“Where do you think you’re going?” Baker asked.
“I don’t have time for this. This may be how you get your kicks but I’ve an actual job to do. Next time you want to question me you better have an arrest warrant. And my solicitor and my union representative will need to be present. If you come to my home again I’m going straight to the newspapers. I can just see the Guardian headline now. ‘Catholic RUC Man Harassed by Protestant Police Establishment’.”
“I’m a Catholic!” O’Neill protested.
“You’re an Uncle Tom, that’s what you are,” I said.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Duffy,” Baker said.
“I don’t know how things work here, but in CID before we even think about bringing a case to the Director of Public Prosecutions we have to have witnesses, chains of causation, motivation, forensic evidence. You’ve got none of that. You’ve got nothing.”
“If you’re a mole we’ll get you.”
“I’m not the bloody mole.”
Door slam. Stomp along the corridor. Upstairs. Another dramatic exit.
Asthma inhaler. Played it badly. As always. Hothead.
Downstairs.
Desk Sergeant. “Can you call me a taxi, mate?”
Outside into the cold air.
Hands shaking.
Cigarette. Fucking stress.
Taxi back to Carrickfergus.
Thinking.
Thinking …
Newspapers …
Upstairs to my office. A fifth of whisky.
I called Carrick Library to confirm a fact about their collection.
I summoned Crabbie and Lawson into my office, gave them a summary of the internal-affairs accusations and what Assistant Chief Constable Strong had suggested we do with the case.
“So what are we going to do with the case?” Crabbie asked.
“I’ve been mulling that over. There were three prominent local newspapers printed in Belfast in the 1960s: the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News and the Newsletter. There’s three of us. We’ll look up the names Deauville and Selden in the indexes and if nothing comes up we’ll look up every incident involving the B Specials from say 1966–1969.”
“That was when the Troubles were kicking off. The B Specials will be mentioned all the time. We’ll practically have to read every single issue of every single paper,” Lawson said.
“We better read every single issue of every single paper just to be on the safe side,” Crabbie said.
“I’ve just checked with the librarian. Carrickfergus Library has all three papers in either hardbound or microfiche edition,” I said.
“Take us weeks,” Lawson said.
“We better get cracking then,” Crabbie said. “I’ll take the Newsletter if you don’t mind. Good farming stories.”
“I’ll take the Irish News cos it’ll be shorter than the Telegraph,” I said.
“I’ll take the Telegraph then,” Lawson said gloomily because, as we all knew, the Belfast Telegraph had more pages.
“When do we start?” Lawson asked.
“No time like the present.”
Seven hours library time later, exhausted and bug-eyed and without finding anything helpful I drove back home to Victoria Estate.
It was raining.
Coronation Road was quiet.
It wasn’t destined to stay that way.
20: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET
Beth had already changed into her PJs and was reading a CS Lewis science-fiction novel from the 50s. Lewis was from Belfast but you wouldn’t know that if you’d ever heard him talk in the poshest voice in the world on the BBC, explaining the existence of evil or how God is able to listen to a million people praying at the same time. (God exists outside time and thus has an infinite amount of time and patience to listen to our prayers, poor sod.) Emma was asleep upstairs. I was reading Tristes Tropiques. The music on the record player was Chopin.
Drizzle outside.
I looked at Beth. I wanted to tell her about my troubles but the Derry stuff would only upset her and the Special Branch investigation was nonsense. Her legs were curled up underneath her and she sat there: elfin, boyish, coiled, quiet.
Jet the cat came in and rubbed against me. With a great deal of hassle I had installed a cat flap in the back door so he could go out at night but he seldom ever went out after dark. He’d been Lily Bigelow’s cat and had lived most of his life in her flat in London and wasn’t that confident about patrolling these streets at night. Streets of Carrickfergus that abutted the Irish countryside and were therefore full of the smell of other cats, stray dogs, foxes and God knows what else. I petted the cat and looked at Beth.
She caught me looking.
“What?” she said. “You look worried.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Sean, please, come with me to my parents tomorrow. I know you’re not a fan of Larne, but we don’t really live in Larne, it’s more Ballygally.”
“I’m not worried. I’ve got a two-week window before I should be worried and even then I can’t see anyone coming onto Bobby Cameron’s turf to knock off a peeler without his permission.”