"No, I'm not out," I said. "No thanks to you." The first shock was starting to wear off, and a cold, vicious anger was surging through me like electricity. I felt my whole body trembling with it.
"That's not fair," Cassie said, and I heard a tiny shake in her voice. "I tried to warn you. I rang you last night, I don't know how many times-"
"It was a little late to be concerned about me by then, wasn't it? You should have thought of that before."
Cassie was white to the lips, her eyes huge. I wanted to smash the stunned, uncomprehending look off her face. "Before what?" she demanded.
"Before you poured out my private life to O'Kelly. Do you feel better now, Maddox? Has wrecking my career made up for the fact that I haven't treated you like a little princess this week? Or have you got something else up your sleeve?"
After a moment she said, very quietly, "You think I told him?"
I almost laughed. "Yes, actually, I do. There were only five people in the world who knew about this, and I somehow doubt that my parents or a friend from fifteen years ago picked this moment to ring my boss and say, 'Oh, by the way, did you know that Ryan's name used to be Adam?' How stupid do you think I am? I know you told him, Cassie."
She hadn't taken her eyes off mine, but something in them had changed, and I realized she was every bit as furious as I was. In one fast movement she grabbed a videotape from the table and threw it at me, a hard overhand snap with her whole body behind it. I ducked reflexively; it crashed against the wall where my head had been, spun away and tumbled into a corner.
"Watch that tape," Cassie said.
"I'm not interested."
"Watch that tape right now or, I swear to God, by tomorrow morning I'll have your face plastered across every newspaper in the country."
It wasn't the threat itself that got me; it was more the fact that she had made it, had played what had to be her trump card. It sparked something in me: a harsh curiosity, mixed-or perhaps this is only hindsight, I don't know-with some faint, dreadful premonition. I retrieved the tape from the corner, switched it into the VCR and hit Play. Cassie, her arms clasped tightly at her waist, watched me without moving. I swung a chair around and sat down in front of the screen, my back to her.
It was the fuzzy black-and-white tape of Cassie's session with Rosalind the night before. The time stamp showed 8:27; in the next room, I had been just about to give up on Damien. Rosalind was on her own in the main interview room, redoing her lipstick in a little compact mirror. There were sounds in the background, and it took me a moment to recognize that they were familiar: hoarse, helpless sobs, and my own voice saying over them, without much hope, "Damien, I need you to explain to me why you did this." Cassie had switched on the intercom and set it to pick up my interview room. Rosalind's head went up; she stared at the one-way glass, her face utterly expressionless.
The door opened and Cassie came in, and Rosalind recapped her lipstick and tucked it into her purse. Damien was still sobbing. "Shit," Cassie said, glancing up at the intercom. "Sorry about that." She switched it off; Rosalind gave a tight, displeased little smile.
"Detective Maddox interviewing Rosalind Frances Devlin," Cassie said to the camera. "Have a seat."
Rosalind didn't move. "I'm afraid I'd prefer not to talk to you," she said, in an icy, dismissive voice I had never heard her use before. "I'd like to speak with Detective Ryan."
"Sorry, can't be done," Cassie said cheerfully, pulling out a chair for herself. "He's in an interview-as I'm sure you heard," she added, with a rueful little grin.
"Then I'll come back when he's free." Rosalind tucked her bag under her arm and headed for the door.
"Just a moment, Miss Devlin," Cassie said, and there was a new, hard edge in her voice. Rosalind sighed and turned, eyebrows raised contemptuously. "Is there any particular reason why you're suddenly so reluctant to answer questions about your sister's murder?"
I saw Rosalind's eyes flick up at the camera, just for a flash, but that tiny cold smile didn't change. "I think you know, Detective, if you're honest with yourself," she said, "that I'm more than willing to help the investigation in any way I can. I simply don't want to talk to you, and I'm sure you know why."
"Let's pretend I don't."
"Oh, Detective, it's been obvious from the start that you don't care about my sister at all. You're only interested in flirting with Detective Ryan. Isn't it against the rules to sleep with your partner?"
A fresh spurt of fury shot through me, so violent it took my breath away. "Jesus Christ! Is that what all this was about? Just because you thought I told her-" Rosalind had been shooting in the dark, I had never said a word about that to her or to anyone else; and for Cassie to think I would, to take this kind of revenge without even bothering to ask me-
"Shut up," she said coldly, behind me. I clenched my hands together and stared at the TV. I was almost too angry to see.
On the screen, Cassie hadn't even flinched; she was tilting her chair back on two legs and shaking her head, amused. "Sorry, Miss Devlin, but I don't get distracted that easily. Detective Ryan and I feel exactly the same way about your sister's death: we want to find her killer. So why is it, again, that you suddenly don't want to talk about it?"
Rosalind laughed. "Exactly the same way? Oh, I don't think so, Detective. He has a very special connection to this case, doesn't he?"
Even in the blurry picture I could see Cassie's fast blink, and the savage flash of triumph on Rosalind's face as she realized she had got past her guard this time. "Oh," she said, sweetly. "You mean you don't know?"
She only paused for a fraction of a second, just enough to heighten the effect, but to me it seemed to last forever; because I knew, with a hideous vortexing sense of inevitability, I knew what she was going to say. I suppose this must be what stuntmen feel when a fall goes horribly wrong, or jockeys coming off at full gallop: that oddly calm splinter of time, just before your body shatters against the ground, when your mind is wiped clean of everything except the one simple certainty: This is it, then. Here it comes.
"He's that boy whose friends disappeared in Knocknaree, ages ago," Rosalind told Cassie. Her voice was high and musical and almost uninterested; except for a tiny, smug trace of pleasure, there was nothing in it, nothing at all. "Adam Ryan. It looks like he doesn't tell you everything, after all, doesn't it?" I had thought, only a few minutes before, that there was no way I could feel any worse and still survive.
Cassie, on the screen, thumped the chair legs down and rubbed at one ear. She was biting her lip to hold back a smile, but I had nothing left in me with which to wonder what she was doing. "Did he tell you that?"
"Yes. We've got very close, really."
"Did he also tell you he had a brother who died when he was sixteen? That he grew up in a children's home? That his father was an alcoholic?"
Rosalind stared. The smile was gone from her face and her eyes were narrow, electric. "Why?" she asked.
"Just checking. Sometimes he does those, too-it depends. Rosalind," she said, somewhere between amused and embarrassed, "I don't know how to tell you this, but sometimes, when detectives are trying to build up a relationship with a witness, they say things that aren't exactly true. Things that they think will help the witness feel comfortable enough to share information. Do you understand?"
Rosalind kept staring, unmoving.
"Listen," Cassie said gently, "I know for a fact that Detective Ryan has never had a brother, that his father is a very nice guy with no alcoholic tendencies, and that he grew up in Wiltshire-hence the accent-nowhere near Knocknaree. And not in a children's home, either. But, whatever he told you, I know he only wanted to make it easier for you to help us find Katy's killer. Don't hold it against him. OK?"