The Trespasser

by Tana French

When you badger a statement out of some traumatized witness, or manipulate a mother into giving evidence that’ll put her own kid in jail, you get to enjoy the buzz of winning without tying yourself in knots over the deeper moral subtleties, because you’re the good guy in this story.

If someone rescues you, they own you. Not because you owe them—you can sort that, with enough good favors or bottles of booze dressed up in ribbons. They own you because you’re not the lead in your story any more. You’re the poor struggling loser/helpless damsel/plucky sidekick who was saved from danger/dishonor/humiliation by the brilliant brave compassionate hero/heroine, and they get to decide which, because you’re not the one running this story, not any more.

Waking up the next morning feels like waking up the morning after moving house, switching squad, dumping someone: you know the world’s changed, even before you remember how.

You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that.