“I know.”
“This isn’t your way of kicking us out, is it? I didn’t like being away from you, Sean. I tried it and I didn’t like it.”
“That’s good to hear. I’m not kicking you out. I hate being away from you and Emma, but this is some scary stuff.”
She nodded and bit her lip. She understood.
“One question. If it’s too dangerous for us to stay here, why are you staying here?”
“It’s not too dangerous. Nothing’s going to happen. This is just a precaution. If someone is lunatic enough to drive by the house and maybe try and have a go I want you and Emma well out of it. Nothing is likely to happen, but I’d be able to handle everything better knowing that both of you are safe.”
She was tearing up now. She put her arms round me. I hugged her and carried her to the sofa. “How long for?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks maybe. Until I put this investigation to bed. I’ve stirred up something strange, something deep.”
“When do we have to move?”
“You’ll have to go by the weekend. The threat becomes a bit more imminent after the weekend.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t really explain, but you should go sooner rather than later.”
“I have my last tutorial tomorrow and then we’re off for the term. I could have my dad come with one of his vans the day after.”
“You don’t have to take all your stuff. But, yeah, the day after tomorrow is a good idea.”
“OK, Sean, if that’s what you want,” she said sadly.
“Don’t worry. It’s probably nothing. We get this sort of thing all the time. It’s always bollocks.”
“And after that I want to look at permanently moving away from here.”
“I’ve already agreed to that. I’m a man of my word.”
She kissed me on the lips. “That you are,” she said.
The next day I got up early and made everyone pancakes for breakfast. I dropped Emma off at Jollytots and Beth down at the train station.
I drove to the barracks feeling gloomy.
Lawson was waiting for me with a cup of coffee in the car park. Whenever Crabbie sent Lawson down to the car park to wait for me with a cup of coffee it was invariably because there was bad news waiting for me upstairs that he wanted to warn me about.
“Oh shit, what now? I haven’t failed another physical, have I?”
“No. It’s not that, sir. There are two men in your office.”
“What two men?”
“They wouldn’t say.”
“How’d they get in? What if it’s an IRA hit squad or one of those stripograms?”
“They’re policemen.”
“All stripograms are policemen.”
“I think they might be Special Branch.”
“So ugly stripograms.”
I was trying to get a smile out of Lawson but it wasn’t working.
“Gimme that coffee.”
Coffee. Asthma inhaler. Stairs.
Four men in my office: two goons from the internal investigation unit of Special Branch (one called McWhirter and a Jock called Nelson whom I’d encountered before); our ineffectual union rep, Sergeant Price, and Chief Inspector McArthur. McWhirter had a flasher vibe about him – skinny and pale and I’ll bet his hands sweated something chronic. Nelson had a face like Brian Clough getting sodomised with a pineapple.
“Were you boys having a séance?” I asked.
“Maybe for your days as a free man,” Nelson said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, shooing him out of my good swivel chair.
“This is serious, Sean,” McArthur said.
Nelson handed me a manila envelope.
“Is this an invitation to your birthday party?”
“Open the envelope and then we’ll see who’s laughing,” Nelson said.
I opened the envelope. It was a series of photographs of me going into Ken Kirkpatrick’s house.
“A known IRA man. An old friend of yours from Derry. You show up at his house at five in the morning. Stay for 90 minutes then head out again. Lots of handshakes at the door,” Nelson said.
I handed the photographs back to Nelson.
“You want to explain yourself, Duffy?” McWhirter asked.
“Nope.”
“I think photographs of you consorting with the IRA quartermaster for Derry is pretty fucking serious,” Nelson said.
“Yeah well you shouldn’t think so much, Nelson, you might break your head.”
“A plain clothes undercover team took photographs of you going into Ken Kirkpatrick’s house,” McWhirter said.
“Where are the plain clothes undercover teams when you really need them, eh?” I muttered.
“Duffy, I think you have to explain this. It looks very bad with all this talk of IRA infiltrators and—” Sergeant Price said.