Neil McCormack

Neil McCormack is the head of the homicide squad in the Sydney South Police District and an experienced investigator whose handling of Iska Peller’s account reveals both his professional judgment and the limits imposed by loyalty within the police. Initially hoping to finish an interview in time to sail with his son, he is forced to reconsider when Iska describes a village police officer’s assault on Charlotte Lolles. He later passes the account to Harry Hole and confirms that Iska has been placed under police protection.

Identity and Introduction

McCormack is introduced in Sydney as a homicide investigator interviewing Iska Peller, who has come directly from her publishing job. His impression of her is specific: she wears a plain, slightly creased suit, appears composed and adult, and does not seem inclined to exaggerate or court attention. Her address in Bristol, Sydney, does not suggest great wealth, although McCormack suspects that her clothes are expensive and simply not intended to impress someone like him. These are his assessments, not facts established independently, and they frame the measured scrutiny with which he approaches her.

The interview takes place against the pressure of an ordinary appointment. McCormack has arranged to sail with his son from Watson Bay, where their boat is moored, and hopes the questioning will be brief. The day seems made for sailing: sunlight glitters on Port Jackson, and a light, warm northerly wind is blowing. Smoke still hangs over Manly more than a week after the season’s last bushfire was extinguished. The calm, attractive setting sharpens the interruption Iska’s final answer creates in his plans.

The Interview and Its Turning Point

McCormack has not found Iska’s account of the current night especially informative. The interview changes when he asks why she did not mention an earlier incident. Iska explains that no one had asked her about it; she saw no connection to Charlotte’s murder and understood the questions to concern what had happened at the hut, not what followed. She describes the episode as brief and quickly forgotten, involving an officer whose behavior she regarded as ordinary enough not to warrant reporting.

Her disclosure concerns the evening after Iska and Charlotte were brought from the hut by a village police officer and lodged at his home. While Iska tried to sleep, the officer stayed in the living room drinking with Charlotte. According to Iska, he tried to seduce Charlotte in a forceful, physical manner. Charlotte called for help; Iska woke, got up, and went into the room. The officer had already pulled Charlotte’s ski pants down to her knees. He stopped, and the two women decided to leave, travel partway by train, and spend the night at a hotel in Geilo.

McCormack recognizes that Iska has a point: she was not asked about the episode, and she does not consider it connected to the murder. He also notes that the women did not report the incident and simply left. Iska’s account does not establish exactly what the officer intended, and McCormack distinguishes that uncertainty from the physical conduct she describes. His interview thus records both a serious allegation and the reasons it had not previously entered the inquiry.

Professional Conflict and Judgment

The account creates a problem McCormack would rather avoid. He thinks that pursuing it would mean trouble, inconvenience, and work, particularly because the person involved has the word police in his job title. His reluctance is not presented as proof that he rejects Iska’s account; rather, the scene makes clear that an investigation of a police officer carries a professional complication he would prefer not to take on. He nevertheless asks her to begin again, returning to the details instead of ending the interview on the convenient assumption that the incident can be left aside.

That hesitation sits alongside his memory of Harry Hole. McCormack liked Harry and remembers the good work he did when he assisted Sydney investigators in the major clown-murder case. When Harry later calls, McCormack reports what Iska has told him, while privately hoping that the tired-sounding Norwegian has not gone off track again. His regard for Harry is therefore neither unqualified confidence nor dismissal: it gives their exchange a history, while Harry’s exhaustion makes McCormack wary.

Connection to Harry Hole and Aftermath

McCormack relays Iska’s account by telephone. He explains that she had little to add about the night itself but had described the assault on Charlotte the following evening. The report gives Harry a new piece of information about the aftermath at the hut, not a confirmed explanation of the murders. McCormack preserves the uncertainty in the account: the officer’s intention is not known for certain, and Iska and Charlotte did not make a complaint before leaving.

He also tells Harry that, as Harry suggested, the police have placed Iska under round-the-clock protection, with meals left at her door. McCormack’s concluding assurance that she can enjoy the sun in Bristol carries a dry, practical note: protection is in place, but the weather there may not cooperate. He promises to call if anything emerges and invites Harry to do the same. In this way, McCormack functions as a working link between the Australian inquiry and Harry’s investigation, passing on a witness’s account while taking responsibility for her immediate safety.

Narrative Role

McCormack’s scene turns on the difference between information that has been withheld and information that has simply not been requested. Iska’s explanation is credible to him in its particulars, yet her account also implicates a police officer, an inconvenient subject he would prefer not to pursue. The interview makes that tension visible without resolving the allegation beyond what she reports.

His practical concerns—his son, the boat, the favorable wind—do not make him indifferent to the case; they establish what he hopes the interview will be before its last answer redirects it. His later call to Harry gives the disclosure a consequence beyond the interview room: the detail enters the Norwegian investigation, while Iska receives continuous protection. McCormack’s importance lies in that modest but consequential passage of information, and in the unease with which he confronts misconduct within his own profession.