'Lalalalalalalalala . . .'

'Someone to do their torturing, someone you know . . .'

'Lalalalalalalalala . . .'

'Detective Inspector Springer.'

Maxi threw the steering wheel to one side, forcing the car up and over the nearside kerb with a grind and a bump. The vehicle behind gave him a blast of the horn. He twisted round and gave it the fingers as it passed. Then he slapped the steering wheel.

'Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it and God damn fuck it!' He turned to me.

'No,' he said. 'No, no, no, no, no and fucking no.'

'Yes,' I said.

'No, I am absolutely not getting involved in this.'

'Springer's as dirty as they come.'

'I am out.'

'I think he murdered a guy called Paddy Barr, and he's done Derek here and God knows what else or who else for them.'

'I don't care.'

'Yes you do.'

'I tell you I-'

'You didn't do thirty years on the front line because you didn't care.'

He waved a finger in my face. 'Don't you dare fucking give me that. I served my time. I did what was right. I can't be accountable for everything. There's always been fucking . . . fucking . . .'

'Collusion.'

'Whatever you want to call it, it was there when I joined, it'll be there long after I'm gone. You do your best, that's all you can do. And I've done it, and I'm moving on. Okay? All right?'

'Springer is killing people.'

'That's not my problem.'

'For the next ten minutes it is.'

'Then we'll wait here for the next ten minutes.'

He stared resolutely ahead.

Derek moaned. I motioned back to him. 'What about . . .?'

'He'll keep.'

So we sat there until Maxi McDowell was no longer a cop.

He switched the radio on and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel along to some Radio Ulster country and western. The guy was singing about the rolling prairies and buffalo. He was from a time before the music got Shania Twained.

Maxi's shoulders were hunched up, his back ramrod straight. He glanced across. 'This cottage in Cushendall,' he said. 'I pretend to the wife that it's not my thing, but it really is. It's in the shadow of Lurigethan Mountain, just right at the meeting point of three of the Glens of Antrim. When you look out the window, the Mull of Kintyre is there, about fifteen miles away. You know something, Dan? You breathe in the air, it's like heaven. The River Dall flows just past our place; that's where I'm going to do my fishing. I'm just going to stand there, in the water, cast my line, catch my fish, and let all of this wash off me, that's all I want to do. Do you understand?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Enough said, then.'

He glanced at his watch. He smiled. His shoulders settled down, the rigidity went out of his back. He started the engine again.

They took one look at Derek Beattie in Casualty and whisked him away to somewhere more serious. I gave the nurse behind the counter what he had in his wallet by way of ID, and said that was all I knew about him. I'd found him wandering on the Falls. She looked at me and said, 'I'll have to phone the police. Why don't you take a seat over there?'

We both knew I wasn't going to stay. She lifted the phone, and I lingered by the vending machine. When she glanced away, I slipped out.

I had already waved Maxi away. He was right, he'd done enough. It wasn't his problem. He was entitled to his quiet retirement. I quite fancied it myself, with the exception of the fishing. And the fresh air, for that matter.

I stepped into a taxi and told the driver to take me back to my apartment. I was sore, exhausted, stressed. There was not one molecule of me that felt good about what had happened with the Millers even if, on the surface, it seemed to have gone well. They knew they weren't in a great position, and sacrificing their pursuit of Bobby for continued freedom to extort money and supply drugs, would not be much of a sacrifice. But they were still murderous gangsters used to getting their own way. When they clicked their fingers, terrible things happened.

Before I approached my apartment, I watched it for a while. When there did not appear to be any suspicious activity around it, I cautiously entered. When I got in, I found that I couldn't sit still.

I paced.

I phoned Trish and told her nothing of any substance; it was just good to hear her voice. It was not good enough for her just to hear mine. She pressed me for more details, and I gave her a few, but mostly I was evasive in a way that she did not guess I was being evasive. I wanted to ask about her car, and if the cash and drugs were safe, but there was no way to do it without arousing her suspicions. She was still in work. She had to go.

I paced some more.

I phoned Butcher Joe and asked how Bobby was getting on, and he said fine, he had the makings of a fine master butcher. I asked if there was some kind of butchers' college he could apply for, and Joe said he was already attending one.

I paced right out of the apartment and down the stairs and round the corner and pulled up a stool in the Bob Shaw. Lenny was working. She got me a drink but stayed mostly at the end of the bar. When she did come up and I tried to say something, she said, 'I'm married.'

I nodded, and asked for some nuts.

She got me my nuts.

A woman came in I vaguely remembered from my time on the Telegraph. She was with two other reporters of a more recent generation. I bought her a drink. The other two kept to themselves and we got close. When I asked a different barman for drinks, Lenny brought them over and slapped them down hard enough to spill.

'Sorry,' she said, without conviction.

My companion said, 'Charming.'

'Can't get the staff these days,' I said, loud enough.

The woman left, I sat on for a while. Lenny lurked in the kitchen. I finished my pint and stepped outside. I took a breath of fresh air and started walking. I kept looking over my shoulder. When I got home, I investigated the notion of a mid-afternoon doze, and found it pleasing. It took me a while to realise that the bell-like sound I was hearing in my dream was in fact a bell sound.

Lacking a spyhole, I moved to one side of the door and said, 'Who is it?'

'Me.'

I recognised Lenny's voice.

'Are you being held out there against your will?'

She said, 'Yes, I want to come in.'

'I mean, are you alone?'

'Of course.'

There was no way of knowing. I opened the door.

'Sorry,' she said, 'he's having me watched.'

'And now?'

'I went into the beauty parlour on the corner, and out the back.'

'Devious,' I said.

45.

Love in the afternoon. Or, at least, lust.

Later she said, 'You're distracted.'

'I am.'

'A problem shared is a problem halved.'

'No, then you just have two people with problems.'

I was quoting the master. Or the mistress. No, wait, Lenny was the mistress. I was confusing myself.

'Is it to do with me?'

'No.'

She grew silent. She was probably miffed that it wasn't about her. I pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. That seemed to settle her. Women can be gloriously complicated, and astonishingly simple. I wished to dear God that she was my problem, but she wasn't. All we had together was what we had together there and then: between the sheets. I was using her for sex. My heart lay elsewhere. She was using me for sex also, though I suspected I was getting the better part of the deal. If there had genuinely been anything between us, then I would have cared a tad more about the fact that she still shared a bed with her husband. It would annoy me to the point of wanting to mess up his world. Meanwhile the tiniest indication that Patricia might be with someone else was enough to ruin my day, and year, and life. Whatever you cared to call my new profession, at least part of the reason why I had only had one client and had not actually sought out any work was that I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about what Patricia was up to, and with whom. I am in love with her, and always have been. I spend half of my life screwing up our relationship and the other half trying to fix it. My greatest fear is that one day she will finally, finally, have had enough of me.

Lenny left around six. I lay on in bed for a little bit, with a late-afternoon sunshine coming through the thin white curtains and across the bed, providing a tantalising hint of a summer that would probably never come. I showered and dressed, and sat out on the veranda with a Bush and thumbed through Derek Beattie's phone again. I pondered. I watched young people pass through the square below on their way to some event in the MAC. I wondered what the Millers were up to. I had a flash of Springer at the sink washing blood off his hands. Maxi was right: there had always been corruption and collusion, but this was something beyond merely palming an envelope stuffed with cash or turning a blind eye. He was a killer other killers brought in to do the stuff even they couldn't bring themselves to do. They might not murder me because of what they believed would be released if I died; but that would not prevent them hurting those who were closest to me.

I phoned Trish.

'You okay?' I asked.

'Sure. Just making dinner. You want some?'

'Okay.'

We agreed on half an hour.

I phoned Lenny.

'You okay?' I asked.

'Back to work,' she said.

'Nobody followed you?'

'Nope, not that I noticed. I fooled them.'

'Okay. Good.'

'But thank you for caring. Lovebug.'

I pretended not to hear. When I finished with Lenny, I glanced at my watch, and then phoned Neville Maxwell.

He said, 'Dan, I'm just heading out to the Lyric.'

'My commiserations, and I'll only be a minute. Professor Pike, do you have a direct number for him? And I don't mean one that just bypasses the switchboard. I mean his mobile number, or one he's liable to pick up himself.'

'Yes, of course. Anything you want to tell me?'

'I have information that may bring down the government and plunge us into a bloody civil war. You know, the usual.'

Maxwell let out a low gurgle of a laugh. 'Ah, Dan, you can't live on past glories for ever, you know.'

'Bear that in mind,' I said. He gave me the number. I called it immediately. I find it's best to do things, to say things, to act on things, right away. If you pause to think about what you're doing, usually you end up not doing it. I plunged right in when he answered on the third ring. 'This is Dan Starkey. I have information that may bring down the government and plunge us all into a bloody civil war.'

Professor Pike cleared his throat. 'Dan who?' he asked.

'Starkey. I met you the other day at Stormont, with Neville Maxwell.'

'Oh . . . yes,' he said. 'What's that you're saying about . . .?'

'Just trying to get your attention, Professor. Do you prefer Professor, or Mister, or Minister, or first-name terms?'

'It depends on who I'm speaking to, and why. Is this government business, or Assembly, or private, or . . .?'