Authors: Tana French
Conor was writing, head bent low over the statement sheet, arm curved protectively around it. Richie watched him. He said, “This guy loved the Spains. Like you said. Say, let’s just say, he’s up in his hide the other night—maybe Jenny’s on the computer, he’s watching her. Then Pat comes downstairs and goes for her. Conor freaks out, goes to break up the fight: legs it down from his hide and over the wall, lets himself in through their back door. But by then it’s too late. Pat’s dead or dying, Conor thinks Jenny is too—probably he doesn’t check too carefully, not with all the blood and the panic. Maybe he’s the one that brought her over to Pat, so they could be together.”
“Touching. How do you explain the wiped computer? The missing weapons? What’s all that about?”
“Same again: he cares about the Spains. He doesn’t want Pat taking the rap. He wipes the computer ’cause he thinks maybe whatever Jenny was doing on there could be what triggered Pat—or he knows for definite that it was. Then he takes the weapons and dumps them, so it’ll look like an intruder.”
I took a second and a breath, to make sure I wouldn’t bite his head off. “Well, it’s a pretty little fairy story, old son. Poignant, is that the word I’m looking for? And that’s all it is. It’s fine as far as it goes, but you’re skipping right past this: why the holy hell did Conor confess?”
“Because. What happened in there.” Richie nodded at the glass. “Man, you practically told him you were going to put Jenny Spain in a straitjacket if he didn’t give you what you were after.”
I said, and my voice was cold enough to warn a much stupider man than Richie, “Do you have a problem with the way I’m doing my job, Detective?”
His hands went up. “I’m not picking holes. I’m only saying: that’s why he confessed.”
“No, Detective. No, it bloody well isn’t. He confessed
because he did it
. All that crap I gave him about loving Jenny, all that did was pick the lock; it didn’t put anything behind the door that wasn’t
already fucking there
. Maybe your experience has been different from mine, maybe you’re just better at this job, but I have a hard enough time getting my suspects to confess to what they
did
. I can safely say I’ve never, in all my career, managed to get one of them to confess to something he
didn’t
do. If Conor Brennan says he’s our man, then it’s because he is.”
“He’s not like most of them, though, is he? You said it yourself, we’ve both been saying: he’s different. There’s something weird going on there.”
“He’s weird, yeah. He’s not
Jesus
. He’s not here to give his life for Pat Spain’s sins.”
Richie said, “It’s not just him that’s weird. What about the baby monitors? Those weren’t your man Conor’s doing. And the holes in the walls? There was something going on
inside
that house.”
I leaned back against the wall with a thump and folded my arms. It might have been just the fatigue, or the thin yellowy-gray dawn smearing the window, but that champagne fizz of victory was well and truly gone. “Tell me, old son: why the hate for Pat Spain? Is this some kind of chip on your shoulder, because he was a good solid pillar of the community? Because if it is, I’m warning you now: get rid of it, sharpish. You’re not always going to be able to find a nice middle-class boy to pin things on.”
Richie came at me fast, finger pointing; for a second I thought he was going to jab me in the chest, but he had enough sense left to stop himself. “It’s got nothing to do with class.
Nothing.
I’m a cop, man. Same as yourself. I’m not some thicko skanger you brought in as a favor because it’s Take A Knacker To Work Day.”
He was too close and much too angry. I said, “Then act like a cop. Step back, Detective. Get a grip on yourself.”
Richie stared me out of it for another second; then he wheeled away, flung himself back against the glass and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You tell me, man: why are you so dead set that it
isn’t
Patrick Spain? Why the love?”
I had no obligation to explain myself to some jumped-up little newbie, but I wanted to; I wanted to say it, shove it deep into Richie’s head. “Because,” I said, “Pat Spain followed the rules. He did everything people are supposed to do. That’s not how killers live. I told you from the start: things like this don’t come out of nowhere. All that crap the families give the media—‘Oh, I can’t believe he would do this, he’s such a Boy Scout, never done anything bad in his life, they were the happiest couple in the world’—that’s garbage. Every time, Richie, every single time, it turns out that the guy was a Boy Scout except for a record as long as your arm, or he’d never done anything bad except for his little habit of terrorizing the shit out of his wife, or they were the happiest couple in the world except for the minor fact that he was banging her sister. There’s not one hint, anywhere, that any of that applied to Pat. You’re the one who said it: the Spains did their best. Pat was a trier. He was one of the good guys.”
Richie didn’t move. “Good guys break.”
“Seldom. Very, very seldom. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because the good guys have stuff to hold them in place, when the going gets tough. They’ve got jobs, families, responsibilities. They’ve got the rules they’ve been following their whole lives. I’m sure all that stuff sounds uncool to you, but here’s the fact: it works. Every day, it keeps people from crossing over the line.”
“So,” Richie said flatly, “because Pat was a nice middle-class boy. A pillar of the community. That’s why he couldn’t be a killer.”
I didn’t want to have this argument, not in an airless observation room at some ungodly hour of the morning with sweat sticking my shirt to my back. I said, “Because he had things to love. He had a home—OK, it was in the arsehole of nowhere, but one look at it should have told you that Pat and Jenny loved every inch of the place. He had the woman he’d been loving ever since they were sixteen;
still mad about each other
, that’s what Brennan said. He had two kids who climbed all over him. That’s what holds the good guys together, Richie. They’ve got places to put their hearts into. They’ve got people to take care of. People to love. That’s what stops them from going over the edge, when a guy who wasn’t weighted down would be in free fall. And you’re trying to convince me that Pat just turned around one day and blew all that away, for no reason at all.”
“Not for no reason. You said yourself: he could’ve been about to lose the lot. The job was gone, the gaff was going; the wife and kids could’ve been about to go as well. It happens. All over this country, it’s been happening. The triers are the ones that snap, when trying doesn’t do any good.”
All of a sudden I was exhausted, two sleepless nights digging their claws in and dragging me down with all their weight. I said, “The one who snapped was Conor Brennan. Now there’s a man who’s got nothing left to lose: no work, no home, no family, not even his own
mind
. I’ll bet you any amount of money you want, when we start looking into his life we’re not going to find a close-knit circle of friends and loved ones. Nothing’s holding Brennan in place. He’s got nothing to love; nothing except the Spains. He’s spent the last
year
living like some kind of cross between a hermit and the Unabomber, all so he could stalk them. Even your own little theory hinges on the fact that Conor was a delusional freak show who was spying on them at three in the bloody morning. The guy’s not right, Richie. He’s not OK. There’s no way around that.”
Behind Richie, in the harsh white light of the interview room, Conor had put down the pen and was pressing his fingertips into his eyes, rubbing them in a grim, relentless rhythm. I wondered how long it had been since he had slept. “Remember what we talked about? The simplest solution? It’s sitting behind you. If you find evidence that Pat was a vicious sonofabitch who was beating the shit out of his family while he got ready to leave them for a Ukrainian lingerie model, then come back to me. Until then, I’m putting my money on the psycho stalker.”
Richie said, “You told me yourself: ‘psycho’ isn’t a motive. All that about being upset because the Spains weren’t happy, that’s nothing. They’d been in trouble for months. You’re telling me the other night he just decided out of the blue, so fast he didn’t even have time to clean out his hide:
There’s nothing on the telly, I know what I’ll do, I’ll head on down to the Spains’ and kill the lot of them
? Come
on
, man. Here’s you saying Pat Spain didn’t have a motive. What the hell was this fella’s motive? Why the hell would he want any of them dead?”
One of the many ways that murder is the unique crime: it’s the only one that makes us ask why. Robbery, rape, fraud, drug dealing, all the filthy litany, they come with their filthy explanations built in; all you have to do is slot the perp into the perp-shaped hole. Murder needs an answer.
Some detectives don’t care. Officially, they’re right: if you can prove whodunit, nothing in the law says you need to prove why. I care. When I pulled what looked like a random drive-by, I spent weeks—after we had the shooter in custody, after we had enough evidence to sink him ten times over—having in-depth conversations with every monosyllabic cop-hating lowlife in his shit-hole neighborhood, until someone let slip that the victim’s uncle worked in a shop and had refused to sell the shooter’s twelve-year-old sister a packet of cigarettes. The day we stop asking why, the day we decide that it’s acceptable for the answer to a severed life to be
Just because
, is the day we step away from that line across the cave entrance and invite the wild to come howling in.
I said, “Trust me: I’m going to find out. We’ve got Brennan’s associates to talk to, we’ve got his flat to search, we’ve got the Spains’ computer—and Brennan’s, if he’s got one—to go through, we’ve got forensic evidence waiting to be analyzed . . . Somewhere in there, Detective, there’s a motive. Forgive me if I don’t have every piece of the puzzle in place within forty-eight hours of getting the bloody
case
, but I promise you, I will find them. Now let’s get this fucking statement and go home.”
I headed for the door, but Richie stayed put. He said, “Partners. That’s what you said this morning, remember? We’re partners.”
“Yes. We are. So?”
“So you don’t make the decisions for the both of us. We make them together. And I say we keep looking at Pat Spain.”
The stance—feet planted apart, shoulders squared—told me he wasn’t going to budge without a fight. We both knew that I could shove him back in his box and slam the lid on his head. One bad report from me and Richie was off the squad, back to Motor Vehicles or Vice for another few years, probably forever. All I had to do was touch on that, one delicate hint, and he would back off: finish Conor’s paperwork, leave Pat Spain to rest in peace. And that would be the end of that tentative thing that had begun in the hospital car park, less than twenty-four hours earlier.
I closed the door again. “All right,” I said. I let myself slump back against the wall and tried to squeeze tension out of my shoulder. “All right. Here’s what I suggest. We’ll need to spend the next week or so investigating Conor Brennan, to waterproof our case—that’s assuming he’s our man. I suggest that, during that time, you and I also conduct a parallel investigation into Pat Spain. Superintendent O’Kelly would like that idea even less than I do—he’d call it a waste of time and manpower—so we won’t make a song and dance about it. If and when it does come up, we’re just making sure Brennan’s defense isn’t going to find anything on Pat that they can use as a red herring in court. It’ll mean a lot of very long shifts, but I can handle that if you can.”
Richie already looked ready to fall asleep standing up, but he was young enough that a few hours would fix that. “I can handle it.”
“I thought so. If we turn up anything solid on Pat, then we’ll regroup and review. How does that strike you?”
He nodded. “Good,” he said. “Sounds good.”
I said, “The word for this week is
discreet
. Until and unless we come up with solid evidence, I’m not going to spit on Pat Spain’s body by calling him a murderer to the people who loved him, and I’m not going to watch you do it either. If you let any of them twig that he’s being treated as a suspect, we’re done. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yeah. Crystal.”
In the interview room, the pen was still down on the scribbled statement sheet and Conor was sagging over them, the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. I said, “We all need sleep. We’ll hand him over for processing, get the report typed up, leave instructions for the floaters, and then we’ll go home and crash for a few hours. We’ll meet back here at noon. Now let’s go see what he’s got for us.”
I scooped my jumpers off the chair and bent to stuff them back into the holdall, but Richie stopped me. “Thanks,” he said.
He was holding out his hand and looking me straight in the face, steady green eyes. When we shook, the strength in his grip took me by surprise.
“No thanks needed,” I said. “It’s what partners do.”
The word hung in the air between us, bright and fluttering as a lit match. Richie nodded. “Sound,” he said.
I gave him a quick clap on the shoulder and went back to packing up. “Come on. I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for some kip.”
We threw our stuff into our holdalls, binned the litter of paper cups and coffee stirrers, switched off the lights and closed the observation-room door. Conor hadn’t moved. At the end of the corridor the window was still bleary with that tired city dawn, but this time the chill didn’t touch me. Maybe it was all that youthful energy beside me: the victory fizz was back in my veins and I felt wide awake again, straight-backed and strong and rock-solid, ready for whatever came next.
11
T
he 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.”