'What about when he's out and about? Does he get approached much, maybe threatened, asked for autographs? You know, like John Lennon?'

'Not really, no. Jack's a radio man, so his face isn't that widely known. It's one reason he avoids doing TV, so he can preserve that anonymity. Again, you can Google him and get as many pictures as you want, but he hasn't got that kind of recognisability that goes with genuine fame. He can get about pretty much unmolested.'

'What about in the station itself?'

'How do you mean?'

'Would he have enemies there?'

'Enemies?'

'Someone who might want to give him a scare, put the frighteners on him?'

'No, of course not.'

'A jealous presenter with an eye on his slot. A chairman who resents paying him so much. A blonde who's been sleeping with him and hates the fact that he won't leave his wife.'

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. 'Of course other presenters are jealous of him; he's got the number one show, best time slot, highest paid. But they're also aware he keeps them in work, because he's the only one making the station any money.'

'The golden goose who lays the . . . what about that?'

'What about what?'

'Is he getting laid? A woman scorned and all that.'

'No. Absolutely not. And I'd know.'

'Fair enough. Had to ask. How would you know?'

'Because I'm with him from the moment he walks into the station until the moment he walks out. And the rest of the time he's with his wife.'

'Sure about that?'

'No reason to believe otherwise.'

'Trudy.'

'Tracey.'

'That's what I said. You know her well?'

'No. A bit. She comes to station functions. Jack has a New Year's party. She's . . . okay. Protective.'

'Possessive?'

'Protective.

'And older.'

'Older?'

'Than the general age of blondes you'd find working in a radio station.' Before she could respond to that, I followed it up sharply with: 'Jack has a certain reputation. For being awkward. Hard to work with. Egotistical. Mean. Given to rages. In fact, people say he's a bit of a cunt.'

Evelyn's eyes widened. 'I don't like that word.'

'I'm sorry. No wish to offend. Is wanker any better?'

'I'm not sure I like your tone, Mr Starkey.'

'Please, nobody calls me Mr Starkey.'

'I'm not sure I like your tone, Mr Starkey.'

We stared each other out. I quite liked her, but sometimes people have to be pushed and prodded, even the attractive ones.

'He's a star. All he wants is to be treated like one.'

'Fair enough,' I said. 'So you're doing him too.'

'That's just . . . ridiculous. I'm engaged, if you must know.'

'Couldn't be true then, fair enough.'

She stood up. I stood up too.

'I better fly,' she said.

'Good luck with that. And thanks for the info.' I tapped the envelope. 'I've been friends with Jack for twenty years, so don't take anything I say about him personally. We like to wind each other up.'

'Is that why he told me you were a sad alco who needed a break?'

'He's such a bitch.'

She smiled. I smiled.

I said, 'I'm heading out myself. Can I give you a lift back to the station?'

'No, I'm fine, thank you, I've the car with me.'

'The silver one?' I asked.

She looked suitably surprised. 'How'd you know?'

'I know many things,' I said, cryptically.

She stood her ground. 'No, really, how do you know?'

'Relax, it was an educated guess. Last year, sixty per cent of new cars bought in the UK, including that part of Ireland that will always be British, were silver. I have an endless amount of such trivia in my head.'

'But why would you even say that? I might have been up all night worrying about how you would know.'

I shrugged. 'I'm very good at keeping women up all night,' I said.

She gave me a tight smile. 'Hard to believe,' she said.

7.

'Hey!'

I had just locked the front door of the office and was turning away when the voice stopped me and I turned to find the butcher from the butcher's standing in his doorway, mid-fifties, stripy apron matching his stripy awning. Bald head, toothy grin, sawdust on his loafers.

'Catch!'

He threw something and I caught it, a reflex action. In Belfast you should never catch things people throw at you. This was a white plastic bag, nipped with a tiny ribbon of harder red plastic at the top. Within: what I hoped were cold thick sausages.

'Oh thanks. I . . .?'

'You're new, upstairs.'

'Yeah. Six weeks.'

He'd served me twice in the shop, but I suppose one customer looks pretty much like another.

'A private eye.'

'No, I . . .'

'That's your commission.'

I blinked at him. I lived in a city more familiar with decommission.

'I don't under . . .?'

'Yer man Jack Caramac off the radio was in the shop yesterday, hanging around waiting to be recognised. When nobody did, he said who he was and that you'd recommended us. He was angling for free sausages. I don't give free sausages to no one.'

'You just gave . . .'

'Like I say, commission. Eventually he bought some, and he must've liked them 'cos he was raving about them on his show this morning, gave us a name check'n all. Been busier than usual all day. So cheers.'

He gave me a wink.

I said, 'Cheers, mate, and thanks for the sausages.'

I've always had a soft spot for the Shankill Road, even though it's hard as nails. One and a half miles of arterial road through a twenty-five-thousand-strong Unionist working-class ghetto. It's one of the few places you can still buy a pasty, rather than a panini or a panacotta without them looking at you like you're a fucking space cadet. The Shankill bore the brunt of, and equally was responsible for, some of the worst violence of the Troubles. Paramilitaries ruled it, and they still do, only they've transmogrified from Loyalist freedom fighters financing their struggle through robbery, drugs, protection and murder into gangsters who finance their lifestyles through robbery, drugs, protection and murder. They justify their continued existence in the face of widespread peace by occasionally rolling out their flags and yelling about their loyalty to the Queen and the imminent danger of a Republican uprising. Republicans usually oblige by shooting someone. It is the gangster equivalent of fixing the market. It works equally well for both sides.

I turned off the West Link and spent fifteen minutes driving around reacquainting myself with the area. It used to be one giant slum, rows and rows of crummy terraces designed to squeeze in as many workers from the old linen mills as inhumanely possible. They're gone now, the mills flattened and the houses bulldozed to make way for wider streets and modern, neat grey-brick houses, nearly every one of which now boasts a satellite dish. It gives the impression of a vastly improved lifestyle. But it's just another PR job, stone cladding over rising damp. Community workers will tell you that it is still one of the most socially disadvantaged areas in Europe the very same community workers who aren't long out of pokey themselves for helping to make it one of the most socially disadvantaged areas in Europe.

Shankill Road PSNI Station is actually just off the Shankill Road in the inaptly named Snugville Street. It is known locally as Comanche Station. In the dark days its inhabitants always preferred to fight fire with fire. Not exactly taking no prisoners, but taking them and then beating their heads till they talked. These days you have to be a bit more circumspect, but for all the softly-softly edicts about community policing coming out of HQ, on the Shankill you still need to be able to kick arse or you're dead in the water, often literally. In other parts of Belfast, beat bobbies patrol the streets on bicycles. If you tried that on the Shankill, you'd be on stabilisers for life.

In the old days, if something happened, you could just wander into Comanche Station and get the facts first hand; you could hang out, exchange info and gossip. Now you have to call the press office at HQ, and they get back to you with a sanitised version of a sanitised version; it's depressing and half the reason I knocked straight news journalism on the head. Back then, the station was as dark and doomy as Mordor. Now it looks more like the regional office of a moderately successful insurance company.

I drove past and turned back on to the Shankill and parked. There's a cafe a few doors up from West Kirk Presbyterian Church. I went in and ordered a pot of tea and three German biscuits. I studied my notes for ten minutes and glanced at my watch. Then he came in, and he wasn't alone.

'Maxi,' I said, 'how're you doing?'

'Starkey,' he said, 'long time no see.'

In my prime, I never would have called him by his first name. Maxi McDowell was a thirty-year veteran, a desk sergeant nobody dared cross, inside or outside of the station. He was the only cop in north and west Belfast who didn't bother to hide the fact that he was a cop when he arrived for work; who parked his own car outside his own station and never worried that someone would try and blow it up, either with him in it or not. They knew it would only make him angry. Of all the contacts I had had in Comanche Station, he was the only one still working. Just about.

'My last week,' he said, 'and then I get to put my size twelves up for good. That's why I've brought DS Hood. Gary Hood.'

I nodded at him. 'Good name,' I said.

Hood gave me a wan smile. He was clean cut, early thirties, smart suit.

'Heard them all before,' he said.

'He's a good man,' said Maxi, 'though obviously I won't say that to his face.'

Maxi poured tea for the both of them. Then he picked up a biscuit and admired it. 'I wonder how many of these I've had down the years? It's all fucking energy bars now, isn't it?'

Hood said, 'What's this about? Journalists are supposed to go through-'

'Easy, tiger,' said Maxi. 'I told you, Dan's an old friend. Or enemy. I can't quite remember which.'

'Somewhere in the middle,' I suggested.

'Yeah. That sounds about right. Pain in the hole you were, Starkey, but you always stood your ground. And your round, as I recall. So. You were kind of vague on the phone about what you're into these days.'

'Well, it is kind of vague.'

'Then tell me about Jack Caramac; what's that fucker gotten himself into? I remember him when he was plain old Jack Cairnduff. He was a shite reporter then and he hasn't improved much since. Done well for himself, mind, have to give him that.'

'He's being threatened. Him and his kid. For obvious reasons he doesn't want to go through you lot. I'm just trying to work out who it might be, and why.'

'I would think the why is fricking obvious. He's an annoying fat prick.'

'Yeah, well, it's the nature of his show. I've been going through the transcripts, and the one that sticks out is this young fella, Bobby Murray.'

'Bobby Murray,' said Hood, shaking his head.