“You look a bit . . .” He wavered one hand. “That was rough enough, in there. I thought maybe . . .”
I said, “Why don’t you go ahead and assume that anything you can take, I can take. That wasn’t rough. That was just another day on the job—as you’ll know, once you get a little experience under your belt. And even if it had been rough as all hell, I’d be fine. That chat we had earlier, Richie, about control: did that not go in?”
He backed away, and I realized my tone had been a notch sharper than I wanted it to be. “Only asking.”
It took a second to sink in: he genuinely had been. Not prodding for weak spots, or trying to even things out after the post-mortem incident; just looking out for his partner. I said, more gently, “And I appreciate it. Sorry for snapping at you. How about you? Are you all right?”
“I’m grand, yeah.” He flexed his hand, wincing—I could see deep purple dents where Jenny’s nails had dug in—and glanced back over his shoulder. “The mother. Are we . . . when do we let her go in?”
I headed down the corridor, towards the exit stairs. “Whenever she wants, as long as she’s supervised. I’ll ring the uniform and let him know.”
“And Fiona?”
“Same goes for her: she’s more than welcome, once she doesn’t mind having company. Maybe they’ll be able to get Jenny to pull it together a bit, get more out of her than we could.”
Richie kept pace and said nothing, but I was starting to get the hang of his silences. I said, “You think I should be concentrating on how they can help Jenny, not how they can help us. And you think I should have let them go in yesterday.”
“She’s in hell. They’re family.”
I took the stairs fast. “Exactly, old son. E-fucking-xactly. They are family, which means we don’t have a hope of understanding the dynamics there, not yet anyway. I don’t know what a couple of hours with Mum and Sis would have done to Jenny’s story, and I didn’t want to find out. Maybe the mother’s a guilt-tripper, she makes Jenny feel even worse about ignoring the intruder, so when Jenny talks to us she skips over the fact that he broke in a few more times along the way. Maybe Fiona warns her that we were looking at Pat, and by the time we get to Jenny she won’t talk to us at all. And don’t forget: Fiona may not be top of our suspect list, but she’s not off it—not till we find out how our man picked the Spains—and she’s still the one who would have inherited if Jenny had died. I don’t care how badly the vic needs a hug, I’m not letting the heir talk to her before I do.”
“I guess,” Richie said. At the bottom of the stairs he moved aside to let a nurse go past, pushing a trolley of coiled plastic and glinting metal, and watched her bustle down the corridor. “Probably you’re right.”
I said, “You think I’m a cold bastard, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Not for me to say.”
“Maybe I am. It depends on your definition. Because you see, Richie, to me, a cold bastard is someone who could look Jenny Spain in the eye and tell her, Sorry, ma’am, we won’t be catching the person who butchered your family, because I was too busy making sure everybody liked me, see you around, and then waltz off home for a nice dinner and a good night’s sleep. That’s something I can’t do. So if I have to do some minor cold shit along the way, to make sure that doesn’t happen, so be it.” The exit doors juddered open, and a wave of cool rain-drenched air rolled over us. I crammed as much of it into my lungs as I could.
Richie said, “Let’s talk to the uniform now. Before the ma wakes up.”
In the heavy gray light he looked terrible, eyes bloodshot, face flat and haggard; if it hadn’t been for the half-decent clothes, Security would have taken him for a junkie. The kid was exhausted. It was heading for three o’clock. Our night shift started in five hours.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Give him a bell.” Richie’s face told me I looked as bad as he did. Every breath I took was still clotted with disinfectant and blood, like the hospital air had closed around me and soaked into my pores. I almost wished I smoked. “And then we can get away from this place. Time to go home.”
9
I dropped Richie outside his place, a beige terraced house in Crumlin—the tattered paintwork said it was rented, the bikes chained to the railings said he was sharing with a couple of mates. “Get some sleep,” I said. “And remember what I said: no booze. We need to be on the ball for tonight. I’ll see you outside HQ at a quarter to seven.” As he put his key in the door, I saw his head drop forward like he had nothing left to hold it up.
Dina hadn’t rung me. I had been trying to take that as a sign that she was peacefully reading or watching telly, or maybe still asleep, but I knew she wouldn’t ring even if she was bouncing off the walls. When Dina’s doing well, she’ll answer texts and the occasional call; when she’s not, she doesn’t trust her mobile enough to touch it. The closer I got to home, the more that silence seemed to turn dense and volatile, an acrid fog I had to fight through to reach my door.
Dina was sitting cross-legged on my living-room floor, with my books strewn around her like a hurricane had flung them off the shelves, ripping a page out of Moby Dick. She stared me in the eye, tossed the page on a pile in front of her, threw the Melville against the opposite wall with a bang, and reached for another book.
“What the fuck—” I dropped my briefcase and grabbed the book out of her hand; she kicked out at my shin, but I leapt back. “What the hell, Dina?”
“You, you fuckety bastarding prick, you locked me, what was I supposed going to do, sit here good girl like your dog? You don’t own you can’t make me!”
She made a dive for another book; I dropped on my knees and caught her wrists. “Dina. Listen to me. Listen. I couldn’t leave you the keys. I don’t have a spare set.”
Dina laughed, a high yelp that bared her teeth. “Yeah yeah yeah right, you don’t, Mr. Anal with your books are alphabetized but no spare keys? You know what I was going to? Put this on fire.” She jerked her chin fiercely at the heap of torn pages in front of her. “Then let’s see if someone doesn’t let me out, smoke alarm going good and loud, all your snobby yuppie neighbors wouldn’t be happy then, would they, ooh darlings the noise, in a residential area—”
She would have done it. The thought made my stomach curl. Maybe it weakened my grip: Dina lunged sideways, nearly ripping her wrists free, going for the books again. I clamped my hands tighter and shoved her back against the wall; she tried to spit at me, but nothing came out. “Dina. Dina. Look at me.”
She fought, twisting and kicking and making a furious humming sound between her clenched teeth, but I hung on till she froze stiff and her eyes met mine, blue and wild as a Siamese cat’s. “Listen to me,” I said, close into her face. “I had to go to work. I thought you’d still be asleep when I got home. I didn’t want to wake you up to let me in. So I took the keys with me. That’s all. That’s all there is to it. OK?”
Dina thought that over. Gradually, fraction by fraction, her wrists relaxed in my hands. “Ever do that again,” she said coolly, “ever. I’ll ring your cops and say you keep keeping me locked here and you rape me every day, every way. See how your job does then. Detective Sergeant.”
“Christ, Dina.”
“I will.”
“I know you will.”
“Oh, don’t give me that look. If you lock me up like I’m some animal, some crazy, then it’s your fault if I have to get out some way. Not my fault. Yours.”
The fight was over. She flicked my hands off like she was batting away midges and started combing her hair into place with her fingertips. “All right,” I said. My heart was hammering. “All right. I’m sorry.”
“Seriously, Mikey. That was a stupid thing to do.”
“Apparently. Yeah.”
“Not apparently. Obviously.” Dina got up off the floor and shoved past me, dusting off her hands and wrinkling her nose in distaste as she picked her way through the scattered books. “God, what a mess.”
I said, “I have work tomorrow, too, and I haven’t had a chance to get spare keys cut. I figured you might want to stay with Geri till I do.”
Dina groaned. “Oh, God, Geri. She’ll tell me about the kids. I mean, I love them and whatever, but, like, Sheila’s periods and Colm’s spots? Way TMI.” She thumped down on the sofa, with a bounce, and started shoving her feet into her biker boots. “I’m not staying here if you seriously have only one set of keys, though. I might go stay with Jezzer. Can I use your phone? I’m out of credit.”
I had no idea who or what Jezzer was, but it didn’t sound like my kind of person. I said, “Sweetheart, I need a favor from you. I really do. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I’d feel much better if I knew you were at Geri’s. I know it’s stupid and I know you’ll be bored out of your twist, but it’d make a big difference to me. Please.”
Dina’s head came up and she stared at me, that unblinking Siamese stare, her shoelace wrapped around her hands. “This case,” she said. “The Broken Harbor one. It’s getting to you.”
Dammit, stupid stupid stupid: the last thing I wanted her thinking about was this case. “Not really,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “It’s more that I’ve got Richie to keep an eye on—my partner, the rookie I told you about? It’s hard work.”
“Why? Is he thick?”
I picked myself up off the floor. Somewhere in the struggle I had whacked my knee, but letting Dina see that would be a bad idea. “Not thick at all, just new. He’s a good kid, he’s going to make a good detective, but he’s got a lot to learn. It’s my job to teach it to him. Throw in some eighteen-hour shifts, and it’s going to be a long week.”
“Eighteen-hour shifts in Broken Harbor. I think you should swap cases with someone else.”
I extracted myself from the mess, trying not to limp. There had to be a hundred torn-out pages in the heap, presumably each from a different book. I tried not to think about it. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m fine, sweetheart. Really.”
“Hmm.” Dina went back to her lace, tugging it tight with quick sharp jerks. “I worry about you,” she said. “Do you know that?”
“Don’t. If you want to help me out, the best thing you can do is humor me and spend a night or two at Geri’s. OK?”
Dina tied her lace in some kind of fancy double bow and pulled back to examine it. “OK,” she said, on a long-suffering sigh. “You have to give me a lift there, though. Buses are too scratchy. And hurry up and get those keys cut.”