Broken Harbor

by Tana French

  Too little too late. The mortgage was three months in arrears and there were two letters from the lender—some cowboy-sounding outfit called HomeTime—the second one a lot nastier than the first. In June the Spains had swapped their bill-pay mobiles for pay-as-you-go, and both of them had more or less stopped calling people—four months’ worth of phone-credit receipts were paper-clipped together, barely enough to keep a teenage girl going for a week. The SUV had gone back where it came from at the end of July; they were a month behind on the Volvo, four months behind on the credit card and fifty quid behind on the electricity. As of their last statement, there had been three hundred and fourteen euros and fifty-seven cents in the current account. If the Spains had been into anything dodgy, they were either very bad at it or very, very good.

  Even when they got careful, though, they had kept their wireless broadband. I needed to get Computer Crime to flag that computer every shade of urgent. Patrick and Jenny might have had no one in the flesh, but they had had the whole internet to talk to, and some people tell cyberspace the things they wouldn’t tell their best friends.

  In a way, you could probably say they had been broke even before Patrick lost his job. He had made good money, but their credit card had a six-grand limit and it had spent most of the time maxed out—there were a lot of three-figure charges to Brown Thomas, Debenhams, a few websites with vaguely familiar girly names—and then there were the two car loans and the mortgage. But only innocents think broke is made of how much you earn and how much you owe. Ask any economist: broke is made of how you feel. The credit crunch didn’t happen because people woke up any poorer than they’d been the day before; it happened because people woke up scared.

  Back in January, when Jenny had spent 270 euros on some website called Shoe 2 You, the Spains had been doing just fine. By July, when she had been too scared to change the locks against an intruder, they had been broke as all hell.

  Some people get hit by a tidal wave, dig in their nails and hold on; they stay focused on the positive, keep visualizing the way through till it opens up in front of them. Some lose hold. Broke can lead people to places they would never have imagined. It can nudge a law-abiding citizen onto that blurred crumbling edge where a dozen kinds of crime feel like they’re only an arm’s reach away. It can scour away at a lifetime of mild, peaceful decency until all that’s left is teeth and claws and terror. You could almost catch the stench of fear, dank as rotting seaweed, coming up from the dark space at the back of the closet where the Spains had kept their monsters locked down. I said, “It looks like we might not need to go chasing after sister-history, after all.”

  Richie ran a thumb through the bank statements again, came to rest on that pathetic last page. “Jesus,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Straight-up guy, wife and kids, good job, got his house and his life just the way he likes them; then out of the blue, hey presto, it’s crumbling around his ears. His job’s gone, his car’s gone, his house is going—for all we know, Jenny could have been planning to leave him now that he wasn’t providing, take the kids with her. That could have been what pushed him over the edge.”

  “All in less than a year,” Richie said. He put the bank statements down on the bed next to the HomeTime letters, holding them between his fingertips like they were radioactive. “Yeah. That could do it, all right.”

  “We’ve still got plenty of ifs on the table. But if Larry’s lads don’t find any evidence of an outsider, and if the weapon turns up somewhere accessible, and if Jenny Spain doesn’t wake up and give us a very plausible story about how someone other than her husband did this . . . This case could be over a lot sooner than we were expecting.”

  That was when my phone rang again.

  “And there you go,” I said, fishing it out of my pocket. “How much do you want to bet this is one of the floaters to say we’ve got the weapon, somewhere nice and close?”

  It was Marlboro Man, and he was so excited his voice was cracking like a teenager’s. “Sir,” he said. “Sir, you need to see this.”

  * * *

  * * *

  He was in Ocean View Walk, the double line of houses—you couldn’t exactly call it a street—between Ocean View Rise and the water. The other floaters’ heads popped out of gaps in walls as we passed, like curious animals’. Marlboro Man waved to us from a second-floor window.

  The house had got as far as walls and roof, gray blocks heavy with tangled green creepers. The front garden was chest-high weeds and gorse, crowding up the drive and in at the empty doorway. We had to climb the rusted scaffolding, shaking creepers off our feet, and swing ourselves through a window-hole.

  Marlboro Man said, “I wasn’t sure whether to . . . I mean, I know you were busy, sir, but you said to call you if we found anything that could be interesting. And this . . .”

  Someone had, carefully and over plenty of time, turned the top floor of the house into his own private lair. A sleeping bag, one of the serious ones meant for semi-professional wilderness expeditions, weighted down at the bottom with a rough lump of concrete. Thick plastic sheeting tacked over the window-holes, to keep out the wind. Three two-liter bottles of water, neatly lined up against a wall. A clear plastic storage tub just big enough for a stick of Right Guard, a bar of soap, a washcloth, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. A dustpan and brush in one clean corner: no spiderwebs here. A supermarket bag holding another chunk of concrete, a couple of empty Lucozade bottles, a crumple of chocolate wrappers and a sandwich crust sticking out of squashed tinfoil. One of those plastic rain hoods that old women wear, hung on a nail in a beam. And a pair of black binoculars, lying on top of the sleeping bag next to their battered case.

  They didn’t look particularly high-end, but then they hadn’t needed to be. The back window-holes looked straight down into Patrick and Jenny Spain’s lovely glass kitchen, just thirty or forty feet away. Larry and his gang were discussing something to do with one of the beanbags.

  “Sweet Jaysus,” Richie said softly.

  I didn’t say a word. I was so angry that all that would have come out was a roar. Everything I knew about this case had lifted itself high, heaved itself upside down and come slamming down on top of me. This wasn’t the lookout post for some hitman hired to get back money or drugs—a professional would have cleaned up before he did the job, we would never have known he had been there. This was Richie’s mentaller, bringing all his own trouble with him.

  Patrick Spain was the one in a hundred, after all. He had done everything right. He had married his childhood sweetheart, they had made two healthy kids, he had bought a nice house and worked his arse off paying for it and packing it full and sparkling with all the stuff that would make it into the perfect home. He had done every single fucking thing he was supposed to do. Then this little piece of shit had strolled up with his cheap binoculars and nuked every atom of that to ashes, and left Patrick with nothing but the blame.

  Marlboro Man was eyeing me anxiously, worried he had screwed up again. “Well well well,” I said coolly. “Looks like some of the heat’s off Patrick.”

  Richie said, “It’s like a sniper’s nest.”

  “It’s exactly like a sniper’s nest. All right: everybody out. Detective, ring your mates and tell them to pull back to the crime scene. Tell them to go casually, not like anything big’s happened, but go now.”

  Richie raised his eyebrows; Marlboro Man opened his mouth, but something in my face made him shut it again. I said, “This guy could be watching us right now. That’s the one thing we know about him, isn’t it? He likes watching. I guarantee you he’s been hanging around all morning, waiting to see how we liked his handiwork.”

  Rows of half-formed houses, right and left and straight ahead, crowding to gawp at us. The beach at our backs, all sand dunes and great clumps of hissing grass; the hills at either end, with the jagged lines of rocks at their feet. He could have g
one to ground anywhere. Every way I turned felt like crosshairs on my forehead.

  I said, “All the activity may have scared him into backing off for a while—if we’re lucky, he’s missed us finding this. But he’ll be back. And when he shows, we want him thinking his little hidey-hole is still safe. Because the first chance he gets, he’ll need to come up here. For that.” I nodded downwards at Larry and his team, moving around the bright kitchen. “I’d bet every cent I’ve got: he won’t be able to stay away.”

  6

  In every way there is, murder is chaos. Our job is simple, when you get down to it: we stand against that, for order.

  I remember this country back when I was growing up. We went to church, we ate family suppers around the table, and it would never even have crossed a kid’s mind to tell an adult to fuck off. There was plenty of bad there, I don’t forget that, but we all knew exactly where we stood and we didn’t break the rules lightly. If that sounds like small stuff to you, if it sounds boring or old-fashioned or uncool, think about this: people smiled at strangers, people said hello to neighbors, people left their doors unlocked and helped old women with their shopping bags, and the murder rate was scraping zero.

  Sometime since then, we started turning feral. Wild got into the air like a virus, and it’s spreading. Watch the packs of kids roaming inner-city estates, mindless and brakeless as baboons, looking for something or someone to wreck. Watch the businessmen shoving past pregnant women for a seat on the train, using their 4x4s to force smaller cars out of their way, purple-faced and outraged when the world dares to contradict them. Watch the teenagers throw screaming stamping tantrums when, for once, they can’t have it the second they want it. Everything that stops us being animals is eroding, washing away like sand, going and gone.

  The final step into feral is murder. We stand between that and you. We say, when no one else will, There are rules here. There are limits. There are boundaries that don’t move.

  I’m the least fanciful guy around, but on nights when I wonder whether there was any point to my day, I think about this: the first thing we ever did, when we started turning into humans, was draw a line across the cave door and say: Wild stays out. What I do is what the first men did. They built walls to keep back the sea. They fought the wolves for the hearth fire.

  I got everyone together in the Spains’ sitting room—it was much too small, but there was no way we were having this chat in the fishbowl kitchen. The floaters clustered up shoulder to shoulder, trying not to stand on the rug or brush against the telly, like the Spains still needed their guests to have good manners. I told them what was behind the garden wall. One of the techs whistled, a long soft sound.

  “Here, Scorcher,” Larry said. He had settled himself comfortably on the sofa. “Now I’m not doubting you, we both know better than that, but is there no chance this is just some homeless guy who found himself a nice cozy place to doss down for a while?”

  “With binoculars and an expensive sleeping bag, and bugger-all else? Not a chance, Lar. That nest was set up for one reason: so someone could spy on the Spains.”

  “And he’s not homeless,” Richie said. “Or if he is, he’s got somewhere he can have a wash, himself and the sleeping bag. No smell.”

  I said to the nearest floater, “Get onto the Dog Unit and have them send a general purpose dog out here ASAP. Tell them we’re after a murder suspect and we need the best trailing dog they’ve got.” He nodded and backed into the hall, already pulling out his phone. “Until that dog gets a chance at the scent, no one else goes into that house. All of you”—I nodded to the floaters—“can pick up the search for the weapon, but this time keep well away from that hide—head out the front, around to both sides, and cut down to the beach. When the dog handler arrives, I’ll text you all, and you’ll come back here at a run. I’m going to need chaos outside the front of this place: people running, shouting, driving up on full lights and sirens, crowding around to look at something—give it as much drama as you can. Then pick a saint, or whatever you’re into, and say a prayer that if our man’s watching, the chaos lures him round to the front to see what’s going on.”

  Richie was leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets. He said, “At least he’s after leaving his binoculars behind. If he wants to see what’s up, he can’t just stay somewhere out the back and check it out long-distance; he’ll have to come around the front, get in close.”

  “There’s no guarantee he hasn’t got a second pair, but we’ll hope. If he comes close enough, we might even get our hands on him, although that’s probably too much to ask; this whole estate is a warren, he’s got enough hiding places to keep him going for months. Meanwhile, the dog goes around to that nest, scents off the sleeping bag—the handler can bring the bag down to the ground, if he can’t get the dog up there—and gets to work. One tech heads up there with them, inconspicuously, takes video and fingerprints, and leaves. Everything else can wait.”

  “Gerry,” Larry said, pointing at a gangly young guy, who nodded. “Fastest print tape in the West.”

  “Good man, Gerry. If you get prints, you head straight back to the lab and do what you do. The rest of us will keep up the action out front for as long as you need it, and then we’ll go back to what we were doing. We’ve got until six o’clock sharp. Then we clear the area. Anyone who’s still working inside the house can keep going, but the outside needs to look like we’ve packed up and gone home for the night. I want the coast clear—literally—for our man.”

  Larry’s eyebrows were practically in his bald patch. It was a gamble, staking the whole evening’s work on this one chance—witnesses’ memories can change even overnight, rain showers can wash away blood and scent, tides can pull dumped weapons or bloody clothes out to sea forever—and gambling isn’t like me, but this case wasn’t like most cases. “Once it gets dark,” I said, “we re-deploy.”

  “You’re assuming the dog won’t get him,” Larry pointed out. “You think this fella knows what he’s at?”

  I saw the floaters shift as the thought sent a ripple of alertness through them. “That’s what we’re aiming to find out,” I said. “Probably not, or he’d have cleaned up after himself, but I’m not taking any chances. Sunset’s around half past seven, maybe a little later. About eight or half past, as soon as we can’t be seen, Detective Curran and I will head up to that nest, where we’ll spend the night.” I caught Richie’s eye; he nodded. “Meanwhile, two detectives will be patrolling the estate—again, inconspicuously—keeping an eye out for any action, in particular any action heading this way. Any takers?”

  All of the floaters’ hands shot up. I picked Marlboro Man—he had earned it—and a kid who looked young enough that one night with no sleep wouldn’t wipe him out for the rest of the week. “Keep in mind that he could come from outside the estate or from inside—he could be hiding out in a derelict house, or he could live here and that’s how he targeted the Spains. If you spot anything interesting, ring me straightaway. Still no radios: we have to assume that this guy is into his surveillance gear, deep enough that he owns a scanner. If someone looks promising, tail him if you can, but your top priority is making sure he doesn’t spot you. If you get even the faintest sense that he’s onto you, back right off and report to me. Got it?”

  They nodded. I said, “I’ll also need a pair of techs to spend the night in here.”

  “Not me,” Larry said. “You know I love you, Scorcher, but I’ve got a previous engagement and I’m too old for the all-night carry-on, no double entendre intended.”

  “No problem. I’m sure someone could do with the overtime, am I right?” Larry mimed his jaw hitting his chest—I have a rep for not authorizing overtime. A few of the techs nodded. “You can bring sleeping bags and take turns getting some kip in the sitting room, if you want to; I just need some kind of ongoing visible activity. Bring things back and forth from your car, swab t
hings in the kitchen, take a laptop out there and pull up a graph that looks professional . . . Your job is to get our man interested enough that he can’t resist the temptation to go up to his nest, get his binoculars and check out what you’re doing.”

  “Bait,” said Gerry the print tech.

  “Exactly. We’ve got bait, trackers, hunters, and we’ll just have to hope our man walks into the trap. We’ll have a couple of hours off between six o’clock and nightfall; get something to eat, head back to the office if you need to check in, pick up anything you’ll want for the stakeout. For now, I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing. Thanks, lads and ladies.”

  They moved off—two of the techs were flipping a coin for the overtime, a couple of floaters were trying to impress me or each other by taking notes. The scaffolding had stamped smears of rust onto the sleeve of my overcoat. I found a tissue in my pocket and headed out to the kitchen to dampen it.

  Richie followed me. I said, “If you need something to eat, you can take the car and find that petrol station the Gogan woman talked about.”

  He shook his head. “I’m grand.”

  “Good. And you’re OK for tonight?”

  “Yeah. No probs.”

  “At six we’ll head back to HQ, brief the Super, pick up anything we need, then meet up again and come back here.” If Richie and I could make it into town fast enough, and if the briefing didn’t take too long, there was just a chance I would have time to get hold of Dina and put her in a taxi to Geri’s. “You’re welcome to put in for overtime if you want. I’m not planning to.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t believe in overtime.” Larry’s boys had cut the water and taken out the sink trap, in case our boy had washed up, but a leftover trickle came out of the tap. I caught it on the tissue and scrubbed at my sleeve.