“How is he?” I whispered to Helen.
“He hasn’t spoken a word, but the doctor says he should be—”
“Sean, is that you?” he asked, opening first one eye and then the other.
“It’s me.”
“Did we get him?”
“We got him … But don’t worry about that now. Helen’s here and the boys—”
“Is Helen here?”
“Of course I am!”
He looked at Helen. “You’re here, Helen?”
“Yes!”
“And the boys are here?”
“Yes, Dad, of course we are.”
He shook his head and frowned. “If you’re all here, who’s looking after the farm?” he said dourly.
Back to Carrickfergus RUC.
The farm remark already legendary.
Upstairs to my office.
Me falling asleep at my desk while typing up the report.
A knock on my door.
“Sean?”
The door opened. Chief Inspector McArthur was standing there with another man, the Chief Constable of the RUC, Jack Hermon.
I snapped to my feet.
“Sir, I had no idea—”
Hermon waved me down.
“How’s your man, Duffy?”
“Sergeant McCrabban, sir? He’s on the mend.”
“Good to hear it. You probably need to get some sleep, don’t you?”
“I haven’t finished the report, yet, sir, I was just typing it now. We, uhm, need to get the story …”
Hermon turned to Chief Inspector McArthur. “I’d like to talk to Inspector Duffy, alone, if that’s all right.”
“Oh … Yes, of course,” he said and left the room. Hermon sat down in the chair opposite.
“Help yourself to a whisky,” I said, gesturing towards the drinks trolley.
“Little early for me,” he replied.
“Yeah. What time is it?”
“Not quite noon … This has been a terrible business,” he said.
“Yes. It has.”
“Glad McCrabban is on the mend.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, Strong. Dear, oh dear. I trusted that man. I thought he was an up-and-comer.”
“If my, our, plan is going to work, sir, you’ll have to continue to trust him, sir. At least in public.”
“Perhaps I will take a wee dram,” Hermon said and poured himself a fifth of the sixteen-year-old Jura – the best whisky on the drinks trolley.
“Look, Duffy, I’ll need a good man to be one of Strong’s handlers. Someone intimate with the details of the case, someone who can bully him when he needs to be bullied and someone who can—”
“Let me stop you right there, sir. I’m very flattered but I don’t know if I’m that man. I’m thinking of quitting, actually. Moving to Scotland in a year or so. My girlfriend, Beth, wants to go. She doesn’t feel safe here, obviously. And we have a child together, so I need to go with her.”
Hermon smiled. “I read about your girlfriend Beth on that attack on your house. A remarkable young lady, it seems.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she’s a toughie,” I said.
Hermon stood up. “Scotland’s not so very far away,” he said. “In fact, if I’m not mistaken that’s it, there, that blue line on the horizon.”
“Yes, sir, I believe it is,” I said and couldn’t stop a massive yawn.
“We might be able to arrange something for you even if you lived over there. The part-time reserve perhaps. How many years until your twenty-year-pension, Duffy?”
“I’ve actually quite a bit to go, sir, 1994 will be my twenty years and you can’t accumulate pension years in the part-time reserve.”
Hermon frowned and looked into his whisky glass. “Exceptions can be made. Exceptions are made all the time in special circumstances.”
“And for McCrabban too? He’s thinking of retiring as well.”
“For John McCrabban, a good man, yes, for him too.”
I thought about what other concessions I could ask for. “And if I do stay here even part-time I don’t want Kenny Dalziel to be my gaffer. I like Chief Inspector McArthur and I get on well with him. He’s due a promotion but perhaps he could get the bump in salary and still, somehow, keep his job.”
Hermon nodded. “All of that can be sorted out in due course. The first thing we have to do is, as you say, get our story straight.”
Two hours later. Outside to the BMW. Exhausted. Need my bed. But not home. Not yet. Into Carrick to visit a jeweller’s shop.
Down the A2 to Larne.
Knock on Beth’s door. Her parents and her in the kitchen. Giving them the public version of the previous night’s events.
Her father shaking my hand.
Later. In the playroom with Emma.
“Glasgow University, eh?”
“Yeah, it’s super modern. The English department, anyway.”
“In about a year from now?”
“I think that’s how long it would take to get everything sorted.”
“Have you heard of a thing called the part-time police reserve?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“You’re a reservist in the RUC but not the full-time reserve, I wouldn’t be on call. I’d only have to come in seven days in a calendar month. I could get it all over in a week or I could do two shorter stints.”
“What do you mean?”