"f.u.c.k knows."

"Dirty b.i.t.c.h."

"That's as may be. All this afternoon told me was, Helen Conway went for a walk at Hughes Point with some bloke drives a Volvo. He could be her father for all I know." I took a deep breath, swallowed the Cappuccino in one gulp, wiped the froth from my lip. "But even if she is carrying on, Conway still isn't kosher."

"Like how?"

"Like he comes to me saying his wife is knocking out tricks, but kicks for touch anytime I try to get around the back of it. Gets agitated, knows more than he's saying."

"If he knows so much why'd he come to you?"

"I don't know. Maybe Frank's not worried about his wife s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g someone else. Maybe Frank's worried about her s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g him, making off with the family jewels."

He shook his head.

"Conway might have problems. Cash isn't one of them."

"What do you hear?"

"You know there's E in the motors, when they come across the border?"

"Yeah. What else?"

"There's whispers about a knocking shop, on that new estate out the back of the college. Curtains are never open, there's blokes coming and going all hours of the night. Sounds to me like a student nurse flop, but you never know."

"Anything legal?"

"Last I heard he was involved in that development that went up out at Manor Grange. Bought the land for a hundred twenty, put forty houses on it at a hundred and eighty grand a pop. There's another one planned for down at the river, opposite the new hotel. Apartments, state of the art, they look like something off a Polish industrial estate. The site cost him a hundred fifty, there's seven pre-booked at one-sixty each and they won't be ready to go for another six months."

"So maybe it isn't real estate. Maybe he fancies the ponies, or the stocks."

Dutchie took a long swig of orange juice, dropped the bottle in the bin.

"If he does I haven't heard. But I'll ask around."

"Cheers."

He moved away up the bar, the early evening trade filtering in. I dug out the paper, gave myself a migraine trying to work out the Simplex crossword. I was rolling my last smoke when someone tapped me on the shoulder, Katie, nodding at the Cappuccino.

"You drink too much coffee." She seemed relaxed, far too cheerful, which meant she knew something I didn't.

"Sorry, I can't afford medical advice. I like your hair, by the way."

"Thanks. I had to cancel my appointment, by the way."

"Yeah, I like the fact that you left it alone."

She smiled. I thought of a second-hand car with 'Wash Me' scrawled on a dusty back window.

"Ever drink anything stronger?" she asked, sitting up on the stool beside me.

"Sometimes I leave the sugar out."

"Maybe I should introduce you to alcohol."

"We've met. Town wasn't big enough for both of us."

Dutchie wandered back down the bar. I introduced them, ordered a round. Katie swirled the ice around her G&T, downed the lot in one swallow.

"Tough day?"

"First anniversary."

"Of what?"

"Learning to mind my own business."

"Not so long ago when you were interested in my business."

"That was just business. You're being personal."

"And I thought we were friends."

"You know what thought did?"

"What's that?"

"p.i.s.sed the bed and thought he was sweating."

"I remember that now."

We chatted for a while, talking about everything and saying nothing, and the while nuzzled up to a couple of hours and started whispering sweet nothings. She was good company, sharp with it, and she liked to talk. I liked listening, liked her frank opinions and the way her smile caused her nose to wrinkle. Liked that she took the time out to flirt without really meaning it, the way that, five or six pints later, she was still tossing her hair and laughing at my jokes. By then I had the idea that she reckoned I was a challenge, and I didn't have the heart to pretend otherwise.

"Messing aside," I said, "the first anniversary of what?"

She stared into her drink, stirring it with the pink swizzle stick that was Dutchie's idea of a gag.

"I was getting married." Her fringe fell forward, hiding her eyes. She shook it back, straightened her shoulders. "Then I wasn't getting married."

"He broke it off?"

"Three weeks from the big day out, his brother's family home from South Africa, the works. We were going out for a year, engaged for eighteen months. Next thing he turns around and says he can't go through with it, he doesn't love me anymore. What the f.u.c.k love had to do with it in the first place. He was good in the nest, took regular showers, paid his share of the bills. That was about the height of it."

The pub had filled up, the babble of conversation loud enough for us to talk without being overheard. It was pleasant sensation, like we were trapped in a bubble.

"There's worse reasons for getting married."

"Ach I was just fed up with the job, doing the same thing every week. The wedding was just an excuse, something other than the pub on a Friday night, curry chip for a treat. Biggest favour anyone did me, him walking out."

"Sounds like a bit of a p.r.i.c.k if you ask me."

"I'm not asking. You're as big a p.r.i.c.k as he was, Harry, most blokes are. That's your job. A woman's job is to change you from being p.r.i.c.ks to something better. I wasn't good enough at the job, that's all. End of story."

It was getting on for eleven o'clock, as good a time to change the subject as any.

"Seeing anyone now?"

She looked up from her drink, nose wrinkling.

"That's the best offer I've had in weeks. So you can imagine how pathetic the others were."

"I didn't mean..."

She laughed.

"So say something you do mean." Her voice soft and warm again. Eyes locked on mine, gaze steady. Fear churned through the antic.i.p.ation, and a warm tingle ran up my spine. My throat went dry. It was the old familiar feeling, the kind of old and familiar that needs carbon dating. Besides, there was already plenty of s.p.a.ce for a wedge to be driven between Denise and me, and with Gonzo back in town I wouldn't need to buy a new mallet. I took refuge in my pint. She laughed, frustrated.

"You play this hard to get with every woman who buys you a pint?"

"I'm not hard to get. That's my jokes."

"True enough." She sipped her drink, considered me across the rim of the gla.s.s. "So what are you, queer?"

"It's worse. I'm married."

"I don't see any ring."

"We call him Ben. He's four years old."

"Nice name."

"I couldn't spell anything more complicated."

"I can sympathise." The wide-eyed gaze dared me to look away. I took the dare. She stubbed her cigarette out and said, just loud enough for me to hear: "I'm not that fussed on complications myself."

She dug a pen from her handbag, scrawled a number on a beer mat. Then, without saying another word, she got up and left. I watched her go and then tore the number off the beer mat. I looked at it for a long time, knowing what I should do. Then I put the sc.r.a.p of paper in my wallet where I knew Denise would never find it, behind the condom.

Dutchie leaned across the bar as I put my jacket on.

"Are you driving?"

"Don't be daft. Alfred's waiting with the limo."

"Don't take the bridge. The Dibble were pulling there earlier on."

"Cheers."

I downed the last of the pint, which put me at least five full pints over the limit, but I'd never thought with such clarity before. My reactions were sharp, vision twenty-twenty. I hadn't had a woman come on to me like that in years, not even Denise, especially not Denise. I felt buoyant, untouchable. Bulletproof.

Of course, that was before all the shooting started.

8.

If you're going to get kicked senseless it's best to take certain precautions. Getting drunk is one. That way you go with the flow and don't resist, which is how bones get broken, especially when there's three of them and one is wielding an empty beer keg like it's a beach ball.

I didn't even see them coming. One moment I was drunk and warm, thinking about Katie and feeling pretty d.a.m.n good about myself. The next I was rolling in the gutter, ducking flailing boots and what felt like a length of thick chain. I locked my hands around my head, curled into a ball and tried to scream.

They were quiet, efficient and deadly. The only sounds were hollow thuds, squishy splats. They booted my kidneys, chain-whipped my legs, pounded my stomach. One of them rabbit-punched my shoulders, fist wrapped in a knuckle-duster. I drifted into semi-consciousness, feeling the blows but not the pain. And then something heavy bounced off my shoulder and clanged away across the cobblestones, jerking me back to reality. It was the beer keg and they had stopped.

I heard a voice close to my ear, straining to catch its breath, a voice with a northern tw.a.n.g.

"Stay away from her, big man. Ye hear?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't able to breathe, the gorge in my chest rising into my throat. I managed a nod, a snuffle that sent something thick and slimy down the back of my throat. The voice came again.

"Else it'll be the wee man getting it. Ben, ye call him?"

He ruffled my hair and then I heard footsteps, quick but not hurried as they strolled away down the alley. Leaving me to snuffle some more snot and blood, face down in my own vomit. I tried to move. Bolts of pain shot through me, tripped the circuits. The world went black except for a dull red glow right in the middle of the nothingness. When it started to fade I followed it down.

I couldn't have been lying there long. Dutchie said, after, that a bloke angling for a sneaky p.i.s.s behind the beer kegs spotted me, rapped on the pub door while Dutchie was still clearing up. They carried me inside and Dutchie propped me up in one of the cubicles. Once we figured out nothing was actually broken, he went for tissues, hot water and Dettol.

"Fail the breathalyser?" he asked.

I groaned. I was wedged in an oil drum that some maniac was attacking with a Kango hammer. Except it wasn't noise that brutalised every synapse, it was pain. Searing here, vicious there, throbbing everywhere. Funny was the last thing I needed. What I needed was a syringe full of the purest smack to wrap me in a cotton-wool coc.o.o.n.

Dutchie dabbed at the open cuts and grazes with the Dettol-soaked tissues. Compared to what the rest of my body was feeling, the stings were fluttering kisses. When he was finished he collected the tissues, dumped them in the bin. He came back with a bottle of brandy, poured a couple of large ones.

"Get that into you. Any time you've brandy inside you, things could be a lot worse."

I hate brandy but the double went down the hatch like it was suicidal. Dutchie poured another, kept pouring, and after I'd lost count of exactly how many brandies I hated, the pain started to subside. Dutchie watched me drink, sipping his own. Eventually he said, in a neutral tone: "You were lucky, Harry."

"I'd come out of a barrel of t.i.ts sucking my thumb. Luck had nothing to do with it. They knew exactly what they were doing." I grimaced, shook my head, which only caused me to grimace some more. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," I whispered. "f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"Without doubt. Any fatherless f.u.c.kers in particular?"

I shook my head again, gently this time.