Page 113 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Great. Now, get on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

The big man did as he was bidden, and I kept the gun on him until the police showed up from the station.

A dozen peelers came because they must have gotten half a dozen phone calls from Coronation Road residents.

Among them was Rachel from next door, who was looking at me with some concern. Next to her was Mrs. Campbell, smoking a ciggie and enjoying the show.

One of the coppers was Lawson.

“Sir, when the alert came through and I heard the address, I came out here immediately. Are you okay?”

“Never better.”

“What was it? Some sort of assassination attempt?”

“Nothing so grand. Some local roughnecks who wanted to smash up my house in my absence. They’re lucky Iwashere. If Bobby Cameron had caught them doing something like that on his street without his permission, he’d have kneecapped the lot of them.”

I thought again of Sun Tzu. And Clausewitz. I could possibly have solved this without any violence at all. That would have been the pure form of the art of persuasion. But Duffy’s growth and progress was not a linear graph. Sometimes it dipped below the X axis.

“Well, since I’m out here, I should tell you that Superintendent Clare has offered me a chance to sit in on the interview with Brendan O’Roarke,” Lawson said.

“O’Roarke agreed to an interview?”

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

I rubbed my chin. “He must be getting worried. All his confreres getting murdered like that.”

“Yes.”

“And Clare says you can sit in on it?”

“Yes.”

“He’s not coming north of the border, is he?”

“No, Dundalk Garda Station.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing.”

“I know you were supposed to go home tomorrow, sir, but?—”

“Yeah, okay. I’m in if you want me.”

“I do.”

“I’ll call the missus.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll have to change my ferry time, but I can stay one more day. It’ll be without pay, though. McArthur says he’s cutting me off, the bastard. Is, uhm, Sergeant McCrabban...”

“Yes, he says he wants to come.”

“Well, in that case I’ll definitely come.”

Lawson nodded and cleared his throat. “What do you want us to do with these two? Charge them with assault?”

“Nah, no charges, I think they learned their lesson. It was a friendly textual analysis of Sex Pistols lyrics that just got a bit out of hand, that’s all.”

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