by Tana French
Richie made a small noise like a cat with a hairball. I trailed the torch around the room, to give him time to pull it together. There were a couple of cracks in the walls, but no holes, unless they were hidden by the posters—Jack had been into Manchester United. “Got kids?” I asked.
“No. Not yet.”
He was keeping his voice down, like he could still wake Jack Spain, or give him bad dreams. I said, “Neither do I. Days like this, that’s a good thing. Kids make you soft. You get a detective who’s tough as nails, can watch a post-mortem and order a rare steak for lunch; then his wife pops out a sprog and next thing you know he’s losing the plot if a victim’s under eighteen. I’ve seen it a dozen times. Every time, I thank God for contraception.”
I turned the torch back to the bed. My sister Geri has kids, and I spend enough time with them that I could take a rough guess at Jack Spain’s age: around four, maybe three if he had been on the big side. The duvet was pulled back where the uniform had tried his useless CPR: red pajamas twisted up, delicate rib cage underneath. I could even see the dent where the CPR, or I hoped it was the CPR, had snapped a rib or two.
There was blue around his lips. Richie said, “Suffocated?”
He was working hard at keeping his voice under control. I said, “We’ll have to wait for the post-mortem, but it looks possible. If that’s what we’ve got, it points towards the parents. A lot of the time they go for something gentle. If that’s the word I’m looking for.”
I still wasn’t looking at him, but I felt him tighten to hold back a wince. I said, “Let’s go find the daughter.”
No holes in the walls here either, no struggle. The uniform had pulled Emma Spain’s pink duvet back up over her, when he gave up—preserving her modesty, because she was a girl. She had the same snub nose as her brother, but her curls were a sandy ginger and she had a faceful of freckles, standing out against the blue-white underneath. She was the older one, six, seven: her mouth was a touch open, and I could see the gap where a front tooth was gone. The room was princess pink, full of frills and flounces; the bed was heaped with embroidered pillows, huge-eyed kittens and puppies staring up at us. Springing out of darkness in the torchlight, next to that small empty face, they looked like scavengers.
I didn’t look at Richie till we were back out on the landing. Then I asked, “Notice anything odd about both rooms?”
Even in that light he looked like he had a bad case of food poisoning. He had to swallow extra spit twice before he could say, “No blood.”
“Bingo.” I nudged the bathroom door open with my torch. Color-coordinated towels, plastic bath toys, the usual shampoos and shower gels, sparkling white fixtures. If someone had washed up in here, they had known how to be careful. “We’ll get the Bureau to hit this floor with Luminol, check for traces, but unless we’re missing something, either there was more than one killer or he went after the kids first. No one came from that mess”—I nodded downwards at the kitchen—“and touched anything up here.”
Richie said, “It’s looking like an inside job, isn’t it?”
“How’s that?”
“If I’m some psycho that wants to wipe out a whole family, I’m not going to start with the kids. What if one of the parents hears something, comes in to check on them while I’m in the middle of doing the job? Next thing I know, I’ve got the ma and the da both beating the shite out of me. Nah: I’m going to wait till everyone’s well asleep, and then I’m going to start by taking out the biggest threats. The only reason I’d start here”—his mouth twitched, but he kept it together—“is if I know I’m not gonna get interrupted. That means one of the parents.”
I said, “Right. It’s far from definitive, but on first glance, that’s how it looks. Did you notice the other thing pointing the same way?”
He shook his head. I said, “The front door. It’s got two locks, a Chubb and a Yale, and before the uniforms forced entry, both of them were on. That door wasn’t just pulled closed as someone left; it was locked with a key. And I haven’t seen any windows open or broken. So if someone got in from outside, or the Spains let someone in, how did he get back out? Again, it’s not definitive—one of the windows could be unlocked, the keys could have been taken, a friend or associate could have a set; we’ll have to check out all of those. But it’s indicative. On the other hand…” I pointed with the torch: another hole, maybe the size of a paperback book, low over the skirting board on the landing. “How would your walls end up with this kind of damage?”
“A fight. After the…” Richie rubbed at his mouth again. “After the kids, or they’d have woken up. Looks to me like someone put up a good old struggle.”
“Someone probably did, but that’s not what wrecked the walls. Get your head clear and look again. That damage wasn’t done last night. Want to tell me why?”
Slowly, the green look started to get replaced by that concentration I had seen in the car. After a moment Richie said, “No blood around the holes. And no bits of plaster underneath. No dust, even. Someone’s tidied up.”
“Right you are. It’s possible that the killer or killers stuck around to give the place a good hoover, for reasons of his own; but unless we find something to say that happened, the most likely explanation is that the holes were made at least a couple of days ago, could be a lot more. Got any ideas on where they might have come from?”
He looked better now that he was working. “Structural problems? Damp, subsidence, maybe someone working on faulty wiring… There’s damp in the sitting room—did you see the floorboards, yeah, and the patch on the wall?—and there’s cracks all over the place; wouldn’t be surprised if the wiring’s banjaxed too. The whole estate’s a tip.”
“Maybe. We’ll get a building inspector to come down and take a look. But let’s be honest, it’d take a pretty crap electrician to leave the place in this state. Any other explanations you can think of?”
Richie sucked on his teeth and gave the hole a long thoughtful stare. “If I was just going off the top of my head,” he said, “I’d say someone was looking for something.”
“So would I. That could mean guns or valuables, but usually it’s the old reliables: drugs or cash. We’ll have the Bureau check for drug residue.”
“But,” Richie said. He jerked his chin at the door of Emma’s room. “The kids. The parents were holding something that could get them killed? With the kids in the house?”
“I thought the Spains were top of your suspect list.”
“That’s different. People snap, do mad things. That can happen to anyone. A K of smack behind the wallpaper, where your kids could find it: that doesn’t just happen.”
There was a creak below us and we both spun around, but it was just the front door swaying in a snatch of wind. I said, “Come on, old son. I’ve seen it a hundred times. I’m betting you have too.”
“Not with people like this.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a snob.”
“Nah, I’m not talking about class. I mean these people tried. Look at the place: everything’s right, know what I mean? It’s all clean; even down behind the jacks is clean. All the stuff matches. Even the spices in the rack, they’re in date, all the ones where I could see the best-by. This family tried to get everything right. Messing about with the dodgy stuff… It just doesn’t seem like their style.”
I said, “It doesn’t seem like it right now, no. But keep in mind, right now we know bugger-all about these people. They kept their house in good nick, at least occasionally, and they got killed. I’m telling you the second one means a lot more than the first. Anyone can hoover. Not everyone gets murdered.”
Richie, bless his innocent heart, was giving me a look that was pure skepticism with a touch of moral outrage thrown in. “Loads of murder victims never did anything dangerous in their lives.”
“Some didn’t, no. But loads? Here’s the dirty secret about your new job, Richie my friend. Here’s the part you never saw in intervi
ews or documentaries, because we keep it to ourselves. Most victims went looking for exactly what they got.”
His mouth started to open. I said, “Obviously not kids. The kids aren’t what we’re discussing here. But adults… If you try to sell smack on some other scumbag’s turf, or if you go ahead and marry Prince Charming after he puts you in the ICU four times running, or if you stab some guy because his brother stabbed your friend for stabbing his cousin, then forgive me if this is politically incorrect, but you’re just begging for exactly what you’re eventually going to get. I know this isn’t what we get taught on the detective course, but out here in the real world, my man, you would be amazed at how seldom murder has to break into people’s lives. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it gets there because they open the door and invite it in.”
Richie shifted his feet—the draft was sweeping up the stairs to eddy round our ankles, rattle the handle of Emma’s door. He said, “I’m not seeing how anyone could ask for this.”
“Neither am I, at least not yet. But if the Spains were living like the Waltons, then who bashed their walls in? And why didn’t they just call someone and get the place fixed—unless they didn’t want anyone knowing what they were involved with? Or what one of them was involved with, at least.”
He shrugged. I said, “You’re right: this could be the one in a hundred. We’ll keep an open mind. And if it is, that’s just another reason why we can’t get it wrong.”
Patrick and Jennifer Spain’s room was picture-perfect, just like the rest of the house. It had been done up in flowery pink and cream and gold to look olde-fashionede. No blood, no signs of struggle, not a speck of dust anywhere. One small hole, where the wall met the ceiling above the bed.
Two things stuck out. First thing: the duvet and sheets were rumpled and thrown back, like someone had just jumped up. The rest of the house said that bed didn’t get left unmade for long. At least one of them had been all tucked up, when it began.
Second thing: the bedside tables. Each of them had a little lamp with a tasselly cream shade; both the lamps were off. On the far table were a couple of girly-looking jars, face cream or whatever, a pink mobile phone and a book with a pink cover and kooky lettering. The near one was crammed with gadgets: what looked like two white walkie-talkies and two silver mobiles, all standing docked on chargers, and three empty chargers, all silver. I wasn’t sure where the walkie-talkies came in, but the only people who have five mobiles are high-flying stockbrokers and drug dealers, and this didn’t look like a stockbroker’s pad to me. For a second there, I thought things were starting to come together.
Then: “Jaysus,” Richie said, eyebrows going up. “They went a bit over the top, didn’t they?”
“How’s that?”
“The baby monitors.” He nodded at Patrick’s bedside table.
“That’s what those are?”
“Yeah. My sister’s got kids. Those white ones, that’s the bit you listen to. The ones that look like phones, those are video. Watch the kid sleep.”
“Big Brother style.” I moved the torch beam over the gadgets: white ones on, screens faintly backlit; silver ones off. “How many do people normally have? One per kid?”
“Dunno about most people. My sister’s got three kids and just the one monitor. It’s in the baby’s room, for when he’s asleep. When the girls were small she just had the audio, like those”—the walkie-talkies—“but the little fella was premature, so she got the video, keep an eye on him.”
“So the Spains were on the overprotective side. A monitor in every room.” Where I should have spotted them. It was one thing for Richie to get distracted by the big stuff and miss the details, but I was no virgin.
Richie shook his head. “Why, but? They were big enough to come get their ma if they needed her. And it’s not like this is a massive huge mansion: if they hurt themselves, you’d hear them yelling.”
I said, “Would you know the other halves of those things if you saw them?”
“Probably.”
“Good. Then let’s go find them.”
On Emma’s pink chest of drawers was a round white thing like a clock radio, which according to Richie was an audio monitor: “She’s a little old for it, but the parents could’ve been heavy sleepers, wanted to be sure they’d hear her if she called…” The other audio monitor was on Jack’s chest of drawers. No sign of the video cameras; not until we got back out onto the landing again. I said, “We’ll want the Bureau to check the attic, in case whoever was looking for—” and then I swung the torch beam up to the ceiling and stopped talking.
The hatch for the attic was there, all right. It was open onto blackness—the light caught the cover, propped up against something, and a flash of exposed roof beam high above. Someone had nailed wire mesh over the opening, from below, without worrying too much about aesthetics: ragged edges of wire, big nail heads sticking out at violent angles. In the opposite corner of the landing, high on the wall, was something silver and badly mounted that I didn’t need Richie to tell me was a video monitor. The camera was pointing straight at the hatch.
I said, “What the holy hell?”
“Rats? The holes—”
“You don’t set up bloody surveillance on rats. You keep the hatch down and call the exterminators.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. A trap, maybe, in case whoever bashed in the walls came back looking for Round Two. The Bureau are going to want to be careful up there.” I held the torch high and moved it around, trying to get a glimpse of what was in the attic. Cardboard boxes, a dusty black suitcase. “Let’s see if the rest of the cameras give us any hints.”
The second camera was in the sitting room, on a little chrome-and-glass table beside the sofa. It was aimed at the hole over the fireplace, and a little red light said it was switched on. The third one had rolled into a corner of the kitchen, where it was surrounded by beanbag pellets and pointing at the floor, but it was still plugged in: it had been up and running. There was a viewer half under the cooker—I had clocked it the first time round, taken it for a phone—and another under the kitchen table. No sign of the last one, or of the other two cameras.
I said, “We’ll give the Bureau a heads-up, have them keep an eye out. Anything you want another look at, before we bring them in?”
Richie looked unsure. I said, “It’s not a trick question, old son.”
“Oh. Right. Then no: I’m grand.”
“So am I. Let’s go.”
Another gust of wind grabbed the house, and this time both of us jumped. I would have done a lot of things sooner than let young Richie see this, but the place was starting to get to me. It wasn’t the kids, or the blood—like I said, I can handle both of those, no problem. Something about the holes in the wall, maybe, or the unblinking cameras; or about all that glass, all those skeleton houses staring in at us, like famine animals circled around the warmth of a fire. I reminded myself that I had dealt with worse scenes and never broken a sweat, but that shimmer moving through my skull bones said: This is different.
3
Unromantic little secret: half of being a Murder D is managerial skills. Trainees picture the lone wolf heading off into the wild after shadowy hunches, but in practice, guys who don’t play well with others wind up in Undercover. Even a small investigation—and this wasn’t going to be small—involves floaters, media liaisons, the Tech Bureau and the pathologist and the world and his auntie, and you need to make sure that at any given second all of them are keeping you up to speed, no one’s getting in anyone’s way and everyone is working to your big plan, because the buck stops with you. That slow-motion silence inside the amber was over: the second we stepped out of the house, before we even stopped walking quietly, it was time to start people-wrangling.
Cooper, the pathologist, was outside the gate, tapping his fingers on his case and not looking happy. Not that he would have anyway: at his best Cooper is a negative little bastard, and he’s not at his best around me
. I’ve never done anything to him, but for some reason all his own he doesn’t like me, and when an arrogant bollix like Cooper doesn’t like you, he does it right. One typo on a request form and he sends it back and makes me start over, and forget putting a rush on anything: my stuff waits its turn, urgent or not. “Detective Kennedy,” he said, flaring his nostrils like I smelled. “May I ask whether I resemble a waiter?”
“Not at all. Dr. Cooper, this is Detective Curran, my partner.”
He ignored Richie. “I am relieved to hear it. In that case, why am I waiting?”
He must have spent the delay coming up with that one. “I apologize,” I said. “There must have been some misunderstanding. Obviously I’d never waste your time. We’ll leave you to it.”
Cooper gave me a withering look that said he wasn’t falling for it. “We can only hope,” he said, “that you have managed not to contaminate the scene too extensively,” and he brushed past me, tugging his gloves more firmly into place, into the house.
No sign of my floaters yet. One of the uniforms was still hovering around the car and the sister. The other one was at the top of the road, talking to a handful of guys between two white vans: Tech Bureau, morgue. I said to Richie, “What do we do now?”
As soon as we got outside he had started jiggling again: whipping his head back and forth to check out the road, the sky, the other houses, drumming a little two-fingered tattoo on his thighs. The question stopped him. “Send the Bureau in?”
“Sure, but what are you planning on doing while they work? If we hang around asking ‘Are we there yet?’ we’ll just be wasting their time and ours.”
