by Tana French
He had gone even whiter. Some sadistic part of me, creeping out of its dark storeroom because I had no energy left to keep it locked away, was loving the sight of him. He asked, “What do we do?”
His voice shook. His palms were upturned towards me, like I was the shining hero who could fix this hideous mess, make it all go away. I said, “We don’t do anything. You go home.”
Richie watched me, uncertain, trying to work out what I meant. The cold room had him shivering in his shirtsleeves, but he didn’t seem to notice. I said, “Get your things and go home. Stay there till I tell you to come back in. You can use the time to think about how you’ll justify your actions to the Super, if you want, although I doubt it’ll make much difference.”
“What are you going to do?”
I stood up, leaning my weight on the table like an old man. “That’s not your problem.”
After a moment, Richie asked, “What’ll happen to me?”
It was one small thing to his credit, that this was the first time he had asked. I said, “You’ll be reverted back to uniform. You’ll stay there.”
I was still staring down at my hands planted on the table, but in my peripheral vision I could see him nodding, repetitive meaningless nods, trying to take in everything that that meant. I said, “You were right. We worked well together. We would have made good partners.”
“Yeah,” Richie said. The tide of grief in his voice almost rocked me on my feet. “We would.”
He picked up his sheaf of reports and got up, but he didn’t move towards the door. I didn’t look up. After a minute he said, “I want to apologize. I know that counts for fuck-all, at this stage, but still: I’m really, really sorry. For everything.”
I said, “Go home.”
I kept staring at my hands, till they slipped out of focus and turned into strange white things crouched on the table, deformed and maggoty, waiting to pounce. Finally I heard the door close. The light raked at me from every direction, ricocheted off the envelope’s plastic window to spike at my eyes. I had never been in a room that felt so savagely bright, or so empty.
18
There have been so many of them. Run-down rooms in tiny mountain-country stations, smelling of mold and feet; sitting rooms crammed with flowered upholstery, simpering holy cards, all the shining medals of respectability; council-flat kitchens where the baby whined through a bottle of Coke and the ashtray overflowed onto the cereal-crusted table; our own interview rooms, still as sanctuaries, so familiar that blindfolded I could have put my hand on that piece of graffiti, that crack in the wall. They are the rooms where I have come eye to eye with a killer and said, You. You did this.
I remember every one. I save them up, a deck of richly colored collector’s cards to be kept in velvet and thumbed through when the day has been too long for sleep. I know whether the air was cool or warm against my skin, how light soaked into worn yellow paint or ignited the blue of a mug, whether the echoes of my voice slid up into high corners or fell muffled by heavy curtains and shocked china ornaments. I know the grain of wooden chairs, the drift of a cobweb, the soft drip of a tap, the give of carpet under my shoes. In my father’s house there are many mansions: if somehow I earn one, it will be the one I have built out of these rooms.
I have always loved simplicity. With you, everything’s black and white, Richie had said, like an accusation; but the truth is that almost every murder case is, if not simple, capable of simplicity, and that this is not only necessary but breathtaking, that if there are miracles then this is one. In these rooms, the world’s vast hissing tangle of shadows burns away, all its treacherous grays are honed to the stark purity of a bare blade, two-edged: cause and effect, good and evil. To me, these rooms are beautiful. I go into them the way a boxer goes into the ring: intent, invincible, home.
Jenny Spain’s hospital room was the only one I have ever been afraid of. I couldn’t tell whether it was because the darkness inside was honed sharper than I had ever touched, or because something told me that it hadn’t been honed at all, that those shadows were still crisscrossing and multiplying, and this time there was no way to make them stop.
They were both there, Jenny and Fiona. Their heads turned to the door when I opened it, but no conversation cut off in mid-sentence: they hadn’t been talking, just sitting there, Fiona by the bedside in an undersized plastic chair, her hand and Jenny’s clasped together on the threadbare blanket. They stared at me, thin faces worn away in grooves where the pain was settling in to stay, blank blue eyes. Someone had found a way to wash Jenny’s hair—without the straighteners, it was soft and flyaway as a little girl’s—and her fake tan had worn away, leaving her even paler than Fiona. For the first time I saw a resemblance there.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” I said. “Ms. Rafferty, I need a few words with Mrs. Spain.”
Fiona’s hand clamped tight around Jenny’s. “I’ll stay.”
She knew. “I’m afraid that’s not an option,” I said.
“Then she doesn’t want to talk to you. She’s not in any state to talk, anyway. I’m not going to let you bully her.”
“I don’t plan to bully anyone. If Mrs. Spain wants a solicitor to be present during the interview, she can request one, but I can’t have anyone else in the room. I’m sure you understand that.”
Jenny disengaged her hand, gently, and put Fiona’s on the arm of the chair. “It’s OK,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.”
“I am. Honestly, I am.” The doctors had dialed down the painkillers. Jenny’s movements still had an underwater quality and her face looked unnaturally calm, almost slack, as if some crucial muscles had been severed; but her eyes were focusing, and the words came out slow and thin but clear. She was lucid enough to give a statement, if I got her that far. “Go on, Fi. Come back in a bit.”
I held the door open till Fiona got up, reluctantly, and pulled her coat off the chair. As she put it on I said, “Please do come back. I’ll need to talk with you, as well, once your sister and I are done here. It’s important.”
Fiona didn’t answer. Her eyes were still on Jenny. When Jenny nodded, Fiona brushed past me and headed off down the corridor. I waited till I was sure she was gone before I closed the door.
I put my briefcase down by the bed, took off my coat and arranged it on the back of the door, pulled the chair so close to Jenny that my knees nudged her blanket. She watched me tiredly, incuriously, like I was another doctor bustling around her with things that beeped and flashed and hurt. The thick pad of bandage on her cheek had been replaced by a slim, neat strip; she was wearing something soft and blue, a T-shirt or a pajama top, with long sleeves that wrapped around her hands. A thin rubber tube ran from a hanging IV bag into one sleeve. Outside the window, a tall tree spun pinwheels of glowing leaves against a thin-stretched blue sky.
“Mrs. Spain,” I said. “I think we need to talk.”
She watched me, leaning her head back on the pillow. She was waiting patiently for me to finish and go away, leave her to hypnotize herself with the moving leaves until she could dissolve into them, a flicker of tossed light, a breath of breeze, gone.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Better. Thanks.”
She looked better. Her lips were parched from hospital air, but the thick hoarseness had faded from her voice, leaving it high and sweet as a girl’s, and her eyes weren’t red any more: she had stopped crying. If she had been distraught, howling, I would have been less frightened for her. “That’s good to hear,” I said. “When are the doctors planning to let you go home?”
“They said maybe day after tomorrow. Maybe the day after that.”
I had less than forty-eight hours. The ticking clock, and the nearness of her, were hammering at me to hurry. “Mrs. Spain,” I said, “I came to tell you that there’s been some progress i
n the investigation. We’ve arrested someone for the attack on you and your family.”
That ignited a startled sputter of life in Jenny’s eyes. I said, “Your sister didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head. “You’ve . . . ? Arrested who?”
“This may come as a bit of a shock, Mrs. Spain. It’s someone you know—someone you were very close to, for a long time.” The sputter caught, flared into fear. “Can you tell me any reason why Conor Brennan would want to hurt your family?”
“Conor?”
“We’ve arrested him for the crimes. He’ll be charged this weekend. I’m sorry.”
“Oh my God— No. No no no. You’ve got it all wrong. Conor would never hurt us. He’d never hurt anyone.” Jenny was struggling to lift herself off the pillow; one hand stretched towards mine, tendons standing out like an old woman’s, and I saw those broken nails. “You have to let him out.”
“Believe it or not,” I said, “I’m with you on this one: I don’t think Conor is a killer either. Unfortunately, though, all the evidence points to him, and he’s confessed to the crimes.”
“Confessed?”
“I can’t ignore that. Unless someone can give me concrete proof that Conor didn’t kill your family, I’ve got no choice but to file the charges against him—and believe me, the case will stand up in court. He’s going to prison for a very long time.”
“I was there. It wasn’t him. Is that concrete enough?”
I said gently, “I thought you didn’t remember that night.”
That only threw her for a second. “I don’t. And if it had been Conor, I’d remember that. So it wasn’t.”
I said, “We’re past that kind of game, Mrs. Spain. I’m almost sure I know what happened that night. I’m very sure that you do. And I’m pretty sure that no one else alive does, except Conor. That makes you the only person who can get him off the hook. Unless you want him convicted of murder, you need to tell me what happened.”
Tears started in Jenny’s eyes. She blinked them back. “I don’t remember.”
“Take a minute and think about what you’ll be doing to Conor if you keep that up. He cares about you. He’s loved you and Pat for a very long time—I think you know just how much he loves you. How will he feel, if he finds out you’re willing to let him spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn’t do?”
Her mouth wobbled, and for a second I thought I had her, but then it set hard. “He won’t go to prison. He didn’t do anything wrong. You’ll see.”
I waited, but she was done. Richie and I had been right. She was planning her note. She cared about Conor, but her chance at death meant more to her than anyone left alive.
I leaned over to my briefcase, flicked it open and pulled out Emma’s drawing, the one we had found stashed away in Conor’s flat. I laid it on the blanket on Jenny’s lap. For a second I thought I smelled the cool harvest sweetness of wood and apples.
Jenny’s eyes slammed tight. When they opened she stared out the window again, her body twisted away from the drawing as if it might leap for her.
I said, “Emma drew this the day before she died.”
That spasm again, jerking her eyes closed. Then nothing. She gazed at the leaves turning the light, like I wasn’t there.
“This animal in the tree. What is it?”
Nothing at all, this time. Everything Jenny had left was going into shutting me out. Soon she wouldn’t hear me any more.
I leaned in, so close I could smell the chemical flowers of her shampoo. The nearness of her made the hairs on the back of my neck rise in a slow cold wave. It was like leaning cheek to cheek with a wraith. “Mrs. Spain,” I said. I put my finger on the plastic evidence envelope, on the sinuous black thing draped along a branch. It smiled out at me, orange-eyed, mouth wide to show triangular white teeth. “Look at the drawing, Mrs. Spain. Tell me what this is.”
My breath on her cheek made her lashes flicker. “A cat.”
That was what I had thought. I couldn’t believe I had ever seen it like that, as some soft, harmless thing. “You don’t have a cat. Neither do any of your neighbors.”
“Emma wanted one. So she drew one.”
“That doesn’t look like a cuddly house pet to me. That looks like a wild animal. Something savage. Not something any little girl would want snuggled up on her bed. What is it, Mrs. Spain? Mink? Wolverine? What?”
“I don’t know. Something Emma made up. What does it matter?”
“It matters because, from everything I’ve heard about Emma, she liked pretty things. Soft, fluffy, pink things. So where did she come up with something like this?”
“I don’t have a clue. School, maybe. On the telly.”
“No, Mrs. Spain. She found this at home.”
“No she didn’t. I wouldn’t let my kids near some wild animal. Go ahead: look through our house. You won’t find anything like that.”
I said, “I’ve already found it. Did you know Pat was posting to internet discussion boards?”
Jenny’s head whipped around so fast I flinched. She stared at me, eyes frozen wide. “No he wasn’t.”
“We’ve found his posts.”
“No you haven’t. It’s the internet; anyone can say they’re anyone. Pat didn’t go online. Only to e-mail his brother and look for jobs.”
She had started shaking, a tiny unstoppable tremor that juddered her head and her hands. I said, “We found the posts via your home computer, Mrs. Spain. Someone tried to delete the internet history, but he didn’t do a very good job: it took our lads no time to get the info back. For months before he died, Pat was looking for ways to catch, or at least identify, the predator living inside his walls.”
“That was a joke. He was bored, he had time on his hands—he was messing about, just to see what people online would say. That’s all.”
“And the wolf trap in your attic? The holes in your walls? The video monitors? Were those jokes too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. The holes in the walls just happened, those houses are built from crap, they’re all falling to bits—the monitors, those were just Pat and the kids playing, just to see if—”
“Mrs. Spain,” I said, “listen to me. We’re the only ones here. I’m not recording anything. I haven’t cautioned you. Anything you say can never be used as evidence.”
Plenty of detectives take this gamble on a regular basis, betting that if the suspect talks once, the second time will come easier, or that the unusable confession will point them towards something they can use. I don’t like gambles, but I had nothing and no time to lose. Jenny was never going to give me a confession under caution, not in a hundred years. I had nothing to offer her that she wanted more than the sweet cold of razor blades, the cleansing fire of ant poison, the calling sea, and nothing to brandish that was more terrifying than the thought of sixty years on this earth.
If her mind had held even the smallest chance of a future, she would have had no reason to tell me anything at all, whether or not it could send her to prison. But this is what I know about people getting ready to walk off the edges of their own lives: they want someone to know how they got there. Maybe they want to know that when they dissolve into earth and water, that last fragment will be saved, held in some corner of someone’s mind; or maybe all they want is a chance to dump it pulsing and bloody into someone else’s hands, so it won’t weigh them down on the journey. They want to leave their stories behind. No one in all the world knows that better than I do.
That was the one thing I had to offer Jenny Spain: a place to put her story. I would have sat there while that blue sky dimmed into night, sat there while over the hills in Broken Harbor the grinning jack-o’-lanterns faded and the Christmas lights started to flash out their defiant celebrations, if that was how long it took her to tell me. As long as
she was talking, she was alive.
Silence, while Jenny let that move around her mind. The shaking had stopped. Slowly her hands uncurled from the soft sleeves and reached out for the drawing on her lap; her fingers moved like a blind woman’s over the four yellow heads, the four smiles, the block-lettered EMMA in the bottom corner.
She said, just a thin thread of whisper trickling through the still air, “It was getting out.”
Slowly, so as not to spook her, I leaned back in my chair and gave her room. It was only when I moved back that I realized how hard I had been trying not to breathe the air around her, and how light-headed it had left me. “Let’s go from the beginning,” I said. “How did it start?”
Jenny’s head moved on the pillow, heavily, from side to side. “If I knew that, I could’ve stopped it. I’ve been lying here just thinking and thinking, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“When did you first notice that something was bothering Pat?”
“Way back. Ages ago. May? The start of June? I’d say something to him and he wouldn’t answer; when I looked at him, he’d be there staring into space, like he was listening for something. Or the kids would start making noise, and Pat would whip round and go, ‘Shut up!’—and when I asked him what the problem was, because that totally wasn’t like him, he’d be like, ‘Nothing, just I should be able to get some bloody peace and quiet in my own home, that’s the only problem.’ It was just tiny stuff—no one else would have even noticed—and he said he was fine, but I knew Pat. I knew him inside out. I knew there was something wrong.”
I said, “But you didn’t know what it was.”
“How would I have known?” Jenny’s voice had a sudden defensive edge. “He’d said a few times about hearing scratching noises up in the attic, but I never heard anything. I thought probably it was a bird going in and out. I didn’t think it was a big deal—like, why would it be? I figured Pat was depressed about being out of work.”
Meanwhile, Pat had slowly turned more and more afraid that she thought he was hearing things. He had taken it for granted that the animal was preying on her mind too. I said, “Unemployment had been getting to him?”
