*
The semi-d that shared a wall with the Spains’ house was empty—permanently empty, nothing in the front room except a screwed-up ball of newspaper and an architectural-level spiderweb—which was a bastard. The nearest signs of human life were two doors down on the other side, in Number 5: the lawn was dead, but there were lace curtains in the windows and a kid’s bike lying on its side in the drive.
Movement behind the lace, as we came up the path. Someone had been watching us.
The woman who answered the door was heavy, with a flat suspicious face and dark hair scraped back in a thin ponytail. She was wearing an oversized pink hoodie, undersized gray leggings that were a bad call, and a lot of fake tan that somehow didn’t stop her looking pasty. “Yeah?”
“Police,” I said, showing her my ID. “Can we come in and have a word?”
She looked at the ID like my photo wasn’t up to her high standards. “I went out earlier, asked those Guards what was going on. They told me to go back inside. I’ve got a right to be on my own road. Yous can’t tell me not to.”
This was going to be a real walk in the park. “I understand,” I said. “If you’d like to leave the premises at any point, they won’t stop you.”
“Better not. And I wasn’t trying to leave the premises, anyway. I only wanted to know what’s after happening.”
“There’s been a crime. We’d like to have a few words with you.”
Her eyes went past me and Richie to the action, and nosiness beat wariness. It usually does. She stood back from the door.
The house had started out exactly like the Spains’, but it hadn’t stayed that way. The hall had been narrowed down by heaps of gear on the floor—Richie caught his ankle on the wheel of a pram, bit back something unprofessional—and the sitting room was overheated and messy, with crowded wallpaper and a thick smell of soup and wet clothes. A chunky kid about ten was hunched on the floor with his mouth open, going at some PlayStation game that was obviously rated 18s. “He’s off sick,” the woman said. She had her arms folded defensively.
“Lucky for us,” I said, nodding to the kid, who ignored us and kept jamming buttons. “He may be able to help us. I’m Detective Kennedy and this is Detective Curran. And you are . . . ?”
“Sinéad Gogan. Mrs. Sinéad Gogan. Jayden, turn that thing off.” Her accent was some semi-rough outskirt of Dublin.
“Mrs. Gogan,” I said, taking a seat on the flowery sofa and finding my notebook, “how well do you know your neighbors?”
She jerked her head towards the Spains’ house. “Them?”
“The Spains, yes.”
Richie had followed me onto the sofa. Sinéad Gogan’s small sharp eyes moved over us, but after a second she shrugged and planted herself in an armchair. “We’d say hiya. We wouldn’t be friendly.”
“You said she’s a snobby cow,” said Jayden, not missing a beat blasting zombies.
His mother shot him a glare that he didn’t see. “You shut up.”
“Or?”
“Or else.”
I said, “Is she a snobby cow?”
“I never said that. I saw an ambulance outside there. What’s happened?”
“There’s been a crime. What can you tell me about the Spains?”
“Did someone get shot?” Jayden wanted to know. The kid could multitask.
“No. What’s snobby about the Spains?”
Sinéad shrugged. “Nothing. They’re grand.”
Richie scratched the side of his nose with his pen. “Seriously?” he asked, a little diffidently. “’Cause—I mean, I haven’t a clue, never met them before, but their gaff looked pretty poncy to me. You can always tell when people’ve got notions of themselves.”
“Should’ve seen it before. The big SUV outside, and him washing it and polishing it every weekend, showing off. That didn’t last, did it?”
Sinéad was still slumped in her armchair, arms folded and thick legs planted apart, but the satisfaction was edging the snottiness out of her voice. Normally I wouldn’t let new lads do the questioning on their first day out, but Richie’s angle was good and his accent was getting us further than mine would. I left him to it.
“Not so much to show off about now,” he agreed.
“Doesn’t stop them. Still think they’re great. Jayden said something to that little young one—”
“Called her a stupid bitch,” Jayden said.
“—and your woman came over here giving it loads, all how the kids weren’t getting on and was there any way to get them to cooperate? Like, so fake, know what I mean? Pretending to be all sweet. I said boys will be boys, deal with it. She wasn’t happy about that; keeps her little princess away from us now. Like we’re not good enough for them. She’s just jealous.”
“Of what?” I asked.
Sinéad gave me a sour stare. “Us. Me.” I couldn’t think of a single reason why Jenny Spain would have been jealous of these people, but apparently that was beside the point. Our Sinéad probably figured she hadn’t been invited to Beyoncé’s hen party because Beyoncé was jealous.
“Right,” I said. “When was this, exactly?”
“Spring. April, maybe. Why? Is she saying Jayden done something on them? Because he never—”
She was half out of her chair, heavy and threatening. “No, no, no,” I said soothingly. “When was the last time you saw the Spains?”
After a moment she decided she believed me and settled back down. “To talk to, that was it. I see them around, but I’ve got nothing to say to them, not after that. Saw her going into the house with the kids yesterday afternoon.”
“At what time?”
“Around quarter to five, maybe. I’d say she was after getting the young one from school and going to the shops—she’d a couple of carrier bags. She looked grand. The little fella was throwing a tantrum ’cause he wanted crisps. Spoilt.”
“Were you and your husband home last night?” I asked.
“Yeah. Where would we go? There’s nowhere. Nearest pub’s in the town, twelve miles away.” Whelan’s and Lynch’s were presumably under concrete and scaffolding now, razed to make way for shiny new versions that hadn’t materialized yet. For a second I smelled Sunday lunch at Whelan’s: chicken nuggets and chips deep-fried from frozen, cigarette smoke, Cidona. “Go all that way and then not be able to drink ’cause you’ve to drive home—there’s no buses that go here. What’s the point?”
“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary?”
Another stare, this one more antagonistic, like I had accused her of something and she was considering glassing me. “What would we have heard?”
Jayden sniggered suddenly. I said, “Did you hear something, Jayden?”
“What, like screams?” Jayden asked. He had even turned around.
“Did you hear screams?”
Pissed-off grimace. “Nah.” Sooner or later some other detective was going to be running into Jayden in a whole different context.
“Then what did you hear? Anything at all could help us.”
Sinéad’s face still had that look, antagonism cut with something like wariness. She said, “We heard nothing. We’d the telly on.”
“Yeah,” Jayden said. “Nothing.” Something on the screen exploded. He said, “Shit,” and dived back into the game.
I asked, “What about your husband, Mrs. Gogan?”
“He didn’t hear nothing either.”
“Could we confirm that with him?”
“He’s gone out.”
“What time will he be back?”
Shrug. “What’s after happening?”
I said, “Can you tell us if you’ve seen anyone entering or leaving the Spains’ house recently?”
Sinéad’s mouth pursed up. “I don’t be spying on my neighbors,” she snapped, which meant she did, as if I had had any doubts.
“I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “But this isn’t about spying. You’re not blind or deaf; you can’t help it if you see people coming and going, or hear their cars. How many houses on this road are occupied?”
“Four. Us, and them, and two down the other end. So?”
“So if you see someone around this end, you can’t help knowing they’re here for the Spains. So have they had any visitors recently?”
She rolled her eyes. “If they have, I didn’t see them. All right?”
“Not as popular as they think,” Richie said, with a little smirk.
Sinéad smirked back. “Exactly.”
He leaned forward. Confidentially: “Does anyone bother coming out to them at all?”
“Not any more, they don’t. When we first moved in, they’d have people over on a Sunday: the same kind as themselves, driving up in the big SUVs and all, swanning around with bottles of wine—a few cans weren’t good enough for them. They used to have barbecues. Showing off again.”
“Not these days?”
The smirk got bigger. “Not since he lost his job. They’d a birthday party for one of the kids, back in spring, but that’s the last time I saw anyone go in there. Like I said, though, I don’t be watching. But it just goes to show you, doesn’t it?”
“It does, yeah. Tell us something: have you had any hassle with mice, rats, anything like that?”
That got Jayden’s attention. He even hit Pause. “Jesus! Did rats eat them?”
“No,” I said.
“Ahhh,” he said, disappointed, but he kept watching us. The kid was unnerving. He had flat, colorless eyes, like a squid.
His mother said, “Never had rats. I wouldn’t be surprised, the way the drains are in this place, but no. Not yet, anyway.”
Richie said, “It isn’t great out here, no?”
“It’s a dump,” Jayden said.
“Yeah? Why?”
He shrugged. Sinéad said, “Have you looked at the place?”
“Looks all right to me,” Richie said, surprised. “Nice houses, loads of space, you’ve done the place up lovely . . .”