Abby cut her eyes at me, like a cue. I remembered those videos: There’s an understanding there, Frank had said. This was Lexie’s job, breaking tension, coming in with some cheeky comment so everyone could roll their eyes and laugh and move on. “Ah, dammit to hell and blast and nonspecific fornication, ” I said, when the rivet went shooting off into the grass again. “Is everyone OK with that?”
“What’s wrong with nonspecific fornication?” Abby demanded. “I don’t like my fornication specific.”
Even Justin laughed, and Rafe snapped out of his cold sulk and balanced his smoke on the edge of the patio and helped me find the rivet. A shot of happiness went through me: I had got it right.
“That detective showed up outside my tutorial,” Abby said Friday evening, in the car. Justin had gone home early-he had been complaining about a headache all day, but to me it looked more like a sulk, and I got the sense it was aimed at Rafe-so the rest of us were in Daniel’s car, going nowhere on the highway, gridlocked in with thousands of suicidal-looking office workers and underendowed prats in SUVs. I was breathing on my window and playing tic-tac-toe with myself in the steam.
“Which one?” Daniel asked.
"O’Neill.”
“Hmm,” Daniel said. “What did he want this time?”
Abby took his cigarette from between his fingers and used it to light her own. “He was asking why we don’t go into the village,” she said.
“Because they’re all a bunch of six-toed halfwits down there,” Rafe said, to the window. He was next to me, slouching deep in his seat and jiggling one knee in Abby’s back. Traffic always drove Rafe nuts, but this level of bad mood strengthened my feeling that something was up between him and Justin.
“And what did you tell him?” Daniel asked, craning his neck and starting to edge into the next lane; the traffic had moved an inch or two.
Abby shrugged. “I told him. We tried the pub once, they froze us out, we didn’t bother trying again.”
“Interesting,” Daniel said. “I think we may have been underrating Detective O’Neill. Lex, did you discuss the village with him at any stage?”
“Never thought of it.” I won my tic-tac-toe game, so I put my fists in the air and did a little victory bop. Rafe gave me a sour look.
“Well,” Daniel said, “there we are. I have to admit I’d more or less dismissed O’Neill, but if he picked up on that without any help, he’s more perceptive than he looks. I wonder if… hmm.”
“He’s more annoying than he looks,” Rafe said. “At least Mackey’s backed off. When are they going to leave us alone?”
“I got stabbed, for fuck’s sake,” I said, injured. “I could’ve died. They want to know who did it. And so do I, by the way. Don’t you?” Rafe shrugged and went back to giving the traffic the evil eye.
“Did you tell him about the graffiti?” Daniel asked Abby. “Or the break-ins?”
Abby shook her head. “He didn’t ask, I didn’t volunteer. You think…? I could phone him and tell him.”
Nobody had mentioned anything about graffiti or break-ins. “You think someone from the village stabbed me?” I said, abandoning my tic-tac-toe and leaning forwards between the seats. “Seriously?”
“I’m not sure,” Daniel said. I couldn’t tell whether he was answering me or Abby. “I need to think through the possibilities. For now, on the whole, I think the best plan is to leave it. If Detective O’Neill picked up on the tension, he’ll find out about the rest on his own, as well; there’s no need to nudge him.”
“Ow, Rafe,” said Abby, reaching an arm around the back of her seat and smacking Rafe’s knee. “Knock it off.” Rafe sighed noisily and swung his legs over against the door. The traffic had opened up; Daniel pulled into the turn lane, swung us off the highway in a smooth fast arc and hit the accelerator.
By the time I phoned Sam from the lane, that night, he already knew all about the graffiti and the break-ins. He had spent the last few days in Rathowen station, working his way backwards through their files, looking for Whitethorn House.
“There’s something going on there, all right. The files are full of that house.” Sam’s voice had the busy, absorbed note that it gets when he’s on a good trail-Rob used to say you could practically see his tail wagging. For the first time since Lexie Madison had appeared with a bang in the middle of our lives, he sounded cheerful. “There’s bugger-all crime in Glenskehy, but over the past three years, there’ve been four burglaries on Whitethorn House-one back in 2002, another in 2003, two while old Simon was in the hospice.”
“Did they take anything? Toss the place?” I had more or less dismissed Sam’s idea about Lexie getting killed over some small precious antique, after seeing the quality of the stuff Uncle Simon had on offer, but if something in that house had been worth four break-ins…
