by Tana French
“No problem, Ms. Rafferty. We understand. Why don’t you start by telling me about Jennifer?”
“Jenny. She doesn’t like Jennifer—she says it’s prissy or something… It’s always been Jenny. Since we were little.”
“Who’s older?”
“Her. I’m twenty-seven, she’s twenty-nine.”
I had figured Fiona for younger than that. Partly it was physical—she was on the short side, slight, with a pointed face and small irregular features under all the mess—but partly it was the gear, all that student-type scruffiness. Back when I was young, girls used to dress that way even after college, but nowadays they mostly put on a better show. Going by the house, I was willing to bet that Jenny had made more of an effort. I said, “What does she do?”
“She’s in PR. I mean, she was, up until Jack was born. Since then she stays home with the kids.”
“Fair play to her. She doesn’t miss working?”
Something that could have been a head-shake, except Fiona was so rigid it looked more like a spasm. “I don’t think so. She liked her job, but she’s not super-ambitious, or anything. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go back if they had another baby—two sets of child care, she’d have been working for, like, twenty euros a week—but they still went for Jack.”
“Any problems at work? Anyone she didn’t get on with?”
“No. The other girls in the company sounded like total bitches to me—all these snide comments if one of them didn’t top up her fake tan for a few days, and when Jenny was pregnant they were calling her Titanic and telling her she should be on a diet, for God’s sake—but Jenny didn’t think it was a big deal. She… Jenny doesn’t like putting her foot down, you know? She’d rather go with the flow. She always figures…” A hiss of breath between her teeth, like physical pain had hit her. “She always figures things work out OK in the end.”
“What about Patrick? How does he get on with people?” Keep them moving, keep them jumping from topic to topic, don’t give them time to look down. If they fall, you might not be able to get them on their feet again.
Her face jerked towards me, swollen gray-blue eyes wide. “Pat’s—Jesus, you don’t think he did this! Pat would never, he would never—”
“I know. Tell me—”
“How do you know?”
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said, putting some stern into my voice. “Do you want to help us here?”
“Of course I—”
“Good. Then you need to focus on the questions we’re asking. The sooner we get some answers, the sooner you get some answers. OK?”
Fiona looked around wildly, like the room would vanish any second and she would wake up. It was bare concrete and sloppy mortar, with a couple of wooden beams propped against one wall like they were holding it up. A stack of fake-oak banisters covered in a thick coating of grime, flattened Styrofoam cups on the floor, a muddy blue sweatshirt balled up in one corner: it looked like an archaeological site frozen in the moment when the inhabitants had dropped everything and fled, from some natural disaster or some invading force. Fiona couldn’t see the place now, but it was going to be stamped on her mind for the rest of her life. This is one of the little extras murder throws at the families: long after you lose hold of the victim’s face or the last words she said to you, you remember every detail of the nightmare limbo where this thing came clawing into your life.
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said. “We can’t afford to waste time.”
“Yeah. I’m OK.” She jammed out her cigarette on the breeze blocks and stared at the butt like it had materialized in her hand out of nowhere. Richie leaned forward, holding out a foam cup, and said quietly, “Here.” Fiona nodded jerkily; she dropped in her cigarette and kept hold of the cup, gripping it with both hands.
I asked, “So what’s Patrick like?”
“He’s lovely.” Defiant flash of red-rimmed eyes. Under the wreckage was plenty of stubborn. “We’ve known him forever—we’re all from Monkstown, we always hung out with the same crowd, ever since we were kids. Him and Jenny, they’ve been together since they were sixteen.”
“What kind of relationship was it?”
“They were mad about each other. The rest of the gang, we thought it was a big deal if we went out with someone for more than a few weeks, but Pat and Jenny were…” Fiona caught a deep breath and jerked her head back, staring up through the empty stairwell and the haphazard beams at the gray sky. “They knew straightaway that this was it. It used to make them seem older; grown-up. The rest of us were just messing about, just playing, you know? Pat and Jenny were doing the real thing. Love.”
The real thing has got more people killed than practically anything else I can think of. “When did they get engaged?”
“When they were nineteen. Valentine’s Day.”
“That’s pretty young, these days. What did your parents think?”
“They were delighted! They love Pat too. They just said to wait till they finished college, and Pat and Jenny were fine with that. They got married when they were twenty-two. Jenny said there wasn’t any point in putting it off any longer, it wasn’t like they were going to change their minds.”
“And how did it work out?”
“It’s worked out great. Pat, the way he treats Jenny—he still lights up when he finds out there’s something she wants, because he can’t wait to get it for her. Back when I was a teenager, I used to pray that I’d meet someone who’d love me the way Pat loves Jenny. OK?”
The present tense takes a long time to wear off. My mother died way back when I was a teenager, but every now and then Dina still talks about what perfume Mummy wears or what kind of ice cream she likes. It drives Geri crazy. I asked, not too skeptically, “No arguments? In thirteen years?”
“That’s not what I said. Everyone has arguments. But theirs aren’t a big deal.”
“What do they argue about?”
Fiona was looking at me now, a thin layer of wariness solidifying over all the rest. “Same as any couple. Stuff like, back when we were kids, Pat would get upset if some other guy fancied Jenny. Or when they were saving up towards the house, Pat wanted to go on holiday and Jenny thought everything should go into the savings. They always sort it out, though. Like I said, no big deal.”
Money: the only thing that kills more people than love. “What does Patrick do?”
“He’s in recruitment—was. He worked for Nolan and Roberts—they find people for financial services. They let him go in February.”
“Any particular reason?”
Fiona’s shoulders were starting to tense up again. “It wasn’t anything he did. They let a few people go at the same time, not just him. Financial services companies aren’t exactly recruiting these days, you know? The recession… ”
“Did he have any problems at work? Any bad blood when he left?”
“No! You keep trying to make it sound like, like Pat and Jenny have all these enemies everywhere, they’re fighting all the time— They’re not like that.”
She was reared back away from me, the cup thrust out in two clenched hands like a shield. I said soothingly, “Now, that’s the kind of information I need. I don’t know Pat and Jenny; I’m just trying to get an idea of them.”
“They’re lovely. People like them. They love each other. They love the kids. OK? Does that give you enough of an idea?”
Actually that gave me shag-all idea about anything, but it was obviously the best I was going to get. “Absolutely,” I said. “I appreciate it. Does Patrick’s family still live in Monkstown?”
“His parents are dead—his dad was back when we were kids, his mum was a few years ago. He’s got a little brother, Ian, he’s in Chicago— Ring Ian. Ask him about Pat and Jenny. He’ll tell you the exact same thing.”
“I’m sure he will. Did Pat and Jenny keep any valuables in the house? Cash, jewelry, anything like that?”
Fiona’s shoulders came down again, a little, while she considered that. “Jenny’s engag
ement ring—Pat paid a couple of grand for that—and this emerald ring that our granny left to Emma. And Pat has a computer; it’s pretty new, he got it with his redundancy money, it might still be worth something… All that stuff, is it still there? Or did it get taken?”
“We’ll check. That’s it for valuables?”
“They don’t have anything valuable. They used to have this big SUV, but they had to give it back; they couldn’t make the repayments. And I guess there’s Jenny’s clothes—she used to spend a load on them, till Pat lost his job—but who’s going to do this for a bunch of secondhand clothes?”
There are people who would do it for a lot less, but I didn’t get the feeling that was what we were looking at. “When did you last see them?”
She had to think about that. “I met up with Jenny in Dublin, for coffee. This summer, maybe three or four months ago? I haven’t seen Pat in ages—April, I guess. God, I don’t know how it got to be that long—”
“What about the children?”
“April, the same as Pat. I was out here for Emma’s birthday—she was turning six.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“Like what?”
Head up, chin out, straight onto the defensive. I said, “Anything at all. A guest who seemed out of place, maybe. A conversation that sounded odd.”
“No. Nothing was odd. There were a bunch of kids from Emma’s class, and Jenny got a bouncy castle— Oh, God, Emma and Jack… Both of them, are you sure they’re both… ? Could one of them not be just hurt, just, just… ”
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said, in my best gentle-but-firm, “I’m pretty sure they’re not just hurt. We’ll let you know straightaway if anything changes, but right now I need you to stay with me. Every second counts, remember?”
Fiona pressed a hand over her mouth and swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Well done.” I held out another cigarette and clicked the lighter. “When did you last speak to Jenny?”
“Yesterday morning.” She didn’t have to think about that one. “I ring her every morning at half past eight, once I’m in work. We have our coffee and check in, just for a few minutes. Like a start to the day, you know?”
“It sounds nice. How was she yesterday?”
“Normal! She was completely normal! There was nothing, I swear to God, I’ve gone over it in my head and there was nothing—”
“I’m sure there wasn’t,” I said soothingly. “What did you talk about?”
“Just stuff, I don’t know. One of my flatmates plays bass, her band has a gig coming up, I told Jenny about that; she was telling me how she was looking online for a toy stegosaurus, because Jack had brought home some friend from preschool on Friday and they went hunting a stegosaurus in the garden… She sounded fine. Totally fine.”
“Would she have told you if there was anything wrong?”
“Yeah, I think so. She would. I’m sure she would.”
Which didn’t sound sure. I asked, “Are you two close?”
Fiona said, “There’s just the two of us.” She heard herself and realized that wasn’t an answer. “Yeah. We’re close. I mean, we were closer when we were younger, teenagers—we sort of went in different directions after that. And it’s not as easy now that Jenny’s out here.”
“How long has that been?”
“They bought the house like three years ago.” 2006: the height of the boom. Whatever they had paid, these days the gaff was worth half of that. “There was nothing here then, though, just fields; they bought off the plans. I thought they were mental, but Jenny was over the moon, she was so excited—their own place…” Fiona’s mouth contorted, but she got it back together. “They moved out here maybe a year later. As soon as the house was finished.”
I asked, “And what about you? Where do you live?”
“In Dublin. Ranelagh.”
“You said you share a flat?”
“Yeah. Me and two other girls.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a photographer. I’m trying to get an exhibition together, but meanwhile I work at Studio Pierre—you know, Pierre, he was on that TV show about elite Irish weddings? I mostly do the baby shoots, or if Keith—Pierre—gets two weddings on the same day, I do one of them.”
“Were you doing a baby shoot this morning?”
She had to work to remember, it was so far away. “No. I was going through shots, these shots from last week—the mother’s coming in today to pick the album.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Like quarter past nine. One of the guys said he’d sort out the album for me.”
“Where’s Studio Pierre?”
“By Phoenix Park.”
An hour from Broken Harbor, minimum, in morning traffic and in that shitty little car. I asked, “Had you been worried about Jenny?”
That electric-shock head-shake.
“Are you sure? That’s an awful lot of hassle to go to because someone doesn’t answer her phone.”
A tense shrug. Fiona balanced the foam cup carefully beside her, tapped ash. “I wanted to make sure she was OK.”
“Why wouldn’t she have been?”
“Because. We always talk. Every day, for years. And I was right, wasn’t I? She wasn’t OK.”
Her chin wobbled. I leaned in close to give her a tissue, didn’t lean back. “Ms. Rafferty,” I said. “We both know there was more to it than that. You don’t ditch work, possibly annoy a client, and drive for an hour, just because your sister’s out of touch for forty-five minutes. You could have assumed that she’d gone to bed with a migraine, or that she’d lost her phone, or that the kids had come down with the flu, or any one of several hundred things, all of them a lot more likely than this. Instead, you jumped straight to the conclusion that something was wrong. You need to tell me why.”
Fiona bit down on her bottom lip. The air stank of cigarette smoke and singed wool—she had dropped hot ash on her coat, somewhere in there—and there was a dank, bitter smell coming off her, spreading on her breath and seeping out of her pores. Interesting fact from the front lines: raw grief smells like ripped leaves and splintered branches, a jagged green shriek.
“It wasn’t anything,” she said, finally. “It was ages ago—months. I’d practically forgotten about it, till…”
I waited.
“It was just… She rang me one evening. She said someone had been in the house.”
I felt Richie snap to attention at my shoulder, like a terrier ready to dash off after his stick. “Did she report this?” I asked.
Fiona rubbed out her cigarette and dropped the butt into the cup. “It wasn’t like that. There was nothing to report. There wasn’t, like, a window broken or the lock smashed or whatever, and there wasn’t anything taken.”
“Then what made her think someone had been in the house?”
The shrug again, even tenser this time. Her head had gone down. “She just thought. I don’t know.”
I said, letting the firm start to edge out the gentle, “This could be important, Ms. Rafferty. What did she say, exactly?”
Fiona took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed hair behind her ear. “OK,” she said. “OK. OK. So Jenny rings me, right, and she’s like, ‘Did you make a copy of our keys?’ I had their keys for about two seconds last winter, Jenny and Pat took the kids to the Canaries for a week and they wanted to know someone could get in if there was a fire or whatever. So I say no, course not—”
“Did you?” Richie asked. “Make a copy?” He pulled it off—he managed to sound just plain interested, not the slightest bit accusing. Which was nice: it meant I wouldn’t have to give him shit, or at least not too big a helping of it, for talking out of turn.
“No! Why would I?”
She had shot upright. Richie shrugged, gave her a deprecating little smile. “Just checking. I’ve got to ask, you know?”
Fiona slumped back. “Yeah. I guess.”
“And no one else could hav
e made copies, that week? You didn’t leave the keys where your flatmates could have taken them, or someone at work—nothing like that? Like I said, we have to ask.”
“I had them on my key ring. They weren’t in a safe or anything—when I’m in work I have my keys in my bag, and when I’m home they’re on a hook in the kitchen. But it’s not like anyone would’ve known what they were, even if they cared. I don’t think I even told anyone that I had them.”
Her flatmates and her workmates were going to be having in-depth chats all the same, not to mention background checks. “Let’s get back to the phone conversation,” I said. “You told Jenny you hadn’t copied her keys…”
“Yeah. Jenny says, ‘Well, someone’s got them, and you’re the only person we gave them to.’ It takes me like half an hour to convince her I don’t have a clue what she’s on about, so she’ll even tell me what’s the story. Finally she says her and the kids were out for the afternoon, at the shops or somewhere, and when she got back someone had been through the house.” Fiona had started picking the tissue to shreds, white wisps floating down on the red of her coat. She had small hands, slim-fingered, with bitten nails. “I ask her how she knows, and at first she won’t say, but finally I get it out of her: the curtains are hooked back all wrong, and she’s missing half a packet of ham and the pen she keeps by the fridge for making shopping lists. I’m like, ‘You have got to be joking,’ and she nearly hangs up on me. So I talk her down, and once she stops giving me hassle, she sounds really freaked out, you know? Really scared. And Jenny isn’t a wimp.”
This was one of the reasons I had come down hard on Richie for trying to postpone this interview. If you get someone talking right after his world ends, there’s a decent chance he won’t be able to stop. Wait till the next day and he’ll already be starting to rebuild his pulverized defenses—people work fast, when the stakes are that high—but catch him straight after the mushroom cloud unfurls and he’ll spill anything from his tastes in porn to his secret nickname for the boss. “Natural enough,” I said. “That’d be pretty unsettling.”