Page 165 of Hang on St. Christopher

And maybe it was for the greater good, but at least I’d done my due diligence.

All I could do.

He wasn’t going to vary his routine. Or if he did, it would be only for a day or two. Complacency would kick in and the goons would kill him. They’d kill him and his crazy brother in France. Good riddance, really, nutcases like them.

Back out of the fragrant phone box, into the Scottish rain.

Rain from a low-pressure system that was moving quickly through western Britain, bringing heavy precipitation that was bouncing off the pavement. Of course, the black BMW 325i didn’t mind the rain at all. Sitting there waiting for me like a demonic familiar.

Presents in the back seat, raincoat in the passenger’s side.

Glasgow to Portpatrick is a comfortable two-hour run down the motorway and the A77. An hour and a half if you don’t mind risking the traffic police.

I did it in fifty-nine minutes.

No cops, no hassle.

The house quiet.

I went in through the back door and up the stairs.

I checked on Emma and tiptoed into the bedroom. I stripped and slipped beneath the sheets.

“Is that you back?” Beth moaned, half in and half out of sleep.

“Yes.”

“Did everything go okay?”

“It all went fine.”

“Did you keep your receipts?”

“Receipts?”

“So the police can reimburse your meals.”

“I forgot to do that.”

“You should have kept your receipts,” she said, and went back to sleep. I lay there for a bit and then went downstairs to make a cup of coffee.

I removed my wallet containing my battered Saint Christopher medal and the lucky postcard of Saint Michael (the patron saint of peelers) trampling Satan, by Guido Reni.

Coffee and a slice of toast with butter and marmalade.

I went into the living room, stoked the embers in the fireplace, and as a reward for my endeavors poured myself a glass of the twenty-five-year-old Bowmore.

Peace is coming, Duffy. Don’t fuck it up.

I sat in the easy chair and looked out at the water. Now that the rain had blown through, it was a calm, clear day. From the house on the cliff, it was only twenty miles across the narrowest bit of the Irish Sea to the lighthouse in Whitehead. A little farther to the left, I could see the power station chimney at Kilroot, and a little beyond that lay Carrickfergus and Belfast.

So near and yet so far.

We were safe here.

Donnolly knew where I lived. The company knew where I lived. MI5 and -6 knew where I lived. But they wouldn’t come for me. I knew how to keep my mouth shut.

Jet, the cat, appeared from wherever he had been sleeping or hunting—his only two modes of existence.

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