“I haven’t agreed to any—”
“Furthermore, you will not discuss our little conversation today with anyone except John Strong. I want the deal to be in place before the Army Council is approached. I don’t want them thinking I’m some rogue fucking lunatic like Deauville who is going to ruin everything for them. I want them to see me as a friend of John’s and yours and a potentially valuable asset in my own right. Is that clear?”
“Duffy, look, what you’re saying is all very well but—”
I got close to his face. “Rule number 1: only discuss this with John Strong for now. Rule number 2: only the two of you at the first meeting. Rule number 3 is the same as rule number 2: no bodyguards, no minders, no drivers, nothing like that. I will be alone. And if anything happens to me before the meet, you’re all up the spout.”
He nodded. He was beginning to process it all now, beginning to figure out the angles.
“About this proof,” he said.
Ah, so that was the line that was really worrying him.
“Proof that the pair of you murdered Deauville and disappeared his wife.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see it. And after the first meeting, when we’ve established some trust, you and I will never have to meet again. The money will go into my bank account and Strong and I can meet socially or at work.”
“How will we ever be able to trust each other?” Selden asked.
“Mutual blackmail. I’ve got a hold over you and as soon as that first cheque goes into my bank account from the IRA you’ve got a hold over me. It’ll be in both our interests to keep quiet. Everybody wins.”
“And the Deauville case?”
“Yellowed. No one gives a shit about a fucking drug dealer and his fucking heroin-smuggling wife.”
“And the McKeen–Devlin case?”
“Old news. No one gives a shit about that either.”
Selden looked me up and down. “I don’t know, Duffy,” he said slowly. “This doesn’t seem like you.”
“Doesn’t it? From the boy who tried to join the provisionals in 1972 but was turned down by Dermot McCann? From the young man who has realised that dirty cops and Loyalist thugs are the real enemies of the people of Ireland? But ultimately from the old man who’s just sick and tired of all of it and the only thing he wants is a quiet life? Let me finish my career in safety and get my pension and move abroad. Ten grand a month? Small price to pay for keeping one of your prize assets in place and keeping a lippy peeler off your back.”
He nodded.
“Well?” I asked.
“Perhaps something can be arranged,” he said.
“Good. It’s the smart play for all of us. Now this is where we meet. There’s an abandoned factory in Carrickfergus called Courtaulds. I know it well and it’s close to my house. It’s my turf and it’s safe. Tomorrow night at midnight in the turbine room. That’ll give you nearly two days to think it over. If you’re not there by 12.05 there’s no deal and fuck it, I’ll go to the press. Yes, I know Strong will try to bring me down and probably he will bring me down but no one will ever really trust that fucker again and they’ll be watching him like a hawk.”
“Tomorrow night. Midnight. Courtaulds factory, Carrickfergus,” Selden said, still not completely convinced.
“No guns, no surprises. Just you and Strong. I’ll bring my bank account number and my proof of your complicity and we’ll take it from there,” I said.
“I’ll talk to him.”
I laughed. “He’s not going to be happy.”
“We’ve had many such difficult conversations,” Selden said.
“I’ll bet you have. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” I said and offered him my hand.
He shook it tentatively. I walked to the front door and turned. “No tricks! I am not a problem. A problem is something that can’t be solved with money. I can be solved with money. OK?”
“OK.”
I drove out of Derry just as the sun was coming out of the bit of the Atlantic Ocean that embraces the coast of Western Scotland. On a whim I drove east to Tor Head and followed the trail to the top of the promontory.
From here it looked like I could see the whole world.
With no one around for miles and miles I allowed myself a clenched-fist cheer. Just one. They were only half in the bag.
I followed the A2 back to Carrickfergus, driving right past Judith McKeen’s house in Cushendun.
Back to Coronation Road.
Fed the cat and went to sleep on the living-room sofa.
No one came to kill me in the night and if they were going to come it would have been last night.
Probably.
Hit the bricks. Look under Beemer. Crabbie and Lawson in my office. I told them what I’d done and then I told them the plan.
“Strong and Selden have to come to see what this proof is. They’ll be expecting me to come alone but I won’t be alone. They’ll check that I’m not wearing a wire before we talk and I won’t be wearing a wire, either. But Lawson, you’ll be there in the corner with the boom mike and the high-gain antenna hooked up to the tape recorder. Almost as good as a wire.”