Page 51 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Not yet, sir. But it’s nothing to worry about. We have it all well in hand.”

“Superintendent MacNeice saw the story on the BBC evening news. He was asking me about it.”

“Yes, well, like I say, sir, you can tell him that everything’s well in hand.”

He gave Crabbie and me a look that I could not quite interpret but that might perhaps be similar to the one adults give to children performing in some kind of Christmas pageant.

“And the victim’s killers?”

“Nothing yet from the confidential telephone or the tip lines, but it’sveryearly days yet, sir,” I said.

Every amateur detective knew the old doggie that if you didn’t find out who’d done it in the first twenty-four hours, then it was going to be a tricky one. And this was now hour twenty-four, and we still didn’t know either who done it or who was done by it.

“Drink?” I asked the chief inspector, and he nodded, but when I opened Lawson’s drinks cabinet it contained only lemonade and Coke. “Jesus,” I muttered. “Sorry about this; it’s all soft drinks.”

“That’s all right, I have to head home anyway. It’s Cyril’s first night of the Robins,” McArthur said.

Cyril must be one of his kids, and the Robins must be some Proddy thing, I deduced with my razor-sharp police detective instincts.

“Tell Cyril good luck from me,” I said.

The chief inspector left, and I slumped into the chair feeling defeated.

Life, essentially, is about managing defeat. Anybody tell you that? No? Well, you’re hanging out with the wrong people from a philosophical standpoint, but maybe hanging out with the right people from a mental health standpoint. You don’t want to be around Crabbie and me when things are looking bleak in a stalled case.

I swiveled in the swivel chair and stared morosely out the window.

The gestalt of this bloody case had yet to reveal itself, but I knew that something was up. Something deep. The whole thing with the tailor’s shop smacked of something not quite right.

I phoned Peggy on the internal.

“Any calls for me from Dundalk Garda?”

“Nothing, Inspector Duffy. Are you expecting one?”

“Yeah, that or a fax, or something.”

“I’ll put the call right through if it comes.”

Aye, no gestalt yet, but in the absence of hard information one shouldn’t waste all one’s energy sieving the well-sieved soup.

I opened the window to let the sea breeze in.

I picked up one of Lawson’s paperbacks and starting thumbing through it.

It was a book about a policeman trying to solve cases in a rather nice, leafy part of England. The copper wasn’t too bright, but he had somehow risen to the rank of chief inspector. All the other coppers weren’t too bright either. When I saw that the copper had no idea who Hemingway was, I began to suspect that the writer might be rather posh.

I threw the book out the window and it scudded a wee shite from Internal Affairs who was here to check that we weren’t fiddling our expenses. Totally worth the three quid.

I closed the window, stole some change from the vending machine change return slot, and said goodbye and good luck to McCrabban.

Out into the rain.

BMW to Victoria Estate.

I parked outside the off licence and got a bottle of twelve-year-old Port Ellen and a sixteen-year-old Laphroaig for Lawson’s office. That would keep the guests happy, and if the guests didn’t like peaty, oak-aged, smoky, salty, Islay whisky, then they didn’t deserve to be happy in the first place.

I walked to the Victoria Hot Spot and ordered a fish supper.

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