“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?”

“We’ve been getting her calmed down a bit, off and on, but every time …” The uniform threw a harassed look over his shoulder at the car. “The paramedics wanted to give her a sedative, but she wouldn’t take it. We can get them back, if—”

“Keep trying. I don’t want her sedated if we can help it, not till we’ve talked to her. We’re going to take a look around the scene. The rest of the team are on their way: if the pathologist arrives, you can have him wait here, but make sure the morgue boys and the Tech Bureau keep their distance till we’ve had a go at the sister—one look at them and she’ll flip out for real. Apart from that, keep her where she is, keep the neighbors where they are, and if anyone happens to wander up, keep him where he is too. Clear?”

“Grand,” said the uniform. He would have done the chicken dance if I’d told him to, he was so relieved that someone was taking this thing off his hands. I could see him itching to get down to his local and throw back a double whiskey in one gulp.