Tana French - Broken Harbour

Fiona’s eyes snapped wide. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I promise, there’s no way that could go anywhere. You’re not going to get in trouble. I’m just telling you in advance: this isn’t perfect. But it’s the best I can do.”

“OK,” Fiona said, on a deep breath. She pulled herself upright in the chair and pushed hair off her face with both hands, ready for action. “What comes now?”

“We need to do it, conversations and all. If we go through every step, then you’ll remember the details when you give your statement, or when you’re cross-examined. You’ll sound truthful, because you’ll be telling the truth.”

She nodded. “So,” I said. “Where are you off to, Ms. Rafferty?”

“If Jenny’s asleep, I should drive down to Brianstown. She needs some things from the house.”

Her voice was wooden and empty, nothing left in it but a sediment of sadness. I said, “I’m afraid you can’t go into the house. It’s still a crime scene. If it would help, I can take you down there and get out whatever you need.”

“That’d be good. Thanks.”

I said, “Let’s go.”

I stood up, bracing myself against the wall like an old man. Fiona buttoned her coat, wrapped the scarf around her neck and tugged it tight. The child had stopped crying. We stood there in the corridor for a moment, listening by Jenny’s door for a call, a movement, anything that would keep us there, but nothing came.

For the rest of my life I will remember that journey. It was the last moment when I could have turned back: picked up Jenny’s bits and pieces, told Fiona I had spotted a flaw in my grand plan, dropped her back at the hospital and said good-bye. On the way to Broken Harbor that day, I was what I had given all my adult life to becoming: a murder detective, the finest on the squad, the one who got the solves and got them on the straight and narrow. By the time I left, I was something else.

Fiona huddled against the passenger door, staring out the window. When we got onto the motorway I took one hand off the wheel, found my notebook and pen and passed them to her. She balanced the notebook on her knee and I kept my speed steady while she wrote. When she was done she passed them back to me. I took a quick glance at the page: her handwriting was clear and rounded, with fast little flourishes on the tails. Moisturizer (whatever’s on bedside table or in bathroom). Jeans. Top. Jumper. Bra. Socks. Shoes (runners). Coat. Scarf.

Fiona said, “She’ll need clothes to leave the hospital in. Wherever she’s going next.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

You’re doing the right thing. It almost came out automatically. Instead I said, “You’re saving your sister’s life.”

“I’m putting her in prison.”

“You’re doing the best you can. That’s all any of us can do.”

She said suddenly, as if the words had forced their way out, “When we were kids I used to pray that Jenny would do something awful. I was always in trouble-nothing major, I wasn’t some delinquent, just little stuff like giving my mum cheek or talking in class. Jenny never did anything bad, ever. She wasn’t a goody-goody; it just came natural to her. I used to pray she’d do something really terrible, just once. Then I would tell and she’d get in trouble, and everyone would be like, ‘Well done, Fiona. You did the right thing. Good girl.’”

She had her hands clasped together in her lap, tightly, like a child at confession. I said, “Don’t tell that story again, Ms. Rafferty.”

My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. Fiona went back to staring out the window. “I wouldn’t.”

After that we didn’t talk. As I turned into Ocean View a man swung out from a side road, running hard; I slammed on the brakes, but it was a jogger, eyes staring and unseeing, nostrils flaring like a runaway horse’s. For a second I thought I heard the great gasps of his breath, through the glass; then he was gone. He was the only person we saw. The wind coming off the sea shook the chain-link fences, held the tall weeds in the gardens at a steep slant, shoved at the car windows.

Fiona said, “I read in the paper they’re talking about bulldozing these places, the ghost estates. Just smash them down to the ground, walk away and pretend it never happened.”

For one last second, I saw Broken Harbor the way it should have been. The lawn mowers buzzing and the radios blasting sweet fast beats while men washed their cars in the drives, the little kids shrieking and swerving on scooters; the girls out jogging with their ponytails bouncing, the women leaning over the garden fences to swap news, the teenagers shoving and giggling and flirting on every corner; color exploding from geranium pots and new cars and children’s toys, smell of fresh paint and barbecue blowing on the sea wind. The image leapt out of the air, so strong that I saw it more clearly than all the rusting pipes and potholed dirt. I said, “That’s a shame.”

“It’s good riddance. It should’ve happened four years ago, before this place was ever built: burn the plans and walk away. Better late than never.”

I had got the hang of the estate: I got us to the Spains’ house on the first try, without asking Fiona for directions-she had vanished into her mind again, and I was happy to leave her there. When I parked the car and opened my door, the wind roared in, filling my ears and my eyes like cold water.

I said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Go through the motions of finding something in your pocket, just in case someone’s watching.” The Gogans’ curtains hadn’t moved, but it was only a matter of time. “If anyone comes over to you, don’t talk to them.” Fiona nodded, out the window.

The padlock was still in place: the souvenir hunters and ghouls were biding their time. I found the key I had taken off Dr. Dolittle. When I stepped inside out of the wind, the instant silence rang in my ears.

I rummaged through kitchen cupboards, not bothering to stay clear of the blood spatter, till I found a bin-liner. I took it upstairs and threw things into it, working fast-Sinéad Gogan was presumably glued to her front window by now, and would be happy to tell anyone who asked exactly how long I had spent in here. When I was done, I put on my gloves and opened Jenny’s jewelry box.

The charm bracelet was laid out in a little compartment all its own, ready to put on. The golden heart, the tiny golden house, glowing in the soft light drifting through the cream lampshade; the curly E, chips of diamond sparkling; the J, enameled in red; the diamond drop that must have been for Jenny’s twenty-first. There was plenty of room left on the chain, for all the wonderful things that had still been going to happen.

I left the bin-liner on the floor and took the bracelet into Emma’s room. I switched on the light-I wasn’t about to do this with the curtains open. The room was the way Richie and I had left it when we finished searching: tidy, full of thought and love and pink, only the stripped bed to tell you something had happened here. On the bedside table the monitor was flashing a warning: 12º. TOO COLD.

Emma’s hairbrush-pink, with a pony on the back-was on her chest of drawers. I picked out the hairs carefully, matching the lengths, holding them up-they were so fine and fair, at the wrong angle they vanished into the light-to find the ones with roots and skin tags still attached where a careless sweep of the brush had tugged too hard. In the end I had eight.

I smoothed them together into a tiny lock, held the roots between thumb and finger and wound the other end into the charm bracelet. It took me a few tries-on the chain, the clasp, the little gold heart-before it caught tightly enough, in the loop holding the enameled J, that a tug jerked the hairs free of my fingers and left them fluttering against the gold.