*
Ocean View looked worse every time. On Tuesday it had looked like a battered castaway waiting for its savior, like all it needed was some property developer with plenty of cash and plenty of get-up-and-go to stride in and kick it into all the bright shapes it was meant to be. Now it looked like the end of the world. I half-expected feral dogs to slink up around the car when I stopped, last survivors to come staggering and moaning out of skeleton houses. I thought of Pat jogging circles around waste ground, trying to run those scrabbling noises out of his mind; of Jenny listening to the wind whistle around her windows, reading pink-covered books to keep up her PMA and wondering where her happy ending had gone.
Sinéad Gogan was home, of course. “What d’yous want?” she demanded, in the doorway. She was wearing the same gray leggings from Tuesday. I recognized a grease stain on one wobbly thigh.
“We’d like a few words with you and your husband.”
“He’s out.”
Which was a pisser. Gogan was what passed for the brains of this outfit; I had been relying on him to figure out that they needed to talk to us. “That’s all right,” I said. “We can come back and talk to him later, if we need to. For now, we’ll see how much you can help us.”
“Jayden’s already told you—”
“Yeah, he has,” I said, brushing past her and heading for the sitting room, with Richie in my wake. “It’s not Jayden we’re interested in, this time. It’s you.”
“Why?”
Jayden was sitting on the floor again, shooting zombies. He said promptly, “I’m off sick.”
“Switch that off,” I told him, making myself comfortable in one of the armchairs. Richie took the other one. Jayden made a disgusted face, but when I pointed at the controller and snapped my fingers, he did as he was told. “Your mother’s got something to tell us.”
Sinéad stayed in the doorway. “I don’t.”
“Sure you do. You’ve been keeping something back ever since we first walked in here. Today is when you come clean. What was it, Mrs. Gogan? Something you saw? Heard? What?”
“I don’t know anything about that fella. I never even seen him.”
“That’s not what I asked you. I don’t care if it’s got nothing to do with that fella, or any fella; I want to hear it anyway. Sit down.”
I saw Sinéad consider going into a don’t-give-me-orders-in-my-own-house routine, but I gave her a stare that said this would be a very bad idea. In the end she rolled her eyes and plumped down on the sofa, which groaned. “I’ve to get Baby up in a minute. And I don’t know anything that’s got to do with anything. OK?”
“You don’t get to decide that. The way it works is, you tell us what you know; we figure out how it’s relevant. That’s why we’re the ones with the badges. So let’s go.”
She sighed noisily. “I. Don’t. Know. Anything. What am I supposed to say?”
I said, “Just how stupid are you?”
Sinéad’s face turned uglier and she opened her mouth to hit me with some stale drivel about respect, but I kept slamming the words at her till she shut it again. “You make me want to puke. What the hell do you think we’re investigating? Shoplifting? Littering? This is a murder case. Multiple murder. How has that not sunk into your thick head?”
“Don’t you call me—”
“Tell me something, Mrs. Gogan. I’m curious. What kind of scum lets a kid-killer walk away because she doesn’t like cops? Just how far below human do you have to be, to think that’s OK?”
Sinéad snapped, “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”
She was talking to Richie. He spread his hands. “We’re under a load of pressure here, Mrs. Gogan. You’ve seen the papers, yeah? The whole country’s looking for us to get this sorted. We’ve got to do whatever it takes.”
“No shit,” I said. “Why did you think we kept coming back? Because we can’t stay away from your pretty face? We’re here because we’ve got a guy in custody, and we need the evidence to keep him there. Think hard, if you’re able. What do you figure is going to happen if he gets out?”
Sinéad had her arms folded across her flab and her lips pinched into a tight, outraged knot. I didn’t wait. “The first thing is that I’m going to be very bloody pissed off, and even you have to know that pissing off a cop is a bad idea. Does your husband ever do the odd job for cash, Mrs. Gogan? Do you know how long he could get for welfare fraud? Jayden doesn’t look sick to me; how often does he skip school? If I put in the effort—and believe me, I will—just how much trouble do you think I could make for you?”
“We’re a decent family—”
“Save it. Even if I believed you, I’m not your biggest problem. The second thing that’s going to happen, if you keep messing us around, is that this guy is going to get out. God knows I don’t expect you to give a damn about justice or the good of society, but I thought at least you had the brains to look after your own family. This man knows that Jayden could tell us about the key. Do you think he doesn’t know where Jayden lives? If I tell him that someone’s got the goods on him and they could talk any minute, who do you think is going to spring to his mind?”
“Ma,” Jayden said, in a small voice. He had bum-shuffled back against the sofa and was staring at me. I could feel Richie’s head turned towards me, too, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
“Is all of this clear enough for you? Do you need me to explain it in smaller words? Because unless you’re literally too stupid to live, the next thing out of your mouth is going to be whatever you’ve been keeping back.”
Sinéad was pressed back into the sofa, mouth hanging open. Jayden was holding on to the hem of her leggings. The fear on their faces brought back last night’s giddy, tilting rush, sent it speeding through my blood like a drug with no name.