Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(64)
That was when I realized that the smudges on the window frame weren’t grime, they were print dust, and that was when it hit me why the sight of Scorcher had given me that nasty feeling. I said, “What are you doing here?”
Scorch’s eyelids flickered. He said, picking his words, “At first we were thinking in terms of an accident. Your brother comes up here, for whatever reason, and then something makes him stick his head out the window—maybe he hears a noise in the back garden, maybe the booze isn’t sitting well and he thinks he’s going to get sick. He leans out, overbalances, doesn’t catch himself in time . . .”
Something cold hit the back of my throat. I clamped my teeth on it.
“But I did a bit of experimenting, just to see for myself. Hamill, downstairs, the guy at the tape? He’s very near your brother’s height and build. I’ve spent most of the morning making him hang out that window. It doesn’t work, Frank.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On Hamill, that sash comes up to about here.” Scorch put the side of his hand to his ribs. “To get his head under it, he has to bend his knees, and that brings his backside down and keeps his center of gravity well inside the room. We tried it a dozen different ways: same result. It’d be almost impossible for someone Kevin’s size to fall out that window by accident.”
The inside of my mouth felt icy. I said, “Somebody pushed him.”
Scorch hiked up his jacket to shove his hands in his pockets. He said carefully, “We’ve got no signs of a struggle, Frank.”
“What are you saying?”
“If he’d been forced out that window, I’d expect to see scuffle marks on the floor, the window sash smashed away where he went through it, breakage to his fingernails from grabbing at the attacker or the window frame, maybe cuts and bruises where they fought. We haven’t found any of that.”
I said, “You’re trying to tell me Kevin killed himself.”
That made Scorcher look away. He said, “I’m trying to tell you it wasn’t an accident, and there’s nothing that says he was pushed. According to Cooper, every one of his injuries is consistent with the fall. He was a big guy, and from what I’ve gathered, he may have been drunk last night, but he wasn’t legless. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.”
I took a breath. “Right,” I said. “Fair enough. You’ve got a point. Come here for a second, though. There’s something I should probably show you.”
I guided him towards the window; he gave me a suspicious look. “What’ve you got?”
“Take a good look at the garden from this angle. Where it meets the base of the house, specifically. You’ll see what I mean.”
He leaned on the sill and craned his neck out under the window sash. “Where?”
I shoved him harder than I meant to. For a split second I thought I wasn’t going to be able to pull him back inside. Deep down, a sliver of me was f*cking delighted.
“Jesus Christ!” Scorch leaped back from the window and stared at me, wide-eyed. “Have you lost your f*cking mind?”
“No scuffle marks, Scorch. No broken window sash, no broken fingernails, no cuts and bruises. You’re a big guy, you’re stone-cold sober, and you’d have been gone without a squeak. Bye-bye, thank you for playing, Scorcher has left the building.”
“Bloody hell . . .” He tugged his jacket straight and slapped dust off it, hard. “Not funny, Frank. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Good. Kevin was not the suicidal type, Scorch. You’re going to have to trust me on this one. There’s no way he’d have taken himself out.”
“Fine. Then tell me this: who was out to get him?”
“Nobody that I know of, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could have had the entire Sicilian Mafia on his arse for all I know.”
Scorcher kept his mouth shut and let that speak for itself.
I said, “So we weren’t bosom buddies. I didn’t have to live in his pocket to know he was a healthy young guy, no mental illness, no love-life troubles, no money troubles, happy as Larry. And then one night, out of nowhere, he decides to wander into a derelict house and take a header out the window?”
“It happens.”
“Show me one piece of evidence that says it happened here. One.”
Scorch patted his hair back into place and sighed. “OK,” he said. “But I’m sharing this with you as a fellow cop, Frank. Not as a family member of the vic. You don’t breathe a word about it outside this room. Are you OK with that?”
“I’m just ducky,” I said. I already knew this was going to be bad.
Scorcher leaned over his poofy briefcase, fiddled around inside and came up holding a clear plastic evidence bag. “Don’t open it,” he said.
It was one small sheet of lined paper, yellowish and quartered by deep creases where it had spent a long time folded. It looked blank till I flipped it over and saw the faded ballpoint, and then before my brain worked out what was happening the handwriting came roaring up out of every dark corner and slammed into me like a runaway train.
Dear Mam and Dad and Nora,
By the time you read this I’ll be on my way to England with Francis. We’re going to get married, we’re going to get good jobs not in factories and we’re going to have a brilliant life together. The only thing I wish is that I wouldn’t have had to lie to you, every single day I wanted to look yous all in the eye and say I’m going to marry him but Dad I didn’t know what else to do. I knew you would go mental but Frank is NOT a waster and he is NOT going to hurt me. He makes me happy. This is the happiest day of my life.