by Tana French
He picked up a handful of evidence bags from the table in the corner and waved them at me. Check these out.
There was a set of ivory dice, a tortoiseshell-backed hand mirror, a small lousy watercolor of a country lane, and a silver sugar bowl. Even before I turned the bowl around and saw the monograma delicate, flourished MI knew where these had come from. Only one place I knew of had this kind of tat variety: Uncle Simons hoard.
They were under Naylors bed, Frank said, prettily packed away in a shoebox. I guarantee if you have a good look around Whitethorn House youll find a cream pitcher to match. Which leaves us with the question: how did this lot end up in Naylors bedroom?
He broke in, Sam said. He had gone back to staring at Naylor, who was slouched in his chair gazing at the ceiling. Four times.
Without taking anything.
We dont know that. Thats according to Simon March, who lived like a pig and spent most of his time legless drunk. Naylor couldve filled up a suitcase with anything he fancied, and March would never have known the difference.
Or, Frank said, he could have bought it off Lexie.
Sure, Sam said, or off Daniel or Abby or whats-their-names, or off old Simon, come to that. Except that theres not one single speck of evidence to say he did.
None of them ended up stabbed and searched half a mile from Naylors home.
They had obviously been having this fight for a while; their voices had that heavy, well-practiced rhythm. I put the evidence bags back on the table, leaned against the wall and stayed well out of it. Naylors working for just over minimum wage and supporting two sick parents, Sam said. Where the hell is he going to get the money to buy antique bits and bobs? And why the hell would he want to?
Hed want to, Frank said, because he hates the March familys guts and hed jump at the chance to screw them overand because, just like you said, hes skint. He may not have the money himself, but there are plenty of people out there who do.
It took me that long to realize what they were fighting about, why the whole room was tight with that hard, bitten-down tension. Art and Antiques may sound like the nerd squad, a bunch of tweedy professors with badges, but what they do is no joke. The black market spreads worldwide, and it gets tangled up with a whole bunch of other kinds of organized crime along the way. People get hurt, in a swap network where the currencies range from Picassos to Kalashnikovs to heroin; people get killed.
Sam made a furious, frustrated noise, shook his head and slumped back against the glass. All I want, he said, is to find out whether this fellas a killer, and arrest him if he is. I dont give a damn what else hes been doing in his spare time. He could have fenced the Mona Lisa and I wouldnt care. If you seriously think hes been passing antiques, we can hand him over to A and A once were done with him, but for now, hes a murder suspect. Nothing else.
Frank raised one eyebrow. Youre assuming theres no connection. Look at the pattern. Up until those five move in, Naylors brick-throwing and spray-painting his little heart out. Once theyre there, he takes one or two more shots and then, just like thathe snapped his fingersall quiet on the western front. What, he thought those five were cute? He saw them renovating and didnt want to mess up the new decor?
They went after him, Sam said. The set of his mouth: he was inches from losing his temper. He didnt fancy getting the shite kicked out of him.
Frank laughed. You think that kind of grudge vanished overnight? Not a chance. Naylor found some other way to do damage to Whitethorn Houseotherwise he wouldnt have quit the vandalism, not in a million years. And look what happens as soon as Lexies not there to slip him antiques any more. He gives it a few weeks, in case she gets back in touch, and when she doesnt, hes right back to the rock through the window. He wasnt worried about getting the shite kicked out of him the other night, was he?
You want to talk about patterns? Heres a pattern for you. When the five of them chase him off, back in December, his grudge only gets worse. Hes not going to take on all of them at once, but he keeps spying on them, he finds out that one of them makes a habit of going out walking during his window of opportunity, he stalks her for a while and then he kills her. When he finds out he didnt even get that right, the rage builds up again, till he loses control and bangs an arson threat through the window. How do you think he feels about what happened the other night? If one of those five keeps wandering around the lanes on her own, what do you think hes going to do about it?
Frank ignored that. The question, he told me, is what we do with Little Johnny now. We can arrest him for burglary, vandalism, theft, whatever else we can come up with, and keep our fingers crossed that it loosens him up enough that he gives us something on the stabbing. Or we can stick this lot back under his bed, thank him kindly for helping us with our inquiries, send him home and see where he takes us.
In a way, this fight had probably been inevitable all along, from the second Frank and Sam showed up at the same crime scene. Murder detectives are single-minded, focused on narrowing the investigation slowly and inexorably till everything extraneous is gone and the only thing left in their sights is the killer. Undercovers thrive on extraneous, on spreading their bets and keeping all their options open: you never know where tangents might lead, what unexpected game might poke its head out of the bushes if you watch every angle for long enough. They light all the fuses they can find, and wait to see what goes boom.
And then what, Mackey? Sam demanded. Just supposing for a second that youre right, Lexie was slipping the man antiques to sell, and Cassie gets their little operation going again. Then what?
Then, Frank said, I have a nice chat with A and A, I head down to Francis Street and buy Cassie a handful of lovely shiny widgets, and we take it from there. He was smiling, but his eyes on Sam were narrow and watchful.
For how long?
As long as it takes.
A and A uses undercovers all the time, undercovers posing as buyers, as fences, as sellers with nudge-and-a-wink sources, gradually working their way towards the big shots. Their operations last for months; they last for years.
Im investigating a fucking murder here, Sam said. Remember that? And I cant arrest anyone for that murder while the victims alive and well and messing about with silver sugar bowls.
So? Get him after the antiques sting winds up, one way or the other. Best-case scenario, we establish a motive and a link between him and the victim, and we get to use them as leverage towards a confession. Worst-case scenario, we waste a little time. Its not like our statute of limitations is about to run out.
There wasnt a snowballs chance in hell that Lexie had spent the past three months selling John Naylor the contents of Whitethorn House just for kicks and giggles. Once that pregnancy test came up positive, she would have sold whatever it took to get out, but up until then: no.
I could have said so; should have. But the thing was that Frank was right on this much: Naylor would do anything that would damage Whitethorn House. He was going insane like a caged cat with his own helplessness, taking on that house charged with centuries of power, with no weapons in his hands but rocks and spray cans. If someone came up to him with a handful of spoils from Whitethorn House, a few bright ideas about where to sell the stuff and a promise of more, there was a good chancean incredible chancethat he wouldnt know how to say no.
Ill make you a deal, Frank said. Have another go at Naylorjust you, this time; he and I arent really clicking. Take as long as you need. If he gives you something on the murderanything at all, even a hintwe arrest him, we forget the whole antiques question, we pull Cassie in and we shut the investigation down. If he gives you nothing . . .
Then what? Sam demanded.
Frank shrugged. If your way doesnt work, then you come back out here and we all hav
e a little chat about my way.
Sam looked at him for a long time. No tricks, he said.
Tricks?
Coming in. Knocking on the door when Im on the edge of getting something. That kind of thing.
I saw a muscle flick in Franks jaw, but all he said was, blandly, No tricks.
OK, Sam said, on a deep breath. Ill give it my best shot. Can you hang on here for a bit?
He was talking to me. Sure, I said.
I might want to use youbring you in, maybe. Ill figure it out as I go. His eyes went to Naylor, who had switched to singing Follow Me Up to Carlow, just loud enough to be distracting. Wish me luck, he said, straightening his tie, and he was gone.
Did your boyfriend just insult my virtue? Frank wanted to know, when the door of the observation room shut behind Sam.
You can challenge him to a duel if you want, I said.
I play fair. You know that.
Dont we all, I said. Weve just got different ideas about what counts as fair. Sam isnt sure yours matches up all that well with his.
So we wont buy a time share in the Med together, Frank said. Ill live. What do you think of my little theory?
I was watching Naylor, through the glass, but I could feel Franks eyes raking the side of my head. I dont know yet, I said. I havent really seen enough of this guy to have an opinion.
But youve seen plenty of Lexiesecondhand, but still, you know as much about her as anyone does. Think shed be capable of something like that?
I shrugged. Who knows? The whole thing about this girl is that no one has a clue what she was capable of.
You were playing your cards very close to the chest, just now. Its not like you to keep your mouth shut for that long, not when you must have an opinion one way or the other. Id like to have some idea which side you might be on, if your fella comes out of there with nothing and we have to pick up this argument again.
The interview-room door opened and Sam came in, juggling two mugs of tea and catching the door with his shoulder. He looked wide awake, almost jaunty: the fatigue falls off you, the second youre face to face with a suspect. Shh, I said. I want to watch this.
Sam sat down, with a comfortable grunt, and pushed one of the mugs across the table to Naylor. Now, he said. His country accent had magically got a lot stronger: us against the city folk. Ive sent Detective Mackey off to do his paperwork. He was only annoying us.
Naylor stopped singing and considered this. I dont like the cut of him, he said, finally.
I saw the corner of Sams mouth twitch. Neither do I, sure. But were stuck with him. Frank laughed softly, beside me, and moved closer to the glass.
Naylor shrugged. You are, maybe. Im not. As long as hes here, Ive nothing to say.
Grand, Sam said easily. Hes gone, and Im not asking you to talk, just to listen. Theres something that Ive been told happened in Glenskehy, a while back. As far as I can see, it could explain a lot. All I need you to do is tell me if its true.
Naylor gave him a suspicious look, but he didnt start the concert again. Right, Sam said, and took a swig of his tea. There was a girl in Glenskehy, around the First World War . . .
The story he told was a delicate blend of what hed picked up in Rathowen, what Id picked up from Uncle Simons magnum opus, and something star-ring Lillian Gish. He pulled out all the stops: the girls father had thrown her out of the house, she was begging in the streets of Glenskehy, locals spitting on her as they passed, kids throwing stones . . . He topped it all off with a semisubtle hint that the girl had been lynched by an angry mob from the village. The soundtrack here clearly involved a large string section.
By the time he finished his tearjerker, Naylor was rocking the chair back again and giving him a stony, disgusted stare. No, he said. Jesus, no. Thats the biggest load of old shite Ive heard in my life. Where did you get that?
So far, Sam said, shrugging, thats the story Ive heard. Unless someone else can correct it for me, Ive no choice but to go on it.
The chair creaked, a monotonous, unsettling noise. Tell me, Detective, Naylor said, why would you be interested in the likes of us and our old stories? Were plain people around Glenskehy, you know. Were not used to getting the attention of important men like yourself.
Thats what he gave us all the way here, in the car, Frank told me, getting comfortable with a shoulder against the edge of the window. Our boys got a bit of a persecution complex.
Shh.
Theres been some hassle up at Whitethorn House, Sam said. Sure, I dont have to tell you that. Weve received information that theres bad feeling between the house and the residents of Glenskehy. I need to establish the facts, so I can determine whether theres any connection.
Naylor laughed, a hard, humorless crack. Bad feeling, he said. I suppose you could call it that, yeah. Is that what they told you up at the House?
Sam shrugged. All they said was that they werent welcome at the pub. No reason why they should be, sure. Theyre not locals.
Lucky for them. They get a bit of hassle, and theyve detectives crawling out of the woodwork to fix it. When its locals getting the hassle, where are ye? Where were ye when that girl was hanged? Filing it as a suicide and heading back to the pub.
Sams eyebrows went up. It wasnt suicide?
Naylor eyed him; those eyes swollen half shut made him look baleful, dangerous. You want the true story?
Sam made a small, easy gesture with one hand: Im listening.
After a moment Naylor brought the chair down, reached out and wrapped his handsbroken nails, dark scabs on the knucklesaround the mug. The girl worked as a maid up at Whitethorn House, he said. And one of the young fellas up there, one of the Marches, he took a fancy to her. Maybe she was stupid enough to think hed marry her and maybe she wasnt, but either way, she got into trouble.
He gave Sam a long bird-of-prey stare, making sure he understood. There was no throwing her out of the house. Id say her father was raging, and Id say he talked about waiting for the March fella in the lanes some dark night, but hed have been mad to do it. Pure mad. This was before the independence, dyou see? The Marches owned all round Glenskehy. Whoever the girl was, they owned her fathers house; one word out of him, and his family would have been on the side of the road. So he did nothing.
That cant have come easy, Sam said.
Easier than youd think. Most people then wouldnt deal with Whitethorn House any more than they had to. It had a bad name. Whitethorns the fairy tree, dyou see? Belongs to the fairies. He gave Sam a grim, equivocal little smile. Theres still people wont walk under a hawthorn at night, though they wouldnt be able to tell you why. Its only leftovers now, scrapings, but back then there was superstition everywhere. It was the dark did it: no electricity and the long winter nights, you could see anything you liked in the shadows. There were plenty believed that them up at Whitethorn House had dealings with the fairies, or the devil, depending on what way your mind worked. That sideways, cold flick of a smile again. What do you think, Detective? Were we all mad savages, back then?
Sam shook his head. Theres a fairy ring on my uncles farm, he said matter-of-factly. He doesnt believe in the fairies, never did, but he plows around it.
Naylor nodded. So thats what people said in Glenskehy, when this girl came up pregnant. They said she lay down with one of the fairy men from up at the House, and she got up with a fairy child. And serve her right.
They thought the baby would be a changeling?
Yowza, Frank said. Its life, Jim, but not as we know it. He was shaking with half-suppressed laughter. I wanted to kick him.
They did, yeah, Naylor said coldly. And dont be
giving me that look, Detective. These are my great-grandparents were talking about, mine and yours. Can you swear to me you wouldnt have believed the same, if youd been born back then?
Different times, Sam said, nodding.
Not everyone said it, now. Only a fewthe older folk, mostly. But enough that, one way or another, it got back to your man, the childs father. Either he wanted rid of the child all along and he was only waiting for an excuse, or something wasnt right in his mind to start with. A lot of them were always what you might call a bit odd, up at the House; maybe thats one reason they got the name for having dealings with the fairies. He believed it, anyway. He thought there was something wrong with him, in his blood, that would wreck the child.