We did the number swap all round. “There’ll be more searchers joining us soon,” I said, “and when they take over I’ll have other jobs for you, but we need to get moving now. We’re going to start from the back of the house. Start at the garden wall, work your way outwards, make sure you don’t leave any gaps between your search areas, you know the drill. Go.”

*

The semi-d that shared a wall with the Spains’ house was empty—permanently empty, nothing in the front room except a screwed-up ball of newspaper and an architectural-level spiderweb—which was a bastard. The nearest signs of human life were two doors down on the other side, in Number 5: the lawn was dead, but there were lace curtains in the windows and a kid’s bike lying on its side in the drive.

Movement behind the lace, as we came up the path. Someone had been watching us.

The woman who answered the door was heavy, with a flat suspicious face and dark hair scraped back in a thin ponytail. She was wearing an oversized pink hoodie, undersized gray leggings that were a bad call, and a lot of fake tan that somehow didn’t stop her looking pasty. “Yeah?”

“Police,” I said, showing her my ID. “Can we come in and have a word?”

She looked at the ID like my photo wasn’t up to her high standards. “I went out earlier, asked those Guards what was going on. They told me to go back inside. I’ve got a right to be on my own road. Yous can’t tell me not to.”

This was going to be a real walk in the park. “I understand,” I said. “If you’d like to leave the premises at any point, they won’t stop you.”

“Better not. And I wasn’t trying to leave the premises, anyway. I only wanted to know what’s after happening.”

“There’s been a crime. We’d like to have a few words with you.”

Her eyes went past me and Richie to the action, and nosiness beat wariness. It usually does. She stood back from the door.

The house had started out exactly like the Spains’, but it hadn’t stayed that way. The hall had been narrowed down by heaps of gear on the floor—Richie caught his ankle on the wheel of a pram, bit back something unprofessional—and the sitting room was overheated and messy, with crowded wallpaper and a thick smell of soup and wet clothes. A chunky kid about ten was hunched on the floor with his mouth open, going at some PlayStation game that was obviously rated 18s. “He’s off sick,” the woman said. She had her arms folded defensively.

“Lucky for us,” I said, nodding to the kid, who ignored us and kept jamming buttons. “He may be able to help us. I’m Detective Kennedy and this is Detective Curran. And you are … ?”

“Sinéad Gogan. Mrs. Sinéad Gogan. Jayden, turn that thing off.” Her accent was some semi-rough outskirt of Dublin.