The Trespasser

by Tana French

Lucy half smiles; not at me, at whatever she’s seeing.

But Ash, right? She thought I was great—for the exact same things that everyone else was slagging me about.

Ash thought that was the coolest thing ever.”

She wasn’t thick, at all. She was actually really perceptive.”

But even when she couldn’t make things better for herself, she made them better for other people.”

“Like it kept her from growing up.

except it wasn’t what she wanted to do. She didn’t have a clue what she wanted; she’d never had a chance to think about it.

it’s like he killed a little kid: someone who never even had a chance to get her life started. He took away her whole entire life. Could you remember that? When you’re investigating?”

I can’t wait for them to come up with some nutrition pill I can pop twice a day,

used condom twisted in the hedge, blue plastic bag hanging off a railing with something sticking out that I don’t like the look of. The place has a nightlife.

she was putting together who she was meant to be out of magazines.”

I thought he was kind of boring, but Ash was obviously seeing something I missed

When I’m on a case, I get what O’Kelly would probably call jumpy and what I call alert.

a dead cat, fur plastered sleek against its skull, lips pulled back to show spiky teeth open wide in a frozen howl of fury.

put-out look on his flabby puss

Whatever way you look at it, that’s pretty cold for a good law-abiding citizen.

I want to run him through the system, see what pops up.”

“That doesn’t mean he was actually a virgin till last night. Just that he never got caught.”

Quigley is a turd, O’Gorman is an ape, Roche is the best of both worlds: any of them, or all of them, would think it was hilarious to fuck up my day.

but since no one cares about our breathing, the vent stays banjaxed.

having to wonder if someone’s wiped his dick on it—and

“I’ll lead the interview, with you backing me up, Detective Breslin. Detective Moran, you observe from here, and be ready to switch in if I decide we need to mix it up a little.”

Instead it feels like an unflagged trail through no-man’s-land, pocked with ankle-breaking mud holes and booby-trapped all the way.

It took those two a month to crack their last domestic, with me onboard it takes them a day, now give my ego a hand job and put me up for promotion.

He gives me a big pally grin and, I swear to God, an actual clap on the shoulder.

Because this is our fucking case and the next time you try to give me an order you’re getting a knee in the balls,

“I don’t know. I didn’t think he was one of the ones trying to fuck me up.”

but it gives me a quick ridiculous beat of warmth anyway.

with the idea that he’s the good guy, so whatever he’s doing must be right. Then he works backwards from there to figure out how.”

“And he’s the type they go for. Wife, kids, mortgage . . .”

spoon.

“If I hadn’t left when I did. If I’d kept banging on the door, or if I’d called the police, or if I’d broken in. Would I have been able to save her?”

used to come out of that meeting feeling like the bastard we were after didn’t have a chance in hell.

this time I’m the big woman and every bit of this is all mine.

Steve falls arse over tip for anything beautiful, without bothering to think about how it got that way or why, or what’s underneath.

Next time we bring him in, you go ahead and give him a blow job in the jacks.”

was hot stuff, back then. Me and the gaffer both had every reason to think this was gonna be great.

No one needs a relationship.

The truth is, if you don’t exist without someone else, you don’t exist at all.

If any of them wanted me to donate a kidney or crack a few heads, I’d do it, no questions asked. And if they all waved good-bye and walked out of my life tomorrow, I’d still be the same person I am today.

I live inside my own skin. Anything that happens outside it doesn’t change who I am.

All those idiots on the websites, begging for other people to pull their sagging puppet-strings, turn them real: they make me want to spit.

back when I was in uniform, I arrested the guy for wanking on a bus. Small city.

And a guy at the top of the road, just standing there, on a morning when no sane person would be just standing. He was too far away for me to catch much; just a tall guy, facing my way, with a dark overcoat and a dark trilby and a set to his shoulders that said he wasn’t young.

There are a few reasons why a D could be staking out my road. Some of them are a lot more fun than others.

because we’re too busy protecting the politicians and the elite to care about decent working people.

what kind of idiot thinks bitching about my mates is going to get on my good side?”

what the fuck is that supposed to do? If enough people like the post, cancer’ll just take the hint and become extinct?”

I think it gave some of the reporters an actual hard-on.”

Cueball Lanigan.