We had gone through Katy's mobile records already. She had had an allowance, ten euros of credit every second Sunday. She had mostly used it on text messages to her friends, and we had reconstructed long, cryptically abbreviated conversations about homework, classroom gossip,
"What's the highlighter?" I asked.
"I cross-referenced against the known associates, tried to split up the calls by family member. Looks like Katy's the one used the phone most: all those numbers in yellow are her mates." I flipped pages. The yellow highlighter took up at least half of each one. "The blue is Margaret's sisters-one in Kilkenny, Vera across the estate. The green's Jonathan's sister in Athlone, the nursing home where their mammy's living, and committee members of Move the Motorway. The purple's Rosalind's friend Karen Daly, the one she stayed with when she ran away. The calls between them start to dry up after that. I'd say Karen wasn't too pleased about being put in the middle of family hassle, except that she kept ringing Rosalind for a few weeks after; Rosalind just wasn't ringing her back."
"Maybe she wasn't allowed to," I said. It might have been just the start Sam had given me, but my heart was still going too fast and there was a sharp, animal taste of danger in my mouth.
Sam nodded. "The parents might've seen Karen as a bad influence. Anyway, that's all the calls accounted for, except a bunch from a phone company trying to get them to switch provider-and these three." He spread out the pages of incoming calls: three stripes of pink highlighter. "The dates, times and lengths match what Devlin gave us. They're all from pay phones."
"Dammit," Cassie said.
"Where?" I asked.
"City center. The first one's on the quays, down near the Financial Services Centre; second one's on O'Connell Street. Third one's halfway between, also on the quays."
"In other words," I said, "our caller's not one of the local boys who have their knickers in a twist over the value of their houses."
"I wouldn't say so. Going by the times, he's ringing on his way home from the pub. I suppose a Knocknaree fella could drink in town, but it doesn't sound likely, not as a regular thing. I'll have the lads check, to make sure, but for now I'm guessing this is someone whose interest in the motorway is business, not personal. And if I was a betting man, I'd put money on him living somewhere along the quays."
"Our killer's almost definitely local," Cassie said.
Sam nodded. "My boy could've hired a local to do the job, though. That's what I'd have done." Cassie caught my eye: the thought of Sam earnestly toddling off in search of a hit man was irresistible. "When I find out who owns that land, I'll see if any of them have been talking to anyone from Knocknaree."
"How are you getting on with that?" I asked.
"Ah, sure," Sam said cheerfully and vaguely. "I'm working on it."
"Hang on," Cassie said suddenly. "Who does Jessica phone?"
"No one," Sam said, "as far as I can tell," and he patted the papers gently into a stack and took them away.
All that was on the Monday, almost a week after Katy had died. In that week, neither Jonathan nor Margaret Devlin had phoned us to ask how the investigation was going. I wasn't complaining, exactly-some families ring four or five times a day, desperate for answers, and there are few things more excruciating than telling them we have none-but all the same: it was another small unsettling thing, in a case that was already much too full of them.
Rosalind finally came in on Tuesday, at lunchtime. No phone call, no arrangement, just Bernadette informing me with faint disapproval that there was a young woman to see me; but I knew it was her, and the fact that she had shown up out of the blue like that smacked of desperation somehow, of some clandestine urgency. I dropped what I was doing and went downstairs, ignoring the inquiring raised eyebrows from Cassie and Sam.
Rosalind was waiting in Reception. She had an emerald shawl wrapped tightly around her; her face, turned to look out the window, was wistful and faraway. She was too young to know it, but she made a lovely picture: the fall of chestnut curls and the splash of green, poised against the sunlit brick and stone of the courtyard. Block out the defiantly utilitarian lobby, and the scene could have come straight off a Pre-Raphaelite greeting card.
"Rosalind," I said.
She spun from the window, a hand going to her chest. "Oh, Detective Ryan! You startled me… Thank you so much for seeing me."
"Any time," I said. "Come upstairs and we'll talk."
"Are you sure? I don't want to be any trouble. If you're too busy, just tell me and I'll go."
"You're no trouble at all. Can I get you a cup of tea? Coffee?"
"Coffee would be lovely. But do we have to go in there? It's such a lovely day, and I'm a little claustrophobic-I don't like to tell people, but…Couldn't we go outside?"
