Page 72 of Hang on St. Christopher

The chief inspector arrived when we were gazing at the whiteboard in the incident room. All our blue arrows were pointing at Brendan O’Roarke in Dundalk.

“I heard you found out the name of your victim at last, Duffy,” he said.

“We did.”

“Any suspects?”

“Still pursuing leads on that front.”

“Motive?”

“We’re running with the theory that Locke was an IRA hit man, possibly working for Brendan O’Roarke out of Dundalk.”

“And the assassin got assassinated?”

“That’s our working hypothesis.”

“Really?”

“It seems to point that way, sir.”

“What happened to the teen-joyriding hypothesis?”

“The teen joyriders are long gone, sir. This is a bit more interesting than that.”

“Interesting can sometimes be dangerous,” the chief inspector said.

“Well, it’s progress, sir.”

“Good. Very good. Progress at last. Yes,” he said with a strange, unpleasant, conspiratorial look to his face.

“Sir?”

“Hmmm,” he said, practically winking at us. You could tell that he wanted us to ask him what was afoot, but this was so obvious that Crabbie and I had no problem telepathically communicating the importance of not asking him anything.

The silence lasted a full minute before the chief inspector blurted out, “Actually, I may be the source of some of your progress,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“What did you do, sir?”

“I called Lawson in Spain. I told him the case was up against a brick wall. And he said he’d see what he could do to help. And now, low and behold, we have the suspect’s name and his whole story. Eh?”

I was aghast. Angry. “Sir, our progress has nothing to do with Lawson. Sergeant McCrabban did some old-fashioned legwork yesterday?—”

He raised a hand to stop me. “Now, now, Duffy. Don’t be flying off the handle because you got a little help from the new broom.”

“Sir, I’d be perfectly willing to admit to Lawson’s help if he had, in fact, helped, but he didn’t. We found the victim’s caravan ourselves. From old-school police work.”

The chief inspector stood up and headed for the incident room exit. He shook his head condescendingly. “We’re all on the same side, you know,” he said, closing the door behind him.

I looked at Crabbie. “Do you think he’s deliberately trying to get on my nerves?

“No.”

“I’m calling Lawson in Spain.”

“Don’t do it, Sean. He’s on his holidays.”

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