Page 73 of Hang on St. Christopher

“I’m bloody calling him.”

I rang the number he’d given me, and they said they’d look for him at the pool. A minute went by, and a breathless Lawson came on the line.

“Oh, sir, is that you? Do you want me to fly home?”

“No. I’ve a question for you.Timescrossword. ‘Tragic female turning up in boys’ school might be reversed.’ Eight letters. It’s been annoying me for the last?—”

“Cosseted,” Lawson said immediately.

“How do you get that?”

“If she’s turning up at a boys’ school, the school must be going coed and if she’s a tragic female familiar toTimesreaders you just go through the list, don’t you, sir? Helen, Desdemona, Juliet, Little Nell, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. And if you reverseTessand sandwich it betweencoanded,you get cosseted.”

And the wee shite had done all that in a second.

“Very good, Lawson. Well, I’ll let you go back to the pool.”

“Do you need any other help?”

“We may not have your brilliance, but me and Sergeant McCrabban are old hands at this, and we’ve got some good leads, so I’m sure the whole thing will be settled by the time you get back.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Whenareyou coming back again? Sunday?”

“Sunday evening.”

“That’s right. Well, we’ll have it sussed by then. Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

“I will, thank you, sir.”

I hung up.

“That backfired a bit on you, didn’t it, Sean?” Crabbie said with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

“You’ve become very disloyal lately.”

“Sean, come on. It’s like what the chief inspector says. We’re all on the same side.”

I picked up the phone again and called Inspector O’Neill at Dundalk Garda Station.

“Aye, Duffy, I got your fax. Very good police work. Well done, ID-ing your victim.”

“Listen, O’Neill, I want you to do a favor for me.”

“What?”

“I want to interview Brendan O’Roarke.”

“Why?”

“One of his men got topped and I want to know why.”

“We don’t know that Locke was working for O’Roarke.”

“We can surmise it. It was black-ops shit. He was a trained marksman. An assassin. He tried to kill the Irish PM in the seventies. He was a black-bag specialist living undercover in Northern Ireland, in my manor, and I want to know the reason for it all.”

“What do your Special Branch people say?”

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