In the Woods полностью

"What?" Sam asked, puzzled. "Don't what?" I looked away.

"It's the idea of it," Cassie said. "We shouldn't be snookered on this case. We've the body, the weapon, the…We should have someone by now."

"Well," I said, "I know what I'm going to do. I am going to find the nearest non-horrible pub and get absolutely legless. Anyone joining me?"

We went to Doyle's, in the end: overamplified eighties music and too few tables, suits and students shouldering at the bar. None of us had any desire to go to a police pub where, inevitably, everyone we met would want to know how Operation Vestal was going. On about the third round, as I was coming back from the men's room, I bumped elbows with a girl and her drink splashed over, splattering us both. It was her fault-she had reared back laughing at something one of her friends had said, and knocked straight into me-but she was extremely pretty, the tiny ethereal type I always go for, and she gave me a soft appreciative look while we were both apologizing and comparing damage, so I bought her another drink and struck up a conversation.

Her name was Anna and she was doing a Master's in art history; she had a cascade of fair hair that made me think of warm beaches, and one of those floaty white cotton skirts, and a waist I could have got my hands around. I told her I was a professor of literature, over from a university in England to do research on Bram Stoker. She sucked on the rim of her glass and laughed at my jokes, showing little white teeth with an engaging overbite.

Behind her, Sam grinned and raised an eyebrow and Cassie did a panting, puppy-eyed impression of me, but I didn't care. It had been a ridiculously long time since I had slept with anyone and I badly wanted to go home with this girl, sneak giggling into some student flat with art posters on the walls, wind that extravagant hair round my fingers and let my mind shimmer into blankness, lie in her sweet safe bed all night and most of tomorrow and not once think about either of these fucking cases. I put a hand on Anna's shoulder to guide her out of the way of a guy precariously maneuvering four pints, and gave Cassie and Sam the finger behind her back.

The tide of people threw us closer and closer. We had got off the subject of our respective studies-I wished I knew more about Bram Stoker-and were on to the Aran Islands (Anna and a bunch of friends, the previous summer; the beauties of nature; the joy of escaping urban life in all its superficiality), and she had started touching my wrist to emphasize her points, when one of her friends detached himself from the howling group and came over to stand behind her.

"You all right, Anna?" he demanded ominously, putting an arm around her waist and giving me a bullocky stare.

Out of his line of vision, Anna rolled her eyes at me, with a conspiratorial little smile. "Everything's fine, Cillian," she said. I didn't think he was her boyfriend-she hadn't been acting taken, at any rate-but if he wasn't then he clearly wanted to be. He was a big guy, handsome in a heavy-set way; he had obviously been drinking for some time and was itching for an excuse to invite me to take it outside.

For a moment I actually considered it. You heard the lady, pal, go back to your little buddies.…I glanced over at Sam and Cassie: they had given upon me and were deep in an intent conversation, heads bent close to hear through the noise, Sam illustrating something with a finger on the table. I was suddenly, viciously sick of myself and my professorial alter ego, and, by association, of Anna and whatever game she was playing with me and this Cillian guy. "I should get back to my girlfriend," I said, "sorry again for spilling your drink," and turned away from the startled pink O of her mouth and the confused, reflexive flare of belligerence in Cillian's eyes.

I slipped my arm around Cassie's shoulders for a moment as I sat down, and she gave me a suspicious look. "Get shot down?" Sam asked.

"Nah," said Cassie. "I'm betting he changed his mind and told her he had a girlfriend. Hence the touchy-feely stuff. Next time you pull that one, Ryan, I'm gonna snog the face off Sam and let your lady friend's mates beat you up for messing with her head."

"Deadly," Sam said happily. "I like this game."

At closing time, Cassie and I went back to her flat. Sam had gone home, it was a Friday and we didn't have to get up the next morning; there seemed no reason to do anything but lie on the sofa, drinking and occasionally changing the music and letting the fire burn down to a whispering glow.

"You know," said Cassie idly, fishing a piece of ice out of her glass to chew on, "what we've been forgetting is that kids think differently."