Probably he hated me right then, but I could live with that. I don’t care if my rookies take home photos of me to throw darts at, as long as when the dust settles they haven’t done any damage, either to the case or to their careers. “It won’t happen again. Am I right?”
“No. I mean, yeah, you’re right: it won’t.”
“Good. Then let’s go get that interview.”
Richie tucked his chin into his jacket collar and eyed Fiona Rafferty doubtfully. She was sagging on her wall, head almost between her knees, cigarette hanging forgotten from one hand. At that distance she looked like something discarded, just a crumple of scarlet cloth tossed away in the rubble. “You think she can take it?”
“I haven’t a clue. Not our problem, as long as she has the nervous breakdown on her own time. Now come on.”
I headed across the road without looking back to see if he was coming. After a moment I heard his shoes crunching on dirt and gravel, hurrying up behind me.
Fiona was a little more together: the occasional shudder still slammed through her, but her hands had stopped shaking and she had wiped the mascara off her face, even if it was with her shirt front. I moved her into one of the half-built houses, out of the stiff wind and out of view of whatever Larry and his buddies did next, found her a nice pile of breeze blocks to sit on and gave her another cigarette—I don’t smoke, never have, but I keep a pack in my briefcase: smokers are like any other addicts, the best way to get them on side is with their own currency. I sat next to her on the breeze blocks; Richie found himself a windowsill at my shoulder, where he could watch and learn and take notes without making a big deal of it. It wasn’t the ideal interview situation, but I’ve worked in worse.
“Now,” I said, when I’d lit her cigarette. “Is there anything else we can get you? An extra jumper? A drink of water?”
Fiona was staring at the cigarette, jiggling it between her fingers and dragging it down in fast little gasps. Every muscle in her body was clenched; by the end of the day she was going to feel like she’d run a marathon. “I’m fine. Could we just get this over with? Please?”
“No problem, Ms. Rafferty. We understand. Why don’t you start by telling me about Jennifer?”
“Jenny. She doesn’t like Jennifer—she says it’s prissy or something . . . It’s always been Jenny. Since we were little.”
“Who’s older?”
“Her. I’m twenty-seven, she’s twenty-nine.”
I had figured Fiona for younger than that. Partly it was physical—she was on the short side, slight, with a pointed face and small irregular features under all the mess—but partly it was the gear, all that student-type scruffiness. Back when I was young, girls used to dress that way even after college, but nowadays they mostly put on a better show. Going by the house, I was willing to bet that Jenny had made more of an effort. I said, “What does she do?”
“She’s in PR. I mean, she was, up until Jack was born. Since then she stays home with the kids.”
“Fair play to her. She doesn’t miss working?”
Something that could have been a head-shake, except Fiona was so rigid it looked more like a spasm. “I don’t think so. She liked her job, but she’s not super-ambitious, or anything. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go back if they had another baby—two sets of child care, she’d have been working for, like, twenty euros a week—but they still went for Jack.”
“Any problems at work? Anyone she didn’t get on with?”
“No. The other girls in the company sounded like total bitches to me—all these snide comments if one of them didn’t top up her fake tan for a few days, and when Jenny was pregnant they were calling her Titanic and telling her she should be on a diet, for God’s sake—but Jenny didn’t think it was a big deal. She . . . Jenny doesn’t like putting her foot down, you know? She’d rather go with the flow. She always figures . . .” A hiss of breath between her teeth, like physical pain had hit her. “She always figures things work out OK in the end.”
“What about Patrick? How does he get on with people?” Keep them moving, keep them jumping from topic to topic, don’t give them time to look down. If they fall, you might not be able to get them on their feet again.
Her face jerked towards me, swollen gray-blue eyes wide. “Pat’s—Jesus, you don’t think he did this! Pat would never, he would never—”
“I know. Tell me—”
“How do you know?”
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said, putting some stern into my voice. “Do you want to help us here?”
“Of course I—”
“Good. Then you need to focus on the questions we’re asking. The sooner we get some answers, the sooner you get some answers. OK?”
Fiona looked around wildly, like the room would vanish any second and she would wake up. It was bare concrete and sloppy mortar, with a couple of wooden beams propped against one wall like they were holding it up. A stack of fake-oak banisters covered in a thick coating of grime, flattened Styrofoam cups on the floor, a muddy blue sweatshirt balled up in one corner: it looked like an archaeological site frozen in the moment when the inhabitants had dropped everything and fled, from some natural disaster or some invading force. Fiona couldn’t see the place now, but it was going to be stamped on her mind for the rest of her life. This is one of the little extras murder throws at the families: long after you lose hold of the victim’s face or the last words she said to you, you remember every detail of the nightmare limbo where this thing came clawing into your life.
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said. “We can’t afford to waste time.”
“Yeah. I’m OK.” She jammed out her cigarette on the breeze blocks and stared at the butt like it had materialized in her hand out of nowhere. Richie leaned forward, holding out a foam cup, and said quietly, “Here.” Fiona nodded jerkily; she dropped in her cigarette and kept hold of the cup, gripping it with both hands.
I asked, “So what’s Patrick like?”
“He’s lovely.” Defiant flash of red-rimmed eyes. Under the wreckage was plenty of stubborn. “We’ve known him forever—we’re all from Monkstown, we always hung out with the same crowd, ever since we were kids. Him and Jenny, they’ve been together since they were sixteen.”
“What kind of relationship was it?”
“They were mad about each other. The rest of the gang, we thought it was a big deal if we went out with someone for more than a few weeks, but Pat and Jenny were . . .” Fiona caught a deep breath and jerked her head back, staring up through the empty stairwell and the haphazard beams at the gray sky. “They knew straightaway that this was it. It used to make them seem older; grown-up. The rest of us were just messing about, just playing, you know? Pat and Jenny were doing the real thing. Love.”
The real thing has got more people killed than practically anything else I can think of. “When did they get engaged?”
“When they were nineteen. Valentine’s Day.”
“That’s pretty young, these days. What did your parents think?”
“They were delighted! They love Pat too. They just said to wait till they finished college, and Pat and Jenny were fine with that. They got married when they were twenty-two. Jenny said there wasn’t any point in putting it off any longer, it wasn’t like they were going to change their minds.”
“And how did it work out?”
“It’s worked out great. Pat, the way he treats Jenny—he still lights up when he finds out there’s something she wants, because he can’t wait to get it for her. Back when I was a teenager, I used to pray that I’d meet someone who’d love me the way Pat loves Jenny. OK?”
The present tense takes a long time to wear off. My mother died way back when I was a teenager, but every now and then Dina still talks about what perfume Mummy wears or what kind of ice cream she likes. It drives Geri crazy. I asked, not too skeptically, “No arguments? In thirteen years?”
“That’s not what I said. Everyone has arguments. But theirs aren’t a big deal.”
“What do they argue about?”
Fiona was looking at me now, a thin layer of wariness solidifying over all the rest. “Same as any couple. Stuff like, back when we were kids, Pat would get upset if some other guy fancied Jenny. Or when they were saving up towards the house, Pat wanted to go on holiday and Jenny thought everything should go into the savings. They always sort it out, though. Like I said, no big deal.”
Money: the only thing that kills more people than love. “What does Patrick do?”
“He’s in recruitment—was. He worked for Nolan and Roberts—they find people for financial services. They let him go in February.”
“Any particular reason?”
Fiona’s shoulders were starting to tense up again. “It wasn’t anything he did. They let a few people go at the same time, not just him. Financial services companies aren’t exactly recruiting these days, you know? The recession . . . ”
“Did he have any problems at work? Any bad blood when he left?”
“No! You keep trying to make it sound like, like Pat and Jenny have all these enemies everywhere, they’re fighting all the time— They’re not like that.”
She was reared back away from me, the cup thrust out in two clenched hands like a shield. I said soothingly, “Now, that’s the kind of information I need. I don’t know Pat and Jenny; I’m just trying to get an idea of them.”
“They’re lovely. People like them. They love each other. They love the kids. OK? Does that give you enough of an idea?”
Actually that gave me shag-all idea about anything, but it was obviously the best I was going to get. “Absolutely,” I said. “I appreciate it. Does Patrick’s family still live in Monkstown?”
“His parents are dead—his dad was back when we were kids, his mum was a few years ago. He’s got a little brother, Ian, he’s in Chicago— Ring Ian. Ask him about Pat and Jenny. He’ll tell you the exact same thing.”
“I’m sure he will. Did Pat and Jenny keep any valuables in the house? Cash, jewelry, anything like that?”
Fiona’s shoulders came down again, a little, while she considered that. “Jenny’s engagement ring—Pat paid a couple of grand for that—and this emerald ring that our granny left to Emma. And Pat has a computer; it’s pretty new, he got it with his redundancy money, it might still be worth something . . . All that stuff, is it still there? Or did it get taken?”
“We’ll check. That’s it for valuables?”
“They don’t have anything valuable. They used to have this big SUV, but they had to give it back; they couldn’t make the repayments. And I guess there’s Jenny’s clothes—she used to spend a load on them, till Pat lost his job—but who’s going to do this for a bunch of secondhand clothes?”
There are people who would do it for a lot less, but I didn’t get the feeling that was what we were looking at. “When did you last see them?”
She had to think about that. “I met up with Jenny in Dublin, for coffee. This summer, maybe three or four months ago? I haven’t seen Pat in ages—April, I guess. God, I don’t know how it got to be that long—”
“What about the children?”
“April, the same as Pat. I was out here for Emma’s birthday—she was turning six.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“Like what?”
Head up, chin out, straight onto the defensive. I said, “Anything at all. A guest who seemed out of place, maybe. A conversation that sounded odd.”
“No. Nothing was odd. There were a bunch of kids from Emma’s class, and Jenny got a bouncy castle— Oh, God, Emma and Jack . . . Both of them, are you sure they’re both . . . ? Could one of them not be just hurt, just, just . . . ”
“Ms. Rafferty,” I said, in my best gentle-but-firm, “I’m pretty sure they’re not just hurt. We’ll let you know straightaway if anything changes, but right now I need you to stay with me. Every second counts, remember?”
Fiona pressed a hand over her mouth and swallowed hard. “Yeah.”