Peter Robinson: Bad Boy

“No. She was just pissed off, that’s all. Sulky. She didn’t say anything except when I asked her where she was going, then she just said she was going home for a few days and stormed out.”

That sounded like Erin in a snit, Tracy thought. She went into the hall, picked up the handset and dialed Erin’s home number. The phone rang, then someone answered it, and a man’s voice came on the line.

“Hello,” said Tracy. “Is that Mr. Doyle?”

“Who’s speaking?”

“Are you Mr. Doyle, Erin’s dad?”

“I’d like to know to whom I’m speaking. Please identify yourself.” Tracy hung up. It wasn’t Patrick Doyle. She knew a cop’s tone when she heard it. But why would a cop be answering the Doyles’ telephone? Where were Erin’s mother and father? A deep feeling of unease stirred inside her and started to seep like the damp chill of winter through her flesh. Something was wrong, perhaps seriously wrong, and it wasn’t only Erin who was involved. She grabbed her black denim jacket and shoulder bag from the stand in the hall and popped her head back around the living room door. “I’m going out for a while, Rose. Don’t worry. Just keep cool, right?”

“But Francesca, you can’t just leave me in the lurch like this. I’m frightened. What if-”

Tracy shut the door and cut off Rose’s protests. In a funny way, she could almost pretend that Rose wasn’t talking to her. After all, her name wasn’t really Francesca, was it?

ERIN DOYLE made a pathetic figure sitting in Superintendent Gervaise’s office late that afternoon, her ash-blond hair, clearly cut professionally, falling over her shoulders in casual disarray, her cheeks tear-streaked, bags under eyes red from crying, a pale, sickly complexion. Her expression was sullen, and her fingernails were bitten to the quicks. Juliet Doyle had said that Erin’s style and appearance had improved considerably over the past six months, but that was hardly apparent right now.

Juliet Doyle had gone to stay with Harriet Weaver, a friend and neighbor across Laburnum Way. Relations were so strained between mother and daughter that Erin would have to stay elsewhere. Patricia Yu, the Family Liaison officer, was looking into local accommodation, and she would later liaise between the Doyles and the police. Erin would almost certainly get police bail after the interview. They could hardly keep her in custody after what had just happened to her father. The media would go crazy, for a start, and Annie recognized that it would be callous in the extreme to keep the poor girl locked up in a cell overnight after the death of her father, even if they got real evidence against her during the forthcoming interview.

Both Detective Superintendent Gervaise and ACC McLaughlin had agreed that the interview should be conducted in the relative comfort of Gervaise’s office. Only a couple of hours ago, Erin had been told that her father was dead, and a grungy interview room hardly seemed appropriate.

There were only four people in the spacious office. Gervaise was stuck in meetings with McLaughlin and the Deputy Chief Constable at County HQ, so Annie sat in her chair opposite Erin, who was on the other side of the desk. Chairs had also been brought in for Erin’s solicitor, Irene Lightholm, and for Superintendent Chambers, who had been granted his request to be present. Annie just hoped the fat bastard wouldn’t keep interrupting. The same went for Irene Lightholm, who sat perched on the edge of her seat like a bird of prey, with a nose to match. Her pristine notepad rested on the pleated gray material of her skirt, which itself lay across her skinny thighs.

It had been agreed that Annie, as Gervaise’s deputy investigating officer, should do the questioning, and she was, as agreed, required to stick to the issue of the loaded gun, and avoid anything relating to the death of Erin Doyle’s father, or the actions of the AFOs. It was something of a balancing act, and she didn’t think it would be easy. As McLaughlin had said, the two issues were closely related. Annie felt she had everything working against her: the poor girl’s state of mind, the hypervigilant lawyer, piggy-eyed Chambers. Best just to ignore them all. Focus on Erin. Keep calm and carry on. She got the formalities out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible, then began.

“I’m sorry about your father, Erin,” she said.

Erin said nothing. She just stared down at the desk and chewed on a fingernail.

“Erin? I really need you to talk to me. I know you’re upset, and you want to be with your mother, but can you please just answer a few questions first? Then you can go.”

Erin muttered something. She was still chewing on her nail, so it was hard to tell what she said.

“What was that?” Annie asked her.

“I said I don’t want to be with my mother.”

“Well, I know I’d want to be with mine,” said Annie. If I had one, she thought.

“She turned me in,” Erin said, her hands clasped on her lap now, twisting. She still stared at the desk, and her voice was muffled, her words hard to make out. “How would you feel?”

“She did what she thought she had to do,” Annie said. Erin gave her a withering glance. “You would say that.”

“Erin, that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about, however much it hurts, however bad it feels. I want you to tell me about the gun.”

Erin shook her head. “Where did you get it from?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Why did you bring it home with you and hide it on top of your wardrobe?”

Erin shrugged and picked at her fingernail. “Who gave you the gun, Erin?”

“Nobody.”

“Somebody must have given it to you? Or did you buy it yourself?”

Erin didn’t answer.

“Are you hiding it for someone?”

“No. Why do you think that?”

Annie knew that she was getting nowhere, and she didn’t feel that things were likely to change in the next while. It was all too raw and confusing. She was tempted to call it a day and pack Erin off to whatever hotel or B-and-B Patricia Yu had found, but she was nothing if not persistent. “Was it someone in Leeds?” she asked.

No answer.

“Your boyfriend, perhaps?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Oh, come on,” cut in Chambers, trying to sound avuncular. “A pretty young girl like you? Surely you must have a boyfriend?” He ended up sounding like a dirty old man, Annie thought.

Erin treated the question with the silent contempt it deserved. Annie could tell from her general appearance and body language that her self-esteem was low right now, and that she certainly didn’t see herself as a “pretty young girl.”

Annie gave Chambers a disapproving look and carried on. “Of course you do. Geoff, isn’t it? Don’t you want him to know where you are?” Annie didn’t understand the look Erin gave her. She carried on. “Was it Geoff who gave you the gun? Is that why you don’t want to talk about him?”

Still Erin said nothing.

“Are you afraid of him? Is that it? I’d be afraid of someone who kept a loaded gun around the house.”

“You don’t understand anything.”

“Then help me. I want to understand.” Annie got no reaction.

“Oh, this is getting us precisely bloody nowhere,” Chambers burst out.

“I did it,” Erin said. Her voice was little more than a whisper, and she still wouldn’t look up at them.

“Did what, Erin? Brought the gun home?” Annie asked, leaning forward to hear her words. But she didn’t need to. Erin sat bolt upright and looked directly at her, speaking in a clear, though trembling, voice.

“Not that. But I killed him,” she said. “My father. It was my fault. I-”

“Now, wait a minute,” Chambers blustered, looking over at Irene Lightholm, who remained perched on the edge of her chair, enthralled, instead of telling her client to shut up.