“Mmm,” the younger man murmurs, not bothering to listen.

“Getting on okay with interviewing that damn real estate agent?” the older man asks, in a tone that suggests he’s joking, to cover up the fact that he’s asking out of consideration.

“Fine!” the younger man declares, finding it increasingly difficult to conceal his irritation now, and attempting to move toward the door.

“And you’re okay?” the older officer asks.

“Yes, yes, I’m okay,” the younger man groans.

“I just mean after what happened, if you ever need to…”

“I’m fine,” the younger man insists.

“Sure?”

“Sure!”

“How’s…?” the older man asks, nodding toward the bump on the younger man’s forehead.

“Fine, no problem. I’ve got to go now.”

“Okay. Well. Would you like a hand questioning the real estate agent, then?” the older man asks, and tries to smile rather than just stare anxiously at the younger officer’s shoes.

“I can manage on my own.”

“I’d be happy to help.”

“No—thanks!”

“Sure?” the older man calls, but gets nothing but a very sure silence in response.

* * *

When the younger officer has gone, the older man sits alone in the staffroom drinking his coffee. Older men rarely know what to say to younger men to let them know that they care. It’s so hard to find the words when all you really want to say is: “I can see you’re hurting.”

There are red marks on the floor where the younger man was standing. He still has blood on his shoes, but he hasn’t noticed yet. The older officer wets a cloth and carefully wipes the floor. His fingers are trembling. Maybe the younger man isn’t lying, maybe he really is okay. But the older man definitely isn’t, not yet.

9

The younger officer walks back into the interview room and puts the glass of water down on the table. The real estate agent looks at him, and thinks he looks like a person who’s had his sense of humor amputated. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

“Thanks,” she says hesitantly toward the glass of water she hadn’t asked for.

“I need to ask you a few more questions,” the young officer says apologetically, and pulls out a crumpled sheet of paper. It looks like a child’s drawing.

The real estate agent nods, but doesn’t have time to open her mouth before the door opens quietly and the older police officer slips into the room. The real estate agent notes that his arms are slightly too long for his body, if he ever spilled his coffee he’d only burn himself below his knees.

“Hello! I just thought I’d see if there was anything I could do to help in here…,” the older officer says.

The younger officer looks up at the ceiling.

“No! Thanks! Like I just told you, I’ve got everything under control.”

“Right. Okay. I just wanted to offer my help,” the older man tries.

“No, no, for God’s… No! This is incredibly unprofessional! You can’t just march in in the middle of an interview!” the younger man snaps.

“Okay, sorry, I just wanted to see how far you’d got,” the older man whispers, embarrassed now, unable to hide his concern.

“I was just about to ask about the drawing!” the younger man snarls, as if he’d been caught smelling of cigarette smoke and insisted that he was only holding it for a friend.

“Ask who?” the older officer wonders.

“The real estate agent!” the younger man exclaims, pointing at her.

Sadly this prompts the Realtor to bounce up from her chair at once and thrust her hand out.

“I’m the real estate agent! From the HOUSE TRICKS Real Estate Agency!”

The Realtor pauses and grins, unbelievably pleased with herself.

“Oh, dear God, not again,” the younger police officer mutters as the Realtor takes a deep breath.

“So, HOW’S TRICKS?”

The older officer looks questioningly at the younger officer.

“She’s been carrying on like this the whole time,” the younger man says, pressing his thumbs against his eyebrows.

The older police officer squints at the real estate agent. He’s gotten into the habit of doing that when he encounters incomprehensible individuals, and a lifetime of almost constant squinting has given the skin under his eyes something of the quality of soft ice cream. The Realtor, who is evidently of the opinion that no one heard her the first time, offers an unwanted explanation: “Get it? HOUSE TRICKS Real Estate Agency. HOW’S TRICKS? Get it? Because everyone wants a real estate agent who knows the best…”

The older officer gets it, he even gives her an appreciative smile, but the younger one aims his forefinger at the Realtor and moves it up and down between her and the chair.

“Sit!” he says, in that tone you only use with children, dogs, and real estate agents.

The Realtor stops grinning. She sits down clumsily, and looks first at one of the officers, then the other.

“Sorry. This is the first time I’ve been interviewed by the police. You’re not… you know… you’re not going to do that good cop, bad cop thing they do in films, are you? One of you isn’t going to go out to get more coffee while the other one assaults me with a phone book and screams ‘WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN THE BODY?’ ”

The Realtor lets out a nervous laugh. The older police officer smiles but the younger one most definitely doesn’t, so the Realtor goes on, even more nervously: “I mean, I was joking. They don’t print phone books anymore, do they, so what would you do? Assault me with an iPhone?”

She starts waving her arms about to illustrate assault by phone, and yelling in what the two officers can only assume is the real estate agent’s imitation of their accents: “Oh, hell, no, I’ve ended up liking my ex on Instagram as well! Delete! Delete!”

The younger police officer doesn’t look at all amused, which makes the real estate agent look less amused. In the meantime the older officer leans toward the younger officer’s notes and asks, as if the Realtor weren’t actually in the room: “So what did she say about the drawing?”

“I didn’t get that far before you came in and interrupted!” the younger man snaps.

“What drawing?” the real estate agent asks.

“Well, as I was about to say before I was interrupted: we found this drawing in the stairwell, and we think the perpetrator may have dropped it. We’d like you to—,” the younger officer says, but the older officer interrupts him.

“Have you talked to her about the pistol, then?”

“Stop interfering!” the younger man hisses.

This makes the older officer throw his arms up and mutter: “Okay, okay, sorry I’m here.”

“It wasn’t real! The pistol! It was a toy!” the real estate agent says quickly.

The older officer looks at her in surprise, then at the younger officer, before whispering in a way that only men of a certain age think is a whisper: “You… you haven’t told her?”