*
The two sets of neighbors at the bottom of the road were in, this time. They were the Spains, three days back: young couples, little kids, clean floors and saved-for fashionable touches, houses ready and welcoming for visitors who wouldn’t come. None of them had seen or heard anything. We were discreet about telling them to get their back door locks changed: just a precaution, a possible manufacturing fault we had stumbled on in the course of the investigation, nothing to do with the crime.
One of each couple had a job, long hours and long commutes; the other man had been made redundant a week ago, the other woman back in July. She had tried to make friends with Jenny Spain—“We were both stuck out here all day, I thought it’d be less lonely if we had someone to talk to . . .” Jenny had been polite, but she had kept her distance: a cup of tea always sounded lovely, but she was never free and never sure when she would be. “I thought maybe she was shy, or she didn’t want me to think we were best friends and start dropping in every day, or maybe she was annoyed because I never tried before—I never had a chance, I was barely even home . . . But if she was worried about . . . I mean, was it . . . ? Can I ask?”
She had taken it for granted that it was Pat, just like I had told Richie everyone would. I said, “We have someone in custody in connection with the crime.”
“Oh, God.” Her hand went to her husband’s, on the kitchen table. She was pretty, slim and blond and nicely put together, but she had been crying before we arrived. “Then it wasn’t . . . It was just . . . some guy? Like a burglar?”
“The person in custody isn’t a resident of the house.”
That made the tears start leaking out again. “Then . . . Oh, God . . .” Her eyes went over my shoulder, to the far end of the kitchen. Their daughter was about four, cross-legged on the floor with her smooth fair head bent over a plush tiger, murmuring away. “Then it could’ve been us. There was nothing to stop it being us. You want to say, ‘There but for the grace of God,’ only you can’t, can you? Because that’s like saying God wanted them to be . . . It wasn’t God. It was just an accident; just luck. Only for luck . . .”
Her hand was white-knuckled on her husband’s and she was working hard to hold in a sob. It hurt my jaw, how much I wanted to be able to tell her that she was wrong: that the Spains had sent out some call on the sea wind and Conor had answered, that she and hers had made a life that was safe.
I said, “The suspect is in custody. He’ll be staying that way for a long time.”
She nodded, not looking at me. Her face said I didn’t get it.
The husband said, “We were wanting to get out anyway. We’d have been gone months ago, only who’d buy this? Now . . .”
The wife said, “We’re not staying here. We’re not.”
The sob broke through. Her voice and her husband’s eyes held the same splinter of helplessness. They both knew they were going nowhere.
*
On our way back to the car, my phone buzzed to tell me I had a message. Geri had rung me just after five.
“Mick . . . God, I hate to bother you, I know you’re only up to your ears, but I thought you’d want to know—maybe you already do, sure, but . . . Dina’s after walking out on us. Mick, I’m so sorry, I know we were supposed to be looking after her—and we were, I only left her with Sheila for fifteen minutes while I went down to the shops . . . Is she after coming to you? I know you’re probably annoyed with me, I wouldn’t blame you, but Mick, if she’s with you, please, could you ring me and let me know? I’m really sorry, honestly, I am . . .”
“Shit,” I said. Dina had been missing for an hour, minimum. There was nothing I could do about it for at least another couple of hours, until Richie and I were done with Fiona. The thought of what could happen to Dina in that amount of time made me feel like my heart was trying to beat against thick mud. “Shitfucking fuck.”
I didn’t realize I had stopped moving till I saw Richie, a couple of steps ahead, turned around to watch me. He said, “Everything OK, yeah?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “It’s not work-related. I just need a minute to clear things up.” Richie opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could get it out I had turned my back on him and was heading back down the footpath, at a pace that told him not to follow.
Geri picked up on the first ring. “Mick? Is she with you?”
“No. What time did she leave?”
“Oh, God. I was hoping—”
“Don’t panic. She could be at my place, or at my work—I’ve been out in the field all afternoon. What time did she leave?”
“Half past four, about. Sheila’s mobile rang and it was Barry, that’s her boyfriend, so she went up to her room just for privacy, and when she came down Dina was gone. She wrote, ‘Thanks, bye!’ on the fridge with her eyeliner, and this outline of her hand underneath, waving, like. She took Sheila’s wallet, it had sixty euros in it, so she’s got money, anyway . . . As soon as I got home and Sheila told me, I drove all round the neighborhood, looking for her—I swear I looked everywhere, I was going into shops and looking into people’s gardens and all—but she was gone. I didn’t know where else to look. I’ve rung her a dozen times, but her phone’s off.”
“How did she seem, this afternoon? Was she getting pissed off with you, or with Sheila?” If Dina had got bored . . . I tried to remember whether she had mentioned Jezzer’s surname.
“No, she was better! Much better. Not angry, not scared, not getting wound up—she was even making sense, most of the time. She seemed a bit distracted, like, not really paying attention when you talked to her; like she had something on her mind. That was all.” Geri’s voice was spiraling higher. “She was practically grand, Mick, honest to God she was, I was positive she was on her way up or I’d never have left her with Sheila, never . . .”
“I know you wouldn’t. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“She’s not fine, Mick. She’s not. Fine is the last thing she is.”
I glanced over my shoulder: Richie was leaning against the car door with his hands in his pockets, facing up into the building sites to give me privacy. “You know what I mean. I’m sure she just got bored and headed to a friend’s house. She’ll turn up tomorrow morning, with croissants to show you she’s sorry—”
“That doesn’t make her fine. Someone who’s fine doesn’t steal her niece’s babysitting money. Someone who’s fine wouldn’t need all of us to walk on eggshells all the—”
“I know, Geri. But that’s not something we can deal with tonight. Let’s just focus on one day at a time. OK?”
Over the estate wall the sea was darkening, rocking steadily towards night; the small birds were out again, scavenging at the water’s edge. Geri caught her breath, exhaled with a shake in it. “I’m so bloody sick of this.”
I had heard that note a million times before, in her voice and in my own: exhaustion, frustration and annoyance, cut with pure terror. No matter how many dozen times you go through the same rigmarole, you never forget that this could be the time when, finally, it ends differently: not with a scribbled apology card and a bunch of stolen flowers on your doorstep, but with a late-night phone call, a rookie uniform practicing his notification skills, an ID visit to Cooper’s morgue.
“Geri,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ve got one more interview to get through before I can leave, but then I’ll sort this out. If I find her waiting for me at work, I’ll let you know. You keep trying her mobile; if you get through, tell her to meet me at work, and give me a text so I know she’s coming. Otherwise, I’ll track her down the second I finish up. OK?”
“Yeah. OK.” Geri didn’t ask how. She needed to believe it would be that simple. So did I. “Sure, she’ll be fine on her own for another hour or two.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll keep Dina at mine tonight, but I might have to bring her over to you again tomorrow.”
“Do, of course. Everyone’s grand, Colm and Andrea haven’t caught it, thank God . . . And I won’t leave her out of my sight this time. I promise. Mick, I’m really sorry about this.”
“I mean it: don’t worry. Tell Sheila and Phil I hope they’re feeling better. I’ll be in touch.”
Richie was still leaning against the car door, gazing up at the sharp crisscross of walls and scaffolding against a cold turquoise sky. When I beeped the car unlocked, he straightened up and turned. “Howya.”
“Sorted,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I opened my door, but he didn’t move. In the fading light his face looked pale and wise, much older than thirty-one. He said, “Anything I can do?”
In the second before I could open my mouth, it surged up inside me, sudden and powerful as floodwaters and just as dangerous: the thought of telling him. I thought of those ten-year partners who knew each other by heart, what any of them would have said: That girl the other night, remember her? That’s my sister, her mind’s fucked, I don’t know how to save her . . . I saw the pub, the partner getting the pints in and tossing out sports arguments, dirty jokes, half-true anecdotes, till the tension fell out of your shoulders and you forgot your mind was shorting out; sending you home at the end of the night with a hangover in the making and the feeling of him solid as a rock face at your back. The picture was so clear I could have warmed my hands at it.
The next second I got my grip back and it turned my stomach, the thought of splaying my private family business in front of him and begging him to give me a pat on the head and tell me it would all be OK. This wasn’t some ten-year best buddy, some blood brother; this was a near stranger who couldn’t even be arsed sharing whatever had struck him in Conor Brennan’s flat. “No need,” I said crisply. I thought, briefly, of asking Richie to interview Fiona on his own, or asking him to type up the day’s report and postponing Fiona till morning—Conor wasn’t going anywhere—but both of those felt disgustingly pathetic. “The offer’s appreciated, but I’ve got everything under control. Let’s go see what Fiona has to tell us.”