Tana French: Broken Harbour

I said, “I’m going to bet that’s the sister.”

He gave me a look like he thought I was yanking his chain. “That’s a fox or something. Run over, maybe.”

“And here I thought you were Mr. Streetwise who knew just how bad this was going to be. You’re going to need to brace yourself, Richie. Big time.”

I rolled down a window and followed the sound. The echoes led me off course a few times, but we knew it when we saw it. One side of Ocean View Rise was pristine, bay-windowed white semi-ds lined up in pairs, neat as dominoes; the other side was scaffolding and rubble. Between the dominoes, over the estate wall, slivers of gray sea moved. A couple of the houses had a car or two in front of them, but one house had three: a white Volvo hatchback that had Family written all over it, a yellow Fiat Seicento that had seen better days, and a marked car. There was blue-and-white crime-scene tape along the low garden wall.

I meant what I said to Richie: in this job everything matters, down to the way you open your car door. Long before I say Word One to a witness, or a suspect, he needs to know that Mick Kennedy is in the house and that I’ve got this case by the balls. Some of it is luck-I’ve got height, I’ve got a full head of hair and it’s still ninety-nine percent dark brown, I’ve got decent looks if I say so myself, and all those things help-but I’ve put practice and treadmill time into the rest. I kept up my speed till the last second, braked hard, swung myself and my briefcase out of the car in one smooth move and headed for the house at a swift, efficient pace. Richie would learn to keep up.

One of the uniforms was squatting awkwardly by his car, patting at someone in the back seat who was pretty clearly the source of the screaming. The other one was pacing in front of the gate, too fast, with his hands clasped behind his back. The air smelled fresh, sweet and salty: sea and fields. It was colder out there than it had been in Dublin. Wind whistled halfheartedly through scaffolding and exposed beams.

The guy who was pacing was my age, with a paunch and a sandbagged look: he had obviously made it through twenty years on the force without seeing anything like this, and had been hoping to make it through twenty more. He said, “Garda Wall. That’s Garda Mallon, by the car.”

Richie was sticking out a hand. It was like having a puppy. I said, before he could start buddying up, “Detective Sergeant Kennedy and Detective Garda Curran. You’ve been in the house?”

“Only when we got here first. As soon as we could, we got out and rang ye.”

“Good call. Tell me exactly what you did, entrance to exit.”

The uniform’s eyes went to the house, like he could hardly believe it was the same place he had arrived at only a couple of hours earlier. He said, “We were called in for a welfare check-the occupant’s sister was worried. We reached the premises just after eleven o’clock and attempted to make contact with the residents by ringing the doorbell and by phone, but got no response. We saw no signs of forced entry, but when we looked in the front window, the lights on the ground floor were on and the sitting room appeared to be in some disorder. The walls-”

“We’ll see the disorder for ourselves in a minute. Carry on.” Never let anyone describe the details before you get on the scene, or you’ll see what they saw.

“Right.” The uniform blinked, pulled himself back on track. “Anyhow. We attempted to go around to the back of the house, but you can see for yourselves, sure-a child couldn’t get through there.” He was right: the gap between the houses was just wide enough for the side wall. “We felt that the disorder and the sister’s concerns warranted forcing entry through the front door. We found…”

He was shifting on his feet, trying to angle the conversation so that he could see the house, like it was a coiled animal that might pounce at any second. “We entered the sitting room, found nothing to speak of-the disorder, but… We then proceeded to the kitchen, where we found a male and a female on the floor. Both stabbed, by the looks of it. One wound, on the female’s face, was clearly visible to myself and Garda Mallon. It appeared to be a knife wound. It-”

“The doctors’ll decide that. What did you do next?”

“We thought they were both dead. We were certain. There’s a load of blood. Loads of…” He gestured vaguely towards his own body, a shapeless pecking movement. There’s a reason why some guys stay in uniform. “Garda Mallon checked their pulses all the same, just in case. The female, she was right up against the male, like curled up against him-she had her head, her head was on his arm, like she was asleep… When Garda Mallon checked, she had a pulse. He got the shock of his life. We never expected… He couldn’t believe it, not till he put down his head and heard her breathing. Then we called for the ambulance.”

“And while you waited?”

“Garda Mallon stayed with the woman. Talked to her. She was unconscious, but… just telling her it was all right, we were the Guards, there was an ambulance coming and for her to hang on… I went upstairs. In the back bedrooms… There’s two little children there, Detective. A young boy and a young girl, in their beds. I tried CPR. They’re-they were cold, stiff, but I tried anyway. After what had happened with the mother, I thought, you never know, maybe they could still…” He rubbed his hands down the front of his jacket, unconsciously, like he was trying to wipe away the feel. I didn’t give him a bollocking for wrecking evidence: he had only done what came naturally. “No joy. Once I knew for definite, I rejoined Garda Mallon in the kitchen and we called for ye and the rest.”

I asked, “Did the woman come to? Say anything?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t move. We kept thinking she was after dying on us, had to keep checking to make sure she was still…” He wiped his hands again.

“Do we have anyone at the hospital with her?”

“We called in to the station, had them send someone. Maybe one of us should have gone with her, but with the scene to be secured, and the sister-she was… Sure, you can hear.”

“You broke the news,” I said. I do the notification myself, any time I can. You can tell a lot from that first reaction.

The uniform said defensively, “We told her to stay put, before we went in, but we’d no one to stay with her. She waited a good while, but then she came in. Into the house. We were with the victim, we were waiting for ye; the sister was at the kitchen door before we saw her. She started screaming. I got her outside again, but she was fighting… I had to tell her, Detective. It was the only way I could stop her trying to get back in, short of handcuffing her.”

“Right. We won’t cry over spilled milk. What next?”

“I stayed outside with the sister. Garda Mallon waited with the victim until the ambulance arrived. Then he left the house.”

“Without doing a search?”

“I went back in, once he came out to stay with the sister. Garda Mallon, sir, he’s all over blood; he didn’t want to track it around the house. I performed a basic security search, just to confirm that there was no one on the premises. No one alive, like. We left the in-depth search for ye and the Bureau.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” I flicked an eyebrow at Richie. The kid was paying attention: he asked, promptly, “Did you find a weapon?”

The uniform shook his head. “But it could be in there. Under the man’s body, or… anywhere. Like I said, we tried not to disturb the scene any more than we had to.”

“How about a note?”

Another head-shake.

I nodded towards the marked car. “How’s the sister been doing?”