Ryan - 04 - Broken Harbour

by Tana French

  I said, “And they’re vicious little bastards. They’d attack a kid, no problem. If you had one in your house, you’d be bloody serious about getting rid of it. Am I right?”

  Tom did something noncommittal with his head. “I guess, yeah. They’re crazy aggressive—I’ve heard of mink going for a fifty-pound lamb, eating straight through the eye socket into the brain, moving on to the next one, taking out a couple of dozen in one night. And when they’re cornered, they’ll take on anything. So yeah, you wouldn’t be too happy about one moving in. I’m not totally convinced that’s what we’ve got, though. They’re maybe the size of a big house cat, tops. No reason why they’d need to enlarge the entry hole, no way they could leave those claw marks, and no reason you’d need a trap that size to catch them.”

  I said, “Those aren’t deal breakers. According to you, we can’t assume the animal in the attic was responsible for either the hole or the beam. As for the trap, our vic didn’t know what he was hunting, so he erred on the side of caution. A mink’s still in the running.”

  Tom examined me with mild surprise, and I realized there had been a bite to my voice. “Well, yeah. I mean, I can’t even swear anything was ever in here, so nothing’s a deal breaker; it’s all hypothetical, yeah? I’m just saying which pieces could fit where.”

  “Great. And plenty of them fit with a mink. Any other possibilities?”

  “Your other maybe is an otter. The sea’s right there, and they’ve got massive territories, so one of them could live down on the beach and count this house as part of his range. They’re big buggers, too, like two or three feet long, maybe twenty pounds: an otter could’ve left those marks on the beam, and he might’ve needed to enlarge that access hole. And they can get kind of playful, so those rolling noises would make sense—if it found, like, one of those candleholders or those kiddie toys or something, and it was batting it around the attic floor . . .”

  “Three feet, twenty pounds,” I said, to Richie. “Running around your home, right above your kids. That sounds like something that could get a reasonable, sane guy fairly worried. Am I right?”

  “Whoa,” Tom said placidly, holding up his hands. “Slow down. It’s not, like, a perfect fit. Otters scent-mark, all right, but they do it with droppings, and your guy didn’t find any. I had a nose around, and I can’t see any either. None in the attic, none under the attic floor, none in the garden.”

  Even outside the attic, the house felt restless, infested. The wall at my back, the thought of how thin the plaster was, made me itch. I said, “And I didn’t smell anything, either. Did you?” Richie and Tom shook their heads. “So maybe it wasn’t droppings that Pat smelled: it was the otter itself, and now it hasn’t been around in a while, so the scent’s faded.”

  “Could be. They smell, all right. But . . . I don’t know, man.” Tom squinted off into the distance, working one finger in between the dreadlocks to scratch his scalp. “It’s not just the scent thing. This whole deal, this isn’t otter behavior. End of story. They’re seriously not climbers—I mean, I’ve heard of otters climbing, but that’s like headline news, you know what I mean? Even if it did, something that size going up and down the side of a house, you’ve gotta figure it’ll get seen. And they’re wild. They’re not like rats or foxes, the urbanized stuff that’s OK with living right up against humans. Otters stay away from us. If you’ve got an otter here, he’s a fucking weirdo. He’s the one that the other otters tell their cubs to stay out of his garden.”

  Richie tilted his chin at the hole above the skirting board. “You’ve seen these, yeah?”

  Tom nodded. “Freaky or what? The vics had the whole place this fancy, all their shit matched, but they were OK with massive holes in their walls? People are weird.”

  “Could an otter have made those? Or a mink?”

  Tom squatted on his haunches and examined the hole, cocking his head at different angles, like he had all week. “Maybe,” he said, in the end. “It’d help if we had some debris left, so we could at least tell whether these were made from inside the walls or outside, but your vics were serious about cleanup. Someone’s even sanded down the edges—see there?—so if there were claw marks or tooth marks, they’re gone. Like I said: weird.”

  I said, “I’ll ask our next vics to be sure and live in a hovel. Meanwhile, work with what we’ve got.”

  “No hassle,” Tom said cheerfully. “Mink, I’ve gotta say they couldn’t do it. They’re not really into digging, unless they have to, and with those little paws . . .” He waved his hands. “The plaster’s pretty thin, but still, it’d take them ages to get that kind of damage done. Otters dig, and they’re strong, so yeah, an otter could’ve done it, easy. Except somewhere along the way he’d get stuck inside the wall, or he’d chew on an electrical wire and bzzt, otter barbecue. So maybe yeah, but probably no. Does that help?”

  “You’ve been a great help,” I said. “Thanks. We’ll let you know if any more info comes in.”

  “Oh yeah,” Tom said, straightening and giving me a double thumbs-up and a big grin. “This is some mad shit, yeah? Love to see more.”

  I said, “I’m delighted we could make your day. I’ll take that key, if you don’t have plans for it.”

  I held out my hand. Tom pulled a tangle of crap out of his pocket, picked out the padlock key and dropped it into my palm. “Pleasure’s all mine,” he said cheerfully, and bounced off down the stairs, dreadlocks flapping.

  At the gate, Richie said, “I’d say the uniforms left copies of that key at HQ for us, no?”

  We were watching Tom slouch off to his car, which inevitably was a green VW camper van in urgent need of a coat of paint. “They probably did,” I said. “I didn’t want that little tosser bringing his mink-spotting mates on a tour of the scene. ‘Like, dude, how totally cool is that?’ This isn’t bloody entertainment.”

  “Techs,” Richie said absently. “You know what they’re like. Larry’s the same, sure.”

  “That’s different. A teenager is what this guy’s like. He needs to cop himself on and grow up. Or maybe I’m just not down with the kids these days.”

  “So,” Richie said, digging his hands deep into his pockets. He wasn’t looking at me. “The holes, yeah? Not subsidence. And not any animal that your man can put his finger on.”

  “That’s not what he said.”

  “Just about.”

  “‘Just about’ doesn’t count in this game. According to Dr. Dolittle over there, mink and otter are both still in.”

  Richie said, “Do you think one of those did the job? Honest to God, like. Do you?”

  The air held the first whiff of winter; in the half-houses across the road, the kids trying to get themselves killed were wearing padded jackets and woolly hats. “I don’t know,” I said. “And honest to God, I don’t really care, because even if Pat made the holes, I don’t see how that makes him a homicidal maniac. Like I asked you inside: let’s say you had twenty pounds’ worth of mystery animal running around your attic. Or let’s say you had one of the most crazy aggressive predators in Ireland hanging out right above your son’s bed. Would you be willing to bash a couple of holes in your walls, if you thought that was your best shot at getting rid of this thing? Would that mean there was something wrong with your mind?”

  “That wouldn’t be your best shot, but. Poison—”

  “Say you’d tried poison, and the animal was too smart to take it. Or, even more likely: say the poison worked just fine, but the animal died somewhere down inside your walls, you couldn’t work out exactly where. Then would you get out the hammer? Would that mean you were fucked-up enough to slaughter your own family?”

  Tom started up his van, which belched out a cloud of non-wildlife-friendly fumes, and waved out the window to us as he headed off. Richie waved back automatically, and I saw those skinny shoulders rise and fall in a deep brea
th. He checked his watch and said, “Have we got time for that word with the Gogans, yeah?”

  * * *

  The Gogans’ front window had sprouted a bunch of plastic bats and, with the level of taste I would have expected, a life-sized plastic skeleton. The door opened fast: someone had been watching us.

  Gogan was a big guy, with a wobbly belly hanging over his navy tracksuit bottoms and a preemptive head shave, and he was where Jayden had got that flat-eyed stare. He said, “What?”

  I said, “I’m Detective Kennedy, and this is Detective Curran. Mr. . . . ?”

  “Mr. Gogan. What d’you want?”

  Mr. Gogan was Niall Gogan, he was thirty-two, he had an eight-year-old conviction for chucking a bottle through the window of his local, he had driven a forklift in a warehouse off and on for most of his adult life and he was currently out of work, officially anyway. I said, “We’re investigating the deaths next door. Could we come in for a few minutes?”

  “You can talk to me here.”

  Richie said, “I promised Mrs. Gogan we’d keep her up to speed. She was worried, yeah? We’ve got a bit of news.”

  After a moment Gogan stepped back from the doorway. He said, “Make it quick. We’re busy.”

  This time we got the whole family. They had been watching some soap opera and eating something involving hard-boiled eggs and ketchup, going by the plates on the coffee table and by the smell. Jayden was sprawled on one sofa; Sinéad was on the other, with the baby propped up in a corner, sucking on a bottle. The kid was living proof of Sinéad’s virtue: the spit of its dad, bald head and pale stare and all.

  I moved to one side and let Richie have center stage. “Mrs. Gogan,” he said, leaning over to shake hands. “Ah, no, don’t get up. Sorry to interrupt your evening, but I promised to keep you updated, didn’t I?”

  Sinéad was practically falling off the sofa with eagerness. “Have you got the fella, have you?”

  I moved to a corner armchair and got out my notebook—taking notes turns you invisible, if you do it right. Richie went for the other armchair, leaving Gogan to shove Jayden’s legs out of the way on the sofa. He said, “We’ve got a suspect in custody.”

  “Jaysus,” Sinéad breathed. That avid look was brightening her eyes. “Is he a psychopath?”

  Richie shook his head. “I can’t tell you a lot about him. The investigation’s still going on.”

  Sinéad stared at him with her mouth open, disgusted. The look on her face said, You made me mute the telly for this?

  Richie said, “I figured yous have a right to know this fella’s off the street. As soon as I can give you more, I will. Right now, though, we’re still trying to make sure we can keep him where he is, so we have to play it close to the chest.”

  Gogan said, “Thanks. Was that it, yeah?”

  Richie made a face and rubbed at the back of his head, looking like a bashful teenager. “Look . . . OK, here’s the story. I haven’t been doing this long, yeah? But I know one thing for definite: the best witness you can get is a smart young kid. They get everywhere, see everything. Kids don’t overlook stuff, the way adults do: anything that goes on, they spot it. So when I met your Jayden, I was only delighted.”

  Sinéad pointed a finger at him and started, “Jayden didn’t see—” but Richie raised his hands to cut her off.

  “Give us a sec, yeah? Just so I don’t lose my train of thought. See, I know Jayden thought he saw nothing, or he’d’ve told us last time we were here. But I figured, maybe he was thinking back, over the last couple of days. That’s the other thing about a smart kid: it all stays up here.” He tapped his temple. “I thought maybe, if I was lucky, something might’ve come back to him.”

  Everyone looked at Jayden. He said, “What?”

  “Did you remember anything that could help us out?”

  Jayden took just a second too long to shrug. Richie had been right: he knew something.

  “There’s your answer,” Gogan said.

  “Jayden,” Richie said. “I’ve got a load of little brothers. I know when a young fella’s keeping something to himself.”

  Jayden’s eyes slid sideways and up, to his father, asking.

  “There a reward?” Gogan wanted to know.

  This wasn’t the moment for the speech about the rewards of helping the community. Richie said, “Nothing so far, but I’ll let yous know if one gets offered. I know you don’t want your young fella mixed up in this—I wouldn’t either. All I can tell you is, the man who did this was going solo: he doesn’t have any pals who might go after witnesses, nothing like that. As long as he’s off the street, your family’s safe.”

  Gogan scratched the stubble under his chins and took that in, the unspoken part as well. “He mental, yeah?”

  That knack of Richie’s again: little by little, this was easing over the boundary between an interview and a conversation. Richie spread his hands. “Can’t talk about him, man. I’m only saying: you’ve gotta go out of the house sometimes, yeah? Work, interviews, meetings . . . It was me, I’d be happier leaving my family if I knew this guy was well out of the way.”

  Gogan eyed him and kept up the steady scratching. Sinéad snapped, “I’m telling you now, if there’s a mad serial killer running around, you can forget about going to the pub, I’m not staying here on my own waiting for some lunatic to—”

  Gogan glanced over at Jayden, who was slouching low on the sofa and watching with his mouth open, and jerked his head towards Richie. “Go on. Tell the man.”

  “Tell him what?” Jayden wanted to know.

  “Don’t act thick. Whatever he’s asking about.”

  Jayden sank deeper into the sofa and watched his toes dig into the carpet. He said, “There was just this guy. Like, ages ago.”

  Richie said, “Yeah? When?”

  “Before summer. At the end of school.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. Remembering the little things. I knew you were a smart one. June, yeah?”

  Shrug. “Probably.”

  “Where was he?”

  Jayden’s eyes went to his father again. Richie said, “Man, you’re doing something good here. You’re not gonna get in trouble.”

  Gogan said, “Tell him.”

  “I was in Number Eleven. Like, the one that’s attached to the murder house? I was—”

  Sinéad demanded, “What the fuck were you doing in there? I’ll bleeding clatter you—”

  She saw Richie’s lifted finger and subsided, chin shoved out at an angle that said all of us were in big trouble. Richie asked, “How’d you get into Number Eleven?”

  Jayden squirmed. His tracksuit made a farting noise on the fake leather and he snickered, but he stopped when no one joined in. Finally he said, “I was only messing. I had my keys, and . . . I was just messing, right? I just wanted to see if it worked.”

  Richie said, “You tried your keys on other houses?”

  Jayden shrugged. “Kind of.”

  “Fair play to you. That’s dead clever, that is. We never even thought of that.” And we should have: it would have been right in character for these builders, to pick up a cut-price lot of one-key-fits-all dud locks. “Do they all work on any house, yeah?”

  Jayden was sitting up straighter, starting to enjoy how smart he was. “Nah. The front door ones, they’re useless; ours didn’t work on anywhere else, and I tried loads. The back door one, though, right? It opens, like, half the—”

  Gogan said, “That’s enough. Shut up.”

  “Mr. Gogan,” Richie said. “I’m serious: he’s not in any trouble.”

  “D’you think I’m thick? If he’d been in other houses—and he wasn’t—it’d be breaking and entering.”

  “I’m not even thinking about that. No one else will, either. Do you know how much of a fa
vor your Jayden is after doing us? He’s helping us put away a murderer. I’m over the moon that he was messing about with that key.”

  Gogan stared him out of it. “You try coming back at him with something later on, he’ll take back every word.”

  Richie didn’t blink. “I won’t. Believe me. I wouldn’t let anyone else, either. This is way too important.”

  Gogan grunted and gave Jayden the nod. Jayden said, “Seriously? You guys never even thought of that?”

  Richie shook his head. “Thick,” Jayden said, under his breath.

  “This is what I’m talking about: we’re lucky we found you. What’s the story with the back door key?”

  “It opens, like, half the back doors around. I mean, obviously I didn’t try anywhere there’s people living”—Jayden tried to look virtuous; no one fell for it—“but the empty houses, like down the road and all up Ocean View Promenade, I got into loads. Easy. I can’t even believe no one else thought of it.”

  Richie said, “And it opens Number Eleven. That’s where you met this guy?”

  “Yeah. I was in there, like just hanging out, and he knocked on the back door—I guess he came over the garden wall, or something.” He had come from his hide. He had spotted an opportunity. “So I went out to him. I mean, I was bored. There was nothing to do in there.”

  Sinéad snapped, “What’ve I told you about talking to strangers? Serve you right if he got you in a van and—”

  Jayden rolled his eyes. “Duh, do I look stupid? If he’d tried to grab me, I would’ve run. I was only like two seconds from here.”

  Richie asked, “What did yous talk about?”

  Jayden shrugged. “Not much. He said what was I doing there. I said just hanging around. He said how did I get in. So I explained about the keys.”

  He had been showing off to impress the stranger with his cleverness, the same way he was showing off to impress Richie. “And what did he say?” Richie asked.

  “He said that was really smart. He said he wished he had a key like that. He lived down the other end of the estate, only his house was all flooded ’cause the pipes burst or something, so he was looking for an empty house where he could sleep till his got fixed.”