Richie rubbed at the back of his neck and grimaced. I said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Right. Let’s hear it. I guaran-damn-tee you, by the end of today, we’ll have physical proof he was in that house when that family got killed. How are you planning to explain that away?”

Conor was writing, head bent low over the statement sheet, arm curved protectively around it. Richie watched him. He said, “This guy loved the Spains. Like you said. Say, let’s just say, he’s up in his hide the other night—maybe Jenny’s on the computer, he’s watching her. Then Pat comes downstairs and goes for her. Conor freaks out, goes to break up the fight: legs it down from his hide and over the wall, lets himself in through their back door. But by then it’s too late. Pat’s dead or dying, Conor thinks Jenny is too—probably he doesn’t check too carefully, not with all the blood and the panic. Maybe he’s the one that brought her over to Pat, so they could be together.”

“Touching. How do you explain the wiped computer? The missing weapons? What’s all that about?”

“Same again: he cares about the Spains. He doesn’t want Pat taking the rap. He wipes the computer ’cause he thinks maybe whatever Jenny was doing on there could be what triggered Pat—or he knows for definite that it was. Then he takes the weapons and dumps them, so it’ll look like an intruder.”

I took a second and a breath, to make sure I wouldn’t bite his head off. “Well, it’s a pretty little fairy story, old son. Poignant, is that the word I’m looking for? And that’s all it is. It’s fine as far as it goes, but you’re skipping right past this: why the holy hell did Conor confess?”

“Because. What happened in there.” Richie nodded at the glass. “Man, you practically told him you were going to put Jenny Spain in a straitjacket if he didn’t give you what you were after.”

I said, and my voice was cold enough to warn a much stupider man than Richie, “Do you have a problem with the way I’m doing my job, Detective?”

His hands went up. “I’m not picking holes. I’m only saying: that’s why he confessed.”

“No, Detective. No, it bloody well isn’t. He confessed because he did it. All that crap I gave him about loving Jenny, all that did was pick the lock; it didn’t put anything behind the door that wasn’t already fucking there. Maybe your experience has been different from mine, maybe you’re just better at this job, but I have a hard enough time getting my suspects to confess to what they did. I can safely say I’ve never, in all my career, managed to get one of them to confess to something he didn’t do. If Conor Brennan says he’s our man, then it’s because he is.”

“He’s not like most of them, though, is he? You said it yourself, we’ve both been saying: he’s different. There’s something weird going on there.”