The Likeness: A Novel by Tana French Read Free Book Online Page A

he’ll keep Doherty’s shut too. Next?”
“Next,” I said, “it’s pointless. Sam’s worked dozens of murders, Frank, and he’s solved most of them, without needing to pull any wack-job stunts. This thing you’re talking about would take weeks to set up—”
“Days, anyway,” Frank amended.
“—and by that time he’ll have someone. At least, he will if you don’t fuck up his investigation by getting everyone to pretend there’s no murder to begin with. All this will do is waste your time and mine and everyone else’s.”
“Would it fuck up your investigation?” Frank asked Sam. “Just hypothetically speaking. If you told the public—just for, say, a couple of days—that this was an assault, not a murder. Would it?”
Eventually Sam sighed. “No,” he said. “Not really, no. There’s not that much difference in investigating attempted murder and actual murder. And, like Cassie said, we’ll have to keep this pretty quiet for a few days anyway, till we find out who the victim is, so things don’t get too confused. But that’s not the point.”
“OK,” Frank said. “Then here’s what I suggest. Mostly you guys have a suspect within seventy-two hours, right?”
Sam said nothing.
“Right?”
“Right,” Sam said. “And there’s no reason why this should be different.”
“No reason at all,” Frank agreed, pleasantly. “Today’s Thursday. Just through the weekend, we keep our options open. We don’t tell civilians it’s a murder. Cassie stays home, so there’s no chance of the killer getting a glimpse of her, and we’ve got our ace up the sleeve if we decide to use it. I find out everything I can about this girl, just in case—that would need doing anyway, am I right? I won’t get in your way, you’ve got my word on that. Like you said, you’re bound to have someone in your sights by Sunday night. If you do, then I back off, Cassie goes back to DV, everything goes back to standard procedure, no harm done. If by any chance you don’t . . . well, we’ve still got all our options.”
Neither of us answered.
“I’m only asking for three days, guys,” Frank said. “No commitment to anything. What damage can that do?”
Sam looked marginally reassured by this, but I wasn’t, because I knew how Frank works: a series of little tiny steps, each one looking perfectly safe and innocuous until suddenly, bam, you’re smack in the middle of something you really did not want to deal with. “But why, Frank?” I asked. “Answer me that and yeah, fine, I’ll spend a gorgeous spring weekend sitting in my flat watching crap telly instead of going out with my boyfriend like a normal human being. You’re talking about throwing huge amounts of time and manpower at something that could well turn out to be completely pointless. Why?”
Frank whipped a hand up to shade his eyes so he could stare at me. “Why?” he repeated. “Jesus, Cassie! Because we can. Because nobody in the history of police work has ever had a chance like this. Because it would be bloody amazing. What, you’re not seeing that? What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you gone desk on me?”
I felt like he had hauled off and punched me in the stomach. I stopped pacing and turned away, looking out over the hillside, away from Frank and Sam and from the uniforms twisting their heads into the cottage to gawp at wet dead me.
After a moment Frank said behind me, softer, “Sorry, Cass. I just wasn’t expecting that. From the Murder gang, sure, but not from you, of all people. I didn’t think you meant . . . I thought you were just covering all the bases. I didn’t realize.”
He sounded genuinely stunned. I knew perfectly well he was working me and I could have listed every tool he was using, but it didn’t matter; because he was right. Five years earlier, one year earlier, I would have been leaping for this dazzling incomparable adventure right alongside him, I’d have been in there checking whether the dead girl’s ears