Richie pointed out, “It didn’t stay in the attic, but. The animal—if there was an animal. It went down in the walls. Pat heard it in every room, just about.”

“He thought he did. Remember what else he posted? He couldn’t be sure where the animal was, because the acoustics in the house were strange. Say Conor’s shifting the speakers every now and then, just to keep Pat on his toes, make it sound like the animal’s moving around the attic. Then one day he realizes that, when he positions the speakers just right, the sound goes down through the wall cavities so it sounds like it’s coming from a downstairs room … Even the house played straight into Conor’s hands.”

Richie was biting a nail, thinking. “Long way from that hide to the attic. Would a remote control even work?”

I couldn’t slow down. “I’m sure you can get one that would. Or, if you can’t, then you come out of the hide. After dark, you sit in the Spains’ garden and push buttons; during the day, you work the remote from the attic next door, and you only play the track when you know Jenny’s going to be out or cooking. It’s a little less precise, since you can’t watch the Spains, but it’ll get the job done in the end.”

“Lot of hassle.”

“It would be, yeah. So was setting up that hide.”

“The Bureau lads didn’t find anything like that. No MP3 player, no speakers, nothing.”

“So Conor took his system away and bunged it in a bin somewhere. Before he killed the Spains—if it had been after, he’d have left blood smears. And that means the murders were planned. Carefully planned.”

“Nasty,” Richie said, almost absently. He was still chewing on that nail. “Why, but? Why invent an animal?”

I said, “Because he’s still mad about Jenny, and he figured she would be more likely to run off with him if Pat was losing his mind. Because he wanted to show them what morons they’d been to buy in Brianstown. Because he had nothing better to do.”

“Thing is, though: Conor cared about Pat, as well as Jenny. You said it yourself, right from the beginning. You think he’d try to drive Pat round the twist?”

“Caring about them didn’t stop him from killing them.” Richie’s eyes met mine for a second and flicked away, but he said nothing. I said, “You still don’t think he did that, either.”

“I think he loved them. All I’m saying.”

“‘Loved’ doesn’t mean the same thing to Conor as it does to you and me. You heard him in there: he wanted to be Pat Spain. He’s wanted that since they were teenagers. That’s why he threw a tantrum when Pat started making decisions he didn’t like: he felt like Pat’s life was his. Like he owned it.” As I passed the interview-room door I gave it a kick, harder than I meant to. “Last year, when Conor’s own life went to shit, he finally had to face it. The more he watched the Spains, the harder it hit home that, no matter how much he bitched about Stepford and zombies, that was what he wanted: the sweet kids, the nice home, the steady job, Jenny. Pat’s life.” The thought moved me faster and faster. “Up there in his own little world, Conor was Pat Spain. And when Pat’s life went arseways, Conor felt like he was being robbed of all that.”