will.”
* * *
I don’t feel sorry for anyone I run across via work. Pity is fun, it lets you have a great wank about what a wonderful guy you are, but it does bugger-all good to the people you’re feeling sorry for. The second you start getting gooey about what they’ve been through, your eye comes off the ball. You get weak. Next thing you know, you can’t get out of bed in the morning because you can’t face going in to work, and I have trouble seeing how that does anyone any good. I put my time and energy into bringing answers, not hugs and hot chocolate.
If I was going to feel sorry for someone, though, it would be the vics’ families. Like I said to Richie, ninety-nine percent of the vics have nothing to complain about: they got exactly what they went looking for. The families, about the same percentage of the time, never asked for anything like this kind of hell. I don’t buy the idea that it’s all Mummy’s fault if Little Jimmy turns into a junkie smack dealer dumb enough to rip off his own supplier. Maybe she didn’t exactly help him self-actualize, but my childhood left me with a few issues too, and did I wind up taking two in the back of the head from a pissed-off drug lord? I spent a couple of years seeing a counselor, to make sure those issues weren’t going to hold me back, and meanwhile I got on with things, because I’m a grown man now and that means my life is up to me. If I turn up one morning with my face blown off, that’s all mine. And my family, for no good reason in the world, would be left picking out shrapnel.
I watch myself hardest of all around the families. Nothing can trip you up like compassion.
When she left home that morning, Fiona Rafferty had probably been a good-looking girl—I like them taller and a lot more groomed, myself, but there was a fine pair of legs in those faded jeans, and she had a good head of glossy hair, even if she hadn’t taken the trouble to straighten it or to color it something snazzier than plain mouse brown. Now, though, she was a mess. Her face was red and swollen and covered in great streaks of snot and mascara, her eyes had turned piggy from crying and she had been wiping her face on the sleeves of her red duffle coat. At least she had stopped screaming, for the moment anyway.
The uniform was starting to look frayed around the edges, too. I said, “We need a word with Ms. Rafferty. Why don’t you get onto your station, have them send someone out to take her to the hospital when we’re done?” He nodded and backed away. I heard the sigh of relief.
Richie went down on one knee beside the car. “Ms. Rafferty?” he said gently. The kid had bedside manner. Maybe a little too much: his knee was smack in a muddy rut and he was going to be spending the rest of the day looking like he had fallen over his own feet, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Fiona Rafferty’s head came up, slowly and wavering. She looked blind.
“I’m very sorry for your trouble.”
After a moment her chin tilted down, a tiny nod.
“Can we get you anything? Water?”
“I need to ring my mam. How do I— Oh, God, the
babies
, I can’t tell her—”
I said, “We’re getting someone to accompany you to the hospital. They’ll let your mother know to meet you there, and they’ll help you talk to her.”
She didn’t hear me; her mind had already flinched off that and ricocheted somewhere else. “Is Jenny OK? She’s going to be OK, right?”
“We’re hoping so. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”
“The ambulance, they wouldn’t let me go with her—I need to be
with
her, what if she, I need to—”
Richie said, “I know. The doctors are looking after her, though. They know what they’re at, those lads. You’d only get in their way. You don’t want that, no?”
Her head rocked from side to side: no.
“No. And anyway, we need you to help us out here. We’ll need to ask you some questions. Would you be able for that now, do you
* * *
I don’t feel sorry for anyone I run across via work. Pity is fun, it lets you have a great wank about what a wonderful guy you are, but it does bugger-all good to the people you’re feeling sorry for. The second you start getting gooey about what they’ve been through, your eye comes off the ball. You get weak. Next thing you know, you can’t get out of bed in the morning because you can’t face going in to work, and I have trouble seeing how that does anyone any good. I put my time and energy into bringing answers, not hugs and hot chocolate.
If I was going to feel sorry for someone, though, it would be the vics’ families. Like I said to Richie, ninety-nine percent of the vics have nothing to complain about: they got exactly what they went looking for. The families, about the same percentage of the time, never asked for anything like this kind of hell. I don’t buy the idea that it’s all Mummy’s fault if Little Jimmy turns into a junkie smack dealer dumb enough to rip off his own supplier. Maybe she didn’t exactly help him self-actualize, but my childhood left me with a few issues too, and did I wind up taking two in the back of the head from a pissed-off drug lord? I spent a couple of years seeing a counselor, to make sure those issues weren’t going to hold me back, and meanwhile I got on with things, because I’m a grown man now and that means my life is up to me. If I turn up one morning with my face blown off, that’s all mine. And my family, for no good reason in the world, would be left picking out shrapnel.
I watch myself hardest of all around the families. Nothing can trip you up like compassion.
When she left home that morning, Fiona Rafferty had probably been a good-looking girl—I like them taller and a lot more groomed, myself, but there was a fine pair of legs in those faded jeans, and she had a good head of glossy hair, even if she hadn’t taken the trouble to straighten it or to color it something snazzier than plain mouse brown. Now, though, she was a mess. Her face was red and swollen and covered in great streaks of snot and mascara, her eyes had turned piggy from crying and she had been wiping her face on the sleeves of her red duffle coat. At least she had stopped screaming, for the moment anyway.
The uniform was starting to look frayed around the edges, too. I said, “We need a word with Ms. Rafferty. Why don’t you get onto your station, have them send someone out to take her to the hospital when we’re done?” He nodded and backed away. I heard the sigh of relief.
Richie went down on one knee beside the car. “Ms. Rafferty?” he said gently. The kid had bedside manner. Maybe a little too much: his knee was smack in a muddy rut and he was going to be spending the rest of the day looking like he had fallen over his own feet, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Fiona Rafferty’s head came up, slowly and wavering. She looked blind.
“I’m very sorry for your trouble.”
After a moment her chin tilted down, a tiny nod.
“Can we get you anything? Water?”
“I need to ring my mam. How do I— Oh, God, the
babies
, I can’t tell her—”
I said, “We’re getting someone to accompany you to the hospital. They’ll let your mother know to meet you there, and they’ll help you talk to her.”
She didn’t hear me; her mind had already flinched off that and ricocheted somewhere else. “Is Jenny OK? She’s going to be OK, right?”
“We’re hoping so. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”
“The ambulance, they wouldn’t let me go with her—I need to be
with
her, what if she, I need to—”
Richie said, “I know. The doctors are looking after her, though. They know what they’re at, those lads. You’d only get in their way. You don’t want that, no?”
Her head rocked from side to side: no.
“No. And anyway, we need you to help us out here. We’ll need to ask you some questions. Would you be able for that now, do you
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