The Trespasser

Me and Steve, we went at McCann by ripping away what he believed most about his life, blowing it up in front of his eyes, and hoping there’d be too little of him left to hold out against us. Just like Aislinn had been planning. But when we took as much of McCann as we could, shredded him into the last thing he ever wanted to be, we left him with No

I can’t tell whether Breslin believes that load, or whether he’s convinced himself he does because he needs to be that guy, the noble knight standing by his partner through thick and thin. Probably it’s the second one, which means it’s here to stay. You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a beli

We have so many weapons. You pick them up from watching other Ds, you sift them out of squad-room stories, you come up with your own and pass them around; you stash them all away safe, for the days when you’ll need them. By the time you make Murder, you have an arsenal that could pulverise cities. You come into an interview carrying a ten-pound sta

When I finally, when we finally . . . that was when I realised: she honest to God cared about me. She . . . It . . .’ A quick involuntary catch of breath. ‘That blew me away. Just blew me away.’ The wonder in his voice. He sounds like a teenager, lifting with joy and amazement, he sounds so tender you could bruise him with one wrong touch. Time aft

Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe, and every story is battering against the thin walls of the person’s skull, drilling and gnawing for its chance to escape and attack someone else

He waits, gazing at me too intently to blink, hanging for the questions like they’re the best gift I could ever give him. They would be. This is what my ma was telling me, through all her bullshit fairy tales. If I let him give me the answers, he’ll own me. Everything in my life, past and future, will be his: what he decides to make it into.

I can’t do it. There’s no one, on all that list, who I can make myself ring up to say Hi, I can’t do this, come help me. To every single one of them, I’d be a different person after that call.

I don’t get rescued. I’ll take help, no problem, just like I took it off Gary and off Fleas. Rescue – where you’re sinking for the third time, you’ve tried everything you’ve got and none of it’s enough – rescue is different. If someone rescues you, they own you. Not because you owe them – you can sort that, with enough good favours or bottles of bo

Gary is ten years older than me and perfect for his job. A big chunk of Missing Persons is getting people who stay far from cops to talk to you – street hookers to tell you about the new girl who matches that teenager on the news, homeless addicts to drop by and mention the guy who tried to sleep on their patch last night and looked a lot like that