day off school. Sam, to our collective disbelief, had managed to coax O'Kelly into convincing a judge to give him an order to tap Andrews's phone for two weeks. Normally you can't get a tap unless there are large amounts of explosives involved, but Operation Vestal was still front-page news almost every other day-"NO NEW LEADS IN KATY'S MURDER (page 5: 'Is Your Child Safe?')"-and the high drama of it all gave us some extra leverage. Sam was jubilant: "I know the little bastard's hiding something, lads, I'd put money on it. All it'll take is a few too many pints one of these nights, and bang! we'll have him." He had brought a lovely buttery white wine to celebrate. I was light-headed with reprieve and hungrier than I'd been in weeks; I cooked a huge Spanish omelet, tried to flip it high like a pancake and nearly sent it into the sink. Cassie flew around the flat, barefoot below summery cropped jeans, slicing a baguette and turning Michelle Shocked up loud and slagging my hand-eye coordination-"And someone actually gave this guy a personal firearm, it's only a matter of time before he starts showing it off to impress some girl and shoots himself in the leg…"