"Into the river?"

"No, Dutch. I went up the way, hitched a pa.s.sing hang-glider."

"Jesus Christ, Harry! Who ?"

"They didn't say; it wasn't that kind of party. But I had the Branch around this morning. Again."

"They were around to the house?"

I realised that Galway and Brady hadn't stopped by Dutchie's. I said, slow, wondering why: "I'm not at the house, Dutch."

"Where are you?"

"You're better off not knowing. That way you won't have to lie when they call."

He chewed it over.

"Think it had anything to do with Gonz?"

"I don't, no. The hang-glider bloke said it was just a coincidence." I couldn't afford to waste any more time waiting for Dutchie to wake up. I moved on. "I need a favour, Dutch."

"Anything. Say the word."

"I'll need your car. Denise took mine last night, headed for the holiday home."

"Smart. You want to come here and pick it up?"

"Leave it at the shopping centre, the one down at the river. The third level, say. Leave the key in the usual place. And Dutch? This morning? The Dibble aren't usually that quick off the mark."

"I hear you. I'll make some calls."

"Okay, here's Gonzo's mobile."

He took the number down. He said: "Anything else I can do?"

"Yeah. Can you stow Ben's bike in the boot? It's in the keg room."

"Yeah, yeah, no worries. And Harry?"

"What?"

He was all choked up again.

"Be cute, Harry."

"Like Barbie, Dutch. I'll buzz you later."

I hung up, finished the coffee, thumbed through the telephone book, made the call.

"Good morning, Ulster Bank. Mary speaking. How may I help you?"

"Hi. Can I speak to Tommy Finan, please?"

"One moment."

"Thanks."

Greensleeves came piping down the line. I hung up, poured another coffee. Sipped it slowly until the mobile rang.

"Harry? It's Katie."

"What's up?"

"They're outside the office, just down the street. The girl in the coffee shop says they're investigating the break-in."

"Break-in?"

"Yeah. Your office was trashed last night."

"That'd be right." Either Galway had got his search warrant, or the pros were even slicker than I'd given them credit for. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe some sc.u.mbags from The Project decided to break in and wreck the place on the very night I was running for my life. The hang-glider bloke sailed by. He was shaking his head. "Katie?"

"What?"

"You're going to have let me buy you a coffee some time."

"Cheap b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Not so cheap, okay?"

I rang Herbie. The ring tone sounded strange, abrupt, not giving the phone a chance to ring. Which was bad news. There was a chance that Herbie, stoned and oblivious, had disconnected the phone the night before, but when Herbie got stoned and oblivious he generally went chasing p.o.r.n on the Internet.

I rinsed out the coffee cup, shrugged into the damp Puffa. It was even heavier than I remembered. Maybe that was because I was carrying Gonzo in it now, in every pocket, in the seams of the lining, the folds of the collar, which I turned up defiantly before closing the door behind me.

18.

It took me nearly an hour to get to the shopping mall, going out around by the college, doubling back through the train station. The town was mobbed, the last minute shopping only a Valium off frenzy, and the paranoia subsided only slightly when I got inside the mall. I wandered through some of the shops, backtracking, keeping an eye on my reflection, but I didn't spot anyone who shouldn't have been there. Which meant I wasn't being followed or I was being followed by pros.

Dutchie's car was parked on the third level, a tidy Fiat Bravo that could turn it up on the open road if it had to. I skulked behind a pillar and watched it for a while. Then I went back downstairs and hid out in the back of a stand-up coffee bar, gagging on a cup of coffee so bitter the ulcer gave it a standing ovation. I stocked up on a couple of bottles of Maalox in the chemist, chucked a box of painkillers in on the sale, ducked into the public toilet. When the ulcer stopped screaming I went back upstairs.

There was no one around that I recognised from the first trip. I threaded my way through the parked cars, flipped open the petrol cap guard, hooked the keys, got in. The retrieval ticket was in the glove compartment, with 'Nothing yet' scrawled on the back. I wasn't surprised. Dutchie was good and he knew a lot of people, but the kind of people Dutchie knew usually didn't surface in the a.m.

The .38 was in the glove compartment too. That did surprise me. Dutchie wasn't known for his sense of humour.

I drove out of the shopping centre, turned west on Fortfield, towards Herbie's. The lights were out on Pea.r.s.e Street but Midtown wasn't any more backed up than usual, the usual heart attack of clogged arteries, the flow reduced to a stop-start trickle. Joe was directing traffic at the broken lights, waving everyone on with gusto and savagely berating anyone who ignored his directions. Which was everyone, including himself. Running his hands through his shock of white hair, lips flecked with spittle, eyes wild.

He spotted me as the car crawled through the junction. He winked, tipped a sly nod at the chaos, straightened his back and saluted. That provoked another rash of horn tooting, which only started Joe ranting again. I saluted him back and slid out onto Fortfield, grinning.

If my sanity had a shock of white hair it might have looked the way Joe did, its cogs and gears meshing, frantic, as it tried to work out the logic of walking into what was almost certainly an ambush.

There's no subst.i.tute for gut instinct and you can't argue a hunch with logic. My gut feeling suggested septicaemia but I also had a hunch that claimed the pros were too cute to leave themselves open to casual observation, say by staking out Herbie's place. If the pros were as good as I thought they were, and I wasn't going to underestimate anyone smart enough to squeeze a trigger, they wouldn't leave themselves open to the random vagaries of fate. They'd have something a little more professional in the pipeline, something slick and tidy that would happen at a time and place I wouldn't even dream of guessing at. My only defence was to fly below their radar, by acting even dumber than before. Which was why I was following up on the hunch about Herbie.

I cruised past the house, turned at the end of the cul-de-sac. Waited ten minutes, the car in gear, foot on the gas, in case anything moved. Nothing stirred. When I was satisfied the pros weren't around, I parked a couple of houses down from Herbie's. One thing I knew for sure, the pros weren't inside. If they were they'd have answered the phone when I rang, curious as to who might be ringing the guy they'd just turned over. Because if what Katie told me about my office was true, then Herbie had been turned over too. All that remained to be seen was how thorough the pros had been.

I rang the bell and waited. I rang again, and then started to wonder why I was ringing the bell. Traffic thrummed by out on Fortfield. Nothing moved on the avenue, no sound disturbed the chirping of the sparrows pecking at the frozen ground. It was dry, too. When it came, and the sky was already darkening, the snow was going to stick for sure. Which meant Ben was going to get his snowman. Whether or not I'd be around to help him make it was a debate I wasn't prepared to entertain.

I made my way around the side of the house, avoiding the heaped pile of refuse sacks, sidling up to the kitchen window, peering in. There was no one inside. I tried the back door, expecting it to be locked, which it was. I took a quick look around, glad that Herbie had let the back garden run riot, the hedges grow high and wild. Then, when I was sure no nosy neighbour was standing by with binoculars and Nikon at the ready, I punched my elbow against the gla.s.s pane, hard enough to crack the gla.s.s but not so hard it might shatter. When I'd pulled out the longer shards of gla.s.s, I put my hand inside and slid back the bolt.

The kitchen looked like a Delhi sewer, but that was par for the course at Herbie's. I tiptoed out into the hall. The living room door was open. I peered through the crack between door and frame. There was no one hiding behind the door. I pushed the door open. The television was on, the sound turned down, which is the only way to watch MTV. A half-eaten pizza, the size of a small wagon wheel, lay on the coffee table beside the couch. I touched the pizza. It was cold.

I picked up the poker from the fireplace, went to check the front room. Then, quietly, I climbed the stairs, poker c.o.c.ked over one shoulder. If I'd thought about it I'd have reckoned, maybe, that my plan was to catch the pros napping and frighten them to death by waving the poker at them. But I didn't think about it.

I caught Herbie napping, facedown in a pillow. The pillow scarlet and sodden, hands tied behind his back with electrical cable. He groaned when I turned him over onto his side. It was a tiny sound, a grunt I wouldn't have heard if I hadn't been straining to hear it, but it told me all I needed to know. Herbie was alive.

The ginger hair was the giveaway. Everything else was pretty much unrecognisable. It looked like someone had been pulping jam with his head and pineapple jam at that. His nose was pushed to one side, lips split, the mouth an ugly red gash. His cheekbones were stove in, eyes puffed up to maybe three times their usual size. He had no teeth left that I could see, although it was possible they hadn't been able to get to the grinders right at the back. It wasn't for the want of trying if they hadn't.

I dug out Gonzo's mobile, dialled emergency.

"Herb," I said, as I untied his hands. "Herb? You hear me?"

"Aauugh," he whispered. It was a guttural, primitive sound, the blood clogging up his mouth not helping. He was blind and punch-drunk but I got the impression he recognised my voice, although that was probably just wishful thinking. Maybe it was just as well. If Herbie had recognised it, he'd have known it as the voice responsible for getting him into this mess.

"Help's on the way, Herb. Hear that? I've rung for an ambulance."

There was nothing more I could do for him, what Herbie needed was professional help and early retirement. I went across the hall and checked his computer room. The whole system was kicked asunder, hard-drives mangled, screens booted in. Even the furniture had been smashed. At a rough guess, there was maybe ten grand worth of damage done. I was disappointed. I'd expected more from professionals than petty spite.

I went back to Herbie's room, opened a window and watched him while I waited for the ambulance to arrive. He was in poor shape. The pros hadn't been too worried whether he suffocated or just choked on his own blood. He'd live, I was guessing, which was good, but Herbie was never going to be the same again. Maybe it was just as well that most of his friends lived in cybers.p.a.ce.

When I heard the faint whine of the ambulance siren, the sound carrying on the clear air, I went downstairs. I found a dishcloth in the kitchen, wiped the poker clean and put it back on the hearth. Then I left.

I parked at the bottom of the avenue, started building a smoke. Thirty seconds later an ambulance came tearing around the corner, a squad car in close attendance. When they pulled up outside Herbie's, I turned onto Fortfield and headed back towards town.

It was time the pigeon threw himself among the cats.

The foyer of Conway's office was bright, airy. Dust motes hung in the sunlight that angled down through the slatted wooden blinds. There was so much potted greenery I expected a pygmy to jump out and shoot off a poisoned dart.

A row of low chairs occupied the far wall. A young couple sat on two of them, her blonde, him bland, the furrowed brows suggesting that they were newly married and about to dive headfirst into insolvency. A balding gent in his sixties occupied a third chair. He wore a plain grey suit and his shoes were trimmed with dry mud. His face was round, ruddy and slightly anxious, the way all farmers look when walls hem them in.

The secretary was in her forties. Prim, the precise make-up job screaming inferiority complex. Her desk was so big it looked like she needed to yodel to be heard on the other side. I didn't want to be responsible for her face falling off, so I marched past. Her expectant expression creased in confusion as I headed for the door marked 'Private'. The last thing I heard her say was, "I said, you can't go in there," but I'd heard that line from younger women than her so I just closed the door quietly behind me.

Conway's office was an amphitheatre. The plush carpet rippled away towards the horizon, where Conway sat behind a mahogany desk that could have hosted the Ziegfield Follies. The lighting was subtle, art deco, the temperature cool. The colour scheme exuded mellow repose, pale blue walls with lime-green borders. There was more potted greenery in the corners, and the room was so quiet I guessed it was soundproofed. Given the way the property market was running, the ambience was perfect. When you're an auctioneer trying to minimise the chances of your client suffering a coronary, every little helps. Especially when you still have to tack on your own five per cent.

The woman facing Conway, cut off in mid-flow, glanced over her shoulder. She was power dressed in matching skirt and jacket, gunmetal grey with a light pinstripe. It looked like it cost an arm and a leg and she'd have looked just as good after the amputations. It took her a moment to recognise me. I slipped her the usual grubby smile.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs Conway. But your husband and I have some urgent business to attend to."

She smiled, icy.

"You're persistent, Mr Delaney, I'll grant you that. And what might you be selling today?"

I sat down in the other chair, a leather-and-tubular-steel affair that probably cost as much as all the furniture in my office put together. Started rolling a smoke. I looked at Conway and we made sheep's eyes at one another until the secretary burst through the door. Her face was livid, the skin stretched tight. If she'd been annoyed more often, maybe, she wouldn't have needed the nips and tucks that left her face looking like a map of the Burren.

"I'm sorry, Mr Conway," she said, shooting me a venomous glance. Her cheeks were flushed beneath the layers of foundation, or maybe she'd taken time out to apply blusher before the big entrance. "He just walked right by me."

Conway held up a hand.

"That's okay, Martina." If I was a surprise, I was a pleasant one. He sounded composed. There was no trace of the bl.u.s.ter he'd treated me to last time out. "I believe I forgot to remind you that I had a prior appointment this morning."

The secretary glared a couple of daggers and left.

"I don't mind if she stays," I told Conway, nodding at the Ice Queen. "But it's money talk."

"Helen is privy to all my financial affairs."

I sparked the smoke.

"This is dirty money, Frank. It's dirty because it's buried and it's buried because you can't tell anyone about it. I know about it already, but then I wouldn't recognise money if it didn't come all grimy and worn."

The Ice Queen stood up.

"I wouldn't dream of eavesdropping, Mr Delaney." It was an unnecessary kindness, if I ever came up with anything Helen Conway might want to hear I'd carve it in stone and shout it from the top of Mount Sinai.

"If you're interested, you can always listen to the tapes when your husband does."

She chuckled, too deep in her throat for the humour to reach her eyes, and then she left too. Conway was sitting forward, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled and touching his lips.

"Thought you'd like a report, Frank," I breezed. "Everyone likes to get good news at Christmas."

"You have good news?" Calm, collected.

"Yeah. Your wife is s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the College football team, keeper included."

He didn't take the bait.