Tana French: Broken Harbour

Deep down, I didn’t blame them for asking. It looked like plain salacious nosiness, but even then I understood that it was more. They needed to know. Like I told Richie, cause and effect isn’t a luxury. Take it away and we’re left paralyzed, clinging to some tiny raft lurching wild and random on endless black sea. If my mother could go into the water just because, then so could theirs, any night, any minute; so could they. When we can’t see a pattern, we fit pieces together until one takes shape, because we have to.

I fought them because the pattern they were seeing was the wrong one, and I couldn’t make myself tell them any other way. I knew they were right about this much: things don’t happen for no reason. I was the only one in the world who knew that the reason was me.

I had learned how to live with that. I had found a way, slowly and with immense amounts of work and pain. I had no way to live without it.

There isn’t any why. If Dina was right, then the world was unliveable. If she was wrong, if-and this needed to be true-if the world was sane and it was only the strange galaxy inside her head that was spinning reasonless off any axis, then all of this was because of me.

I dropped Fiona outside the hospital. As I pulled up the car, I said, “I’ll need you to come in and give an official statement about finding the bracelet.”

I saw her eyes shut for a second. “When?”

“Now, if you don’t mind. I can wait here while you drop off your sister’s things.”

“When are you going to…?” Her chin tilted towards the building. “To tell her?”

To arrest her. “As soon as possible. Probably tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll come in after that. I’ll stay with Jenny till then.”

I said, “It might be easier on you to come in this evening. You might find it tough, being with Jenny right now.”

Fiona said tonelessly, “I might, yeah.” Then she climbed out of the car and walked away, holding the bin-liner in both arms, leaning backwards as if it weighed too much to carry.

I handed the Beemer in to the car pool and waited outside the castle wall, lurking in shadows like a corner boy, until the shift was over and the lads had gone home. Then I went to find the Super.

O’Kelly was still at his desk, head bent in a circle of lamplight, running his pen along the lines of a statement sheet. He had his reading glasses on the end of his nose. The cozy yellow light brought out the deep creases around his eyes and mouth, the white streaks growing in his hair; he looked like some kind old man in a storybook, the wise grandfather who knows how to fix it all.

Outside the window the sky was a rich winter black, and shadows were starting to pile up around the ragged stacks of files leaning in corners. The office felt like a place I had dreamed about once when I was a kid and spent years trying to find, a place whose every priceless detail I should have been hoarding in my memory; a place that was already dissolving through my fingers, already lost.

I moved in the doorway, and O’Kelly raised his head. For a split second he looked tired and sad. Then all that was wiped away and his face turned blank, utterly expressionless.

“Detective Kennedy,” he said, taking off his reading glasses. “Shut the door.”

I closed it behind me, stayed standing until O’Kelly pointed his pen at a chair. He said, “Quigley was in to me this morning.”

I said, “He should have left it to me.”

“That’s what I told him. He put on his nun-face and said he didn’t trust you to come clean.”

The little fuckwad. “Wanted to get his version in first, more like.”

“He couldn’t wait to drop you in the shite. Practically came in his kacks at the chance. Here’s the thing, though: Quigley’ll twist a story to suit himself, all right, but I’ve never known him make one up from scratch. Too careful of his own arse.”

I said, “He wasn’t making it up.” I found the evidence bag in my pocket-it felt like days since I had put it there-and laid it on O’Kelly’s desk.

He didn’t pick it up. He said, “Give me your version. I’ll need it in a written statement, but I want to hear it first.”

“Detective Curran found this in Conor Brennan’s flat, while I was outside making a phone call. The nail polish matches Jennifer Spain’s. The wool matches the pillow that was used to suffocate Emma Spain.”

O’Kelly whistled. “Sweet fuck. The mammy. Are you sure?”

“I spent the afternoon with her. She won’t confess under caution, but she gave me a full account off-the-record.”

“Which is bugger-all use to us, without this.” He nodded at the envelope. “How’d it get into Brennan’s flat, if he’s not our man?”

“He was at the scene. He’s the one who tried to finish off Jennifer Spain.”

“Thank Jaysus for that. At least you didn’t arrest a holy innocent. That’s one less lawsuit, anyway.” O’Kelly thought that over, grunted. “Go on. Curran finds this, clicks what it means. And then? Why the hell didn’t he hand it in?”

“He was in two minds. In his view, Jennifer Spain’s suffered enough, and no purpose would be served by her arrest: the best solution would be to release Conor Brennan and close the file, with the implication that Patrick Spain was the perpetrator.”

O’Kelly snorted. “Beautiful. That’s only beautiful. The fucking gobshite. So out he walks, cool as a cucumber, with this yoke in his pocket.”

“He was holding on to the evidence while he decided what to do with it. Last night, a woman who’s also known to me was at Detective Curran’s house. She spotted that envelope and thought it shouldn’t be there, so she took it away with her. She tried to hand it in to me this morning, but Quigley intercepted her.”

“This young one,” O’Kelly said. He was clicking the top of his pen with his thumb, watching it like it was fascinating stuff. “Quigley tried to tell me ye were all having some mad three-way-said he was concerned because the squad should be upholding morals, all that altar-boy shite. What’s the real story?”

O’Kelly has always been good to me. “She’s my sister,” I said.

That got his attention. “Holy God. I’d say Curran is missing a few teeth now, is he?”

“He didn’t know.”

“That’s no excuse. Dirty little whoremaster.”

I said, “Sir, I’d like to keep my sister out of this, if possible. She’s not well.”

“That’s what Quigley said, all right.” Only presumably not in those words. “No need to bring her into it. IA might want to talk to her, but I’ll tell them there’s nothing she can add. You make sure she doesn’t go chatting to some media bastard, and she’ll be grand.”

“Thank you, sir.”

O’Kelly nodded. “This,” he said, flicking the envelope with his pen. “Can you swear you never saw it till today?”

I said, “I swear, sir. I didn’t know it existed till Quigley waved it in my face.”

“When did Curran pick it up?”

“Thursday morning.”

“Thursday morning,” O’Kelly repeated. Something ominous was building in his voice. “So he kept it to himself for the bones of two days. The two of ye are spending every waking moment together, you’re talking about nothing only this case-or at least I hope you are-and Curran’s got the answer in the pocket of his shiny tracksuit the whole time. Tell me, Detective: how the sweet living fuck did you miss that?”

“I was focused on the case. I did notice-”

O’Kelly exploded. “Sweet Jesus! What does this yoke look like to you? Chopped liver? This is the fucking case. And it’s not some piece-of-shite druggie case where nobody cares if you take your eye off the ball. There are murdered kids here. You didn’t think this might be a good time to act like a bloody detective and keep an eye on what’s going on around you?”