Broken Harbor

by Tana French

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  I’m a big believer in development—blame the property developers and their tame bankers and politicians for this recession if you want, but the fact is, if it wasn’t for them thinking big, we’d never have got out of the last one. I’d rather see an apartment block any day, all charged up with people who go out to work every morning and keep this country buzzing and then come home to the nice little places they’ve earned, than a field doing bugger-all good to anyone except a couple of cows. Places are like people are like sharks: if they stop moving, they die. But everyone has one place that they like to think is never going to change.

  I used to know Broken Harbor like the back of my hand, when I was a skinny little guy with home-cut hair and mended jeans. Kids nowadays grew up on sun holidays during the boom, two weeks in the Costa del Sol is their bare minimum. But I’m forty-two and our generation had low expectations. A few days by the Irish Sea in a rented caravan put you ahead of the pack.

  Broken Harbor was nowhere, back then. A dozen scattered houses full of families named Whelan or Lynch who’d been there since evolution began, a shop called Lynch’s and a pub called Whelan’s, and a handful of caravan spaces, just a fast barefoot run over slipping sand dunes and between tufts of marram grass to the cream-colored sweep of beach. We got two weeks there every June, in a rusty four-bunker that my dad booked a year in advance. Geri and I got the top bunks; Dina got stuck on the bottom, opposite my parents. Geri got first pick because she was the oldest, but she always wanted the land-facing side so she could see the ponies in the field behind us. That meant I got to open my eyes every morning on white lines of sea foam and leggy birds dashing along the sand, all of it glinting in the early light.

  The three of us were up and out at daybreak with a slice of bread and sugar in each hand. We had all-day games of pirates with the kids from the other caravans, went freckly and peeling from salt and windburn and the odd hour of sunshine. For tea my mother would fry up eggs and sausages on a camping stove, and afterwards my father would send us to Lynch’s for ice creams. We’d come back to find my mum sitting on his lap, leaning her head into the curve of his neck and smiling dreamily out at the water; he’d wind her hair around his free hand, so the sea breeze wouldn’t whip it into her ice cream. I waited all year to see them look like that.

  Once I got the Beemer off the main roads I started remembering the route, like I had known I would, just a faded sketch at the back of my head: past this clump of trees—taller, now—left at that kink in the stone wall. Right where the water should have risen into view over a low green hill, though, the estate came charging up out of nowhere and blocked our way like a barricade: rows of slate roofs and white gables stretching for what looked like miles in either direction, behind a high breeze-block wall. The signboard at the entrance said, in flamboyant curly lettering the size of my head, WELCOME TO OCEAN VIEW, BRIANSTOWN. A NEW REVELATION IN PREMIER LIVING. LUXURY HOUSES NOW VIEWING. Someone had spray painted a big red cock and balls over it.

  At first glance, Ocean View looked pretty tasty: big detached houses that gave you something substantial for your money, trim strips of green, quaint signposts pointing you towards LITTLE GEMS CHILDCARE and DIAMONDCUT LEISURE CENTER. Second glance, the grass needed weeding and there were gaps in the footpaths. Third glance, something was wrong.

  The houses were too much alike. Even on the ones where a triumphant red-and-blue sign yelled SOLD, no one had painted the front door a crap color, put flowerpots on the windowsills or tossed plastic kiddie toys on the lawn. There was a scattering of parked cars, but most of the driveways were empty, and not in a way that said everyone was out powering the economy. You could look straight through three out of four houses, to bare rear windows and gray patches of sky. A heavyset girl in a red anorak was shoving a buggy along a footpath, wind grabbing at her hair. She and her moon-faced kid could have been the only people within miles.

  “Jaysus,” Richie said; in the silence his voice was loud enough that both of us jumped. “The village of the damned.”

  The call sheet said 9 Ocean View Rise, which would have made more sense if the Irish Sea had been an ocean or even if it had been visible, but I guess you make the most of whatever you’ve got. The GPS was getting out of its depth: it took us down Ocean View Drive, dead-ended us down Ocean View Grove—which hit the trifecta by having no trees anywhere in sight—and informed us, “You have reached your destination. Good-bye.”

  I did a U-turn and went looking. As we got deeper into the estate, the houses got sketchier, like watching a film in reverse. Pretty soon they were random collections of walls and scaffolding, with the odd gaping hole for a window; where the housefronts were missing the rooms were littered with broken ladders, lengths of pipe, rotting cement bags. Every time we turned a corner I expected to see a swarm of builders at work, but the nearest we got was a battered yellow digger in a vacant lot, listing sideways among churned-up mud and scattered mounds of dirt.

  No one lived here. I tried to aim us back in the general direction of the entrance, but the estate was built like one of those old hedge mazes, all cul-de-sacs and hairpin turns, and almost straightaway we were lost. A tiny dart of panic shot through me. I’ve never liked losing my bearings.

  I pulled up at an intersection—reflex: it wasn’t like anyone was going to dash out in front of me—and in the quiet where the noise of the motor had been, we heard the deep boom of the sea. Then Richie’s head went up. He said, “What’s that?”

  It was a short, raw, ripped-open shriek, repeating over and over, so regular it sounded mechanical. It spread out across mud and concrete and bounced off unfinished walls till it could have come from anywhere, or everywhere. As far as I could tell, that and the sea were the only sounds on the estate.

  I said, “I’m going to bet that’s the sister.”

  He gave me a look like he thought I was yanking his chain. “That’s a fox or something. Run over, maybe.”

  “And here I thought you were Mr. Streetwise who knew just how bad this was going to be. You’re going to need to brace yourself, Richie. Big time.”

  I rolled down a window and followed the sound. The echoes led me off course a few times, but we knew it when we saw it. One side of Ocean View Rise was pristine, bay-windowed white semi-ds lined up in pairs, neat as dominoes; the other side was scaffolding and rubble. Between the dominoes, over the estate wall, slivers of gray sea moved. A couple of the houses had a car or two in front of them, but one house had three: a white Volvo hatchback that had Family written all over it, a yellow Fiat Seicento that had seen better days, and a marked car. There was blue-and-white crime-scene tape along the low garden wall.

  I meant what I said to Richie: in this job everything matters, down to the way you open your car door. Long before I say Word One to a witness, or a suspect, he needs to know that Mick Kennedy is in the house and that I’ve got this case by the balls. Some of it is luck—I’ve got height, I’ve got a full head of hair and it’s still ninety-nine percent dark brown, I’ve got decent looks if I say so myself, and all those things help—but I’ve put practice and treadmill time into the rest. I kept up my speed till the last second, braked hard, swung myself and my briefcase out of the car in one smooth move and headed for the house at a swift, efficient pace. Richie would learn to keep up.

  One of the uniforms was squatting awkwardly by his car, patting at someone in the back seat who was pretty clearly the source of the screaming. The other one was pacing in front of the gate, too fast, with his hands clasped behind his back. The air smelled fresh, sweet and salty: sea and fields. It was colder out there than it had been in Dublin. Wind whistled halfheartedly through scaffolding and exposed beams.

  The guy who was pacing was my age, with a paunch and a sandbagged look: he had obviously made it through twenty years on the force without seeing anything like this, and had been hoping to make it through twent
y more. He said, “Garda Wall. That’s Garda Mallon, by the car.”

  Richie was sticking out a hand. It was like having a puppy. I said, before he could start buddying up, “Detective Sergeant Kennedy and Detective Garda Curran. You’ve been in the house?”

  “Only when we got here first. As soon as we could, we got out and rang ye.”

  “Good call. Tell me exactly what you did, entrance to exit.”

  The uniform’s eyes went to the house, like he could hardly believe it was the same place he had arrived at only a couple of hours earlier. He said, “We were called in for a welfare check—the occupant’s sister was worried. We reached the premises just after eleven o’clock and attempted to make contact with the residents by ringing the doorbell and by phone, but got no response. We saw no signs of forced entry, but when we looked in the front window, the lights on the ground floor were on and the sitting room appeared to be in some disorder. The walls—”

  “We’ll see the disorder for ourselves in a minute. Carry on.” Never let anyone describe the details before you get on the scene, or you’ll see what they saw.

  “Right.” The uniform blinked, pulled himself back on track. “Anyhow. We attempted to go around to the back of the house, but you can see for yourselves, sure—a child couldn’t get through there.” He was right: the gap between the houses was just wide enough for the side wall. “We felt that the disorder and the sister’s concerns warranted forcing entry through the front door. We found . . .”

  He was shifting on his feet, trying to angle the conversation so that he could see the house, like it was a coiled animal that might pounce at any second. “We entered the sitting room, found nothing to speak of—the disorder, but . . . We then proceeded to the kitchen, where we found a male and a female on the floor. Both stabbed, by the looks of it. One wound, on the female’s face, was clearly visible to myself and Garda Mallon. It appeared to be a knife wound. It—”

  “The doctors’ll decide that. What did you do next?”

  “We thought they were both dead. We were certain. There’s a load of blood. Loads of . . .” He gestured vaguely towards his own body, a shapeless pecking movement. There’s a reason why some guys stay in uniform. “Garda Mallon checked their pulses all the same, just in case. The female, she was right up against the male, like curled up against him—she had her head, her head was on his arm, like she was asleep . . . When Garda Mallon checked, she had a pulse. He got the shock of his life. We never expected . . . He couldn’t believe it, not till he put down his head and heard her breathing. Then we called for the ambulance.”

  “And while you waited?”

  “Garda Mallon stayed with the woman. Talked to her. She was unconscious, but . . . just telling her it was all right, we were the Guards, there was an ambulance coming and for her to hang on . . . I went upstairs. In the back bedrooms . . . There’s two little children there, Detective. A young boy and a young girl, in their beds. I tried CPR. They’re—they were cold, stiff, but I tried anyway. After what had happened with the mother, I thought, you never know, maybe they could still . . .” He rubbed his hands down the front of his jacket, unconsciously, like he was trying to wipe away the feel. I didn’t give him a bollocking for wrecking evidence: he had only done what came naturally. “No joy. Once I knew for definite, I rejoined Garda Mallon in the kitchen and we called for ye and the rest.”

  I asked, “Did the woman come to? Say anything?”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t move. We kept thinking she was after dying on us, had to keep checking to make sure she was still . . .” He wiped his hands again.

  “Do we have anyone at the hospital with her?”

  “We called in to the station, had them send someone. Maybe one of us should have gone with her, but with the scene to be secured, and the sister—she was . . . Sure, you can hear.”

  “You broke the news,” I said. I do the notification myself, any time I can. You can tell a lot from that first reaction.

  The uniform said defensively, “We told her to stay put, before we went in, but we’d no one to stay with her. She waited a good while, but then she came in. Into the house. We were with the victim, we were waiting for ye; the sister was at the kitchen door before we saw her. She started screaming. I got her outside again, but she was fighting . . . I had to tell her, Detective. It was the only way I could stop her trying to get back in, short of handcuffing her.”

  “Right. We won’t cry over spilled milk. What next?”

  “I stayed outside with the sister. Garda Mallon waited with the victim until the ambulance arrived. Then he left the house.”

  “Without doing a search?”

  “I went back in, once he came out to stay with the sister. Garda Mallon, sir, he’s all over blood; he didn’t want to track it around the house. I performed a basic security search, just to confirm that there was no one on the premises. No one alive, like. We left the in-depth search for ye and the Bureau.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” I flicked an eyebrow at Richie. The kid was paying attention: he asked, promptly, “Did you find a weapon?”

  The uniform shook his head. “But it could be in there. Under the man’s body, or . . . anywhere. Like I said, we tried not to disturb the scene any more than we had to.”

  “How about a note?”

  Another head-shake.

  I nodded towards the marked car. “How’s the sister been doing?”

  “We’ve been getting her calmed down a bit, off and on, but every time . . .” The uniform threw a harassed look over his shoulder at the car. “The paramedics wanted to give her a sedative, but she wouldn’t take it. We can get them back, if—”

  “Keep trying. I don’t want her sedated if we can help it, not till we’ve talked to her. We’re going to take a look around the scene. The rest of the team are on their way: if the pathologist arrives, you can have him wait here, but make sure the morgue boys and the Tech Bureau keep their distance till we’ve had a go at the sister—one look at them and she’ll flip out for real. Apart from that, keep her where she is, keep the neighbors where they are, and if anyone happens to wander up, keep him where he is too. Clear?”

  “Grand,” said the uniform. He would have done the chicken dance if I’d told him to, he was so relieved that someone was taking this thing off his hands. I could see him itching to get down to his local and throw back a double whiskey in one gulp.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere except inside that house. “Gloves,” I said to Richie. “Shoe covers.” I was already flipping mine out of my pocket. He fumbled for his, and we started up the drive. The long boom and shush of the sea rushed up and met us head-on, like a welcome or a challenge. Behind us, those shrieks were still coming down like hammer blows.

  2

  We don’t get crime scenes to ourselves. They’re off-limits, even to us, till the Bureau techs give the all clear. Until then, there are always other things that need doing—witnesses who need interviewing, survivors who need notifying—and you do those, check your watch every thirty seconds and force yourself to ignore the fierce pull from behind that crime-scene tape. This one was different. The uniforms and the paramedics had already trampled over every inch of the Spains’ house; Richie and I weren’t going to make anything worse by taking a quick look.

  It was convenient—if Richie couldn’t hack the bad stuff, it would be nice to find out without an audience—but it was more than that. When you get a chance to see a scene that way, you take it. What waits for you there is the crime itself, every screaming second of it, trapped and held for you in amber. It doesn’t matter if someone’s cleaned up, hidden evidence, tried to fake a suicide: the amber holds all that too. Once the processing starts, that’s gone for good; all that’s left is your own people swarming over the scene, busily dismantling it print by print and fiber by fiber. This chance felt like a gift, on this case where
I needed it most; like a good omen. I set my phone on silent. Plenty of people were going to want to get hold of me, over the next while. All of them could wait till I had walked my scene.

  The door of the house was a few inches open, swaying gently when the breeze caught it. When it was in one piece it had looked like solid oak, but where the uniforms had splintered it away from the lock you could see the powdery reconstituted crap underneath. It had probably taken them one shove. Through the crack: a geometric black-and-white rug, high-trend with a high price tag to match.

  I said to Richie, “This is just a preliminary walk-through. The serious stuff can wait till the Bureau lads have the scene on record. For now, we don’t touch anything, we try not to stand on anything, we try not to breathe on anything, we get a basic sense of what we’re dealing with and we get out. Ready?”

  He nodded. I pushed the door open with one fingertip on the splintered edge.

  My first thought was that if this was what Garda Whatever called disorder, he had OCD issues. The hallway was dim and perfect: sparkling mirror, organized coatrack, smell of lemon room freshener. The walls were clean. On one of them was a watercolor, something green and peaceful with cows.

  My second thought: the Spains had had an alarm system. The panel was a fancy modern one, discreetly tucked away behind the door. The OFF light was a steady yellow.

  Then I saw the hole in the wall. Someone had moved the phone table in front of it, but it was big enough that a jagged half-moon still poked out. That was when I felt it: that needle-fine vibration, starting in my temples and moving down the bones into my eardrums. Some detectives feel it in the backs of their necks, some get it in the hair on their arms—I know one poor sap who gets it in the bladder, which can be inconvenient—but all the good ones feel it somewhere. It gets me in the skull bones. Call it what you want—social deviance, psychological disturbance, the animal within, evil if you believe in that: it’s the thing we spend our lives chasing. All the training in the world won’t give you that warning when it comes close. You get it or you don’t.