Page 19 of Hang on St. Christopher

“No, butCountdownis always the same. They do the last numbers game and then the conundrum and then they wrap up the show. The last numbers game is always at four fifty-five.”

“And did you know they were gunshots?”

“I did not. I thought it was a car backfiring. One of the students down the way there has a Volkswagen and it’s always doing that. Backfiring, stalling. Mrs. McCallister told me the engines are in the back of those things! That can’t be right, can it?”

While Crabbie tried to get her off the topic of Volkswagen engines, I found myself caught in a stare with the black lough water. Just to the left, you could see the distant twinkling lights of Scotland. One of them, perhaps, was the lights from my own living room, and I thought again how odd it was to be removed from that universe of domestic bliss into this unpleasant little world of joyriders and murderers and dead men in bespoke three-hundred-quid linen jackets.

“No, if I’d thought it was shots, I would have gone out. I might have been able to help poor Mr. Townes,” Mrs. Franklin continued with a flutter of emotion.

To prevent that emotion from becoming an entirely unnecessary feeling of guilt, I shook my head. “He died almost instantly. There was nothing you could have done,” I said.

“That’s a relief. He was a nice man. I wouldn’t want for him to have suffered.”

“I don’t think he did. Shots, you said, not shot?”

“Two bangs, one after the other, the way a car does sometimes, which is why I thought itwasa car.”

“How long an interval between these two bangs, do you think?”

She thought for a moment. “Two seconds.”

“Two seconds,” I said, and wrote it in my notebook. Crabbie and I exchanged a look and a psychic communication.

A barrel in the gut to gentle his condition and bring him down. A barrel in the head at close range to kill him. Take the keys, steal the car, burn the car out to make it look like a joyriding gone wrong.

But what motive could there be if it wasn’t a botched carjacking?

“Did Mr. Townes ever speak about any enemies, threats against him, dissatisfied customers? Anything like that?”

“Mr. Townes was a very good artist. I can’t imagine he had any unhappy customers.”

“Human nature being what it is, though, I’m sure he upset some people,” I suggested.

“He was a very easygoing man. A churchgoing man, I think.”

“Which denomination?” I asked—always a loaded question in Ireland.

“Well, he was from down south, so you’d think he was a Catholic, but I don’t think he was actually. I think he was Church of Ireland.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, while I had the weans sitting for their portrait, Radio Ulster was on, and Dr. Eames was talking about something or other and I saw Mr. Townes nodding to himself. And Dr. Eames is the Archbishop of the Church of Ireland.”

“Not completely conclusive evidence there, Mrs. Franklin,” I suggested.

“Well, he wasn’tveryreligious,” she conceded.

“We’ll need to contact a next of kin,” Crabbie said to me.

“Yes, thanks for reminding me, Sergeant McCrabban. Did he have any family that he spoke about?”

“No. He never mentioned any family to me. I assumed his parents were dead.”

I sipped my tea. “Did he mention a wife or siblings?”

“No, he didn’t. Oh dear, oh dear, I hope there’s someone that’ll come up to bury him! I wouldn’t like to think of him without anyone to speak for him.”

I put my hand on her arm and gave her a reassuring smile. “We haven’t searched his house yet. I’m sure we’ll find an address book. And if we don’t, we’ll find out who he’s been calling on the phone, and call them,” I said.

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