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  PRAISE FOR OLIVIA KIERNAN AND TOO CLOSE TO BREATHE

  “Dublin makes a formidable background for a tense police procedural that introduces a strong heroine in Too Close to Breathe. Irish author Olivia Kiernan imbues Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan with intelligence and unusual sleuthing skills in the exciting debut. . . . Kiernan’s insights into Frankie’s emotional and physical recovery are skillfully woven into the plot. . . . While the serial killer is often overused, Kiernan finds a unique twist to this trope, where Dublin’s streets and neighborhoods receive a fresh view. Too Close to Breathe excels with realistic characters, from Frankie and her police colleagues to the surprising villain.”

  —Associated Press

  “Olivia Kiernan pulls no punches in the tense, atmospheric Too Close to Breathe. . . . In a setup that’s equal parts Fiona Barton and Gillian Flynn . . . A crime thriller extraordinaire.”

  —Providence Journal

  “As much a procedural as a character study of coming to terms with one’s own capacity for perseverance in the face of tragedy, this will hopefully not be the last time readers encounter Kiernan’s tough heroine.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “[A] sure-footed, perfectly constructed mystery . . . One cannot read Too Close to Breathe without wishing and hoping for much more, and sooner rather than later.”

  —Booklist

  “Olivia Kiernan is a formidable storyteller. She is a welcome voice in the world of crime fiction. The plot of Too Close to Breathe is tight and the story moves in an intricate way that makes it captivating and thrilling. The characters are meticulously crafted and will remain stuck in your memory for some time. Too Close to Breathe is an assured debut.”

  —Washington Book Review

  “One can only hope that this is the first of many to feature Kiernan’s strong heroine.”

  —CrimeReads.com

  “Solid debut . . . likable characters, strong pacing, and the appealing Dublin locale bode well for any sequel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Mesmerizing. Olivia Kiernan carefully unspools a complex riddle of murder, betrayal, and secret lives, layering on the menace even as she builds her tough-as-nails chief detective for the climactic finale. Clever plot. Brilliant characters. Everything you need in a great thriller.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner

  “Too Close to Breathe welcomes a thrilling new voice to crime fiction. Taut and gritty, smart and dark, and with a brilliantly crafted detective in Frankie Sheehan, Olivia Kieran plots twists and turns that will keep you in knots to the very end.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein

  “A really slick, dynamic-paced police procedural, very much in the vein of Tana French. A proper page-turner, lovely, accomplished writing.”

  —Internationally bestselling author Jo Spain

  “Too Close to Breathe is a fearless, fast-paced debut that drops you into the world of Dublin detective Frankie Sheehan—who is a perfect mix of frailty, ferocity, and guts. Add to this flashes of deft, dark humor and a compelling city setting and you have a must for fans of Irish crime fiction. Olivia Kiernan is a writer you’ll read with your breath held.”

  —Jess Kidd, author of Himself and others

  “Gritty, cynical, and haunting, this is crime writing of the highest order and the product of a darkly fascinating mind. First class.”

  —Internationally bestselling author David Mark

  “Too Close to Breathe is the kind of police procedural we haven’t seen for a long time; a female cop with a traumatic past racing about the mean streets of Dublin, a hanged victim with a strange clue and a dark secret. . . . Olivia Kiernan has brought the serial killer thriller back with a vengeance.”

  —Award-winning author Christopher Fowler

  “Olivia Kiernan is a fabulous new voice on the crime-writing scene. Absorbing, touching, and scary, this is a treat of a read.”

  —Internationally bestselling author Lesley Thomson

  “Disorderly, dangerous, and above all driven, Frankie Sheehan is the kind of true-to-life protagonist I love.”

  —William Shaw, author of The Birdwatcher

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Olivia Kiernan

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Kiernan, Olivia, author.

  Title: The killer in me: a novel / Olivia Kiernan.

  Description: New York: Dutton, [2019]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018047187 (print) | LCCN 2018050321 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524742652 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524742669 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6111.I43 (ebook) | LCC PR6111.I43 K55 2019 (print) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047187

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Ann

  CONTENTS

  Praise for Olivia Kiernan and Too Close to Breathe

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  You might not look like a murderer but stay in prison long enough and time carves evil’s face onto yours until you walk and talk like the devil himself. Inside, you’re still the same man but no one sees that fella anymore. No, all they see is a killer.

  —Seán Hennessy,

  Fifteen Years a Murderer

  Courtesy of Blackthorn Films © 2012

  CHAPTER 1

  THERE ARE TIMES in my line of work when I have to sit down with a known killer. Shake their hand. Talk to them. Where I have to let them think we’re on a level, that their mind isn’t so far from my own. It’s a fine balance of control and you want them to
believe they have it, even when they don’t but especially if they do. You’ll get the odd detective, wet behind the ears, who’ll talk about building trust, a knowing glint in their eye because they think if a murderer chats with them, they’ve won them over, that their perp will peel off their mask and spill all.

  But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that when a killer smiles at me, it’s not me who’s doing the indulging but them doing the tolerating. Thing is, no one really knows what a person is capable of, despite the smile on their face, the firmness of their handshake, or whether they look you in the eye as they lie to you.

  I watch him make his way through the bar, trainers soft, heels sure. He is almost unrecognizable. Another bloke looking for a pint on a Sunday evening. He finds me at the back of the pub, holds out a hand. Fingers flex, shape around mine; calluses, a ridge along the top of his palm. Neat nails clipped back. The muscles bundle in his forearm as he squeezes my hand.

  “It’s good to meet you, Detective,” he says, smiling. I feel his eyes take in the measure of me and I hope for his sake he’s seeing more than a blonde in a suit.

  A man free of his sentence. I watch him put his smile away, pull out a chair, lean strong hands on the table as he sits down. He’s tall but I almost match him for height. Overall, he’s a good-looking guy. Blue-eyed. A slim build, hair cut short, a fine shade of gold. A man who murdered his parents, tried to murder his younger sister. And the question is not whether he’s a murderer but whether fifteen years inside is enough to change a person.

  Tanya West is also sitting at the table. She’s keeping it casual. A black T-shirt over blue jeans that could’ve come from the teens department. Dark hair pulled back into a high bun, large silver hoops dangling to her shoulders, a silver stud in her nose. I can feel her quick, dark eyes watching the interaction between Hennessy and myself. Tanya is a lawyer. The pain-in-the-backside kind: a defense lawyer. No detective working this side of murder likes defense lawyers. How many times have I watched serious criminals walk because of a crafty defense team? Not to mention that their job is to show up our stupidities, where we’ve fucked up, spoken to a suspect at the wrong time, or where the wrong procedure has invalidated solid bloody evidence.

  Defense is the line we have to push our cases across. And Tanya’s good at her job. You could catch a perp in the act, elbow deep in the entrails of their victim, and Tanya could convince a court that he’d only tripped over the body and landed hands down in the victim’s guts. But I can’t dislike Tanya. Her aim is not to trick or fool the law but to ask justice to bring its best game. Besides, she’s my sister-in-law and I guess family counts for something because there are not many who could persuade me to sit across from a convicted murderer and listen to what he has to say, but Tanya can and has. Although, she was cute enough to keep the fact it was Seán Hennessy to herself.

  “Good to see you again, Seán,” she says. “Well”—she slants me a grin—“now we’ve got that warm greeting out of the way. Let’s get started.”

  I rest back against my seat, unable to move my eyes from Seán Hennessy. Unable to shake the image of his crimes from my head. The furious mess of murder. The happy spree of knife wounds over his mother’s body, his father’s. His sister’s.

  Tanya places a file on the table and lays her hands on it with a kind of reverence. “Seán, we’re very lucky that Frankie is willing to consider your case.” She turns, smiles at me. “She’s one of the best.”

  “Of course, of course,” he murmurs. Lips dry. His tongue clacks in his mouth. Along his hairline, the wet gleam of moisture. He wipes it away with quick fingers. “I’m very grateful, Detective.”

  Looking at Hennessy is enough to make me doubt the point of my own career. Where’s the remorse? Not sitting across from me. He took two lives, almost a third. He’s served his time and now here he is. “I didn’t do it,” he says.

  I rub the base of my neck. “I can’t stay long.”

  He glances at Tanya then to me, leans back, and runs his hands over his pockets. “Well, let me get you a drink. What’ll you have?”

  “No thanks. I’m on call.”

  He stops. “Tanya?”

  “Thanks, Seán. A sav blanc, please. Small,” she answers.

  He looks to me again, as if he’s about to ask me if I’m sure, but he thinks better of it. “Grand. Grand.”

  He gets up, steps away from the table, back through the Sunday punters, head turning from side to side as he works his way to the bar, eyes stalking the room. The pub we’re in was a favorite of mine when I still lived at home. It used to be a one-room treasure, where you could fall in the door to a row of bar stools, and that was it. At some point in the last few years, it’s been gutted out and extended but the owners have tried to capture that old-bar feel—dark wood booths, low ceilings, and dull wooden floors. I watch Seán step up to order, rest his foot casually on the shining brass footrest that runs along the base of the bar. The barman looks up from the other end of the room, finishes wrapping a set of cutlery in a paper napkin, then approaches Seán with a nod.

  I lean toward my sister-in-law. “Christ, Tanya, you never told me it was Seán fucking Hennessy you were working with.”

  She gives a tiny shrug. The thin hoops of her earrings bounce off her shoulders. “You never asked.” She fixes her attention on the file. “Does it matter who it is? He has a good case for appeal.”

  “He murdered his bloody parents.”

  “There’s room for doubt.” She throws a quick glance at Seán across the bar, keeps her voice low. “We’ve been approached by a production company called Blackthorn Films. They’re doing a documentary on Seán’s case. It’s due to air in the next week. This could do wonders for our charity’s profile.”

  Tanya’s charity, Justice Meets Justice, works on new evidence or overlooked avenues of investigation on cases where they believe there might have been a miscarriage of justice. An innocent person convicted for a crime they didn’t commit.

  I’m busy but since the Costello case a few months back, nothing has broken my stride on the murder front. The Bureau for Serious Crime is doing its job. Set up three years ago to keep a focus on complex investigations in Ireland in a world where increasingly our law enforcement must look outwards, the aim of the Bureau is to remain a bastion of defense against our own criminals. Four districts of the gardaí’s finest detectives with a central hub in Dublin, run by me. We are a flexible, well-oiled machine that can step in where local resources are scant, or conversely handle those cases of national concern that feed the media. And the last few months have seen me on a roll. Three cases slapped down and filed away as if I’d been working on a kids’ crossword.

  I sigh. “What do you need me for?”

  “It would help to have a detective chief superintendent on board. Even if not in an official capacity. We don’t have anyone with your skill set. You’re good at reading people, Frankie.”

  I look across the bar at Hennessy. I could make short work of this, run a few interviews, get to the real truth of why he thinks his conviction should be scrubbed out. I’m curious as to what it is that has Tanya so worked up about his case. She knows I can’t resist a puzzle. Even one I know already has an answer.

  “This isn’t about money?” I check.

  She flushes but keeps a lid on whatever emotion is behind her reaction. “This is a big risk for us. With the media interest, if we come out looking like mugs, we’ll not survive it. But if we’re right, this will make us.”

  I watch Hennessy as he waits for the drinks. The barman reaches for glasses. He laughs at something Hennessy says, his thin shoulders shaking in response. And I can see how the public will be seduced by Hennessy if a documentary airs. He’s not hard on the eyes. He appears kind. He seems normal. Like one of us. He wears his sheep’s clothing with ease.

  I think of the constant reports of serious crime that pass our de
sks daily and the careful designation of energy and money to each one. Even looking at Hennessy’s case in the hours around my work, it would be hard to justify the time.

  I hear the regret in my voice when I speak. “Tanya, I’m sorry but I don’t think I’m the right person for this. The law served up the right sentence that day, and I don’t believe society owes Seán Hennessy one further moment of thought. From what I can remember, there was a crate-load of evidence, as well as witnesses.”

  “But what if the evidence was wrong?”

  “Tanya—”

  “Wait!” She holds up a palm. “Bríd and Cara Hennessy’s blood was found beneath Seán’s fingernails and on his shirt. What if I told you that the first paramedic on the scene assessed both Bríd and Cara”—she counts off both of the victims on her fingers as she speaks—“but then treated Seán for shock?”

  I sigh.

  “Come on, Frankie. It’s cross contamination. This was one of the major pieces of evidence submitted by the prosecution. What if there were more errors?” She gives me an intense look and pulls the file back across the table. Opens it. “Blackthorn Films. They’ve won awards. This is going to be big. The charity can’t pass it up. Yes, we need the funding, but more importantly, I believe him.”

  The memories I have of the Hennessy murders come drenched in an incongruous golden sunshine. It had been a scorcher of a summer. Heat drives up crime rates, with August being the time when families are most at risk of turning on one another. You could say that working on the force we were expecting something like it to happen but to be honest no one truly expects a person to murder his family. Even when you’re standing over the bodies it’s hard to believe.

  “I don’t,” I say to her.

  “And that’s okay,” she says quickly. “I only want your opinion. We just need an objective voice. Your expertise in profiling, at compiling cases, would be invaluable to us.” She slides the file across the table. “There’s documentary footage in the folder. One-on-one interviews with Seán. Three hours of unedited material in total. I’ll send it to your email too but you’ll need the password to access it.”