“What was that?”
“Well, when I called last orders Frankie comes up to the bar and gives me fifty quid like he’s just had a massive score. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t sold anything really.”
“Did you ask him why the money?”
“No, like I say, no questions. Better not to know.”
“You’re going to have to come down the station with us and give our sketch artist a drawing of this guy,” I said.
“He didn’t look like anything. It’s just a hat and a coat.”
“What type of coat?”
“Just a heavy raincoat. He may have had a wee beard or that could have just been the shadow. No, there’s no point getting me to draw anything.”
“Regardless, you’re going to have to come with us.”
We took him back to the station with us and he did indeed produce a very unhelpful drawing with the sketch artist. A tall well-built man with a hat pulled low over his face. Possibly a beard or prominent sideburns. It was interesting, though. Direct Action Against Drug Dealers didn’t usually meet with their victims before they shot them. Then again, maybe this was just an old friend of Deauville’s right enough. Or maybe it bloody wasn’t.
The snow continued to fall and at five o’clock everyone was keen to get home as driving on some of the country roads was bound to be treacherous.
I called Crabbie and Lawson into my office.
“OK lads, we’ll all head home, but I think tomorrow we’ll go up to Antrim RUC and ask Mrs Deauville if she’s seen this mysterious stranger around, what do you lads think?”
“It’s not much of a picture,” Crabbie said.
“It’s the best lead we’ve got,” I countered.
“It’s the only lead we’ve got,” Lawson said.
I went into Chief Inspector McArthur’s and filled him in on the details. He couldn’t care less. This was a DAADD murder and those never got solved and the press wouldn’t care if we didn’t bring anyone in for it so therefore it wouldn’t affect his career. And in a couple of months he’d be free of me forever.
I drove home carefully along the seafront and even more carefully up the unsalted Victoria Road. Irish people weren’t used to driving in snow and the eejits were going far too fast, slipping and sliding every which way. Still, I got the Beemer in front of #113 in one piece.
As I was coming in the phone was ringing. I dropped everything and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hello Sean, I’m so glad I caught you. You were right, Emma misses you, she wants to hear your voice.”
“I miss her. Put her on.”
“Dadda!” Emma said.
“Emma honey.”
“Story dadda! Story!”
“Story … Well, once upon a time there was this naughty little girl with blonde hair who was always breaking into people’s houses. She was what we policemen call a recidivist so the local peeler, a very nice, generous, forgiving and intelligent policeman called Sean, told her she had to go and live in the woods for a while. She went out into the woods and she saw a cute little house there with the smell of porridge coming out the open window. Not just ordinary porridge but those steel-cut oats and honey that Daddy makes. Now this girl who we’ll call—”
“Emma!”
“Goldilocks, immediately decided she would get up to her old tricks again by breaking into the house of a nice bear family …”
When the story was finished Emma yawned and Beth said she had to put her to bed.
“When are you coming back? You know I’m sorry, right?”
Beth lowered her voice. “To be honest, I’m getting a bit fed up here. Dad’s always going on about business administration and how I’m wasting my time doing an English degree.”
“Come back then! I’ll come down tonight and get you both.”
“In this weather?”
“It’s no problem.”
“No. My Auntie Anne and Uncle Robert are coming over on the ferry tonight. They haven’t seen the baby. They’ll be staying for a couple of days and by then I’ll be thoroughly sick of it here. Can you come and get me on Tuesday morning? I’ve got a tutorial on Wednesday and I can get the train up to Belfast and you can watch Emma, yeah?”
“So you’ll come back and stay here?”
“We’ll have to have a serious talk about our future.”
“Of course! I’m all about serious. You know me. And like I say, I’m willing to move whenever you want.”
“And there will be no more shouting or stress?”
“Listen, Beth, that morning you went down to Larne I had my RUC medical and I’ve been told to cut down on the drinking and the smokes and the stress and I’ve been doing it. I’m a new man.”
“Sure you are, Sean Duffy.”
“What’s with you and the boats?”
“I’ve always sailed. You didn’t know that?”
“No.”
“I’ve got all these hidden depths you don’t even know about. Some cop you are. This is Dad’s new boat. It’s a restoration job. I was going to take it out today, but it was impossible with the weather.”
“We’ll go out in the summer. I’ve never been sailing before. I imagine it’ll be fun,” I said, lying like a trooper.
“OK, Sean, I’ll call you.”