I didn't say much on the drive back. I knew it was very possible that Katy Devlin's killer was sulking in the back seat of the car, and I wasn't sure how I felt about this. In a lot of ways, of course, I would have loved him to be our guy: he had been getting right up my nose, and if it was him then we could get rid of this eerie, dicey case almost before it began. It could be over that afternoon; I could put the old file back in the basement-Mark, who in 1984 had been about five and living somewhere very far from Dublin, was not a viable suspect-collect my pat on the back from O'Kelly, take back the taxi-rank wankers from Quigley, and forget all about Knocknaree.
And yet, somehow, that felt all wrong. Partly it was the crashing, embarrassing anticlimax of the idea-I had spent much of the past twenty-four hours trying to prepare myself for wherever this case might take me, and I had expected something a lot more dramatic than one interrogation and an arrest. It was more than that, though. I am not superstitious, but if the call had come in a few minutes earlier or later, after all, or if Cassie and I hadn't just discovered Worms, or if we had wanted a smoke, this case would have gone to Costello or someone, never to us, and it seemed impossible that so powerful and heady a thing could be coincidence. I had a sense of things stirring, rearranging themselves in some imperceptible but crucial way, tiny unseen cogs beginning to shift. Deep down, I think-ironic as it may seem-a part of me couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
By the time we got back to work, Cassie had managed to extract the information that bulldozers were used only in emergencies because they destroy valuable archaeological evidence and that the Time Team were a bunch of unprofessional hacks, as well as the end of a rollie Mark had made her, which meant that if necessary we could match his DNA to the butts from the clearing without getting a warrant. It was pretty clear who was going to be the good cop today. I frisked Mark (clench-jawed, shaking his head) and put him in an interview room, while Cassie left our Satan-Free Knocknaree list on O'Kelly's desk.
We let Mark simmer for a few minutes-he slouched in his chair and drummed an increasingly irritable riff on the table with his index fingers-before we went in. "Hi again," said Cassie cheerfully. "Do you want tea or coffee?"
"No. I
"Detectives Maddox and Ryan, interviewing Mark Conor Hanly," Cassie told the video camera, high up in a corner. Mark whipped round, startled; then he grimaced at the camera and eased back into his slump.
I pulled up a chair, threw a sheaf of crime-scene shots on the table and ignored them. "You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence. Got it?"
"What the fuck-Am I under
"No. Do you drink red wine?"
He shot me a brief, sarcastic glance. "Are you offering?"
"Why don't you want to answer the question?"
"That is my answer. I drink whatever's going. Why?" I nodded thoughtfully and wrote this down.
"What's with the tape?" Cassie asked curiously, leaning across the table to point at the masking tape wrapped around his hands.
"For blisters. Band-Aids don't stay on, when you're using a mattock in the rain."
"Couldn't you just wear gloves?"
"Some people do," Mark said. His tone implied that these people lacked testosterone, in one way or another.
"Would you have any objection to letting us see what's underneath?" I said.
He gave me a fishy look, but he unwound the tape, taking his time, and dropped it on the table. He held up his hands with a sardonic flourish. "See anything you like?"
Cassie leaned farther forward on her arms, took a good look, gestured to him to turn his hands over. I couldn't see any scrapes or fingernail marks, only the remains of large blisters, half healed, at the base of each finger. "Ow," Cassie said. "How'd you get those?"
Mark shrugged dismissively. "Usually I have calluses, but I was out for a few weeks there, hurt my back-had to stick to cataloguing finds. My hands went soft. When I went back to work, this is what I got."
"Must have driven you mental, not being able to work," Cassie said.
"Aye, it did all right," Mark said briefly. "Shite timing."
I picked up the masking tape between finger and thumb and dropped it in the bin. "Where were you Monday night?" I asked, leaning against the wall behind Mark.
"In the team house. Like I told you yesterday."
"Are you a member of Move the Motorway?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah, I am. Most of us are. Your man Devlin came round a while back, asking us if we wanted to join up. It's not illegal yet, as far as I know."
"So you know Jonathan Devlin?" I asked.
"That's what I just said. We're not bosom buddies, but yeah, I know the man."
