by Tana French
He gave it an experimental rub with one finger. “’S nice. I’ll get it back to you.”
“Hang on to it. And pick up a few of your own, when you get a chance.”
He glanced across at me and for a second I thought he was going to say something, but he stopped himself. “Thanks,” he said, instead.
We had hit the quays and were heading towards the M1. The wind was blasting up the Liffey from the sea, making the pedestrians lean into it heads first. When the traffic jammed up—some wanker in a 4x4 who hadn’t noticed, or cared, that he wouldn’t make it through the intersection—I found my BlackBerry and texted my sister Geraldine. Geri, URGENT favor. Can you go get Dina from work ASAP? If she gives out about losing her hours, tell her I’ll cover the money. Don’t worry, she’s fine as far as I know, but she should stay with you for a couple of days. Will ring you later. Thanks. The Super was right: I had maybe a couple of hours before the media were all over Broken Harbor, and vice versa. Dina is the baby; Geri and I still look out for her. When she heard this story, she needed to be somewhere safe.
Richie ignored the texting, which was good, and watched the GPS instead. He said, “Out of town, yeah?”
“Brianstown. Heard of it?”
He shook his head. “Name like that, it’s got to be one of those new estates.”
“Right. Up the coast. It used to be a village called Broken Harbor, but it sounds like someone’s developed it since.” The wanker in the 4x4 had managed to get out of everyone’s way, and the traffic was moving again. One of the upsides of the recession: now that half the cars are off the roads, those of us who still have somewhere to go can actually get there. “Tell me something. What’s the worst thing you’ve seen on the job?”
Richie shrugged. “I worked traffic for ages, before Motor Vehicles. I saw some pretty bad stuff. Accidents.”
All of them think that. I’m sure I thought it too, once upon a time. “No, old son. You didn’t. That tells me just how innocent you are. It’s no fun seeing a kid with his head split open because some moron took a bend too fast, but it’s nothing compared to seeing a kid with his head split open because some prick deliberately smacked him off a wall till he stopped breathing. So far, you’ve only seen what bad luck can do to people. You’re about to take your first good look at what people can do to each other. Believe me: not the same thing.”
Richie asked, “Is this a kid? That we’re going to?”
“It’s a family. Father, mother and two kids. The wife might make it. The rest are gone.”
His hands had gone motionless on his knees. It was the first time I’d seen him absolutely still. “Ah, sweet Jaysus. What age kids?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What happened to them?”
“It looks like they were stabbed. In their home, probably sometime last night.”
“That’s rotten, that is. That’s only bloody rotten.” Richie’s face was pulled into a grimace.
“Yeah,” I said, “it is. And by the time we get to the scene, you need to be over that. Rule Number One, and you can write this down: no emotions on scene. Count to ten, say the rosary, make sick jokes, do whatever you need to do. If you need a few tips on coping, ask me now.”
“I’m all right.”
“You’d better be. The wife’s sister is out there, and she’s not interested in how much you care. She just needs to know you’re on top of this.”
“I am on top of it.”
“Good. Have a read.”
I passed him the call sheet and gave him thirty seconds to skim it. His face changed when he concentrated: he looked older, and smarter. “When we get out there,” I said, once his time was up, “what’s the first question you’re going to want to ask the uniforms?”
“The weapon. Has it been found at the scene?”
“Why not ‘Any signs of forced entry?’”
“Someone could fake those.”
I said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. By ‘someone,’ you mean Patrick or Jennifer Spain.”
The wince was small enough that I could have missed it, if I hadn’t been watching for it. “Anyone who had access. A relative, or a mate. Anyone they’d let in.”
“That’s not what you had in mind, though, was it? You were thinking of the Spains.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“It happens, old son. No point pretending it doesn’t. The fact that Jennifer Spain survived puts her front and center. On the other hand, when it plays out like this, it’s usually the father: a woman just takes out the kids and herself, a man goes for the whole family. Either way, though, they don’t normally bother to fake forced entry. They’re way past caring about that.”
“Still. I figure we can decide that for ourselves, once the Bureau gets there; we won’t be taking the uniforms’ word for it. The weapon, though: I’d want to know about that straightaway.”
“Good man. That’s top of the list for the uniforms, all right. And what’s the first thing you’ll want to ask the sister?”
“Whether anyone had anything against Jennifer Spain. Or Patrick Spain.”
“Well, sure, but that’s something we’re going to ask everyone we can find. What do you want to ask Fiona Rafferty, specifically?”
He shook his head.
“No? Personally, I’d be very interested to hear what she’s doing there.”
“It says—” Richie held up the call sheet. “The two of them talked every day. She couldn’t get through.”
“So? Think about the timing, Richie. Let’s say they normally talk at, what, nine o’clock, once the hubbies are off to work and the kids are off to school—”
“Or once they’re in work themselves, the women. They could have jobs.”
“Jennifer Spain didn’t, or the sister’s problem would have been ‘She’s not in work,’ not ‘I couldn’t get through.’ So Fiona rings Jennifer at nine-ish, maybe half past eight at the earliest—up until then, they’d still be busy getting their day underway. And at ten thirty-six”—I tapped the call sheet—“she’s in Brianstown calling the uniforms. I don’t know where Fiona Rafferty lives, or where she works, but I do know Brianstown is a good hour’s drive away from just about anything. In other words, when Jennifer’s an hour late for their morning chat—and that’s an hour maximum, it could be a lot less—Fiona gets panicked enough to drop everything and haul her arse out to the back of beyond. That sounds a lot like overreacting to me. I don’t know about you, my man, but I’d love to know what had her knickers in such a twist.”
“She mightn’t be an hour away. Maybe she lives next door, just called round to see what the story was.”
“Then why drive? If she’s too far away to walk, then she’s far enough away that her going over there is odd. And here’s Rule Number Two: when someone’s behavior is odd, that’s a little present just for you, and you don’t let go of it till you’ve got it unwrapped. This isn’t Motor Vehicles, Richie. In this gig, you don’t get to say, ‘Ah, sure, it’s probably not important, she was just in a funny mood that day, let’s forget it.’ Ever.”
There was the kind of silence that meant the conversation wasn’t over. Finally Richie said, “I’m a good detective.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re going to be an excellent detective, someday. But right now, you’ve still got just about everything left to learn.”
“Whether I wear ties or not.”
I said, “You’re not fifteen, chum. Dressing like a mugger doesn’t make you a big daring threat to the Establishment; it just makes you a prat.”
Richie fingered the thin cloth of his shirt front. He said, picking his words carefully, “I know the Murder lads aren’t usually from where I’m from. Everyone else comes from farmers, yeah? Or from teachers. I’m not what anyone expects. I understand that.”
&nbs
p; His eyes, when I glanced across, were green and level. I said, “It doesn’t matter where you come from. There’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t waste your energy thinking about it. What matters is where you’re going. And that, mate, is something you can control.”
“I know that. I’m here, amn’t I?”
“And it’s my job to help you get further. One of the ways you take charge of where you’re going is by acting like you’re already there. Do you follow me?”
He looked blank.
“Put it this way. Why do you think we’re driving a Beemer?”
Richie shrugged. “Figured you liked the car.”
I took a hand off the wheel to point a finger at him. “You figured my ego liked the car, you mean. Don’t fool yourself: it’s not that simple. These aren’t shoplifters we’re going after, Richie. Murderers are the big fish in this pond. What they do is a big deal. If we tool up to the scene in a beat-up ’95 Toyota, it looks disrespectful; like we don’t think the victims deserve our best. That puts people’s backs up. Is that how you want to start off?”
“No.”
“No, it’s not. And, on top of that, a beat-up old Toyota would make us look like a pair of losers. That matters, my man. Not just to my ego. If the bad guys see a pair of losers, they feel like their balls are bigger than ours, and that makes it harder to break them down. If the good guys see a pair of losers, they figure we’ll never solve this case, so why should they bother trying to help us? And if we see a pair of losers every time we look in the mirror, what do you think happens to our odds of winning?”
“They go down. I guess.”
“Bingo. If you want to come out a success, Richie, you cannot go in smelling of failure. Do you get what I’m saying here?”
He touched the knot in his new tie. “Dress better. Basically.”
“Except that it’s not basic, old son. There’s nothing basic about it. The rules are there for a reason. Before you go breaking them, you might want to have a think about what that reason might be.”
I hit the M1 and opened up wide, letting the Beemer do her thing. Richie glanced at the speedometer, but I knew without looking that I was bang on the limit, not a single mile over, and he kept his mouth shut. Probably he was thinking what a boring bollix I was. Plenty of people think the same thing. All of them are teenagers, mentally if not physically. Only teenagers think boring is bad. Adults, grown men and women who’ve been around the block a few times, know that boring is a gift straight from God. Life has more than enough excitement up its sleeve, ready to hit you with as soon as you’re not looking, without you adding to the drama. If Richie didn’t know that already, he was about to find out.
* * *
I’m a big believer in development—blame the property developers and their tame bankers and politicians for this recession if you want, but the fact is, if it wasn’t for them thinking big, we’d never have got out of the last one. I’d rather see an apartment block any day, all charged up with people who go out to work every morning and keep this country buzzing and then come home to the nice little places they’ve earned, than a field doing bugger-all good to anyone except a couple of cows. Places are like people are like sharks: if they stop moving, they die. But everyone has one place that they like to think is never going to change.
I used to know Broken Harbor like the back of my hand, when I was a skinny little guy with home-cut hair and mended jeans. Kids nowadays grew up on sun holidays during the boom, two weeks in the Costa del Sol is their bare minimum. But I’m forty-two and our generation had low expectations. A few days by the Irish Sea in a rented caravan put you ahead of the pack.
Broken Harbor was nowhere, back then. A dozen scattered houses full of families named Whelan or Lynch who’d been there since evolution began, a shop called Lynch’s and a pub called Whelan’s, and a handful of caravan spaces, just a fast barefoot run over slipping sand dunes and between tufts of marram grass to the cream-colored sweep of beach. We got two weeks there every June, in a rusty four-bunker that my dad booked a year in advance. Geri and I got the top bunks; Dina got stuck on the bottom, opposite my parents. Geri got first pick because she was the oldest, but she always wanted the land-facing side so she could see the ponies in the field behind us. That meant I got to open my eyes every morning on white lines of sea foam and leggy birds dashing along the sand, all of it glinting in the early light.
The three of us were up and out at daybreak with a slice of bread and sugar in each hand. We had all-day games of pirates with the kids from the other caravans, went freckly and peeling from salt and windburn and the odd hour of sunshine. For tea my mother would fry up eggs and sausages on a camping stove, and afterwards my father would send us to Lynch’s for ice creams. We’d come back to find my mum sitting on his lap, leaning her head into the curve of his neck and smiling dreamily out at the water; he’d wind her hair around his free hand, so the sea breeze wouldn’t whip it into her ice cream. I waited all year to see them look like that.
Once I got the Beemer off the main roads I started remembering the route, like I had known I would, just a faded sketch at the back of my head: past this clump of trees—taller, now—left at that kink in the stone wall. Right where the water should have risen into view over a low green hill, though, the estate came charging up out of nowhere and blocked our way like a barricade: rows of slate roofs and white gables stretching for what looked like miles in either direction, behind a high breeze-block wall. The signboard at the entrance said, in flamboyant curly lettering the size of my head, WELCOME TO OCEAN VIEW, BRIANSTOWN. A NEW REVELATION IN PREMIER LIVING. LUXURY HOUSES NOW VIEWING. Someone had spray painted a big red cock and balls over it.
At first glance, Ocean View looked pretty tasty: big detached houses that gave you something substantial for your money, trim strips of green, quaint signposts pointing you towards LITTLE GEMS CHILDCARE and DIAMONDCUT LEISURE CENTER. Second glance, the grass needed weeding and there were gaps in the footpaths. Third glance, something was wrong.
The houses were too much alike. Even on the ones where a triumphant red-and-blue sign yelled SOLD, no one had painted the front door a crap color, put flowerpots on the windowsills or tossed plastic kiddie toys on the lawn. There was a scattering of parked cars, but most of the driveways were empty, and not in a way that said everyone was out powering the economy. You could look straight through three out of four houses, to bare rear windows and gray patches of sky. A heavyset girl in a red anorak was shoving a buggy along a footpath, wind grabbing at her hair. She and her moon-faced kid could have been the only people within miles.
“Jaysus,” Richie said; in the silence his voice was loud enough that both of us jumped. “The village of the damned.”
The call sheet said 9 Ocean View Rise, which would have made more sense if the Irish Sea had been an ocean or even if it had been visible, but I guess you make the most of whatever you’ve got. The GPS was getting out of its depth: it took us down Ocean View Drive, dead-ended us down Ocean View Grove—which hit the trifecta by having no trees anywhere in sight—and informed us, “You have reached your destination. Good-bye.”
I did a U-turn and went looking. As we got deeper into the estate, the houses got sketchier, like watching a film in reverse. Pretty soon they were random collections of walls and scaffolding, with the odd gaping hole for a window; where the housefronts were missing the rooms were littered with broken ladders, lengths of pipe, rotting cement bags. Every time we turned a corner I expected to see a swarm of builders at work, but the nearest we got was a battered yellow digger in a vacant lot, listing sideways among churned-up mud and scattered mounds of dirt.
No one lived here. I tried to aim us back in the general direction of the entrance, but the estate was built like one of those old hedge mazes, all cul-de-sacs and hairpin turns, and almost straightaway we were lost. A tiny dart of panic shot through me. I’ve never liked los
ing my bearings.
I pulled up at an intersection—reflex: it wasn’t like anyone was going to dash out in front of me—and in the quiet where the noise of the motor had been, we heard the deep boom of the sea. Then Richie’s head went up. He said, “What’s that?”
It was a short, raw, ripped-open shriek, repeating over and over, so regular it sounded mechanical. It spread out across mud and concrete and bounced off unfinished walls till it could have come from anywhere, or everywhere. As far as I could tell, that and the sea were the only sounds on the estate.
I said, “I’m going to bet that’s the sister.”
He gave me a look like he thought I was yanking his chain. “That’s a fox or something. Run over, maybe.”
“And here I thought you were Mr. Streetwise who knew just how bad this was going to be. You’re going to need to brace yourself, Richie. Big time.”
I rolled down a window and followed the sound. The echoes led me off course a few times, but we knew it when we saw it. One side of Ocean View Rise was pristine, bay-windowed white semi-ds lined up in pairs, neat as dominoes; the other side was scaffolding and rubble. Between the dominoes, over the estate wall, slivers of gray sea moved. A couple of the houses had a car or two in front of them, but one house had three: a white Volvo hatchback that had Family written all over it, a yellow Fiat Seicento that had seen better days, and a marked car. There was blue-and-white crime-scene tape along the low garden wall.
I meant what I said to Richie: in this job everything matters, down to the way you open your car door. Long before I say Word One to a witness, or a suspect, he needs to know that Mick Kennedy is in the house and that I’ve got this case by the balls. Some of it is luck—I’ve got height, I’ve got a full head of hair and it’s still ninety-nine percent dark brown, I’ve got decent looks if I say so myself, and all those things help—but I’ve put practice and treadmill time into the rest. I kept up my speed till the last second, braked hard, swung myself and my briefcase out of the car in one smooth move and headed for the house at a swift, efficient pace. Richie would learn to keep up.
