In the Woods полностью

By the second round, though, he had loosened up a little and was in a reflective mood. "Some might say," he told Sam, leaning forward in his chair and gesturing expansively, "some might say that place was bad news from the first. So much initial rhetoric, you know, about how it was going to be a new urban hub, and then-after all the houses in that lone estate had been sold-it simply fell through. They said the budget wouldn't allow for any further development. Some might say, my boy, that the only purpose of the rhetoric was to ensure that the houses sold for much more than one might expect of an estate in the middle of nowhere. Not I, of course. I've no proof."

He finished his drink and eyed the empty glass wistfully. "All I'll say is that there's been something just a little off kilter about that place all along. Do you know, the rate of injuries and fatalities during construction was almost three times the national average? Do you believe, my boy, that a place can have a will of its own-that it can rebel, so to speak, against human mismanagement?"

"Whatever one may say about Knocknaree," I said, "it did not put a fucking plastic bag over Katy Devlin's head." I was glad Kiely was Sam's problem and not mine. Normally I find this kind of absurdity entertaining, but the way I was feeling that week, I would probably have kicked the guy in the shin.

"What did you say?" Cassie asked Sam.

"I said yes, of course," he said serenely, trying to wind fettuccine onto his fork. "I'd've said yes if he'd asked me did I believe little green men were running the country."

Kiely had drunk his third round-Sam was going to have fun trying to get this one through expenses-in silence, chin sunk on his chest. Finally he had put on his coat, shaken Sam's hand in a long, fervent grasp, murmured, "Don't look at it until you're in a safe place," and swept out of the pub, leaving a twist of paper in Sam's palm.

"The poor bastard," Sam said, rummaging in his wallet. "I think he was grateful to have someone listen to him for once. The way he is, he could shout a story from the rooftops and no one would believe a word of it." He extracted something tiny and silver, holding it carefully between finger and thumb, and passed it to Cassie. I put down my fork and leaned in over her shoulder.

It was a piece of silver paper, the kind you pull out of a fresh cigarette packet, rolled into a tight, precise scroll. Cassie opened it out. On the back was written, in crabbed, smudged black felt-tip: "Dynamo-Kenneth McClintock. Futura-Terence Andrews. Global-Jeffrey Barnes amp; Conor Roche."

"Are you sure he's reliable?" I asked.

"Mad as a brush," Sam said, "but he's a good reporter, or he used to be. I'd say he wouldn't have given me these unless he was sure of them."

Cassie ran her fingertip over the scrap of paper. "If these check out," she said, "this is the best lead we've got so far. Fair play, Sam."

"He got into a car, you know," Sam said, sounding faintly worried. "I didn't know whether to let him drive, after all that drink, but…I might need to talk to him again, sure; I need to keep him on side. I wonder should I ring and see did he get home OK?"

The next day was Friday, two and a half weeks into the investigation, and early that evening O'Kelly called us into his office. Outside the day was crisp and biting, but sun was streaming through the big windows and the incident room was warm, so that from inside you could almost believe it was still summer. Sam was in his corner, scribbling between hushed phone calls; Cassie was running someone through the computer; I and a couple of floaters had just done a coffee run and were passing out mugs. The room had the intent, busy murmur of a classroom. O'Kelly put his head around the door, stuck a finger-and-thumb circle into his mouth and whistled shrilly; when the murmur died away, he said, "Ryan, Maddox, O'Neill," jerked his thumb over his shoulder and slammed the door behind him.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the floaters exchanging covert eyebrow-raises. We had been expecting this for a couple of days now, or at least I had. I had been rehearsing the scene in my head on the drives to work and in the shower and even in my sleep, waking myself up arguing. "Tie," I said to Sam, motioning; his knot always edged its way towards one ear when he was concentrating.

Cassie took a quick swig of her coffee and blew out a breath. "OK," she said. "Let's go." The floaters went back to whatever they had been doing, but I could feel their eyes following us, all the way out of the room and down the corridor.

"So," O'Kelly said, as soon as we got into his office. He was already sitting behind his desk, fiddling with some awful chrome executive toy left over from the eighties. "How's Operation What-d'you-call-it going?"