Broken Harbour

though, they’d all be out, like they’d all pick up Emma from school and then go to the shops. Pat wasn’t scared to go out the door-he just wanted to be in so he could keep an eye out for that mink or whatever. He didn’t have a phobia, nothing like that.”

I didn’t look at Richie, but I felt him freeze. Conor shouldn’t have known about Pat’s animal.

I said easily, before he could realize, “Did you ever see the animal?”

“Like I said. I wasn’t in the house much.”

“Sure you were. I’m not talking just the last couple of months; I’m talking about the whole time you were popping in and out. Did you see it? Hear it?”

Conor was starting to turn wary, even if he wasn’t sure why. “I heard scratching, a couple of times. Thought it was mice, maybe, or a bird that had got into the attic.”

“What about at night? That’s when the animal would have been doing its hunting or shagging or whatever it’s into, and you were right outside, with your little binoculars. Ever see a mink, on your travels? An otter? Even a rat?”

“There’s stuff living out there, yeah. I heard plenty of things moving around, at night. Some of them were big. No clue what they were, because I didn’t see any of them. It was dark.”

“That didn’t worry you? You’re out there in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wildlife you can’t see, nothing to protect yourself with?”

Conor shrugged. “Animals don’t bother me.”

“Brave man,” I said approvingly.

Richie said-rubbing his head, confused, the bewildered newbie trying to get things straight-“Hang on a sec there. I’m after missing a bit. How’d you know Pat was looking out for this animal?”

Conor’s mouth opened for an instant; then he shut down, thinking fast. “What’s the big deal?” I demanded. “It’s not a complicated question. Any reason you don’t want to tell us?”

“No. I just don’t remember how I found out.”

Richie and I looked at each other and started to laugh. “Beautiful,” I said. “Honest to God, no matter how long I do this job, that one never gets old.” Conor’s jaw had hardened: he didn’t like being laughed at. “Sorry, fella. But you’ve got to understand, we see an awful lot of amnesia around here. Sometimes I worry that the government’s putting something in the water. Want to try again?”

His mind was revving. Richie said, with the grin still in his voice, “Ah, come on, man. What harm?”

Conor said, “Listened at the kitchen window, one night. Heard Pat and Jenny talking about it.”

No streetlighting, no outside lights in the Spains’ garden: once it got dark, he could have come over the wall and spent his evenings pressed against their windows, listening. Privacy should have been the least of the Spains’ problems, out among rubble and creeping vines and sea-sounds, miles of motorway from anyone who gave a damn about them. Instead, not one thing had been their own. Conor wandering through their house, pressing up against their late-night wine and cuddles; the Gogans’ greasy fingers pawing over their arguments, poking into the soft crevices of their marriage. The walls of their home had been tissue paper, ripping and melting to nothing.

“Interesting,” I said. “And how did the conversation sound to you?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Who said what? Were they worried? Upset? Arguing? Yelling and screaming? What?”

Conor’s face had gone blank. He hadn’t planned for this. “I didn’t hear all of it. Pat said something about a trap not working. And I guess Jenny said something about trying different bait, and Pat said if he could just get a look at the animal then he’d know what to use. They didn’t seem upset, nothing like that. Bit concerned, maybe, but so would anyone be. It definitely wasn’t an argument. It didn’t sound like a big deal.”

“Right. And when was this?”

“Don’t remember. Sometime this summer, probably. Could’ve been later.”

“Interesting stuff,” I said, shoving my chair back from the table. “Hold that thought, fella. We’re going outside to talk about you for a while. Interview suspended; Detectives Kennedy and Curran leaving the room.”

Conor said, “Wait. How’s Jenny? Is she…?” He couldn’t finish.

“Ah,” I said, swinging my jacket over my shoulder. “I was waiting for that. You did well, Conor old son: you hung in there a good long time before you just had to ask. I thought you’d be begging inside sixty seconds. I underestimated you.”

“I answered everything you asked.”

“You did, didn’t you? Give or take. Good boy.” I arched an inquiring eyebrow at Richie, who shrugged, sliding off the table. “Why not, I suppose. Jenny’s alive, chum. She’s out of danger. Another few days and she should be out of the hospital.”

I expected either relief or fear, maybe even anger. Instead he took that in with a quick hissing breath and a curt nod, and said nothing.

I said, “She’s given us some very interesting information.”

“What did she say?”

“Come on, fella. You know we can’t share that. Let’s just say, though, you’d want to be very careful about telling us any lies that Jenny Spain can contradict. You think about that, while we’re gone. Think good and hard.”

I caught a last look at Conor while I held the door open for Richie. He was staring at nothing and breathing through his teeth, and just like I had told him to, he was thinking hard.

* * *

In the corridor I said, “Did you hear that? There’s a motive in there somewhere. It’s there after all, thank Jesus. And I’m going to get at it, if I have to beat it out of that freak.”

My heart was hammering; I wanted to hug Richie, bang on the door to make Conor jump, I couldn’t tell what. Richie was running a fingernail back and forth across the battered green paint of the wall and watching the door. He said, “You figure, yeah?”

“I figure hell yeah. The second he made that slip about the animal, he started bullshitting us again. That conversation about traps and bait, that never happened. If there was a shouting match going on and Conor practically had his ear to the window, probably he could have heard a lot of it; but the Spains had double glazing, remember. Throw in the sound of the sea, and even from right up close, no way would he have been able to hear a normal conversation. Maybe he’s just lying about the tone-they were having a screaming row, and he doesn’t feel like telling us, for whatever reason. But if that’s not how he found out about the animal, then how?”

Richie said, “He found the computer up and running, one of the times he broke in. Had a read.”

“Could be. It makes more sense than this crap he’s feeding us. But why not say it straight out?”

“He doesn’t know we’ve recovered anything off the computer. Doesn’t want us knowing Pat was losing the plot, in case we cop on that he’s covering for Pat.”

“If he is. If. ” I had known Richie wasn’t on side yet, but hearing it out loud set me pacing tight circles in the corridor. Every muscle in me was twitching from making myself sit still at that table for so long. “Has it occurred to you how else he could have known?”

Richie said, “Him and Jenny were having an affair. Jenny told him about the animal.”

“Yes. Maybe. Could be. We’ll find out. But that’s not what I’ve got in mind. Losing the plot, you said: Pat was losing the plot. What if that was what Pat was supposed to think, too?”

Richie shoved himself back against the wall and tucked his hands in his pockets. He said, “Go on.”

I said, “Remember what that hunter guy on the internet said, the one who recommended the trap? He wanted to know if there was any chance Pat’s kids were messing about with it. Now, we know the kids were too little for that, but there’s someone else who wasn’t. Someone who had access.”

“You think Conor let the animal out of the trap? Took the bait mouse away?”

I couldn’t stop circling. I wished we had an observation room, somewhere I could move fast and not have to keep my voice down. “Maybe that. Maybe even more than that. Fact: to begin with, at least, Conor was fucking with Jenny’s head. Eating her food, nicking her bits and pieces-he can keep telling us till the cows come home that he didn’t want to scare her, but the fact is, that’s what he did: freaked the shit out of her. He had Fiona thinking Jenny was losing her mind; probably he had Jenny thinking the same thing. What if he did the same to Pat?”