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  ‘Come in,’ says Mr Hamlyn. ‘Please.’ He turns to his wife. ‘Hon, these guys are from the Police Department. The Eighth Precinct?’ He looks to Doyle for confirmation of this, and Doyle nods.

  Doyle hears the shakiness in the man’s voice. Sees the uncertainty in the woman’s eyes.

  Doyle looks down at his clothes. ‘We got kinda wet out there. I wouldn’t want to ruin your furniture. .’

  ‘No, it’s okay. Please. Take a seat. Would you like some coffee? Tea?’

  Doyle sees LeBlanc’s eyes light up, and quickly interjects. ‘No. Nothing. Thank you.’ He looks across the room. ‘Mrs Hamlyn? Perhaps if you came over here, next to your husband? We need to speak with both of you.’

  Nicole Hamlyn gets up from her chair like it’s a supreme effort. She stares warily at her visitors as she approaches. Steve takes her arm and helps her to lower herself to the sofa, as though she’s an elderly grandmother.

  Doyle starts walking to the vacated chair. ‘You mind if I bring this across?’

  Mr Hamlyn shakes his head, and Doyle restores the chair to its rightful place for what must be the first time in days. As he does so, he sees that Mrs Hamlyn is watching him. He hopes that she doesn’t regard the moving of her chair as some kind of disrespectful act.

  The two detectives take their seats opposite the Hamlyns.

  ‘Mrs Hamlyn, as I was just telling your husband, my name is Detective Callum Doyle, and this is Detective Tommy LeBlanc.’

  ‘Are you from Missing Persons?’ she asks. Her voice is quiet but clear.

  ‘No. No, we’re not from Missing Persons.’

  ‘Because all the detectives we’ve met so far have been from Missing Persons. And so I thought maybe you were from there too. I thought maybe you were more senior detectives from there. Because, well, it’s been a while now, and so the case should be given more urgency, don’t you think? Something more needs to be done.’

  ‘Mrs Hamlyn, we’re not from Missing Persons. We’re precinct detectives. From the Eighth Precinct, which covers the East Village and the Lower East Side.’

  She flinches. Something has hit home. She crosses her arms, then lifts a hand and tugs at a strand of her hair.

  ‘I. . I don’t understand. The East Village? Why would you be involved in this? Why would you-’

  ‘Mrs Hamlyn, there’s no easy way to tell you this. We believe we’ve found your daughter, and I’m afraid to say she’s not alive.’

  There’s a silence then. Doyle rides it out, gives the words time to sink in and percolate into their consciousness. Lets the fact of what he has just said become established in their minds.

  Steve Hamlyn rubs his hand up and down his thigh. Up and down, up and down. He starts to shake and his eyes glisten. To his left, Nicole’s face contorts into a mask of intense anguish.

  Mr Hamlyn finds some words. ‘You’re saying our daughter is dead? Megan is dead?’

  ‘Yes. I am. I’m sorry.’

  Nicole emits a high-pitched keening noise that is barely recognizable as a long, drawn-out ‘Noooo.’ Her husband puts his hand on hers, but he still stares with incredulity at the police officers who have dared to invade his house and present him with this story.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he asks. ‘I mean, could there be a mistake?’

  ‘There’s no mistake. The Medical Examiner ran tests. We’re as sure as we can be that it’s your daughter.’

  ‘As sure as you can be? But not a hundred percent, right? Maybe if I could. . The body you’ve found. If I could. .’

  ‘Steve, no.’

  This from Nicole. She grasps her husband’s hand tightly and utters the words in a small quiet breath through her tears. And in that instant Doyle knows that she has skipped a chapter beyond the text he has given them so far.

  ‘But what if they’re wrong, Nicole? Don’t you think we should at least-’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Hon-’

  ‘NO! Please. Stop it. She’s dead, Steve. Can’t you hear what they’re saying to you?’

  She turns to Doyle then, and the look in her eyes is one of heartbreaking comprehension. ‘The news. This morning. The East Village. It was her, wasn’t it?’

  Doyle says nothing, because he doesn’t need to and because he can’t. It would be a slap to the face.

  She stands up then, and her courteous announcement seems almost surreal: ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m going to be sick.’

  She runs out of the room, her hand to her mouth. From somewhere else in the house come retching noises followed by the sound of running water.

  Steve stands up, unsure whether to go to her or to stay and satisfy his burning need to understand what’s happening to his family.

  ‘The news? What’s she talking about? What news?’

  ‘Mr Hamlyn,’ says Doyle, ‘could you sit down, please?’ He waits for the man to sit, then says, ‘The police undertook a large-scale search of the East Village last night-’

  And that’s all he has to say. Because now Steve gets it too. His brain finally allows the connection it has probably been vetoing all along.

  ‘Oh God, no! Not that. Not to Megan. Please tell me that wasn’t her.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Doyle.

  The roar of anguish that the man lets out then is primeval. It chills Doyle to the bone and he feels the goosebumps break out on his skin. He experiences a sense of loss himself that seems profound but is mere fallout. How more unbearable must that feeling be at its source?

  An age passes while the detectives allow the man his release. Doyle can almost feel the discomfort radiating from LeBlanc.

  When Hamlyn speaks again, his words seem as misplaced as those of his wife. ‘Thank you,’ he says, his words coming out as a squeak through the emotion.

  Doyle says nothing in return. Out of the corner of his eye he sees LeBlanc looking at him, willing him to take him the hell out of here. Doyle waits, because he must.

  Hamlyn clears his throat to bring his voice down an octave, then continues: ‘For being straight with us. For being honest. I want you to know we appreciate it.’

  ‘Mr Hamlyn,’ says Doyle, ‘I don’t want to take up any more of your time, especially at this moment. But there’s one thing I need to ask you about.’

  Hamlyn wipes his eyes and sniffs deeply. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Megan’s body. .’ He uses the word body, even though there wasn’t much of one. ‘. . It had a tattoo.’

  He sees the puzzlement on Hamlyn’s face then, and he rushes out his next words before bafflement becomes doubt becomes hope.

  ‘It was done recently. In the past few days.’

  ‘A tattoo? What kind of tattoo?’

  ‘A picture of an angel. At the base of her spine.’

  Hamlyn bows his head and pushes his hand through his hair. ‘Aw, Jeez.’

  ‘Does it mean something to you?’

  He raises his head again. ‘Yeah. Kind of. She wanted a tattoo. For years she’s wanted one. We told her she couldn’t have one. She was sixteen, for Chrissake. I don’t think it’s even legal at sixteen, is it? But even if it was, I didn’t want her to have it. I wouldn’t want her to have it even if she was twenty. I told her: Those things don’t come off. You’re stuck with them for ever. But still she kept banging on about getting a damned tattoo.’

  ‘Far as you know, though, she didn’t have it done before she disappeared?’

  Hamlyn strains against his helplessness. ‘No. I don’t think so. At that age. . I mean she was practically a woman, you know? I wouldn’t see. .’ He pauses as a thought strikes him. ‘Wait. She went swimming with Nicole. On Friday. The day before she went missing. They always get changed together. There’s no way she could have hidden it.’ He pursues his own chain of thought, then looks hard at Doyle. ‘You think, whoever gave her that tattoo, maybe he. .’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s too early. But it’s something for us to look into.’

  Hamlyn starts rubbing his hands together. Hi
s leg shakes. The crying is on its way again.

  Doyle stands up. Motions LeBlanc to do the same. He is only too eager to comply.

  ‘We’ll leave you alone now, Mr Hamlyn. We may need to come back and ask you some more questions, but right now I think you and your wife need some time together.’

  Hamlyn gets up. ‘Sure,’ he says, but he finds it difficult to turn his tear-stained face to the cops. It’s a man thing, not wanting to appear weak. Doyle knows that when they’ve gone, he will bawl like a baby. And that’s okay.

  Then, at the door, Hamlyn grabs Doyle by the arm. This time he looks Doyle straight in the eye, because this time it’s about what he regards as the appropriate male response.

  ‘Promise me,’ he says. ‘Promise me that you’ll get this bastard.’

  Doyle nods. ‘We’ll get him.’

  ‘And. . if there’s any chance. . I mean, if I can be there when you do. .’

  The sentence is left unfinished, but the message is up there in neon. Doyle doesn’t know what to say. He’d like nothing more than to grab up this sicko and hand him straight over to Hamlyn and anyone he wants to invite to a revenge party. But he knows it’s not going to happen. All he can do is give a hint of a nod, meaning nothing more than the request has been noted.

  And then the detectives leave. On the way out, Doyle hears sobbing coming from upstairs. When the door closes behind them, LeBlanc makes a dash through the rain. Doyle takes his time. He ambles down the driveway, through the tidy front yard with its manicured patch of lawn, out onto the street with its perfect line of trees. And all the way there, while the rain batters down on him, he thinks about his promise to Hamlyn.

  He will not allow the killer of this young girl to walk free.

  Not this time.

  FIVE

  See, it’s the preconceptions that bother Doyle.

  Not so much the clothes. Or the spectacles. Or even the inexperience. No, thinking about it, what it all boils down to is the preconceptions.

  LeBlanc has been a detective for only about a year. He joined the Eighth not long before Doyle had all those problems with everyone around him being whacked just for knowing Doyle. What a joyful Christmas that was. Hi, my name’s Doyle. And you are? Oh, now you’re dead. Sorry about that.

  Since that time, Doyle has never been partnered with LeBlanc. LeBlanc has worked with several of the other detectives since his arrival, but has spent most of his time with one in particular. A man named Schneider.

  And the thing about Schneider is that he hates Doyle’s guts.

  It all dates back to a time in prehistory when Doyle was in a different precinct uptown and working with a woman called Laura Marino who had a thing for him and was not very discreet about it and then ended up being killed by a shotgun-bearing skell in a Harlem apartment. Which was tragic enough in itself, except for the fact that some people started suggesting that Doyle himself may have had something to do with her demise — suggesting it so forcefully, in fact, that Internal Affairs became involved and Doyle nearly lost his job, his freedom and his marriage. That episode was the trigger for Doyle to transfer to the Eighth with the hope of making a clean start.

  Only things are never as simple as that, are they? Police precincts do not operate in isolation, oblivious to the events in other precincts. Believe it or not, they talk to each other — an aspect of modern policing that is actively encouraged. Occasionally, friendships are struck up between members of different precincts, or existing friendships endure even after one of the friends transfers out.

  One of Schneider’s close friends is Danny Marino — widower of the aforementioned Laura Marino. And being such a good buddy, he has always done his damnedest to ensure that everyone in the Eighth remains aware of what a checkered past Doyle has.

  All of which brings us full circle to LeBlanc. Because — though Doyle has no evidence to support this — Schneider will have been relentless in pouring his poison into his protégé’s ear over the past year. He will have been unable to prevent himself. It’s what he does. And the young impressionable LeBlanc, looking up to his older and more experienced mentor, will have soaked all this up as the gospel truth and established preconceptions that Doyle is now powerless to eradicate.

  And that’s the real reason why Doyle feels uneasy about LeBlanc.

  He figures this out while he’s driving, and feels that he’s done a pretty fine job of self-analysis, even though head-shrinking is a practice he usually avoids at all costs. In fact, he wonders now why he bothered. What’s wrong with disliking LeBlanc for his style choices? Who says I’m not allowed to be superficial?

  ‘That was tough,’ says LeBlanc.

  He’s in the passenger seat. Doyle has the wheel, because only he knows where they’re going.

  ‘For them or for us?’

  ‘For everyone. I, uh, I liked the way you handled it, by the way.’

  ‘Why?’ says Doyle. He knows he shouldn’t act so snippy. With anyone else he would take the compliment and shine back his gratitude. But not with LeBlanc. Not with the preconceptions he’s got.

  ‘What?’ says LeBlanc.

  ‘Why did you like the way I handled it? What was so special about the way I did it?’

  ‘I. . well, I don’t know why. I just thought you were. . professional about it. You showed compassion back there.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And why does that surprise you?’

  ‘Surprise me? I didn’t say it surprises me. It’s just that. . well. .’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we’ve never worked a case together, you and me. So I don’t know anything about you, and-’

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You wanna know stuff about me? Shoot.’

  ‘Well, I. . It’s not like I’ve got questions or anything. I just thought I could learn a lot from someone like you.’

  ‘Someone like me meaning. .’

  LeBlanc shrugs. ‘Meaning an experienced detective who seems to know what he’s doing. That’s all.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Doyle, and even that carries an undercurrent of coldness to it.

  They lapse into silence then. It lasts while they get across the Williamsburg Bridge and plunge into the thick Manhattan traffic. Doyle stares intently ahead, trying to see where he’s going through the vertical rods of rain. The car’s wipers swat wildly, but the rain just keeps on coming. It creates a moving, shimmering film of water across the windshield, and just beyond, countless plumes of spray as the drops explode on the hood of the car.

  It’s not until the car sails across East Seventh Street that LeBlanc gathers up the courage to speak again. ‘Where you going, Cal? You missed the turning for the House.’

  ‘We’re not going to the House,’ says Doyle. ‘I got someone to see first.’

  He doesn’t bother to tell LeBlanc where they’re going, and he doesn’t bother to say who they’re about to visit.

  It’s the preconceptions, you see.

  That, and the stupid dress sense.

  LeBlanc thinks they’ve got him all wrong.

  He’s heard a lot of bad things about Doyle. That he’s a maverick. That he’s ruthless. That he’s a dirty cop. That he has no great love for his fellow officers. That he will even stoop to murder when it suits him.

  He tries not to believe it. At the very least, he tries to keep an open mind. It’s how he was raised. Treat people as you find them, his parents used to say. Give folks the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.

  He smiles as he casts his mind back to those times. Simpler times, in a simpler life. It was easier to follow advice like that in a tiny God-fearing community in Iowa.

  Not so easy in a place like New York City. Especially when you’re a cop. The niceness gets squeezed out of you. Cynicism gets hammered in. You can’t give the benefit of the doubt to a junkie who may or may not be holding onto an AIDS-infected hypodermic needle in that pocket of his, or to a hooker who may or may not be about t
o whip a six-inch blade out of that purse. Shit like that happens, and you have to assume that it will happen unless you take precautions to prevent it. Otherwise you don’t last long as a cop.

  But as for Doyle. .

  He’s also a cop. A brother. A fellow Member of Service. And no matter what people say, LeBlanc has seen nothing to confirm that he’s bad.

  Look at the way he handled the Hamlyns. That was impressive. He was in control, but he was sympathetic with it. He knew exactly what to say.

  No doubt about it, thinks LeBlanc, he’s an interesting guy. Hidden depths. There are some people who don’t like such a closed book. They’d like him to be a little easier to read. Well, maybe he’ll open up to me. I think I could learn a lot from him if he’ll let me. The impression I get is that he’s a stand-up guy. He just wants to do things in his own way. Nothing wrong with that.

  It’s a hard shell he wears, though. Gonna be difficult to break through that one.

  But give me time. .

  He feels a jolt as Doyle suddenly yanks the wheel and pulls the car into a parking space. LeBlanc looks through all the windows, trying to figure out what they’re doing here. They’re at the uptown end of Avenue B, parked outside a TV-repair place. Straight ahead, on the other side of Fourteenth Street, loom the drab brown boxes that are the Stuyvesant projects, while here on this block are just a variety of small stores fronting low-rise tenements criss-crossed by fire escapes.

  ‘We here?’

  ‘This is it,’ says Doyle.

  ‘This is what, exactly?’

  Doyle doesn’t answer. He just opens his door and steps out of the car.

  ‘Just asking,’ LeBlanc mutters. He climbs out of the car and circles it to join Doyle, who is preparing to dodge through the dense traffic. As if deciding that anyone foolhardy enough to challenge its ferocity without so much as a hat is in need of a good dousing, the rain seems to choose at that moment to step up its intensity a notch or two. By the time the two cops have fought their way to the other side of the street, they are already drenched.

  ‘Damn this rain,’ says LeBlanc. It’s been his experience that the weather is often a good way to start a conversation. Doesn’t work with Doyle. The man just picks up the pace. When LeBlanc does the same to keep up, he ends up stepping in a puddle so deep it comes over the top of his shoes.