Page 131 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Never you mind. Can you do this for me or not?”

“I can do it. I have everything I need here. I’ve done the process before for a few wee jobs here and there.”

“Exact copies, or as exact as you can make them.”

“I’m good, Duffy. That’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”

I went back to Coronation Road and called Portpatrick and told Beth I was booked on the six p.m. ferry tomorrow. She was thrilled.

I hadn’t even told her about the gun battle. Maybe she’d never find out about it. The story hadn’t made the Scottish papers, and she didn’t get theNewsletteror theBelfast Telegraph. It was possible her parents would read the story, and if they did, I’d tell her that the whole thing was exaggerated by the press, as usual.

“Is your case finished, then? Did you find the murderer?” she asked.

“No. Special Branch have taken over the investigation. But that’s almost as good as the real thing.”

A day to kill. I drove to Belfast and talked to Terry in Good Vibrations, but he was depressed about the musical direction of the planet, and not in good form.

“Don’t you like the stuff coming out of Seattle?” I asked him.

“I’m supposed to be impressed because they finally get punk fifteen years after everyone else?”

“It’s not quite punk, Terry; it’s its own thing. Beth and I saw Nirvana at the...”

But Terry wasn’t listening. Terry’s method was to discourage new customers by mocking their musical tastes, and to alienate his old customers by telling them they had gone soft in the head for listening to the propaganda of A and R men and John Peel...

Back to Carrick.

I dined alone at a new Indian restaurant out on the Belfast Road that was pretty good.

Sleep. Bed.

Next morning, the Special Branch team was still packing up the boxes, but they were nearly done.

I drove to Archie’s house.

“Do you have those Picassos?”

“Yes, but they’re not completely dry yet.”

“I need them now.”

Blow-dryer.

Archie not happy: “This is a farce, so it is. It’s humiliating. Unprofessional.”

I took the fakes to the station. Clare was there for the last of the stuff and the signing of forms.

I gave him the fake only-just-dried Picassos.

“Extraordinary,” he said. “They look so fresh.”

“Yeah, well, don’t put your big grubby fingers on them. Apparently, they’re worth a few grand each.”

“More than that, surely.”

“No, they’re just prints. He did hundreds of them. I want a bloody receipt for these. I wouldn’t want to see a profile of Chief Constable Anthony Clare in theBelfast Telegraphand notice these behind him on the wall in his living room,” I said with a jocular tone.

But notthatjocular.

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