Page 59 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Are you thinking he’s a player?”

“Sniper? Plot to assassinate the Irish prime minister? Illegal explosives?”

“It looks like he’s never been convicted of anything,” Crabbie said, always one to give his fellow humans the benefit of the doubt. “Although he’s certainly had quite the interesting life.”

“Until somebody shot him in the driveway of his house.”

Across the incident room, WPC Babcock was marching toward us with a big smile on her face.

“What’s her deal?” I asked.

“Well, I asked her to look up Alan Locke’s name in all the local property registries.”

“Which is exactly what I did,” young Babcock said in a cheeky voice for one so young and so low on the totem pole.

“What did you find?”

“Here’s something that’ll cheer you both up,” she said, giving me an address on a yellow legal pad. She was clearly pleased with herself.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Mr. Townes didn’t have any other addresses anywhere in Carrickfergus. But a Mr. Alan Locke has a caravan on the caravan site up the New Line Road.”

“You’re kidding me. A caravan!”

“A caravan.” She grinned.

Of course it would be the bloody caravan that nailed him. Recently, anti–Irish Traveller legislation had been enacted to cut down on illegal Gypsy and Traveller campgrounds. Now you needed watertight proof of identity to rent a caravan at official campgrounds in Northern Ireland. Most Irish Travellers and Pavee didn’t have driver’s licenses or passports, so they could be kicked out of these campgrounds at any time. But if Townes had wanted to park his caravan, he would have needed to produce a proper photo ID for the council busybodies—something that Mr. Quentin Townes didn’t have but Mr. Alan Locke did.

“Let’s get over there straightaway! Babcock, you’re duty officer in charge of the station. Crabbie, you come with me.”

Crabbie could see the excitement in my face. He knew what I was thinking. We had to get there first before O’Roarke’s goons could get rid of any incriminating evidence.

Evidence of what?

Who the fuck knew?

“What’s the address, mate?” I asked the Crabman as I maneuvered the Beemer out of the station car park.

“Lot fifteen, Clifden Park, the New Line Road, which I think is up near Woodburn Forest.”

I gunned it down the Marine Highway and up the North Road. It was teeming rain, and the lightning had changed from sheet to fork, spectacularly hitting Kilroot Power Station’s chimney in my rearview mirror.

In a minute, we were out of urban Carrickfergus and into the deep Irish countryside from a hundred years ago.

This part of Belfast was like that. The urban recovering war zone ended abruptly in cows, forests, dams, and hayfields from out of a postcard.

We drove up to the top road and found the caravan site easily enough on an unappealing piece of wasteland that had been cleared from the surrounding fields and woods. This seemed to be a site that had been zoned for a housing development that never quite materialized, and gradually the whole lot was returning to a state of nature with giant ferns and nettle bushes and fast-growing trees. There were about thirty caravans in all, most of them white two-person jobs but a few bigger ones for families. Despite the anti-Gypsy ordnances, this was clearly Irish Traveller territory, judging by the number of tethered goats and horses, dodgy-looking cars, and several scrambler motorcycles. The downpour and the hour were keeping any potential rough customers indoors, which was fortunate because coppers sometimes had a hard time walking around Traveller camps unmolested.

The BMW sank into the mud, and Crabbie and I got out into the freezing rain. My watch said two-fifteen in the morning.

“The odd-numbered lots seem to be on this side, the even-numbered ones on that side,” Crabbie said.

“What?”

“Odd-numbered ones on this side!”

“Okay.”

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