“Thanks.” He sounded nowhere near as pleased with himself as he should have. “We know why Conor made up that story about finding Pat’s key, anyway. Keep Jayden out of trouble.”
“Sweet of him. Plenty of killers feed stray puppies, too.”
Richie was looking out at the garden, which had already started to take on an abandoned feel—weeds pushing up above the grass, a blue plastic bag left to flap from the bush where it had blown. “Yeah,” he said. “Probably they do.” He slammed the back door—the final rush of cold air fluttered the stray papers left to drift on the floor—and turned the key again.
Gogan was waiting at his front door to get his key back. Jayden was behind him, hanging off the door handle. When Richie handed over the key, Jayden squirmed out, under his father’s arm. “Mister,” he said, to Richie.
“Yeah?”
“If I hadn’t have given your man the key. Would they not have got kilt?”
He was staring up at Richie with real, sharp horror in those pale eyes. Richie said, gently but very firmly, “This wasn’t your fault, Jayden. It’s the fault of the person who did the job. End of story.”
Jayden twisted. “But how would he have got in if he didn’t have the key?”
“He would’ve found a way. Some stuff is gonna find a way to happen; once it’s got started, you can’t stop it, no matter what you do. This whole thing got started a long time before you ever met this fella. Yeah?”
The words slid down my skull, dug in at the back of my neck. I shifted, trying to get Richie moving, but he was focused on Jayden. The kid looked about half convinced. After a moment, he said, “I guess.” He slipped back under his father’s arm and vanished into the dim hall. In the moment before Gogan shut the door, he caught Richie’s eye and gave him a small, reluctant nod.
* * *
The two sets of neighbors at the bottom of the road were in, this time. They were the Spains, three days back: young couples, little kids, clean floors and saved-for fashionable touches, houses ready and welcoming for visitors who wouldn’t come. None of them had seen or heard anything. We were discreet about telling them to get their back door locks changed: just a precaution, a possible manufacturing fault we had stumbled on in the course of the investigation, nothing to do with the crime.
One of each couple had a job, long hours and long commutes; the other man had been made redundant a week ago, the other woman back in July. She had tried to make friends with Jenny Spain—“We were both stuck out here all day, I thought it’d be less lonely if we had someone to talk to…” Jenny had been polite, but she had kept her distance: a cup of tea always sounded lovely, but she was never free and never sure when she would be. “I thought maybe she was shy, or she didn’t want me to think we were best friends and start dropping in every day, or maybe she was annoyed because I never tried before—I never had a chance, I was barely even home… But if she was worried about… I mean, was it… ? Can I ask?”
She had taken it for granted that it was Pat, just like I had told Richie everyone would. I said, “We have someone in custody in connection with the crime.”
“Oh, God.” Her hand went to her husband’s, on the kitchen table. She was pretty, slim and blond and nicely put together, but she had been crying before we arrived. “Then it wasn’t… It was just… some guy? Like a burglar?”
“The person in custody isn’t a resident of the house.”
That made the tears start leaking out again. “Then… Oh, God…” Her eyes went over my shoulder, to the far end of the kitchen. Their daughter was about four, cross-legged on the floor with her smooth fair head bent over a plush tiger, murmuring away. “Then it could’ve been us. There was nothing to stop it being us. You want to say, ‘There but for the grace of God,’ only you can’t, can you? Because that’s like saying God wanted them to be… It wasn’t God. It was just an accident; just luck. Only for luck…”
Her hand was white-knuckled on her husband’s and she was working hard to hold in a sob. It hurt my jaw, how much I wanted to be able to tell her that she was wrong: that the Spains had sent out some call on the sea wind and Conor had answered, that she and hers had made a life that was safe.
I said, “The suspect is in custody. He’ll be staying that way for a long time.”
She nodded, not looking at me. Her face said I didn’t get it.
The husband said, “We were wanting to get out anyway. We’d have been gone months ago, only who’d buy this? Now…”
The wife said, “We’re not staying here. We’re not.”
The sob broke through. Her voice and her husband’s eyes held the same splinter of helplessness. They both knew they were going nowhere.
* * *
On our way back to the car, my phone buzzed to tell me I had a message. Geri had rung me just after five.
“Mick… God, I hate to bother you, I know you’re only up to your ears, but I thought you’d want to know—maybe you already do, sure, but… Dina’s after walking out on us. Mick, I’m so sorry, I know we were supposed to be looking after her—and we were, I only left her with Sheila for fifteen minutes while I went down to the shops… Is she after coming to you? I know you’re probably annoyed with me, I wouldn’t blame you, but Mick, if she’s with you, please, could you ring me and let me know? I’m really sorry, honestly, I am…”
“Shit,” I said. Dina had been missing for an hour, minimum. There was nothing I could do about it for at least another couple of hours, until Richie and I were done with Fiona. The thought of what could happen to Dina in that amount of time made me feel like my heart was trying to beat against thick mud. “Shitfucking fuck.”
I didn’t realize I had stopped moving till I saw Richie, a couple of steps ahead, turned around to watch me. He said, “Everything OK, yeah?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “It’s not work-related. I just need a minute to clear things up.” Richie opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could get it out I had turned my back on him and was heading back down the footpath, at a pace that told him not to follow.
Geri picked up on the first ring. “Mick? Is she with you?”
“No. What time did she leave?”
“Oh, God. I was hoping—”
“Don’t panic. She could be at my place, or at my work—I’ve been out in the field all afternoon. What time did she leave?”
“Half past four, about. Sheila’s mobile rang and it was Barry, that’s her boyfriend, so she went up to her room just for privacy, and when she came down Dina was gone. She wrote, ‘Thanks, bye!’ on the fridge with her eyeliner, and this outline of her hand underneath, waving, like. She took Sheila’s wallet, it had sixty euros in it, so she’s got money, anyway… As soon as I got home and Sheila told me, I drove all round the neighborhood, looking for her—I swear I looked everywhere, I was going into shops and looking into people’s gardens and all—but she was gone. I didn’t know where else to look. I’ve rung her a dozen times, but her phone’s off.”
“How did she seem, this afternoon? Was she getting pissed off with you, or with Sheila?” If Dina had got bored… I tried to remember whether she had mentioned Jezzer’s surname.
“No, she was better! Much better. Not angry, not scared, not getting wound up—she was even making sense, most of the time. She seemed a bit distracted, like, not really paying attention when you talked to her; like she had something on her mind. That was all.” Geri’s voice was spiraling higher. “She was practically grand, Mick, honest to God she was, I was positive she was on her way up or I’d never have left her with Sheila, never…”
“I know you wouldn’t. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“She’s not fine, Mick. She’s not. Fine is the last thing she is.”
I glanced over my shoulder: Richie was leaning against the car door with his hands in his pockets, facing up into the building sites to give me privacy. “You know what I mean. I’m sure she just got bored and headed to a friend’s house. She’ll turn up tomorrow m
orning, with croissants to show you she’s sorry—”
“That doesn’t make her fine. Someone who’s fine doesn’t steal her niece’s babysitting money. Someone who’s fine wouldn’t need all of us to walk on eggshells all the—”
“I know, Geri. But that’s not something we can deal with tonight. Let’s just focus on one day at a time. OK?”
Over the estate wall the sea was darkening, rocking steadily towards night; the small birds were out again, scavenging at the water’s edge. Geri caught her breath, exhaled with a shake in it. “I’m so bloody sick of this.”
I had heard that note a million times before, in her voice and in my own: exhaustion, frustration and annoyance, cut with pure terror. No matter how many dozen times you go through the same rigmarole, you never forget that this could be the time when, finally, it ends differently: not with a scribbled apology card and a bunch of stolen flowers on your doorstep, but with a late-night phone call, a rookie uniform practicing his notification skills, an ID visit to Cooper’s morgue.
“Geri,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ve got one more interview to get through before I can leave, but then I’ll sort this out. If I find her waiting for me at work, I’ll let you know. You keep trying her mobile; if you get through, tell her to meet me at work, and give me a text so I know she’s coming. Otherwise, I’ll track her down the second I finish up. OK?”
“Yeah. OK.” Geri didn’t ask how. She needed to believe it would be that simple. So did I. “Sure, she’ll be fine on her own for another hour or two.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll keep Dina at mine tonight, but I might have to bring her over to you again tomorrow.”
“Do, of course. Everyone’s grand, Colm and Andrea haven’t caught it, thank God… And I won’t leave her out of my sight this time. I promise. Mick, I’m really sorry about this.”
“I mean it: don’t worry. Tell Sheila and Phil I hope they’re feeling better. I’ll be in touch.”
Richie was still leaning against the car door, gazing up at the sharp crisscross of walls and scaffolding against a cold turquoise sky. When I beeped the car unlocked, he straightened up and turned. “Howya.”
“Sorted,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I opened my door, but he didn’t move. In the fading light his face looked pale and wise, much older than thirty-one. He said, “Anything I can do?”
In the second before I could open my mouth, it surged up inside me, sudden and powerful as floodwaters and just as dangerous: the thought of telling him. I thought of those ten-year partners who knew each other by heart, what any of them would have said: That girl the other night, remember her? That’s my sister, her mind’s fucked, I don’t know how to save her… I saw the pub, the partner getting the pints in and tossing out sports arguments, dirty jokes, half-true anecdotes, till the tension fell out of your shoulders and you forgot your mind was shorting out; sending you home at the end of the night with a hangover in the making and the feeling of him solid as a rock face at your back. The picture was so clear I could have warmed my hands at it.
The next second I got my grip back and it turned my stomach, the thought of splaying my private family business in front of him and begging him to give me a pat on the head and tell me it would all be OK. This wasn’t some ten-year best buddy, some blood brother; this was a near stranger who couldn’t even be arsed sharing whatever had struck him in Conor Brennan’s flat. “No need,” I said crisply. I thought, briefly, of asking Richie to interview Fiona on his own, or asking him to type up the day’s report and postponing Fiona till morning—Conor wasn’t going anywhere—but both of those felt disgustingly pathetic. “The offer’s appreciated, but I’ve got everything under control. Let’s go see what Fiona has to tell us.”
13
Fiona was waiting for us outside HQ, drooping against a lamppost. In the circle of smoky yellow light, with the hood of her red duffle coat pulled up against the cold, she looked like some small lost creature out of fireside stories. I ran a hand over my hair and locked Dina down in the back of my mind. “Remember,” I said to Richie, “she’s still on the radar.”
Richie caught a deep breath, like the exhaustion had blindsided him all of a sudden. He said, “She didn’t give Conor the keys.”
“I know. But she knew him. There’s history there. We need to know a lot more about that history before we can rule her out.”
Fiona straightened up as we came closer. She had lost weight in the last two days; her cheekbones poked out sharply, through skin that had faded to a papery gray. I could smell the hospital off her, disinfected and polluting.
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said. “Thank you for coming in.”
“Could we just… Would it be OK if we made this quick? I want to get back to Jenny.”
“I understand,” I said, stretching out an arm to guide her towards the door. “We’ll be as fast as we can.”
Fiona didn’t move. Her hair straggled around her face in limp brown waves; it looked like she had washed it in a sink with hospital soap. “You said you got the man. The man who did this.”
She was talking to Richie. He said, “We’ve got someone in custody in connection with the crimes. Yeah.”
“I want to see him.”
Richie hadn’t spotted that coming. I said smoothly, “I’m afraid he’s not here. We’ve got him in jail at the moment.”
“I need to see him. I need…” Fiona lost her train of thought, shook her head and shoved back hair. “Can we go there? To the jail?”
“It doesn’t really work that way, Ms. Rafferty. It’s out of hours, we’d have to fill in the paperwork, then it could take a few hours to bring him over here, depending on the available security… If you want to get back to your sister, we’ll need to leave that for another time.”
Even if I had left her room to argue, she didn’t have the energy. After a moment she said, “Another time. I can see him another time?”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said, and held out my arm again. This time Fiona moved, out of the circle of lamplight and into the shadows, towards the door of HQ.
One of the interview rooms is set up to be gentle: carpet instead of linoleum, clean pale-yellow walls, non-institutional chairs that don’t leave your arse bruised, a watercooler, an electric kettle and a basket of little sachets of tea and coffee and sugar, actual mugs instead of foam cups. It’s for victims’ families, fragile witnesses, suspects who would take the other rooms as an affront to their dignity and stalk out. We put Fiona there. Richie settled her—it was nice, having a partner who could be trusted with someone that shaky—while I went down to the incident room and threw a few bits of evidence into a cardboard box. By the time I got back, her coat was on the back of her chair and she was curled around a steaming mug of tea like her whole body needed warming. Without the coat she was slight as a child, even in the loose jeans and oversized cream cardigan. Richie was sitting opposite her, elbows propped on the table, halfway through a long reassuring story about an imaginary relative who had been saved from some dramatic combination of injuries by the doctors at Jenny’s hospital.
I slid the box unobtrusively under the table and took a chair next to Richie. He said, “I was just telling Ms. Rafferty, her sister’s in good hands.”
Fiona said, “The doctor said in a couple of days they’re going to lower the dose of painkillers. I don’t know how Jenny’s going to cope. She’s in really bad shape anyway—obviously—but the painkillers help, half the time she thinks it’s just a bad dream. When she comes off them, and the whole thing hits her… Can they give her something else? Antidepressants, or something?”
“The doctors know what they’re at,” Richie said gently. “They’ll help her get through.”
I said, “I’m going to ask you to do something for us, Ms. Rafferty. While you’re here, I need you to forget about what happened to your family. Put it out of your mind; just concentrate, one hundred percent, on answering our questions. Believe me, I know that sounds impo
ssible, but it’s the only way you can help us put this man away. This is what Jenny needs from you right now—what they all need from you. Can you do that for them?”
This is the gift we offer them, people who loved the victims: rest. For an hour or two they get to sit still and—guilt-free, because we gave them no choice—stop hurling their minds on the jagged shards of what happened. I understand how immense that is, and how priceless. I saw the layers in Fiona’s eyes, like I’d seen them in hundreds of others’: relief, and shame, and gratitude.
She said, “OK. I’ll try.”
She would tell us things she had never wanted to mention, to give herself a reason to keep talking. “We appreciate that,” I said. “I know it’s difficult, but you’re doing the right thing.”
Fiona balanced her tea on her thin knees, cupping it between her hands, and gave me her full attention. Already her spine had uncurled a notch. I said, “Let’s start at the beginning. There’s a good chance none of this will be relevant, but it’s important for us to get all the information we can. You said Pat and Jenny got together when they were sixteen, isn’t that right? Can you tell me how they met?”
“Not exactly. We’re all from the same area, so we knew each other from around, ever since we were little kids, like in primary school; I don’t remember the exact first time any of us met. When we got to like twelve or thirteen, a bunch of us started hanging out together—just messing about on the beach, or Rollerblading, or we’d go down to Dun Laoghaire and hang out on the pier. Sometimes we went into town, for the cinema and then Burger King, or on the weekends we’d go to the school discos if there was a good one on. Just kid stuff, but we were close. Really close.”
Richie said, “There’s no one like the mates you make when you’re a teenager. How many in the gang?”