Broken Harbour

“You must be joking. Family stuff.”

I glanced across at Richie-we could find out somewhere else, if we needed to-but his eyes were on Conor. I said, “Let’s talk about Jenny. What was she like, back then?”

Conor’s face softened. “Jenny,” he said gently. “She was something special.”

“Yeah, we’ve seen the photos. No awkward phase going on there.”

“That’s not what I mean. She came into a room and made things better. She always wanted everything lovely, everyone happy, and she always knew the right thing to do. She had this touch, I’ve never seen anything like it. Like once we were all at a disco, one of those underage things, and Mac-this guy we used to hang out with-he was hovering around some girl, kind of dancing around her and trying to get her to dance with him. And she made this face at him and said something, I don’t know what, but her and her mates all collapsed laughing. Mac came back to us scarlet. Devastated. The girls were still pointing and giggling; you could tell he just wanted to disappear. And Jenny turns around to Mac and holds out her hands and says, ‘I love this song, only Pat hates it. Would you dance with me? Please?’ And off they go, and next thing you know Mac’s smiling, Jenny’s laughing at something he said, they’re having a ball. That shut the girls up. Jenny was ten times prettier than your woman, any day.”

I said, “That didn’t bother Pat?”

“Jenny dancing with Mac?” He almost laughed. “Nah. Mac was a year younger. Fat kid with bad hair. And anyway, Pat knew what Jenny was doing. I’d say he just loved her more for doing it.”

That softness had seeped into his voice. It sounded like a lover’s, a voice for low light and drifting music, for only one listener. Fiona and Shona had been right.

I said, “Sounds like a good relationship.”

Conor said simply, “They were beautiful. Only word for it. You know when you’re a teenager, a lot of the time it feels like the whole world is shite? The two of them’d give you hope.”

“That’s lovely,” I said. “Really, it is.”

Richie had started playing with the sugar sachet again. “You went out with Jenny’s sister Fiona, yeah? When you were, what, eighteen?”

“Yeah. For a few months, only.”

“Why’d you break up?”

Conor shrugged. “It wasn’t working out.”

“Why not? She was a geebag? You had nothing in common? She wouldn’t do the do?”

“No. She was the one that broke it off. Fiona’s great. We got on great. It just wasn’t working out.”

“Yeah, well,” Richie said dryly, catching the sugar, “I can see where it wouldn’t. If you were in love with her sister.”

Conor went still. “Who said that?”

“Who cares?”

“I care. Because they’re full of shite.”

“Conor,” I said, warning. “Remember our deal?”

He looked like he wanted to kick both of our teeth in, but after a moment he said, “It wasn’t the way you make it sound.”

And if that wasn’t a motive then at least, at the very least, it was only one step away. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at Richie, but he had thrown the sugar too far and was lunging for it. “Yeah?” he wanted to know. “How do I make it sound?”

“Like I was some dirtbag trying to get between the two of them. I wasn’t. If I could’ve pushed a button and split them up, I would never have done it. Anything else, what I felt: that was my business.”

“Maybe,” I said. I was pleased with the sound of my voice, lazy, amused. “Up until Jenny found out, anyway. She did find out, didn’t she?”

Conor had reddened. After all these years, this should have healed over. “I never said a word to her.”

“You didn’t need to. Jenny guessed. Women do, old son. How did she feel about it?”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Did she give you the old brush-off? Or did she enjoy the attention, lead you on? Ever have a little kiss and a cuddle, when Pat wasn’t looking?”

Conor’s fists were clenched on the table. “No. I told you, Pat was my best mate. I told you what the two of them were like together. You think either of us, me or Jenny, would ever have done that?”

I laughed out loud. “Oh, God, yeah. I’ve been a teenage bloke myself. I’d have sold my own mother downriver for a bit of tit.”

“Probably you would’ve. I wouldn’t.”

“Very honorable of you,” I said, with only a flicker of a smirk. “But Pat didn’t understand that you were just worshipping nobly from afar, did he? He confronted you about Jenny. You want to tell us your version of what went down?”

Conor demanded, “What do you want? I’ve told you I killed them. All this, back when we were kids, this had nothing to do with it.”

His knuckles were white. I said coolly, “Remember what I told you? We like deciding for ourselves what’s relevant. So let’s hear what went down between you and Pat.”

His jaw moved, but he kept control. “Nothing went down. I’m at home one afternoon, a few days after Fiona broke up with me, and Pat calls round and says, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ I knew something was up-he had this grim face on him, wouldn’t look at me. We went walking down the beach, and he asked me if Fiona dumped me because I was into Jenny.”

“Man,” said Richie, making a cringe face. “Awkward.”

“You think? He was really upset. So was I.”

I said, “Restrained kind of guy, Pat, wasn’t he? Me, I’d have knocked your teeth out.”

“I thought probably he would. I was OK with that. Figured I deserved it. But Pat-he wasn’t the type to lose his temper, ever. He just went, ‘I know loads of guys fancy her. I don’t blame them. Not a problem, as long as they keep their distance. But you… Jesus, man, I never even thought of worrying about you.’”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Same as I told you. That I’d die before I’d get between them. That I’d never let Jenny know. That all I wanted was to find some other girl, be like the two of them, forget I’d ever felt this way.”

The shadow of old passion in his voice said he had meant every word, for whatever that was worth. I raised an eyebrow. “And that was all it took? Seriously?”

“It took hours. Walking up and down that beach, talking. But that’s the bones of it.”

“And Pat believed you?”

“He knew me. I was telling the truth. He believed me.”

“And then?”

“Then we went to the pub. Got locked, ended up staggering home holding each other up. Saying all the shite that guys say on nights like that.”

I love you, man, not in a gay way, but I love you, you know that, I’d do anything for you, anything… That unease flared through me, fiercer this time. I said, “And everything in the garden was rosy again.”

Conor said, “Yeah. It bloody was. I was Pat’s best man, a few years later. I’m Emma’s godfather. Check the paperwork, if you don’t believe me. You think Pat would’ve picked me if he’d thought I was trying to be with his wife?”

“People do strange things, fella. If they didn’t, me and my partner here would be out of a job. But I’ll take your word for it: best buds again, brothers in arms, all that good stuff. And then, a few years ago, the friendship went tits-up. We’d like to hear your version of what happened there.”

“Who said it went tits-up?”

I grinned at him. “You’re getting predictable, fella. A: we ask the questions. B: we don’t reveal our sources. And C: you said, among other people. If you’d still been all matey with the Spains, you wouldn’t have needed to freeze your balls off on a building site to see how they were doing.”

After a moment Conor said, “It was that fucking place. Ocean View. I wish to Jesus they’d never heard of it.”