Broken Harbour

Scorcher goes to interview Jenny alone. He tells her that he hasn’t cautioned her, so nothing she says will be admissible in court. Jenny describes her family’s isolation from other people and how she became obsessed with keeping the house perfectly clean. She describes Pat’s strange behavior and the moment when she confronted him about what he was keeping from her. They were both relieved when he told her about the animal. She wasn’t certain it existed, but she thought Pat would improve once his secret was out in the open. Instead, he got worse. She describes knowing there was nothing there but trying to hold it together so no one would find out Pat was hallucinating.

Jenny describes beginning to feel worse herself, experiencing dizzy spells and forgetting long sections of time. She started dreading the regular phone call with Fiona because there were too many lies to keep straight. Scorcher nudges her to tell him about the day of the murders.

She says it was a bad day, with Emma in a bad mood, and Jack talking about the animal incessantly. Scorcher asks about the morning and finding the pin. Jenny says she realized the pin meant one of two things: Either she was worse than she thought, doing something unexpected without remembering it, or someone was stalking her. She says that night, Pat didn’t eat with them because he was too busy watching the monitors. She’d bathed the kids and put them to bed, then gone to bed herself.

In the middle of the night, Emma started crying. She was terrified of the animal and said it was in her closet. Jenny told Emma that it wasn’t real, but Emma said she’d been seeing it and had drawn a picture of it in school that day. When Emma went back to sleep, Jenny went downstairs to confront Pat. He was in front of a kitchen cabinet with a knife and candlestick ready, using himself as bait to catch the animal. Jenny describes sitting beside Pat for a long time, looking at Emma’s drawing to remind herself she had to do something about it.

She recalls that everything started to look strange and beautiful, and she went upstairs to the children’s room. She kissed them and told them to wait for her. Scorcher thinks he maybe should have made her say explicitly that she strangled them, but he doesn’t.

She explains that she then went downstairs and stabbed Pat, telling him that they have to hurry and “find the kids” (495). He struggled and tried to restrain her without hurting her, asking what she did. Then he collapsed. Jenny sat down beside him and tried to stab herself, becoming frustrated when it didn’t work.

Scorcher asked when Conor arrived. She denies it at first, but then she describes Conor coming in and trying to help her, offering to get an ambulance. Jenny remembers screaming at him and handing him the knife, begging him to kill her. He checks on Pat, who is dead, then tries to go upstairs but Jenny tells him not to, because the children are dead, too. She begs him to help her go be with them, and he agrees. Conor holding her and telling her to close her eyes was the last thing she remembered. Scorcher thinks about how Conor had then wiped the computer and discarded the weapons so that Pat wouldn’t be blamed.

Scorcher tells Jenny that she will need to be in court, or at least give an official statement, if she wants to prevent Conor from being convicted of all the murders. She says he’ll be fine, and she wonders what he was doing there. She finally realizes that both the pin and the break-ins had been Conor’s doing and says, “Poor Conor.”

Scorcher leaves Jenny’s hospital room and finds Fiona in the hallway. He asks how long she’d known her sister was the murderer. Fiona hesitates but eventually explains that she knew it couldn’t have been Conor, but he would protect Jenny by confessing. Scorcher tells Fiona that Jenny plans to kill herself, and the only way to protect her is by getting her charged with the murders. Fiona agrees to help. Scorcher instructs Fiona to tell him she needs some things for Jenny from her house, and they drive there together.

Scorcher gets a charm bracelet out of Jenny’s jewelry box and plants hairs from Emma’s hairbrush in it. While he knows it won’t be enough for a conviction, it’s enough for reasonable suspicion to arrest and charge her. He thinks about how waiting for trial could take at least a year, during which time she would see various psychologists and possibly decide either to plead guilty or not die by suicide if she were found not guilty. He has Fiona touch the bracelet, and they plan to say that she found it tucked against the bottom of the stairs when she followed the policemen into the house after the murders.

Scorcher remembers his family’s last night in Broken Harbour. His father and sisters were at dinner, and he was preparing to go meet his friends in the sand dunes. His mother was sitting outside watching the sky, but she asked him to stay with her. He exploded at her, saying “I’m so fucking sick of taking care of you! You’re the one who’s supposed to be taking care of me!” (522). She tells him she’s sorry and that she won’t do it to him again. Scorcher thinks about how he has learned to live with being at fault for her death.

He goes to give the “new evidence” to O’Kelly and explain the situation. The super believes him that the bracelet has just come to light. He also says that Richie will be reverted to uniform, and he’ll undergo an internal affairs investigation. Scorcher tells the superintendent he’ll be resigning after the case is wrapped up.

Scorcher goes out looking for Dina but gives up when he can’t find her. He goes home, and she eventually comes to his flat and gets into bed beside him. He thinks about the question he never asked: whether Dina got away from their mother as she walked into the water, or if she was let go.