the road—“on the other side, it’s smooth. No footholds. You can only get over it at the corners, where you can use the other wall to pull yourself up. That takes you into the back gardens.”
“You’re a fountain of knowledge,” I said. “Did you ever get into Linda Dwyer’s bra?”
Kevin rolled his eyes and started explaining Linda’s complex relationship with the Legion of Mary, but I was thinking. I had a hard time picturing a random psycho killer or sex attacker hanging around back gardens on a Sunday night, hoping forlornly that a victim would stroll by. If someone had nabbed Rosie, he had known her, he had known she was coming, and he had had at least the basics of a plan.
Over the back wall was Copper Lane: a lot like Faithful Place, only bigger and busier. If I had wanted to arrange any kind of clandestine meeting or ambush or what-have-you along the route Kevin had pointed out, especially a clandestine meeting that might involve a struggle or a body dump, I would have used Number 16.
Those noises I had heard, while I waited under the lamppost shifting from foot to foot to keep from freezing. A man grunting, stifled squeaks from a girl, bumping sounds. A teenage guy in love is a walking pair of nads wearing rose-colored glasses: I’d taken it for granted that love was everywhere. I think I believed Rosie and I were so wild about each other that it got in the air like a shimmering drug, that night when everything was coming together, and swirled through the Liberties sending everyone who breathed it into a frenzy: wrecked factory workers reaching for each other in their sleep, teenagers on corners suddenly kissing like their lives depended on it, old couples spitting out their falsies and ripping off each other’s flannel nighties. I took it for granted that what I was hearing was a couple doing the do. I could have been wrong.
It took a mind-bending effort to assume, just for a second, that she had been coming to me after all. If she had, then the note said she had very probably made it along Kevin’s route as far as Number 16. The suitcase said she had never made it out.
“Come on,” I said, cutting off Kev, who was still going (“ . . . wouldn’t have bothered, only she had the biggest rack in the . . .”). “Let’s go play where Mammy said we shouldn’t.”
Number 16 was in even worse shape than I’d thought. There were big gouges all the way down the front steps where the builders had dragged the fireplaces away, and someone had nicked the wrought-iron railings on either side, or maybe the Property King had sold them too. The whacking great sign announcing “PJ Lavery Builders” had fallen down the well by the basement windows; nobody had bothered to retrieve it.
Kevin asked, “What are we doing?”
“We’re not sure yet,” I said, which was true enough. All I knew was that we were following Rosie, feeling our way step by step and seeing where she led us. “We’ll find out as we go, yeah?”
Kevin poked the door open and leaned forward, gingerly, to peer in. “If we don’t end up in hospital first.”
The hallway was a tangle of crisscrossing shadows, layered half a dozen deep where faint light seeped in from every angle: from the empty rooms with their doors pulled half off, through the filthy glass of the landing window, down the high stairwell along with the cold breeze. I found my torch. I may be out of the field, officially, but I still like being ready for the unexpected. I picked my leather jacket because it’s comfortable enough that it almost never comes off, and it has enough pockets to hold all the basics: Fingerprint Fifi, three small plastic evidence bags, notebook and pen, Swiss Army knife, cuffs, gloves, and a slim, high-powered Maglite. My Colt Detective Special goes in a specially made harness that keeps it snug at the small of my back, under my jeans waistband and out of sight.
“I’m not joking,” Kevin said, squinting up the dark stairs. “I
“You’re a fountain of knowledge,” I said. “Did you ever get into Linda Dwyer’s bra?”
Kevin rolled his eyes and started explaining Linda’s complex relationship with the Legion of Mary, but I was thinking. I had a hard time picturing a random psycho killer or sex attacker hanging around back gardens on a Sunday night, hoping forlornly that a victim would stroll by. If someone had nabbed Rosie, he had known her, he had known she was coming, and he had had at least the basics of a plan.
Over the back wall was Copper Lane: a lot like Faithful Place, only bigger and busier. If I had wanted to arrange any kind of clandestine meeting or ambush or what-have-you along the route Kevin had pointed out, especially a clandestine meeting that might involve a struggle or a body dump, I would have used Number 16.
Those noises I had heard, while I waited under the lamppost shifting from foot to foot to keep from freezing. A man grunting, stifled squeaks from a girl, bumping sounds. A teenage guy in love is a walking pair of nads wearing rose-colored glasses: I’d taken it for granted that love was everywhere. I think I believed Rosie and I were so wild about each other that it got in the air like a shimmering drug, that night when everything was coming together, and swirled through the Liberties sending everyone who breathed it into a frenzy: wrecked factory workers reaching for each other in their sleep, teenagers on corners suddenly kissing like their lives depended on it, old couples spitting out their falsies and ripping off each other’s flannel nighties. I took it for granted that what I was hearing was a couple doing the do. I could have been wrong.
It took a mind-bending effort to assume, just for a second, that she had been coming to me after all. If she had, then the note said she had very probably made it along Kevin’s route as far as Number 16. The suitcase said she had never made it out.
“Come on,” I said, cutting off Kev, who was still going (“ . . . wouldn’t have bothered, only she had the biggest rack in the . . .”). “Let’s go play where Mammy said we shouldn’t.”
Number 16 was in even worse shape than I’d thought. There were big gouges all the way down the front steps where the builders had dragged the fireplaces away, and someone had nicked the wrought-iron railings on either side, or maybe the Property King had sold them too. The whacking great sign announcing “PJ Lavery Builders” had fallen down the well by the basement windows; nobody had bothered to retrieve it.
Kevin asked, “What are we doing?”
“We’re not sure yet,” I said, which was true enough. All I knew was that we were following Rosie, feeling our way step by step and seeing where she led us. “We’ll find out as we go, yeah?”
Kevin poked the door open and leaned forward, gingerly, to peer in. “If we don’t end up in hospital first.”
The hallway was a tangle of crisscrossing shadows, layered half a dozen deep where faint light seeped in from every angle: from the empty rooms with their doors pulled half off, through the filthy glass of the landing window, down the high stairwell along with the cold breeze. I found my torch. I may be out of the field, officially, but I still like being ready for the unexpected. I picked my leather jacket because it’s comfortable enough that it almost never comes off, and it has enough pockets to hold all the basics: Fingerprint Fifi, three small plastic evidence bags, notebook and pen, Swiss Army knife, cuffs, gloves, and a slim, high-powered Maglite. My Colt Detective Special goes in a specially made harness that keeps it snug at the small of my back, under my jeans waistband and out of sight.
“I’m not joking,” Kevin said, squinting up the dark stairs. “I
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