Tana French - Broken Harbour

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?”