Broken Harbour

11

The phone dragged me up from the deep-sea bottom of sleep. I came up gasping and flailing-for a second I thought the shrieking noise was a fire alarm, telling me Dina was locked in my flat with flames swelling. “Kennedy,” I said, when my mind found its footing.

“This could have nothing to do with your case, but you did say to ring if we picked up any other forums. You know what a private message is, right?”

Whatshisname, the computer tech: Kieran. “More or less,” I said. My bedroom was dark; it could have been any hour of the day or night. I rolled over and fumbled for the bedside lamp. The sudden flare of light jabbed me in the eyes.

“OK, on some boards, you can set your preferences so that, if you get a private message, a copy of it comes to your e-mail. Pat Spain-well, it could be Jennifer, but I’m assuming it’s Pat, you’ll see what I mean-he had that setting activated, on one board at least. Our software recovered a PM that came through a forum called Wildwatcher-that’s the ‘WW’ in the password file, gotta be, not World of Warcraft.” Kieran apparently worked to the soothing rhythm of cranked-up house music. My head was already pounding. “It’s from some dude called Martin, sent the thirteenth of June, and it says, quote, ‘Not looking to get in any arguments but seriously if it’s a mink I would def lay down poison esp if you have kids those bastards are vicious’-spelled wrong-‘would attack a kid no problem.’ Unquote. Any mink in the case?”

My alarm clock said ten past ten. Assuming it was still Thursday morning, I had been asleep for less than three hours. “Have you checked out this Wildwatcher site?”

“No, I decided to get a pedicure instead. Yeah, I’ve checked it out. It’s a site where people can talk about wild animals they’ve spotted-I mean, not that wild, it’s a UK-based site so we’re mostly talking, like, urban foxes?-or ask what’s that darling little brown birdie nesting in their wisteria. So I ran a search for ‘mink,’ right, and it turned up a thread started by a user called Pat-the-lad on the morning of June twelfth. He was a new user; looks like he registered specifically to post this. Want me to read it to you?”

“I’m in the middle of something,” I said. My eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand into them; so did my mouth. “Can you e-mail me the link?”

“No problemo. What do you want me to do with Wildwatcher? Check it out fast, or in depth?”

“Fast. If no one gave Pat-the-lad any hassle, you can probably move on, for now anyway. That family didn’t get killed over a mink.”

“Sounds good to me. See you around, Kemosabe.” In the second before Kieran hung up, I heard him turn up his music to a volume that could pulverize bone.

I took a fast shower, turning the water colder and colder till my eyes were focusing again. My face in the mirror irritated me: I looked grim and intent, like a man with his eyes on the prize, not a man whose prize was safe and sound in his display cabinet. I got my laptop, a pint glass of water and a few pieces of fruit-Dina had taken a bite out of a pear, changed her mind and put it back in the fridge-and sat on the sofa to check out Wildwatcher.

Pat-the-lad had registered at 9:23 A.M. on June 12, and started his thread at 9:35. It was the first time I had heard his voice. He came across as a good guy: down-to-earth, straight to the point, knew how to lay out the facts. Hi guys, got a question. Living on the east coast of Ireland, right by the sea if that makes a difference. Last few weeks been hearing weird noises in the attic. Running, lots of scratching, something hard rolling about, sound I can only describe as tapping/ticking. Went up there but no sign of any animal. There’s a slight smell, hard to describe, kind of smoky/musky, but could be just something to do w the house (?pipes overheating?). Found one hole under eaves leading outside but only about 5 inches by 3. Noises sound like something bigger than that. Checked the garden, no sign of a den, no sign of any holes where something could have dug under the wall (5 feet high). Any ideas what it could be/suggestions what to do about it? Got young kids so if it could be dangerous need to know. Thanks.

The Wildwatcher board wasn’t a hotbed of action, but Pat’s thread had got noticed: over a hundred replies. The first few told him he had rats or possibly squirrels and he should call an exterminator. He came back a couple of hours later to answer: Thanks guys think its just 1 animal, never hear noises in more than 1 place at a time. Don’t think its a rat or a squirrel-thought that at first but put down mousetrap w big lump of peanut butter, no go, plenty of action that nite but trap not touched in the morn. So something that doesn’t eat peanut butter!

Someone asked what time of day the animal was most active. That evening Pat posted: At first only heard it at night after we went to bed, but could be because I wasn’t listening for it during the day. Started paying attention about a week ago and its all times of day/night, no pattern. Last 3 days noticed a real uptick in noise when my wife is cooking, specially meat-thing goes mental. Sort of creepy to be honest w you. Tonight she was making dinner (beef casserole) + I was w the kids in my sons room which is over kitchen. Thing was scrabbling + banging like trying to get through ceiling. Right above my sons bed so am a bit worried. Any more ideas?

People were starting to get interested. They thought it was a stoat, a mink, a marten; they posted photos, slim sinuous animals, mouths wide to show delicate, wicked teeth. People suggested that Pat put down flour in the attic to get the animal’s paw prints, take pictures of those and its scat and post them on the board. Then someone wanted to know what the big deal was: Why r u even here??? Just get rat poison put it in the attic n bobs ur uncle. Or r u 1 of those bleedin hearts that dont beleive in killing vermin?? If u r then u deserve wat u get.

Everyone forgot all about Pat’s attic and started yelling at each other about animal rights. It got heated-everyone called everyone else a murderer-but when Pat came back the next day, he kept a level head and stayed well away from the flames. Rather not go for poison except as total last resort. There are gaps in attic floor leading down into space (?8 inches deep?) between beams + ceiling of rooms below. Have had a look in w torch + couldn’t see anything dodgy but don’t want it crawling in there and dying, or it’ll stink the place out + I’ll have to take up attic floor to get it. Same reason why I didn’t just board up hole under eaves, don’t want to trap it inside by mistake. Haven’t seen any scat but will keep a lookout + take advice on prints.

Nobody paid any attention to him-someone had, inevitably, compared someone to Hitler. Later that day, the admin locked the thread. Pat-the-lad never posted again.

This was obviously where the cameras and the holes in the walls came in, somehow, but they still didn’t quite add up. I couldn’t picture that level-headed guy chasing a stoat around his house with a lump hammer like something out of Caddyshack, but neither could I picture him sitting back and watching on a baby monitor while something gnawed chunks out of his walls, especially with his kids just a few feet away.

Either way, this should have meant we could leave the monitors and the holes behind. Like I had told Kieran, a mink hadn’t convinced Conor Brennan to commit mass murder; the problem belonged to Jenny or to her estate agent, not to us. But I had given Richie my word: we were going to investigate Pat Spain, and anything odd in his life needed explaining. I told myself there was plenty of silver lining-the more loose ends we tied up, the fewer chances for the defense to create confusion in court.

I made myself tea and cereal-the thought of Conor eating his jail breakfast gave me a hard-edged thump of grim pleasure-and took my time rereading the thread. I know Murder Ds who go searching for mementoes like that, for any thread-fine echo of the victim’s voice, any watery reflection of his living face. They want him to come alive for them. I don’t. Those torn scraps won’t help me solve the case, and I’ve got no time for the cheap pathos of it, the easy, excruciating poignancy of watching someone meander happily towards the cliff edge. I let the dead stay dead.

Pat was different. Conor Brennan had tried so hard to deface him, weld a killer’s mask onto his wrecked flesh for all eternity. Catching a glimpse of Pat’s own face felt like a blow on the side of the angels.

I left a message on Larry’s phone, asking him to get his outdoorsy man to check out the Wildwatcher thread, head down to Brianstown ASAP and see what he thought of the wildlife possibilities. Then I e-mailed Kieran back. Thanks for that. After that reception, looks like Pat Spain took his wildlife issues to some other site. We need to find out where. Keep me updated.

It was twenty to noon when I got into the incident room. All the floaters were either out working or out on coffee break, but Richie was at his desk, ankles wrapped around the legs of his chair like a teenager, nose to nose with his computer screen. “Howya,” he said, without looking up. “The lads picked up your man’s car. Dark blue Opel Corsa, 03D.”

“Style icon that he is.” I handed him a paper cup of coffee. “In case you didn’t get a chance. Where’d he have it parked?”

“Thanks. Up on that hill overlooking the south end of the bay. He had it stashed off the road, in among the trees, so the lads missed it till daylight.”

A good mile from the estate, maybe more. Conor had been taking no chances. “Beautiful. It’s gone to Larry?”

“Towing it now.”

I nodded at the computer. “Anything good?”

Richie shook his head. “Your man’s never been arrested, under Conor Brennan, anyway. Couple of speeding tickets, but the dates and locations don’t match anywhere I was posted.”

“Still trying to work out why he rings a bell?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking it could be from a long time back, ’cause in my head he’s younger, like maybe twenty. Might be nothing, but I just want to know.”

I tossed my coat over the back of my chair and took a swig of my coffee. “I’m wondering if someone else knows Conor from before, too. Pretty soon we need to pull in Fiona Rafferty, give her a look at him and see how she reacts. He got his hands on the Spains’ door key somehow-I don’t believe that crap he gave us about finding it on a dawn wander-and she’s the only one who had it. I’m having a hard time seeing that as coincidence.”

At that point Quigley oiled up behind me and tapped me on the arm with his morning tabloid. “I heard,” he breathed, like it was a dirty secret, “that you got someone for your big-deal case last night.”

Quigley always gives me the urge to straighten my tie and check my teeth for scraps. He smelled like he had eaten breakfast at a fast-food joint, which would explain a lot, and there was a sheen of grease on his upper lip. “You heard right,” I said, taking a step back from him.

He widened his pouchy little eyes at me. “That was quick, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what we’re paid for, chum: getting the bad guys. You should try it sometime.”

Quigley’s mouth pursed up. “God, you’re awful defensive, Kennedy. Are you having doubts, is it? Thinking maybe you’ve got the wrong fella?”

“Stay tuned. I doubt it, but go ahead and keep your champagne on ice, just in case.”

“Now hang on there. Don’t take out your insecurities on me. I’m only being pleased for you, so I am.”

He was pointing his paper at my chest, all puffed up with injured outrage-feeling hard done by is the fuel that keeps Quigley running. “Sweet of you,” I said, turning away to my desk to let him know we were finished. “One of these days, if I’m bored, I’ll take you out on a big case and show you how it’s done.”

“Oh, that’s right. Bring this one in and you’ll be getting all the big fancy cases again, won’t you? Ah, that’d be great for you, so it would. Some of us”-to Richie-“some of us just want to solve murders, the media attention doesn’t matter to us, but our Kennedy’s a little different. He likes the spotlight.” Quigley waggled the newspaper: ANGELS BUTCHERED IN THEIR BEDS, a blurry holiday shot of the Spains laughing on some beach. “Well, nothing wrong with that, I suppose. As long as the job gets done.”

“You want to solve murders?” Richie asked, puzzled.

Quigley ignored that. To me: “Wouldn’t it be great altogether if you got this one right? Then maybe everyone would put that other time behind them.” He actually had a hand lifted to pat my arm, but I gave him a stare and he thought better of it. “Good luck, eh? We’ll all be hoping you’ve got the right fella.” He shot me a smirk and a little wave of his crossed fingers, and waddled off to try and bring down someone else’s morning.

Richie waved bye-bye with a manic cheesy grin, and watched him go out the door. He said, “What other time?”

The stack of reports and witness statements on my desk was shaping up nicely. I flicked through them. “One of my cases went pear-shaped, a couple of years back. I put my money on the wrong guy, ended up missing the collar. Quigley was talking shite, though: at this stage, no one except him even remembers that. He’s hanging on to it for dear life because it made his year.”

Richie nodded. He didn’t look one bit surprised. “The face on him, when you said that about showing him how it’s done: pure poison. Bit of history there, yeah?”

One of the floaters had a nasty habit of typing in all caps, which was going to have to go. “No history. Quigley is shit at his job, and he figures that’s everyone’s fault but his. I get cases he’ll never get, which makes it my fault he gets stuck with the dregs, and I take them down, which makes him look worse, which makes it my fault that he couldn’t solve a game of Cluedo.”

“Two more brain cells and he’d be a Brussels sprout,” Richie said. He was leaning back in his chair, biting a thumbnail and still watching the door where Quigley had gone out. “Good thing, too. He’d only love a chance to put the boot into you. If he wasn’t thick as pig shite, you’d be in trouble.”

I put the statement sheets down. “What’s Quigley been saying about me?”

Richie’s feet started a soft-shoe shuffle under his chair. “Just that. What you heard there.”

“And before that?” Richie tried to look blank, but his feet were still going. “Richie. This isn’t about my tender feelings. If he’s undermining our working relationship here, I need to know.”

“He’s not. I don’t even remember what he said. Nothing you could put your finger on.”

“There never is, with Quigley. What did he say?”

A twitchy shrug. “Just some crap about the emperor not wearing as many clothes as he thinks, and pride goes before a fall. It didn’t even make any sense.”

I wished I had smacked that little shit down harder when he gave me the chance. “And?”

“And nothing. That’s when I got rid of him. He was giving it ‘Slow and steady does it’; I asked him why slow and steady wasn’t doing it for him. He didn’t like that.”

It startled me, the small ridiculous dart of warmth at the thought of this kid fighting my corner. I said, “And that’s not why you were worried that I was jumping the gun with Conor Brennan.”

“No! Man, that was nothing to do with Quigley. Nothing.”

“It’d better not be. If you think Quigley’s on your side, you’re in for a big shock. You’re young and promising, which makes it your fault that he’s a middle-aged loser. Given the choice, I’m not sure which of us he’d throw under a bus first.”

“I know that, too. That fat fuck told me the other day I might feel more at home back in Motor Vehicles, unless I have too many emotional connections with suspects there. I don’t listen to anything he says.”

“Good. Don’t. He’s a black hole: get too close and he’ll drag you down with him. Always stay far away from negativity, old son.”

“I stay far away from useless pricks. He’s not dragging me anywhere. How the hell is he on this squad?”

I shrugged. “Three possibilities: he’s related to someone, he’s shagging someone, or he’s got something on someone. Take your pick. Personally, I figure if he was connected I’d know by this time, and he doesn’t look like much of a femme fatale to me. That leaves blackmail. Which gives you another good reason to leave Quigley alone.”

Richie’s eyebrows went up. He said, “You think he’s dangerous? Seriously? That thick bastard?”

“Don’t underestimate Quigley. He’s thick, all right, but not as thick as you’re thinking, or he wouldn’t be here. He’s not dangerous to me-or to you, for that matter, as long as you don’t do anything stupid-but that’s not because he’s a harmless idiot. Think of him as the gastric flu: he can make your life smell pretty bad and he takes forever to shake off, so you try to avoid him, but he can’t do you any serious damage, not unless you’re weak already. Here’s the thing, though: if you’re vulnerable, if he gets a chance to take hold, then yeah. He could be dangerous.”

“You’re the boss,” Richie said cheerfully-the image had made him happy, even if he still didn’t sound particularly convinced. “I’ll stay away from Diarrhea Man.”

I didn’t bother trying not to grin. “And that’s the other thing. Don’t go poking him with sticks. I know the rest of us do it, and we shouldn’t either, but we’re not new boys. No matter how much of an arse Quigley is, giving him cheek makes you look like an uppity little brat-not just to him, but to the rest of the squad. You’re playing straight into Quigley’s hands.”

Richie grinned back. “Fair enough. He asks for it, but.”

“He does. You don’t have to answer.”

He put a hand over his heart. “I’ll be good. Honest. What’s the plan for today?”

I went back to my stack of paper. “Today we’re going to find out why Conor Brennan did what he did. He’s entitled to his eight hours’ sleep, so we can’t touch him for another couple of hours, minimum. I’m in no hurry. I say we let him wait for us this time.” Once they’re under arrest, you have up to three days before you have to charge them or cut them loose, and I was planning on taking as much of that as we needed. It’s only on TV that the story ends when the confession’s on tape and the handcuffs click home. In a real investigation, that click is just the beginning. What it changes is this: your suspect goes tumbling from the top of your priority list straight to the bottom. You can go for days without seeing his face, once you have him where you want him. All you care about is building the walls to keep him there.

I said, “We’ll go talk to O’Kelly now. Then we’ll have chats with the floaters, have them start working through Conor’s life and the Spains’. They need to find an overlap point where the Spains might have caught his eye-a party they all went to, a company that hired Pat to do their recruitment and Conor to do their web design. He said he’s been stalking them for about a year now, which means we want the floaters focusing on 2008. Meanwhile, you and I are going to search Conor’s gaff, see if we can fill in a few cracks-pick up anything that might give us a motive, anything that might point us towards how he got hold of either the Spains or the keys.”

Richie was fingering a nick on his jaw-the shave had been unnecessary, but at least it showed the right attitude-and trying to find the right way to ask. I said, “Don’t worry: I’m not ignoring Pat Spain. I’ve got something to show you.”

I switched on my computer and pulled up Wildwatcher. Richie scooted his chair across so he could read over my shoulder.

“Huh,” he said, when he was finished. “I guess that could maybe explain the video monitors. You get people like that, yeah? People who get way into watching animals. Set up whole CCTV systems to keep an eye on the foxes in their back garden.”

“Like watching Big Brother, only with smarter contestants. I don’t see that happening here, though. Pat’s obviously worried about the animal coming into contact with the kids; he wouldn’t encourage it just for kicks. He sounds like he just wants to get rid of the thing.”

“He does, yeah. Long way from that to half a dozen cameras.” A silence, while Richie reread. “The holes in the walls,” he said, carefully. “It’d take a pretty big animal to make those.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’ve got people on that. Has someone brought in a building inspector to look at the gaff, check for subsidence and whatever?”

“Report’s in the pile. Graham got it done.” Whoever that was. “Short version, the house is in bits: damp going up half the walls, subsidence-the cracks-and something’s wrong with the plumbing, I couldn’t work out what, but the gist is the whole place would’ve needed re-plumbing within a year or two. Sinéad Gogan wasn’t wrong about the builders: load of bloody chancers. Slap the houses up, sell them and get out before anyone could suss their game. But your man says none of the problems would account for the holes in the walls. The one in the eaves, that could’ve been the subsidence; the ones in the walls, nah.” Richie’s eyes came up to meet mine. “If Pat made those holes himself, chasing after a squirrel…”

I said, “It wasn’t a squirrel. And we don’t know that he did. Who’s jumping the gun now?”

“I’m only saying if. Knocking holes in your own walls…”

“It’s drastic, all right. But you tell me: there’s a mysterious animal running around your gaff, you want it gone, you don’t have the dosh for an exterminator. What do you do?”

“Board up the hole under the eaves. If you’ve trapped the yoke inside by mistake, you give it a couple of days to get hungry, take off the boards so it can do a legger, then try again. If it still won’t leave, you put down poison. If it dies in the walls and stinks the place out, then you bring out the hammer. Not before.” Richie shoved himself off my desk so that his chair rolled back towards his own. “If Pat made those holes, man, then Conor’s not the only one whose mind wasn’t OK.”

“Like I said. We’ll find out. Until then-”

“I know. Keep my gob shut about it.”

Richie swung his jacket on and started poking at the knot in his tie, trying to check it without ruining it. I said, “Looking good. Let’s go find the Super.”

He had forgotten all about Quigley. I hadn’t. The part I hadn’t told Richie: Quigley doesn’t go near a fair fight. His personal talent is a hyena’s nose for anything weak or bleeding, and he doesn’t take people on unless he’s positive he can take them down. It was obvious why he was targeting Richie. The newbie, the working-class boy who needed to prove himself half a dozen different ways, the smart-arsed kid who couldn’t keep a leash on his tongue: it was easy and safe, to goad him along while he talked himself into trouble. What I couldn’t work out, what might have worried me if I hadn’t been floating on such a good mood, was why Quigley was targeting me.

O’Kelly was a happy camper. “The very men I’ve been waiting for,” he said, swiveling his chair to face us, when we knocked on his office door. He pointed at chairs-we had to clear away stacks of e-mail printouts and holiday applications before we could sit down; O’Kelly’s office always looks like the paperwork is on the verge of winning-and held up his copy of our report. “Go on. Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

I gave him the rundown. “The little fucker,” O’Kelly said, when I was done, but without much heat. The Super’s worked Murder for a long time and seen a lot of things. “The confession checks out?”

I said, “What we’ve got checks out, yeah, but he started looking for his sleep break before we could get into details. We’ll take another shot at him later, or tomorrow.”

“But the little fucker’s our man. You’ve got enough that I can go to the media, tell them the people of Brianstown are safe in their beds again. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Richie was looking at me too. I said, “It’s safe out there.”

“That’s what I like to hear. I’ve been beating back the reporters with a stick; I swear half the little bastards are hoping the fucker’ll strike again, keep them in a job. This’ll put a stop to their gallop.” O’Kelly leaned back in his chair with a satisfied sigh and aimed a stubby forefinger in Richie’s direction. “Curran, I’m going to hold my hand up and say I didn’t want you on this one. Did Kennedy tell you that?”

Richie shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Well, I didn’t. Thought you were too green to wipe your own arse without someone holding the jacks roll for you.” In the corner of my eye I caught the twitch of Richie’s mouth, but he nodded gravely. “I was wrong. Maybe I should use rookies more often, give those lazy lumps out there something to think about. Fair play to you.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“And as for this fella”-a thumb-jerk at me-“there’s men out there that would’ve told me not to let him within a mile of this one, either. Make him work his way back up, they said. Make him prove he’s still got what it takes.”

A day earlier I would have been starving to find the fuckers and stuff that down their throats. Now the six o’clock news would do it for me. O’Kelly was watching me, sharp-eyed. “And I hope I’ve done that, sir,” I said smoothly.

“I knew you would, or I wouldn’t have risked it. I told them where they could stick it, and I was right. Welcome back.”

“Good to be back, sir,” I said.

“I bet it is. I was right about you, Kennedy, and you were right about this young fella here. There’s plenty of lads on this squad that would still be holding their dicks in their hands and waiting for a confession to land in their laps. When are you charging your little fucker?”

I said, “I’d like the full three days. I want to be sure we don’t leave any cracks in this one.”

“That,” O’Kelly told Richie, “that’s our man Kennedy all over. Once he’s got his teeth into someone, God help the poor bastard. Watch and learn. Go on, go on”-a magnanimous wave of his hand-“take all the time you need. You’ve earned it. I’ll get you the extensions. Anything else you want, while you’re at it? More men? More overtime? Just say the word.”

“We’re all right for the moment, sir. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Do that,” O’Kelly said. He nodded at us, squared off the pages of our report and tossed it onto a stack: conversation over. “Now get out there and show the rest of that shower how it’s done.”

Out in the corridor, a safe distance from O’Kelly’s door, Richie caught my eye. He said, “So does this mean I’m allowed to wipe my own arse now, yeah?”

Plenty of people take the piss out of the Super, but he’s my boss and he’s always looked out for me, and I take both of those seriously. “It’s a metaphor,” I said.

“I got that. What’s the jacks roll meant to be?”

“Quigley?” I said, and we went back into the incident room laughing.

Conor’s place was a basement flat, in a tall brick house with the paint peeling off the window frames; his door was at the back, down a flight of narrow steps with rusted railings. Inside, the flat-bedroom, tiny living-room-cum-kitchen, tinier bathroom-looked like he had forgotten it existed a long time ago. It wasn’t filthy, or not quite, but there were cobwebs in the corners, food scraps in the kitchen sink and things ground into the linoleum. The fridge was ready-meals and Sprite. Conor’s clothes were good quality but a couple of years old, clean but half folded in crumpled heaps at the bottom of the wardrobe. His paperwork was in a cardboard box in a corner of the living room-bills, bank statements, receipts, all tossed in together; some of the envelopes hadn’t even been opened. With a little work, I could probably have put my finger on the exact month when he had let go of his life.

No obviously bloody clothes, no clothes in the washing machine, no clothes hanging up to dry; no bloody runners-no runners at all-but the two pairs of shoes in the wardrobe were a size ten. I said, “I’ve never seen a guy his age who doesn’t own a single pair of runners.”

“Ditched them,” Richie said. He had flipped Conor’s mattress up against the wall and was running a gloved hand over the underside. “I’d say that was the first thing he did, when he got home Monday night: got some clean clothes on and dumped the dirty ones as quick as he could.”

“Which means nearby, if we’re lucky. We’ll get a few of the lads to start searching the neighborhood bins.” I was going through the heaps of clothes, checking pockets and feeling seams for damp. It was cold in there: the heating-a plug-in oil heater-was off, and a chill struck straight up through the floor. “Even if we never find the bloody stuff, though, it could still come in useful. If young Conor tries to go for some kind of insanity defense-and let’s face it, that’s basically the only option he’s got left-then we point out that he tried to cover up what he’d done, which means he knew it was wrong, which means he was as sane as you and me. Legally, anyway.”

I put in a call for some lucky searchers to do bin duty-the flat was near enough to underground that I had to go outside to get a signal on my phone; Conor wouldn’t have been able to talk to his friends even if he had had any. Then we moved on to the sitting room.

Even with the lights on, the room was dim. The window, at head-level, looked out on a flat gray wall; I had to crane my neck sideways to catch a narrow rectangle of sky, birds whirling against heavy cloud. The most promising stuff-a monster computer with cornflakes in the keyboard, a battered mobile-was on Conor’s desk, and it was stuff we couldn’t touch without Kieran. Beside the desk was an old wooden fruit crate, with a tattered label of a dark-haired girl holding up an orange and smiling. I flipped the lid off. Inside was Conor’s stash of souvenirs.

A blue checked scarf, faded from washing, with a few long pale hairs still caught in the weave. A half-burnt green candle in a glass jar, filling the box with the sweet, nostalgic scent of ripe apples. A page from a palm-sized notepad, crumples carefully smoothed out: a phone doodle, fast strong strokes, a rugby player running with the ball in his elbow. The mug, a cracked tea-stained thing painted with poppies. The handful of elastic bands, arranged as neatly as treasure. A kid’s crayon drawing, four yellow heads, blue sky, birds overhead and black cat sprawled in a flowering tree. A green plastic magnet shaped like an X, faded and chewed. A dark-blue pen with gold curly writing: Golden Bay Resort-your door to Paradise!

I reached out one finger and pushed the scarf away from the bottom corner of the drawing. EMMA, in those wobbly capitals, and beside it the date. The rust-brown that smeared the sky and the flowers wasn’t paint. She had drawn the picture on Monday, probably in school, with a handful of hours left in her life.

There was a long silence. We knelt on the floor, smelling wood and apples.

“So,” I said. “There’s our proof. He was in the house the night they died.”

Richie said, “I know that.”

Another silence, this one stretched tighter, while we each waited for the other to break it. Upstairs, high heels went clicking sharply across a bare floor. “OK,” I said, and fitted the lid gently onto the crate. “OK. Let’s bag it, tag it and move on.”

The ancient orange sofa was just about visible under jumpers, DVDs, empty plastic bags. We worked our way through the layers, checking for blood and shaking things out and dumping them onto the floor. “For Christ’s sake,” I said, unearthing a TV guide for the beginning of June and a half-full packet of salt and vinegar crisps. “Look at this.”

Richie gave a wry grin and held up a wad of paper towel that had been used to clean up something like coffee. “Seen worse.”

“So have I, but there’s still no excuse. I don’t care if the guy was skint: self-respect is free. The Spains were just as broke as he was, and their gaff was spotless.” Even at my lowest, just after Laura and I split, I never left chunks of food to rot in my sink. “It’s hardly as if he was too busy to pick up a J cloth.”

Richie had got down to the sofa cushions; he pulled one out and ran his hand around the edges of the frame, in among the crumbs. “Twenty-four hours a day in this place, no job to go to, no money to go out: that’d have your head melted. Not sure I’d be arsed cleaning, either.”

“He wasn’t stuck here twenty-four-seven, remember. Conor still had places to go. He was a busy boy, out at Brianstown.”

Richie unzipped the cushion cover and slid a hand inside. “True enough,” he said. “And you know something? That’s why this place is a tip. It wasn’t his home. That hide on the estate, that was his home. And that was as clean as you like.”

We did the search right: undersides of drawers, backs of bookshelves, inside the boxes of out-of-date processed crap in the freezer-we even used Conor’s charger to plug Richie’s phone into every socket in the place, to make sure none of them was a dud hiding a cache spot. The paperwork box was going back to HQ with us, in case Conor had used an ATM two minutes after Jenny or kept a receipt for designing Pat’s company’s website, but we took a quick look just for kicks. His bank statements followed the same general depressing pattern as Pat and Jenny’s: a decent income and solid savings, then a smaller income and shrinking savings, then broke. Since Conor was self-employed, he had tanked less dramatically than Pat Spain-gradually the checks got smaller, the gaps between them got larger-but he had done it earlier. The slide had started in late 2007; by the middle of 2008, he had been dipping into his savings. It had been months since anything went into his account.

By half past two we were finishing up, putting stuff back where it belonged, which in this case meant rearranging it from our focused mess to Conor’s unfocused one. It had looked better our way.

I said, “You know what strikes me about this place?”

Richie was shoving books back onto the bookshelf by the handful, setting little eddies of dust swirling. “Yeah?”

“There’s no trace of anyone else in here. No girlfriend’s toothbrush, no photos of Conor with his mates, no birthday cards, no ‘Ring Dad’ or ‘8pm, meet Joe at the pub’ on the calendar: nothing that says Conor’s ever met another human being in his life.” I slid DVDs onto their rack. “Remember what I said about him having nothing to love?”

“Could be all digital. Loads of people our age, they keep everything on their phones, or on the computer-photos, appointments-” A book went down on the shelf with a flat bang and Richie whirled round to me, his mouth open, his hands going up to clasp the back of his head. “Shit,” he said. “Photos.”

“Is there a rest of that sentence, old son?”

“Shit. I knew I’d seen him. No bleeding wonder he cared about them-”

“Richie.”

Richie rubbed his hands over his cheeks, caught a deep breath and blew it out again. “Remember last night, yeah, you asked Conor which one of the Spains did he hope had made it? And he said Emma? No bleeding wonder, man. He’s her godfather.”

The framed photo on Emma’s bookshelf: a featureless baby in white lace, Fiona all dressed up, a floppy-haired guy at her shoulder. I remembered him boyish, smiling; I couldn’t see his face. I said, “Are you sure?”

“I am, yeah. I’m sure. That picture in her room, remember? He was younger, he’s lost a load of weight since, got his hair cut short, but I swear to God, it’s him.”

The photo had gone to HQ, along with everything else identifying anyone who had known the Spains. “Let’s double-check,” I said. Richie was already pulling out his phone. We almost ran up the steps.

Inside five minutes, the floater on tip-line duty had dug out the picture, taken a photo of it on his phone and e-mailed it to Richie’s. It was small and starting to pixelate, and Conor looked happier and better rested than I could ever have pictured him, but it was him, all right: solid in his grown-up suit, holding Emma like she was made of crystal, with Fiona reaching across him to put a finger into one tiny hand.

“Fucking hell,” Richie said softly, staring down at the phone.

“Yeah,” I said. “That about sums it up.”

“No wonder he knew all about Pat and Jenny’s relationship.”

“Right. The little prick: he was sitting back laughing at us, the whole time.”

A corner of Richie’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t look like he was laughing to me.”

“He won’t be when he sees that picture, anyway. But he’s not going to see it till we’re good and ready. I want all our ducks in a row before we go anywhere near Conor again. You wanted a motive? I’d bet a lot of money that trail starts right here.”

“It could go back a long way.” Richie tapped the screen. “That there, that’s six years ago. If Conor and the Spains were best buds back then, they’d already known each other for a while. We’re talking college at least, probably school. The motive could be anywhere along the way. Something happens, everyone forgets all about it, then Conor’s life goes to shite and all of a sudden something from fifteen years ago feels like a huge big deal again…”

He was talking like he believed, at last, that Conor was our boy. I bent closer over the phone, to hide a smile. “Or it could be a lot more recent. Sometime in the last six years, the relationship went so far south that the only way Conor could see his goddaughter was through binoculars. I’d love to know what happened there.”

“We’ll find out. Talk to Fiona, talk to all their old mates-”

“Yeah, we will. We’ve got the little bastard now.” I wanted to grab Richie in a headlock, like we were a pair of idiot teenagers bonding by giving each other dead arms. “Richie, my friend, you just earned your whole year’s salary.”

Richie grinned, reddening. “Ah, no. We’d have worked it out sooner or later.”

“We would, yeah. But sooner is an awful lot better. We can take half a dozen floaters off trying to work out if Conor and Jenny bought petrol at the same station in 2008, and that gives us half a dozen extra chances at finding those clothes before a bin lorry takes them away… You’re the Man of the Match, my friend. Give yourself a big pat on the back.”

He shrugged, rubbing his nose to cover the blush. “’S just luck.”

“Bollix. There’s no such thing. Luck only comes in useful on the back of good solid detective work, and that’s exactly what you had there. You tell me: what do you want to do next?”

“Fiona Rafferty. Fast as we can.”

“Hell yes. You ring her; she liked you better than me.” Admitting it didn’t even sting. “See how soon you can get her to come in to HQ. Get her down there inside two hours, and lunch is on me.”

Fiona was at the hospital-in the background, that machine was steadily beeping away-and even her “Hello?” sounded exhausted to breaking point.

Richie said, “Ms. Rafferty, it’s Detective Curran. Have you got a minute?”

A second’s silence. “Hang on,” Fiona said. Muffled, through a hand over the phone: “I’ve got to take this. I’ll only be outside, OK? Call me if you want me.” The click of a door, and the beeping vanished. “Hello?”

Richie said, “Sorry to take you away from your sister. How’s she getting on?”

A moment’s silence. “Not great. Same as yesterday. That’s when you talked to her, right? Before we were even allowed in.”

There was an edge to Fiona’s voice. Richie said, calmly, “For a few minutes, yeah, we did. We didn’t want to tire her out too much.”

“Are you going to come back and keep asking her questions? Because don’t. She hasn’t got anything to tell you. She doesn’t remember anything. Mostly she can’t even talk. She just cries. All of us just cry.” Fiona’s voice was shaking. “Can you just… leave her alone? Please?”

Richie was learning: he didn’t answer that. He said, “I rang because we’ve got some news for you. It’ll be on the telly later, but we figured you’d rather hear this from us. We’re after arresting someone.”

Silence. Then: “It wasn’t Pat. I told you. I told you.”

Richie’s eyes met mine for a second. “Yeah, you did.”

“Who- Oh, God. Who is he? Why did he? Why?”

“We’re still working on that. We figured maybe you could give us a hand. Can you come into Dublin Castle, have a talk about it? We’ll give you the details there.”

Another second of dead air, while Fiona tried to get hold of all this. “Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just, can I, can it wait a while? My mum went home, she’s getting some sleep, I don’t want to leave Jenny by herself-Mum’s coming back at six, I could be down to you by like seven. Would that be too late?”

Richie raised his eyebrows at me; I nodded. “That’s perfect,” he said. “And listen, Ms. Rafferty: do us a favor and don’t say it to your sister yet. Make sure your mother doesn’t, either. OK? Once the suspect’s been charged and all, we can tell her, but it’s still early days; we don’t want to be upsetting her if anything goes wrong. Will you promise me that?”

“Yeah. I won’t say anything.” A quick catch of breath. “This guy. Please. Who is he?”

Richie said gently, “We’ll talk later. Take care of your sister, yeah? And of yourself. See you soon.” He hung up before Fiona could keep asking.

I checked my watch. It was coming up to three o’clock: four hours to wait. “No free lunch for you, sunshine.”

Richie tucked his phone away and gave me a quick grin. “And here I was going to order the lobster.”

“Would you settle for tuna salad? I’d like to head up to Brianstown, check in with the search teams and give you another shot at the Gogan kid, but we should pick up something to eat on the way. It looks bad for me if you drop dead from starvation.”

“Tuna salad’s good. Wouldn’t want to wreck your rep.”

He was still grinning. Modesty or no, Richie was a happy man. “I appreciate your concern,” I said. “You finish up inside. I’ll give Larry a bell, tell him to bring his boys down here, and then we can get moving.”

Richie went bouncing back down the stairs two at a time. “Scorcher,” Larry said delightedly. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“It never gets old. What’ve I done now?”

“That car. Everything a man could want, and it’s not even my birthday.”

“Fill me in. If I’m sending you pressies, I deserve to know what’s in them.”

“Well, the first bit wasn’t in the car, exactly. When the boys went to tow it, a key ring fell out of the wheel well. We’ve got the car keys, we’ve got what looks like a pair of house keys-one Chubb, one Yale-and, drum roll please, we’ve got a key to the Spains’ back door.”

“Now that,” I said, “is sweet.” The alarm code, and now this: all we needed was where Conor had got the key-and one obvious answer was coming in for a chat in a few hours’ time-and the whole tangled question of access would be neatly tied up in a bow. Pat and Jenny’s nice solid house had been as secure as a tent on the open strand.

“I thought you’d like it. And once we actually got into the car, oh my. How I love cars. I’ve seen guys who practically took baths in pure bleach after they finished doing their business, but did they bother to clean their cars? No, they did not. This one’s an absolute nest of hairs and fibers and dirt and all things nice, and if I were a betting man, I’d bet you plenty that we’ll get at least one match between the car and the crime scene. We’ve also got a muddy shoe print on the driver’s floor mat: we’ll have to work it up to see how much detail we can get, but it’s from a man’s runner, size ten or eleven.”

“Even sweeter.”

“And then, of course,” Larry said demurely, “there’s the blood.”

By that stage I wasn’t even surprised. Every once in a while this job gives you a day like that, a day when all the dice roll your way, when you just have to stretch out your hand and a plump juicy piece of evidence drops into it. “How much?”

“Smears everywhere. Only a couple of smudges on the door handle and the steering wheel, he’d taken his gloves off by the time he got back to the car, but the driver’s seat is covered-we’ll send it all off for DNA, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it might just match up to your vics. Tell me I make you happy.”

“Happiest man in the world,” I said. “And in exchange, I’ve got another pressie for you. Richie and I are at the suspect’s flat, having a quick look around. Whenever you’ve got a moment, we’d love you to come down here and give it a proper going-over. No blood as far as we can see-sorry about that-but we’ve got another computer and another phone, to keep young Kieran busy, and I’m sure you’ll find something to interest you too.”

“My cup runneth over. I’ll be down as fast as I can skip. Will you and your new friend still be around?”

“Probably not. We’re heading back to the crime scene. Is your badger-tracking guy out there?”

“He is indeed. I’ll tell him to hang on for you. And I’ll save your great big hug for later. Ciao ciao.” Larry hung up.

The case was coming together. I could feel it, an actual physical sensation, as if it were my own vertebrae slipping into alignment with small confident clicks, letting me straighten and take a belly-deep breath for the first time in days. Killester is near the sea, and for a second I thought I caught a whiff of salt air, vivid and wild, slicing straight through all the city smells to find me. As I pocketed my phone and started down the stairs, I caught myself smiling, up at the gray sky and the turning birds.

Richie was piling crap back onto the sofa. I said, “Larry’s having a blast with Conor’s car. Hairs, fibers, a footprint, and-get this-a key to the Spains’ back door. Richie, my friend, this is our lucky day.”

“Great. That’s great, yeah.” Richie didn’t look up.

I said, “What is it?”

He turned around like he was dragging himself up from a sucking dream. “Nothing. I’m grand.”

His face was pinched and focused, turned inwards on itself. Something had happened.

I said, “Richie.”

“I just need that sandwich. Felt a bit crap all of a sudden, you know that way? Low blood sugar, probably. And the air in here, and all-”

“Richie. If something’s up, you need to tell me.”

Richie’s eyes came up to meet mine. He looked young and wildly lost, and when his lips parted I knew it was to ask for help. Then something in his face clicked shut and he said, “Nothing’s up. Seriously. Will we go, yeah?”

When I think about the Spain case, from deep inside endless nights, this is the moment I remember. Everything else, every other slip and stumble along the way, could have been redeemed. This is the one I clench tight because of how sharp it slices. Cold still air, a weak ray of sun glowing on the wall outside the window, smell of stale bread and apples.

I knew Richie was lying to me. He had seen something, heard something, fitted a piece into place and caught a glimpse of some brand-new picture. It was my job to keep pushing until he came clean. I understand that; I understood it then, in that low-ceilinged flat with the dust prickling my hands and clogging the air. I understood-or I would have, if I had pulled myself together, through the fatigue and all the other things that are no excuse-that Richie was my responsibility.

I thought he had twigged something that proved once and for all that Conor was our man, and he wanted to nurse the sting to his pride in private for a little while. I thought something had pointed him towards a motive and he wanted to move a few steps further down that road, till he was sure, before he brought me with him. I thought of the other partners on the squad, the ones going strong after longer than most marriages: the deft balance with which they moved around each other; the trust as solid and practical as a coat or a mug, something never talked about because it was always in use.

I said, “Yeah. You could probably do with some more coffee, too; I know I could. Let’s get out of here.”

Richie tossed the last of Conor’s crap onto the sofa, picked up the big evidence bag that held the orange crate and brushed past me, pulling off a glove with his teeth. I heard him heaving the crate up the steps.

Before I switched off the light I took one last look around, scanning every inch for the mysterious thing that had blazed up at him out of nowhere. The flat was silent, sullen, already closing back in on itself and turning deserted again. There was nothing there.