Broken Harbour

She twisted the scarf around her hand, trying to find the words. After a moment she said, “Jenny does everything right, and everything goes right for her. That’s how her life’s always worked. When something finally went wrong, when Pat was out of work… She didn’t know how to handle it. That’s why I was scared that she was going crazy, back when she said that about someone breaking in. I’d been worried ever since Pat lost his job. And I was right: she was going to pieces. Is that…? Was that why she…?”

I didn’t answer. Fiona said, low and fierce, pulling the scarf tighter, “I should have known. She did a good job of hiding it, after that, but if I’d been paying more attention, if I’d been out there more…”

There was nothing she could have done. I didn’t tell her that; I needed her guilt. Instead I said, “Have you brought this up with Jenny?”

“No. Jesus, no. Either she’d tell me to fuck off and never come back, or she’d tell me…” A flinch. “You think I want to hear her talk about it?”

“How about with anyone else?”

“No. Like who? This isn’t exactly something you tell your flatmates. And I don’t want my mum to know. Ever.”

“Do you have any proof that you’re right? Anything Jenny’s said, anything you’ve seen? Or is it just instinct?”

“No. No proof. If I’m wrong, I’ll be-God, I’d be so happy.”

I said, “I don’t think you’re wrong. But here’s the problem: I don’t have proof either. Jenny’s confession to me can’t be used in court. The evidence we’ve got isn’t enough to arrest her, never mind convict her. Unless I can get something more, she’s going to walk out of here a free woman.”

“Good.” Fiona caught something in my face, or thought she did, and shrugged wearily. “What do you expect? I know probably she should go to prison, but I don’t care. She’s my sister; I love her. And if she got arrested, my mum would find out. I know I’m not supposed to hope someone gets away with this, but I do. There you go.”

“And what about Conor? You told me you still care about him. Are you seriously going to let him spend the rest of his life in prison? Not that it’ll be long. Do you know what other criminals think of child-killers? Do you want to know what they do to them?”

Her eyes had widened. “Hang on. You’re not going to send Conor to jail. You know he didn’t do this.”

“Not me, Ms. Rafferty. The system. I can’t just ignore the fact that I’ve got more than enough evidence to charge him; whether he’s convicted or not is up to the lawyers, the judge and the jury. I just work with what I’ve got. If I’ve got nothing on Jenny, then I’ll have to go with Conor.”

Fiona shook her head. “You won’t do it,” she said.

That certainty rang in her voice again, clear as struck bronze. It felt like a strange gift, warm as a tiny flame, in this cold place where I would never have expected to find it. This woman I shouldn’t even have been talking to, this woman I didn’t even like: for her, of all people, I was certainty.

“No,” I said. I couldn’t make myself lie to her. “I won’t.”

She nodded. “Good,” she said, on a small tired sigh.

I said, “Conor isn’t the one you should be worrying about. Your sister’s planning to kill herself, first chance she gets.”

I made it as brutal as I could. I expected shock maybe, panic, but Fiona didn’t even look around; she kept staring off down the corridor, at the dingy posters proclaiming the saving power of hand sanitizer. She said, “As long as she’s in the hospital, she won’t do anything.”

She already knew. It hit me that she could actually want it to happen-as a mercy, like Richie had, or as punishment, or out of some ferocious sister-tangle of emotions that not even she would ever understand. I said, “So what are you planning to do when they let her out?”

“Watch her.”

“Just you? Twenty-four-seven?”

“Me and my mum. She doesn’t know, but she figures after what happened, Jenny might…” Fiona’s head jerked, and she focused harder on the posters. She said again, “We’ll watch her.”

I said, “For how long? A year, two, ten? And what about when you need to go to work, and your mother needs to have a shower or get some sleep?”

“You can get nurses. Carers.”

“If you’ve won the Lotto, you can. Have you checked how much they cost?”

“We’ll find the money if we have to.”

“From Pat’s life insurance?” That silenced her. “And what happens when Jenny fires the nurse? She’s a free adult: if she doesn’t want someone looking after her, and we both know she won’t, there’s not a bloody thing you can do about it. Rock and a hard place, Ms. Rafferty: you can’t keep her safe unless you get her locked up.”

“Prison isn’t exactly safe. We’ll look after her.”

The sharp edge to her voice said I was getting to her. I said, “You probably will, for a while. You might manage weeks, or even months. But sooner or later, you’re going to take your eye off the ball. Maybe your boyfriend will ring you up wanting to chat, or your friends will be on at you to come out for a drink and a laugh, and you’ll think: Just this once. Just this once, life will let me off the hook; it won’t punish me for wanting to be a normal human being, just for an hour or two. I’ve earned it. Maybe you’ll only leave Jenny for a minute. A minute is all it takes to find the disinfectant or the razor blades. If someone’s serious enough about killing herself, she will find a way to do it. And if it happens on your watch, you’ll spend the rest of your life ripping yourself to shreds.”

Fiona shoved her hands deep into the opposite sleeves of her coat. She said, “What do you want?”

I said, “I need Conor Brennan to come clean about what happened that night. I want you to explain to him exactly what he’s doing. He’s not just perverting the course of justice, he’s kicking it in the teeth: he’s letting Pat and Emma and Jack go into the ground while the person who murdered them walks away scot-free. And he’s leaving Jenny to die.” It’s one thing to do what Conor had done in a nightmare moment of howling panic and horror, Jenny clutching him with her bloody hands and begging; it’s another to stand by, in the cold light of day, and let someone you love walk in front of a bus. “If it comes from me, he’ll think I’m just trying to mess with his head. From you, he’ll take it onboard.”

The corner of Fiona’s mouth twitched in what was almost a bitter little smile. She said, “You don’t really get Conor, do you?”

I could have laughed. “I’m pretty sure I don’t, no.”

“He doesn’t give a damn about the course of justice, or Jenny’s debt to society, or any of that stuff. He just cares about Jenny. He has to know what she wants to do. If he confessed to you guys, that’s why: so she can get the chance.” That twitch again. “Probably he’d think I’m being selfish, trying to save her just because I want her here. Maybe I am. I don’t care.”

Trying to save her. She was on my side, if I could just find a way to use that. “Then tell him Jenny’s already dead. He knows she’ll be out of hospital any day: tell him they let her out, and she took the first chance she got. If she’s not there to be protected any more, he might as well go ahead and save his own arse.”

Fiona was already shaking her head. “He’d know I was lying. He knows Jenny. There’s no way she’d… She wouldn’t go without leaving a note to get him out. No way.”

We had lowered our voices, like conspirators. I said, “Then do you think you could convince Jenny to make an official statement? Beg her, guilt-trip her, talk about the children, about Pat, about Conor; say whatever you need to say. I’ve had no luck, but coming from you-”

She was still shaking her head. “She’s not going to listen to me. Would you, if you were her?”

Both our eyes went to that closed door. “I don’t know,” I said. I would have been boiling over with frustration- for a second I thought of Dina, gnawing at her arm-if I had had anything left. “I haven’t got a clue.”

“I don’t want her to die.”

All of a sudden Fiona’s voice was thick and wobbling. She was about to cry. I said, “Then we need evidence.”

“You said you don’t have any.”

“I don’t. And at this point, we’re not going to get any.”

“Then what do we do?” She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, swiped away