She thought about it, maybe, while she was waddling away from the desk. I ran my finger down the day's entries, found nothing under the name of Frank Conway, which didn't mean a thing, even Frank Conway wasn't dumb enough to register in the Connaught Arms under his own name. There was only one entry for Christmas Eve though, and that had been booked in early.

I picked up the newspaper lying on the desk, retreated to the three-piece suite. I smoked and held the paper in front of my face, watching the front door, the double doors of the bar. The dragon came back, stood behind the desk and didn't look in my direction. I repaid the favour.

He arrived twenty minutes later, red-faced and puffing. He was wearing the same heavy tweed overcoat and flat checked cap, which he took off as he came through the door, smoothing down his wiry grey hair. Underneath the overcoat he wore a sky-blue V-necked pullover. He had a banana-yellow cravat tied loosely around his neck.

The dragon's face lit up when she recognised him but he just nodded, brusque, as he made for the bar. The dragon watched him go, crest-fallen. I sympathised. If you can't get a politician to say h.e.l.lo to you, then it's time to fold the tent. Tony Sheridan obviously had more on his mind than votes. I gave him a minute or two to get settled before I followed.

They were in the far corner of the bar, in wicker armchairs around a low table beside the artificial Christmas tree. Sheridan was holding forth, jabbing a stubby finger at Frank Conway. Frank was sitting forward, head bent towards Sheridan, nodding. Helen Conway was sitting upright with her back to the wall. She watched me the whole way across the bar without alerting the other two, treating me to a sardonic smile that was almost worth all the grief.

"The resourceful Mr Delaney," she said. Sheridan turned, stared like a gutted fish. Frank Conway's eyes blazed. The Ice Queen's just twinkled merrily, as was their wont. "Or should I call you Mr Rigby?"

"Call me whatever you want, Mrs Conway, but do call."

"Ah yes, ever the gentleman. First you're an insurance salesman, then you're a private detective. Now you're a gentleman extortionist. You're a man of many talents, Mr Rigby."

"Tell it to my agent. No brown envelope, Frank?"

Conway's expression didn't change. Tony Sheridan picked a mobile phone off the table, dialled a number.

"Put the phone away, Tone."

He ignored me. I leaned forward, plucked the phone from his hand and dunked it in the G&T at his elbow. It fizzed slightly, and then nothing happened at all. He looked at the gla.s.s, then at me, and if one were more important than the other you'd have needed callipers to measure it. He got to his feet, looked at the Conways, blank as a sleepwalker.

"If you'll just excuse me..."

"If you're going to the bar, get me a coffee. If you're not, sit the f.u.c.k down."

He stayed standing, bushy eyebrows twitching. His jowls also twitched. I had the feeling that, if I squeezed them hard enough, a double G&T would leak out, ice and slice too. He said, cold, to Frank Conway: "Who the h.e.l.l is he?"

"Two f.u.c.king guesses, Tone. Now sit the f.u.c.k down."

He wasn't used to people talking to him like that; the concept seemed to intrigue him. An acrid smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he sat down. I pulled up a wicker armchair, smiled around at them all.

"Pray continue, Tone," I said. "Whatever you were saying before I arrived, it looked like fascinating stuff."

"I'm more interested in hearing what you have to say."

"Fine. I could pretty much guess the gist of yours anyway. Probably how best to give the boys in baseball caps their P-45s. Shoddy job last night eh, Tone? Not that I'm complaining, mind. But it's just as well they missed, for all our sakes. You especially."

His expression didn't change. He rubbed the back of his fingers against the faint stubble on his jaw.

"If you want me to spell it out let's go back to ABC." I nodded at Conway. "f.u.c.kwit yonder is known to the Dibble, from years back, for dealing E. They haven't been able to keep tabs on him lately, and things got so quiet they were starting to think he might even have gone legit. That, as we all know, is horses.h.i.t."

I checked Conway out, to see how he was bearing up. He was looking peaky.

"We've been through all of this earlier, Frank and me, and Frank has kindly agreed to pay me to keep my trap shut about. Not that it'll ever cost him a penny, I wouldn't touch his money with a leper's d.i.c.k, but that's the only language Frank understands. It was enough to get him on the blower to you, though, and that was enough to get you flushed out the U-bend."

Sheridan's eyes glittered.

"See," I said, "something bugged me about Big Frank, when he came to see me about his wife playing away."

Helen Conway looked sideways at her husband, amused.

"Like I told him, it didn't ring true. So when I found out she takes lakeside strolls with prominent TDs, I was pleasantly surprised. The photographs turned out lovely, by the way. I'll get you a copy of the prints when they're ready to go. Your lackeys called around too early this morning."

Conway swung around, stared at his wife, eyes wide. She gave him a withering glance, came back to me.

"Anyway, I was even more surprised when the Dibble told me that Frank was involved with my brother a couple of years back, that my brother did time for Frank. That made sense. That gave Frank Conway a reason for coming to see me. But it meant the Ice Queen and the TD stuck out like an arthritic thumb."

"I'm presuming there's a point to all this."

"Don't take the p.i.s.s, Tone. The fact that you're here, and that you got here so quick, tells me two things. One, you're in this up to your oxters. Two, it's about to go off quick smart. And right now the Dibble are waiting to nab Big Frank in the act, bringing his pills in from Belfast. Happy days, maybe Gonzo's life will have been worth something after all, because it'll give the Dibble what they need to put Conway away."

Conway's knuckles were white where gripped the arms of the wicker armchair. It was all he could do to prevent himself from lunging across the low table. Sheridan stayed cool.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because Frank got me digging and what I dug up links you to his wife. Which hooks you to Frank, whose former drug courier is now dead from an overdose. None of which would make it through the door of any court in the country, but it's the kind of thing the redtops eat without salt, especially with photos to back it up. You know this already, which is why your stooges took a pop last night."

He stared me down.

"You don't want money," he said, deadpan. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, Tone. Not a f.u.c.king thing. No ha.s.sle, no grief and no f.u.c.kers taking pot shots at me when I'm wandering home late at night. In return, the photos get a Christian burial and I forget where they're buried. Although I carve a tombstone, just to be on the safe side. Your tombstone."

He mulled it over.

"It all sounds very tidy. What guarantee do I have that you won't renege?"

"I presume you won't take my word, and I'm not taking it personal, you're a politician. Your guarantee is my being alive. So long as I'm breathing you're in the clear, and I smoke sixty a day so you better start praying they find a cure for cancer."

"I'll need some time to think about it, naturally." He didn't even look at Conway. "What about him?"

"He'll take his chances with the law, and the way the legal system is these days I give him a fifty-fifty chance. Besides, it'll be tough pinning Gonzo on him without me on the stand. Anyway, it sounds to me like it's time he repaid his debt to society. And I'm sure the lovely Helen will wait for him."

She chuckled. I stood up, looked down at Tony Sheridan.

"Don't take too long thinking it over. I might grow a conscience, it's the right weather for it. And I hear the witness protection programme gets you a travel-pa.s.s on Bus Eireann."

I turned to go, remembered something. Sheridan looked up, expectant. I balled my fist and popped him one, just under the ear, behind the chin. He pulled the wicker armchair with him going down, scattering drinks across the low table. I knelt beside him. He was too stunned to focus, not used to people punching him out, although that prospect didn't seem to intrigue him in the slightest.

"That's for the hammering the other night, I'm presuming it was you sent the pros around. If not, you deserve it for wearing a cravat."

The barman, thin and nervy, came at me as I turned. I feinted a dig. He jumped back and I edged by him, jabbing a forefinger at his face, for show.

"I've thrown better than you out the way to get at a fight," he sneered.

I didn't argue with him. He was probably right.

20.

I tooled around town in second gear, one eye on the rear-view mirror. When I was sure I wasn't being followed I took the bypa.s.s out of town, heading north.

I dug the mobile out, checked the signal. It was still strong, Gonzo must have powered it to the hilt when he'd last charged it up. I rang Denise.

"Harry." Her sigh of relief blew ash off my cigarette. Then, in case I might interpret it as a sign of weakness: "Where the f.u.c.k are you? I've been ringing all f.u.c.king morning!"

"I should be there in an hour, tops. How's Ben?"

"He's okay. He thinks we're planning a surprise for granny and granddad."

"Good thinking." Denise was a smart girl, a lot smarter than I felt right about then. The thought occurred, and not for the first time, that maybe her name should be on the frosted gla.s.s and I should be the one who spent his day switching the TV channel away from Cartoon Network. "Okay, I'll see you about twelvish."

"Is Gonzo with you?"

"He's not, no."

"Where is he?"

"I'll tell you everything later when I get there."

"I'm scared, Harry."

"Just trust me, Dee. This once, okay?"

I hung up, checked the rear-view. Caught the briefest glimpse of a blue Mondeo, maybe quarter of a mile back, a battered farmer's Range Rover and a metallic-blue Mitsubishi Galant between us. It didn't look to be in any hurry, cruising along at the same steady sixty I was motoring at. It was too far back to make out the registration, so I couldn't be sure if it was Brady or Galway, or both, but the hang-glider bloke swooped low out of the jumble of grey clouds, c.o.c.king a sardonic eyebrow. I drove on, keeping one eye on the rear-view.

Dutchie wasn't at home, or he wasn't answering the phone, so I powered down the mobile to save the battery. Turned up the stereo, sifted through the events of the last twenty-four hours, noodling the jigsaw pieces around, trying to make them fit. I was frazzled, though, too tired to concentrate, couldn't find the straight-edged pieces that framed the puzzle. And no matter how I forced the pieces together, they always segued into the same grainy black-and-white images one of the pros sneaking up on the back door, safety catch off, Ben jumping out from the door of the shed, shouting 'Boo!' Sometimes he even got the word out, but the tape always wound off the reel on the same finale Ben's body jerking, ripped apart by a burst from the pro's sub-machine gun. Something crawled into my stomach and curdled. I put the boot down.

Dutchie's stereo was tuned to a tired Cla.s.sic Hits FM station, the presenter an All-American constipated duck. I flipped through the channels, hit something that sounded like it might have a real news bulletin. The news came and went, the lead story now the tragic tale of the multiple pile-up in Cork, the pathos intensifying as Christmas Day got closer. Then some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d from Portadown, who'd had his knees blown out in the early hours of the morning. Then the foiled bank robbery in Ardee, which hadn't been foiled at all, meaning the raiders had got away with nearly quarter of a million. The tax amnesty scandal didn't even make the charts.

The weather forecast was for heavy snow, high winds. The winds hadn't kicked in yet but the snow was already coming down, thick and fast. I switched the radio off, slipped a tape into the stereo and decided that it was apt that Gonzo's overdose hadn't made the airwaves. He had contributed nothing to society in his time, so there was no reason society should mark his pa.s.sing. I wondered whether that might have bothered Gonzo, acknowledged that I didn't know him well enough to tell.

The next question was whether or not I cared. I took the Fifth and checked the rear-view. The Mondeo was still there, still about a quarter mile back. I pushed the needle up past seventy. The Mondeo picked up speed. I dropped down again, took my eye off the rear-view.

There were drifts in the high mountain pa.s.s, starting to freeze over, but even so I made it just after one. Went all the way around the second roundabout and turned off into the shopping centre car park, watching for the Mondeo. It didn't show. I hauled Ben's bike out of the boot, carried it into the shopping centre. The air inside was humid, heat rising off the damp coats of the shoppers.

I bought an extra-large zip-up fleece with deep pockets, a Red Sox baseball cap, putting them on in the public toilets. The fleece was a tight fit but I could just about swing my arms, which would come in handy if the trapeze artists ever went out on strike.

I went from the toilet to the hardware shop, then out back of the shopping centre, where I locked Ben's bike to a disused skip. I dialled one of the numbers pasted to the public phone, arranged for a taxi to pick me up at the bus station, across the car park from the Bravo. When the taxi pulled up I tugged the baseball cap low over my face and loped across the car park. I was in the back of the taxi when the driver emerged from the bus station's waiting room. He manoeuvred his huge bulk into the driver's seat and looked at me expectantly in the rear-view mirror. He had a wide face, apple-red cheeks and a flat beret of snow-white hair that had been cut with a secaturs.

"Harrison?"

"That's me."

"Where to?"

That stumped me. We had always driven to the holiday home and I didn't know the actual address.

"Go to the bottom of the main street and turn right. Go right again up the hill. After that, I'll keep you posted."

He dropped me about five hundred yards past the house. When he turned the car I strolled up the lane and started rolling a smoke, taking my time. Twenty minutes later I flipped the b.u.t.t into the ditch. Not a single car had pa.s.sed in either direction. I walked back down the hill to the house, turned into the gravelled driveway.

It was as safe a hideaway as any. I'd been turning my car up that driveway for nearly five years now and the curtains across the road still twitched. The house was set well back from the road, obscured by a row of Sycamores that ran the length of the low redbrick wall marking the boundary of the huge garden. I walked around the back, noting the tiny boot-prints in the snow. I jumped when Ben gave me his fright, threw some s...o...b..a.l.l.s and let him shove snow inside my collar. When I finally shook him off I took Denise into the kitchen. She poured coffee, c.o.c.ked an eye at my swollen face and waited for me to start. I let the warm kitchen soak away the tension, sensing the numbness beginning to thaw.

"Well?" Her face was pale, and she hung from her shoulders like a sail after a storm. "What's going on?"

I swallowed half the coffee, took a deep breath.

"Gonzo's dead."

It came easier every time I said it and I guess I could've said it easier because her face just folded. She shook her head, horrified. I nodded, grim.

"Last night. On the way home."

"What... what happened? Jesus, Harry!"

"Ssshhhh. Ben's in the living room." I got up, closed the kitchen door, went back to the table. "We went to a club. Gonz wanted a few late ones."

"You were drunk?"

"No more than usual, couple of pints, seven or eight. Gonz was popping E all night, though. We left and went on for a kebab."

"There was a fight?"

"There was no fight." I knew Dee was going to blame me, I just wanted to be blamed for the right reasons. "We were ready to leave when Dutchie found Gonzo in the toilets, having some kind of fit. We found some dodgy E in his pockets Flatliners, the Dibble called them before they whisked him off to the hospital."

"You didn't go with him?"

"Dutchie went. I was taken to the station."

"The station?"

"The cop shop. They wanted to book me for possession with intent. I was still in the cop shop when Dutchie rang. They were pumping Gonzo out when he went into arrest." I grinned her one I didn't feel. "Me in the cop shop and him in arrest. Funny, isn't it?"

She laughed, a nervous giggle pitched one octave below hysteria. Her wet eyes sparkled. I gave her the second barrel.

"Then the Dibble let me go and someone shot me."

"What?"