“Yes.”
We heard Mr Selden trump down the hall and violently open the door. I couldn’t help but like Harry as soon as I saw him because he was a rotund man in a cardigan with thinning black hair and a jovial shine to his cheek. He had very dark eyes and little brown caterpillar eyebrows. He was about my height and we would have made a good Laurel and Hardy standing together if we’d put on 30s garb and he’d grown a bristle moustache. I brought to the forefront of my mind the possibility that he had murdered both Elena Deauville and her husband Francis and that took the edge off my admiration.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions, Mr Selden?”
“You know the funerals are about to start?”
“Sorry, I thought they’d be over by now.”
“No. I was watching it. They’re just finishing the service. Have you got any identification?”
I showed him my warrant card.
“You’re a Catholic?” he said accusingly after reading my name.
“Yes.”
He pointed his finger at me. “You as good as killed those kids in Gibraltar. That wee girl. You work for them uns that have done it. You know what you are?”
“A policeman come to ask you some questions?”
“A traitor.”
You’d think they’d be more original with their dialogue. Like I hadn’t heard this a million times since I’d joined the force.
“Where were you on Wednesday the 2nd of March, Mr Selden?”
“I was in the hospital getting me appendix out.”
“What hospital?”
“Altnagelvin.”
“When did you enter the hospital?”
“The previous Friday. I took ill in the council chamber. It was an emergency.”
“And on the Wednesday you were still in the hospital?”
“I was nearly in a bloody coma. I had septicaemia.”
“You seem better now.”
“Yeah, they finally let me out last Saturday. I was in hospital for an entire week. Missed a week of council business. What’s this all about?”
“Can we come in and talk? Maybe a cup of tea?”
“No, you can stand there or you can fuck off. You’re not coming in and you’re not getting any tea. What’s this about?”
“On Wednesday March 2nd your Ford Escort was seen in Sunnylands Estate, Carrickfergus, following a man who was murdered on Thursday morning. How do you explain that, Mr Selden?”
“I explain it very easily, Mr Duffy. My car was stolen from right in front of my house while I was in the bloody hospital.”
“And did you tell the police it was stolen?” Crabbie asked.
“Oh, it speaks, does it? Does the wee blond one speak as well, or is he your ventriloquist’s dummy?”
“Can you answer Sergeant McCrabban’s question?”
“Why didn’t I report my stolen car to the police? Because I have no truck with the police. I don’t recognise the RUC as a police force. It is an arm of the British state. An occupying army. No, Sergeant McCrabban, I will never report anything to the police or go into a police station for any reason.”
“That’s convenient. So you say your car was stolen but there’s no proof that it was stolen,” I said.
“Who said there was no proof? I never said that. I just said I never told the police. I told the insurance company, though. And I’ve got the claims forms to prove it. Just hold on a wee minute there and I’ll get them.”
He slammed the door in our faces and returned a moment later with the insurance form that certified the fact that he had reported his car stolen on March 5th, the day he had gotten out of hospital. Northern Ireland was one of the few places in the world where you didn’t need a formal police report for stolen property because so many people refused, like old Harry, to have anything to do with the RUC.
“So you get out of hospital and you notice your car was gone and you immediately called the insurance company, is that right?” I asked.
“That’s right. But my mother who lives with me noticed that the car had been gone for about four days. She doesn’t remember when. She hasn’t been too well herself. A stroke.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I showed the form to Crabbie, who read it and nodded. He passed it to Lawson who also read it.
“Now, do you mind, I want to watch the TV and me mum will want her tea.”
“I just have a few more questions,” I said.
“Do you know who I am?” Selden said, snatching the form back from Lawson.
“Harold Selden of the Creggan Estate?”
“Councillor Harold Selden of Derry City Council. And your harassment will not go unnoticed at the next Derry City Council meeting, Inspector Sean Duffy of Carrickfergus CID.”
Another door slam.
“What was that you were saying about Derry people being wonderful, sir?” Lawson said.
I turned to McCrabban. “He’s developing quite the lip, young Lawson, isn’t he?”
“Aye. I don’t entirely approve of that,” Crabbie said.
Quick drive to check on Selden’s story at the hospital. Ruptured appendix, blood poisoning, finally released from the hospital on the Saturday morning – a full 48 hours after Deauville’s death.