“Somewhere around there, yeah. I figured they’d come out of the back gate, or maybe over the wall.” The back gate of the estate was at the end of the Devlins’ street, only three houses away. He could have seen Jonathan or Margaret, slowed down by a body and looking for a place to leave it; or Katy, slipping through the dark to meet someone, armed with nothing but a torch-beam and a house key that would never be able to take her home.

“And they went out to the road.”

Mark shrugged. “They cut down that way, diagonal across the site, but I didn’t see where they ended up. The trees got in the way.”

“Do you think whoever it was saw your fire?”

“How would I know?”

“OK, Mark,” Cassie said, “this is important. Did you see a car go past around that time? Or maybe a car stopped on the road?”

Mark took his time. “Nah,” he said, finally and definitely. “A couple went past when I first got there, but nothing after about eleven. They go to bed early around there; all the lights on the estate are out by midnight.”

If he was telling the truth, then he had just done us a huge favor. Both the kill site and the secondary scene—wherever Katy’s body had been hidden through Tuesday—were almost definitely within walking distance of the estate, quite probably on it, and our field of suspects no longer included most of the population of Ireland. “Are you sure you would have noticed if a car had gone past?” I asked.

“I noticed the torch, didn’t I?”

“Which you’ve only just remembered,” I said.

His lip curled. “My memory’s grand, thanks. I didn’t think it was important. This was Monday night, yeah? I didn’t even pay much attention. I thought it was someone heading home from a mate’s house, maybe, or one of the local kids going to meet someone—they hang out on the site at night, sometimes. Not my problem, either way. They weren’t giving me any hassle.”

At this point Bernadette, the squad administrator, tapped on the interviewroom door; when I opened it, she said disapprovingly, “Detective Ryan, there’s a telephone call for you. I told the person you couldn’t be disturbed, 100

Tana French

but she said it was important.” Bernadette has been with Murder for something like twenty-four years, her entire working life. She has a petulant marsupial face, five work outfits (one for each day of the week, which is helpful if you’re too tired to remember what day it is) and, we all think, a Smithersstyle hopeless passion for O’Kelly. There’s a squad sweepstakes on when they’ll finally get together.

“Go ahead,” said Cassie. “I can finish up here—Mark, we just need to take your statement. Then we can give you a lift back to work.”

“I’ll take the bus.”

“No you won’t,” I said. “We need to verify your alibi with Mel, and it’s not exactly verification if you have a chance to talk to her first.”