“At what time?”

“Around quarter to five, maybe. I’d say she was after getting the young one from school and going to the shops—she’d a couple of carrier bags. She looked grand. The little fella was throwing a tantrum ’cause he wanted crisps. Spoilt.”

“Were you and your husband home last night?” I asked.

“Yeah. Where would we go? There’s nowhere. Nearest pub’s in the town, twelve miles away.” Whelan’s and Lynch’s were presumably under concrete and scaffolding now, razed to make way for shiny new versions that hadn’t materialized yet. For a second I smelled Sunday lunch at Whelan’s: chicken nuggets and chips deep-fried from frozen, cigarette smoke, Cidona. “Go all that way and then not be able to drink ’cause you’ve to drive home—there’s no buses that go here. What’s the point?”

“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary?”

Another stare, this one more antagonistic, like I had accused her of something and she was considering glassing me. “What would we have heard?”

Jayden sniggered suddenly. I said, “Did you hear something, Jayden?”

“What, like screams?” Jayden asked. He had even turned around.

“Did you hear screams?”

Pissed-off grimace. “Nah.” Sooner or later some other detective was going to be running into Jayden in a whole different context.

“Then what did you hear? Anything at all could help us.”

Sinéad’s face still had that look, antagonism cut with something like wariness. She said, “We heard nothing. We’d the telly on.”

“Yeah,” Jayden said. “Nothing.” Something on the screen exploded. He said, “Shit,” and dived back into the game.

I asked, “What about your husband, Mrs. Gogan?”

“He didn’t hear nothing either.”

“Could we confirm that with him?”

“He’s gone out.”

“What time will he be back?”

Shrug. “What’s after happening?”

I said, “Can you tell us if you’ve seen anyone entering or leaving the Spains’ house recently?”

Sinéad’s mouth pursed up. “I don’t be spying on my neighbors,” she snapped, which meant she did, as if I had had any doubts.

“I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “But this isn’t about spying. You’re not blind or deaf; you can’t help it if you see people coming and going, or hear their cars. How many houses on this road are occupied?”

“Four. Us, and them, and two down the other end. So?”

“So if you see someone around this end, you can’t help knowing they’re here for the Spains. So have they had any visitors recently?”

She rolled her eyes. “If they have, I didn’t see them. All right?”

“Not as popular as they think,” Richie said, with a little smirk.

Sinéad smirked back. “Exactly.”

He leaned forward. Confidentially: “Does anyone bother coming out to them at all?”

“Not any more, they don’t. When we first moved in, they’d have people over on a Sunday: the same kind as themselves, driving up in the big SUVs and all, swanning around with bottles of wine—a few cans weren’t good enough for them. They used to have barbecues. Showing off again.”