Page 139 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Yes,” he said, and finished off his Guinness. He got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with two more bottles, but just then his wife, Elaine, came down the stairs.

“This is Sean Duffy, from the north, originally a Derry man. Sean, this is Elaine, my wife. She’s from Fermanagh.”

We shook hands. “Lovely part of the world, Fermanagh,” I said.

“It is,” she agreed. “How’s he treating you? He can be a bit odd with visitors.”

“He played me two versions of ‘Blue Moon.’”

She looked horrified for a moment. “Not Elvis and Mel Torme?”

“No. Julie London and Ella Fitzgerald.”

She sucked in her breath. “And what did you say about them?”

“I said that Ella Fitzgerald had a beautiful voice, but for some reason, I liked the Julie London version a little better.”

She smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “You dodged a bullet there.”

I smiled at Brendan. I’d dodged quite a few of his bullets. And his bloody mortars.

“Well, you boys chat. I’ll see about lunch. Do you like sandwiches, Sean?”

“Love ’em.”

When she’d gone, I finished the bottle and put it on the tabletop. “I looked for you at the bowling club.”

“I don’t go every day.”

“What makes you tick, Brendan?”

“I’ll tell you.”

He told me.

The poor man did not depart from his well-beaten track: evil Brits, Thatcher, the famine, Bloody Sunday, and so on.

I wondered after a time if he had forgotten to whom he was speaking. This was the boilerplate one churned out for visiting Irish American dignitaries, not inspectors of the police from either side of the border. Did this traditionally wearisome diatribe ever impress anyone?

Finally, he even got bored with it himself and stopped.

He had made me angry now. This man had killed one of my colleagues. A kid, really. A frightened kid. And he was giving me bloody music exams and talking crap about Cromwell as if I were some dimwitted Kennedy just off the plane from Logan?

“What was the purpose of this visit, Inspector? To warn me or to threaten me?”

He had me there.

I didn’t know the answer.

“I wanted to let you know that I am not investigating you. I’m off the case. Our paths won’t cross again.”

“Then what are you over here for?”

“I had a dream you came into my house to kill me and my wife and child.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

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