Broken Harbor

by Tana French

  He did it nicely. He went in holding out a cup and saying, “Sorry, man, I meant to bring this in to you before, only I got caught up . . . Is that all right for you? Would you have a cup of tea instead, yeah?” His accent had got thicker. The class thing had occurred to him, too.

  Our man had jumped half out of his skin when the door opened, and he was still catching his breath. He shook his head.

  Richie hovered, looking fifteen. “You sure? Coffee?”

  Another head-shake.

  “Grand. You’ll let me know if you need more of this, yeah?”

  The guy nodded and reached for the water. The chair rocked under his weight. “Ah, hang on,” Richie said. “He’s after giving you the dud chair.” Quick surreptitious glance at the door, like I might be behind it. “Go on: swap over. Have this one.”

  Our man shuffled awkwardly across. Probably it made no difference—all the chairs in the interview rooms are chosen to be uncomfortable—but he said, so low I barely heard him, “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Detective Richie Curran.” He held out a hand.

  Our man didn’t take it. He said, “Do I have to tell you my name?” His voice was low and even, good to listen to, with a slight rough edge like it hadn’t got much use lately. The accent gave me nothing; he could have been from anywhere.

  Richie looked surprised. “Do you not want to? Why not?”

  After a moment he said, to himself, “. . . make any difference . . .” To Richie, with a mechanical handshake: “Conor.”

  “Conor what?”

  A fraction of a second. “Doyle.” It wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Come morning we would find either his house or his car, or both, and strip them to the bones looking for, among other things, his ID. All we needed for now was something to call him.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Doyle. Detective Kennedy’ll be here in a while, then yous can get started.” Richie balanced the edge of his arse on a corner of the table. “I’ll tell you now, I’m only delighted you showed up. I was dying to get out of there, I was. I know people pay good money to go camping up by the sea and all, but the countryside isn’t my style, know what I mean?”

  Conor shrugged, a small, jerky movement. “It’s peaceful.”

  “I’m not mad about peaceful. City boy, me; give me the noise and the traffic any day. And I was freezing my bollix off, as well. Are you from up there, are you?”

  Conor glanced up sharply, but Richie was slugging at his water and watching the door, just making small talk while he waited for me. Conor said, “No one’s from Brianstown. They just move there.”

  “That’s what I meant: are you living there, yeah? Jaysus, you couldn’t pay me enough.”

  He waited, all mild innocuous curiosity, till Conor said, “No. Dublin.”

  Not local. Richie had knocked out one angle and saved us a lot of hassle right there. He raised his cup in a cheerful toast. “Up the Dubs. No better place. And wild horses couldn’t drag us away, amn’t I right?”

  Another shrug. “I’d live down the country. Depending.”

  Richie hooked an ankle around a spare chair and pulled it over for his feet, getting comfortable for an interesting chat. “Would you, seriously? Depending on what?”

  Conor wiped a palm up his jaw, hard, trying to pull it together: Richie was nudging him off balance, poking little holes in his concentration. “Dunno. If you had a family. Space for the kids to play.”

  “Ah,” Richie said, pointing a finger at him. “There you go, see. I’m a single man: I need somewhere I can get a few drinks in, meet a few girls. Can’t live without that, know what I mean?”

  I had been right to send him in. He was relaxed as a sunbather and doing a beautiful job. I was willing to bet that Conor had gone into that room with the intention of keeping his lip firmly zipped, for years if necessary. Every detective, even Quigley, has knacks, little things that he does better than anyone else around: we all know who to call if we want a witness reassured by the expert, or a quick bit of intimidation done right. Richie had one of the rarest knacks of all. He could make a witness believe, against all the evidence, that they were just two people talking, the same way the two of us had talked while we waited in that hide; that Richie was seeing not a solve in the making, not a bad guy who needed locking up for the good of society, but another human being. It was good to know.

  Conor said, “That gets old, the going out. You stop wanting it.”

  Richie’s hands went up. “Take your word for that, man. What do you start wanting instead?”

  “Something to come home to. A wife. Kids. A bit of peace. The simple stuff.”

  It moved through his voice, slow and heavy, like a shadow looming under dark water: grief. For the first time, I felt a flick of empathy for the guy. The disgust that came with it almost shot me into the interview room to get to work on him.

  Richie held up crossed index fingers. “Sooner you than me,” he said cheerfully.

  “Wait.”

  “I’m twenty-three. Long while to go before the biological clock kicks in.”

  “Wait. Nightclubs, all the girls made up to look exactly like each other, everyone pissed off their heads so they can act like someone they’re not. After a while, it’ll make you sick.”

  “Ah. Got burned, yeah? Brought home a babe and woke up with a hound?”

  Richie was grinning. Conor said, “Maybe. Something like that.”

  “Been there, man. The beer goggles are a bastard. So where do you go looking for chicks, if the clubs don’t do it for you?”

  Shrug. “I don’t go out much.”

  He was starting to turn his shoulder to Richie, block him out: time to change things up. I went for the interview room with a bang: sweeping the door open, spinning a chair over to face Conor—Richie slid off the table and into a chair next to me, fast—throwing myself back in it, shooting my cuffs. “Conor,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’d love to get this sorted out fast enough that we can all get some sleep tonight. What do you say?”

  Before he could come up with an answer, I held up a hand. “Whoa, hang on there, Speedy Gonzalez. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say, but you’ll get your turn. Let me share a few things with you first.” They need to be taught that you own them now; that from this moment on, you’re the one who decides when they talk, drink, smoke, sleep, piss. “I’m Detective Kennedy, this is Detective Curran, and you’re just here to answer some questions for us. You’re not under arrest, nothing like that, but we need a chat. I’m pretty sure you know what all this is about.”

  Conor shook his head, one heavy shake. He was dropping back towards that weighted silence, but I was fine with that, for the moment anyway.

  “Ah, man,” Richie said reproachfully. “Come on. What d’you think it’s about? The Great Train Robbery?”

  No response. “Leave the man alone, Detective Curran. He’s only doing what he was told, aren’t you, Conor? Wait your turn, I said, and that’s what he’s doing. I like that. It’s good to have the ground rules clear.” I steepled my fingers on the table and examined them thoughtfully. “Now, Conor, I’m sure spending your night like this doesn’t make you a happy man. I can see your point there. But if you look at this properly, if you really look at it, this is your lucky night.”

  He shot me a look of pure jagged incredulity.

  “It’s true, my friend. You know and we know that you shouldn’t have been setting up camp in that house, because it’s not yours, now is it?”

  Nothing. “Or maybe I’m wrong,” I said, with the corner of a grin. “Maybe if we check with the developers, they’ll tell us you put down a nice big chunk of deposit, will they? Do I owe you an apology, fella? Are you on that property ladder after all?”

  “No.”

  I clicked my tongue and wagged a finger at him. “I
didn’t think so. Naughty, naughty: just because no one’s living there, son, that doesn’t mean you get to move in, bag and baggage. That’s still breaking and entering, you know. The law doesn’t take a day off just because you fancy a holiday home and no one else was using it.”

  I was piling on the patronizing as thick as I could, and it was needling Conor out of his silence. “I didn’t break anything. Just walked in.”

  “Why don’t we let the lawyers explain why that’s beside the point? If things go that far, of course, which”—I raised a finger—“they don’t need to. Because like I said, Conor, you’re a very lucky young man. Detective Curran and I aren’t actually that interested in a pissant B and E charge—not tonight. Let’s put it this way: when a couple of hunters go out for the night, they’re looking for big game. If a rabbit, say, is all they can find, they’ll take that; but if the rabbit puts them on the trail of a grizzly bear, they’re going to let the bunny hop along home while they go chasing the grizzly. Are you following me?”

  That got me a disgusted glance. Plenty of people take me for a pompous git way too fond of the sound of his own voice, which is absolutely fine with me. Go ahead and dismiss me; go right ahead and drop your guard.

  “What I’m saying, son, is that you are, metaphorically speaking, a bunny. If you can point us at something bigger, off you hop. Otherwise, your fuzzy little head’s going over our mantelpiece.”

  “Point you at what?”

  The flare of aggression in his voice would have told me, all on its own, that he didn’t need to ask. I ignored it. “We’re on the hunt for info, and you’re the very man to give it to us. Because when you were picking a house for your bit of breaking and entering, you struck it lucky. As I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed, your little nest looks straight down into the kitchen of Number Nine Ocean View Rise. Like you had your very own reality-show channel, playing twenty-four-seven.”

  “World’s most boring reality-show channel,” Richie said. “Would you not have found, like, a strip club? Or a bunch of girls that go around topless?”

  I pointed a finger at him. “We don’t know it was boring, now do we? That’s what we’re here to find out. Conor, my man, you tell us. The people who live at Number Nine: boring?”

  Conor turned the question over, testing for dangers. In the end he said, “A family. Man and woman. Little girl and little boy.”

  “Well, no shit, Sherlock, pardon my French. That much we’ve worked out for ourselves; there’s a reason they call us detectives. What are they like? How do they spend their time? Do they get on? Is it snuggles or screaming matches down there?”

  “Not screaming matches. They used to . . .” That grief stirring again, dark and massive, under his voice. “They’d play games.”

  “What kind of games? Like Monopoly?”

  “Now I see why you picked them,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “The excitement, yeah?”

  “Like once they built a fort in that kitchen, cardboard boxes and blankets. Played cowboys and Indians, all four of them; kids climbing all over him, her lipstick for war paint. Evenings, him and her used to sit out in the garden, after the kids were in bed. Bottle of wine. She’d rub his back. They’d laugh.”

  Which was the longest speech we’d heard him make. He was dying to talk about the Spains, gagging for the chance. I nodded away, pulled out my notebook and my pen and made squiggles that could have been notes. “This is good stuff, Conor my man. This is exactly what we’re after. Keep it coming. You’d say they’re happy? It’s a good marriage?”

  Conor said quietly, “I’d say it was a beautiful marriage. Beautiful.”

  Was. “Never saw him do anything nasty to her?”

  That snapped his head round towards me. His eyes were gray and cold as water, amid the swollen red. “Like what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “He used to bring her presents all the time: small stuff, fancy chocolate, books, candles—she liked candles. They’d kiss when they passed in the kitchen. All those years together, and they were still mad about each other. He’d have died sooner than hurt her. OK?”

  “Hey, fair enough,” I said, raising my hands. “A man’s got to ask.”

  “There’s your answer.” He hadn’t blinked. Under the stubble his skin had a rough, windburned look, like he had spent too much time in cold sea air.

  “And I appreciate it. That’s what we’re here for: to get the facts straight.” I made a careful note in my book. “The kids. What are they like?”

  Conor said, “Her.” The grief surged in his voice, close to the surface. “Like a little doll, little girl in a book. Always in pink. She had wings she’d wear, fairy wings—”

  “‘She’? Who’s ‘she’?”

  “The little girl.”

  “Oh, come on, fella, don’t play games. Of course you know their names. What, they never yelled to each other in the garden? The mum never called the kids in for dinner? Use their names, for God’s sake. I’m too old to keep all this him-her-she-he stuff straight.”

  Conor said quietly, like he was being gentle with the name, “Emma.”

  “That’s right. Go on about Emma.”

  “Emma. She loved stuff around the house: putting on her little apron, making Rice Krispie buns. She had a little chalkboard; she’d line up her dolls in front of it and play teacher, teach them their letters. Tried to teach her brother, too, only he wouldn’t stay still long enough; knocked over the dolls and legged it. Peaceful, she was. Happy-natured.”

  Was again. “And her brother? What’s he like?”

  “Loud. Always laughing, shouting—not even words, just shouting to make noise, because that was so funny it creased him up. He—”

  “His name.”

  “Jack. He’d knock over Emma’s dolls, like I said, but then he’d come help her pick them back up, kiss them better. Give them sips of his juice. Once Emma was home sick, a cold or something: he brought her stuff all day long, his toys, his blanket. Sweet kids, both of them. Good kids. Great.”

  Richie’s feet shifted, under the table: he was working hard to let that go by. I tapped my pen off my teeth and examined my notes. “Let me tell you something interesting that I’ve noticed, Conor. You keep saying ‘used to.’ They used to play family games, Pat used to bring Jenny presents . . . Did something change?”

  Conor stared at his reflection in the one-way glass like he was measuring a stranger, volatile and dangerous. He said, “He lost his job. Pat.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He was there during the day.”

  And so had Conor been, which didn’t exactly point to him being a productive little worker bee. “No more cowboys and Indians after that? No more cuddles in the garden?”

  That cold gray flash again. “Being out of work wrecks people’s heads. Not just him. Plenty of people.”

  The quick leap to the defense: I couldn’t tell whether that was on Pat’s behalf or his own. I nodded thoughtfully. “Is that how you’d describe him? Head-wrecked?”

  “Maybe.” That sediment of wariness was starting to build up again, stiffening his back.

  “What gave you that impression? Give us a few examples.”

  A one-shouldered jerk that could have been a shrug. “Don’t remember.” The finality in his voice said he wasn’t planning to.

  I leaned back in my chair and took leisurely fake notes, giving him time to settle. The air was heating up, pressing around us dense and scratchy as wool. Richie blew out air loudly and fanned himself with his top, but Conor didn’t seem to notice. The coat was staying on.

  I said, “That’s going back a few months, Pat losing his job. When did you start spending time out at Ocean View?”

  A second’s silence. “A while back.”

  “A year? Two?”

  “Maybe
a year. Maybe less. I didn’t keep track.”

  “And how often do you get up there?”

  A longer silence, this time. The wariness was starting to crystallize. “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  Shrug.

  “I’m not looking for a stamped time sheet here, Conor. Just give us a ballpark. Every day? Once a week? Once a month?”

  “Couple of times a week, maybe. Less, probably.”

  Which meant every other day, at least. “What time? Day or night?”

  “Nights, mostly. Sometimes daytime.”

  “What about night before last? Did you head up to your little holiday home?”

  Conor leaned back in his seat, folded his arms and focused on the ceiling. “I don’t remember.”

  End of conversation. “OK,” I said, nodding. “You don’t want to talk about that just yet, fine with us. We can talk about something else instead. Let’s talk about you. What do you do, when you’re not kipping in abandoned houses? Got a job?”

  Nothing. “Ah, for God’s sake, man,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “Like pulling teeth. What d’you think we’re gonna do? Arrest you for being in IT?”

  “Not IT. Web design.”

  And a web designer would have known more than enough about computers to wipe the Spains’. “See, Conor? How hard was that? Web design’s nothing to be ashamed of. There’s good money in it.”

  A humorless sniff of a laugh, up at the ceiling. “You think?”

  “Recession,” Richie said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Conor. “Am I right? You were doing grand, all up and coming and web-designing away, and then the crash came and bang, just like that, on the dole.”

  That hard almost-laugh again. “I wish. I’m self-employed. No dole for me; when the work went, the money went.”