again? Ask him, question him—”
Martin’s face had gone even blanker. “Yeah, we managed to think of that. Tiernan’s sticking to his original story. Deano’s sticking to his card game.”
“But they’re lying. Tiernan’s, he’s a, a wimp, if you just question him harder—”
It was all clear as day in my head. From Tiernan’s point of view, the whole Gouger fiasco would automatically have been someone else’s fault, and I was the obvious choice. He had been slipping Gouger into the show as just another talented sob story; I was the one who had hyped him up into the star, got Tiernan to do a big new series of paintings, told him to give Richard daily updates on his phone calls with Gouger. Except Tiernan had slipped up, hadn’t kept his story straight—my ear pressed to the office door, Richard yelling, something about a phone call . . . If I hadn’t stuck my nose in, Richard wouldn’t have been paying any special attention to Gouger, and everything would have been fine. Instead Tiernan had got fired, and I had got off scot-free.
So Tiernan had picked the craziest skanger in his bunch and filled him up with stories about the bad guy trying to scupper the show and wreck all their chances at being the next Damien Hirst: the rich bastard with a flash car, a big TV, a new Xbox; the smug prick who was asking for a few slaps. And sent him off.
“Deano’s lying, anyway,” Martin said. “Tiernan, I’m not so sure. If he is, we’ve got no way of proving it, not unless someone talks. Which they won’t. They’re not stupid.” With a small bland smile: “Sorry to disappoint you.”
There was something dizzying about it, about the fact that Tiernan could never have dreamed where that would lead. It must have seemed like such a small thing, just a tasty little lollipop of glee to suck on when the world refused to feed him what he deserved; nothing more, just like my prank emails to Dominic had been nothing more.
“You’ll have to testify at the trial,” Martin said. “If it goes that far. We’ll be in touch.”
“But,” I said. I had just figured out why all this sounded vaguely familiar. “I thought of that. That it could have been Tiernan.” Way back, all the way back in the hospital, as soon as the worst of the confusion started to wear off, the first person I had thought of had been Tiernan.
“Congratulations. If you’d bothered mentioning it, maybe we would’ve got somewhere.”
Crazy stuff, I had thought, just more evidence of my broken brain, and shoved it away. I had been right all along. “I thought it was stupid,” I said.
Martin watched me. Behind him the green of the lawn had intensified, radiant and unsettling. “You’re not going to get any ideas in your head about going after Tiernan,” he said. “Are you.”
“No,” I said.
“Because that wouldn’t be smart. You can get away with it once—apparently. Second time, you wouldn’t be so lucky.”
“I don’t want to go after him.”
“Right. I forgot. You wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And when I stared at him: “Sign and date. I don’t have all day.”
I wrote down something, trying to breathe slowly and keep my eyes off that photo. “If you think about it,” Martin said, “whoever gave you that bang on the head did you a favor. Without it, you’d be doing life in Mountjoy.”
This seemed not just false but outrageous, but when my head snapped up I met his eyes, cold and speculative and cynical as a seagull’s. “OK,” I said. “Here.” I passed him the sheets of paper.
“These two”—lifting the sheets—“if they go down, they’re not going to get off with a couple of years telling therapists their problems in a cushy joint with lavender beds and a gazebo.”
“Right.”
“So you’re in no position to get your knickers in a knot about Tiernan not getting what he deserves. Are you.”
That cold seagull eye again. “I don’t know,” I said.
“See you around,” Martin said, flipping the folder shut. He made it sound like a threat. “Behave yourself.”
“I am.”
“Good,” he said. “You keep doing that,” and he stuck the folder back under his arm and left the room without looking at me again.
* * *
I did behave myself. I followed my individualized care plan, did my cognitive behavioral therapy to cure my post-traumatic stress disorder, went to occupational therapy to teach me to live an independent and productive life, did my physiotherapy for my hand and