“Aifric, he didn’t do it.”

“You don’t know that,” Aifric said firmly.

“I . . .”

“You don’t, Carrie. We might think he’s telling the truth, but neither of us has any proof of that. If you want to know what I think, I agree with you. I think Evelyn Ross is probably lying. But guess what? She could be lying, and he might still have done it. So what are you going to do? Throw away your whole career? Get yourself charged with obstructing an investigation? You need to stop now. You just need to stop.”

“Don’t you care about it, Aifric?”

Aifric swallowed her fear and her frustration. “I care about doing the best job I can,” she said cautiously. “But the system is much bigger than me. If I get too close, if I live and die by every case, then it will break me, Carrie. I’m a good lawyer. Some of my clients, they’re lucky to have me. I’m no good to anyone broken.”

“Well,” Carrie said, “maybe that’s the difference, then.”

“What?”

“The difference between our jobs. You can’t care, and I have to. Because it’s my job to catch the bad guy, Aifric. So that the next Laura O’Donnell doesn’t end up in the river.”

And she hung up.

Friday, November 5, 2004

Chapter Eighteen

Carrie

Carrie sat on the canal wall opposite Evelyn Ross’s flat for a long time. It wasn’t indecision that kept her there. She knew exactly what she was going to do.

There were times when you couldn’t control the people around you, when no amount of persuasion could stop them from hurting themselves or other people. Séan had taught her that lesson, long ago. He’d been a good big brother, guilty of nothing more than being young and stupid, of wanting too much to be liked. So he got into a little bit of trouble. Just the kind of stuff you grew out of, if you’re given the chance.

He was always the class clown. He stole booze from their parents—just a little bit from every bottle in the cupboard, from whiskey and vodka to the aging limoncello right at the back—and mixed it up in one bottle, then gave it to some older kids at a school party. When one of those kids ended up in the hospital getting her stomach pumped, it was Séan who was suspended from school. Once, on a dare, he stole a bike. It had been a stupid prank, but once the initial thrill had worn off, Séan had been too afraid to bring the bike back. Desperate not to disappoint their parents again, he had hidden the bike at the bottom of a ditch as far from their home as he could manage. He was caught anyway—one of his friends turned him in—and that little incident was his undoing.

Two years later, a car was stolen and found burned out in the same ditch. Between its theft and abandonment, the car was taken on a joyride around local country roads, along the way hitting and killing a teenage girl who was walking home from a babysitting job. Fingers were pointed at Séan straight away. He was seventeen by then, known to like cars and to drive a little too fast. And that ditch, which was down at the end of a country lane, accessible only by a farm gate? Well. Séan knew all about it, didn’t he? Rumors flew. Séan was arrested and questioned by the local gardaí, then released. There wasn’t a shred of evidence against him beyond supposition and gossip. He wasn’t even charged. But that didn’t matter: the gardaí had been less than discrete when they had brought him in for questioning, and the damage was already done.