He released the door of the refrigerator and began opening and closing drawers. In one he found a blank cream-colored envelope, and in the envelope was a handwritten note from Quinn.

Deposit it in small amounts so it looks like tip money . . . Give my love to C . . .

Gabriel slipped the letter into his coat pocket next to the credit card bill and checked his watch. Two and a half minutes. He stepped from the kitchen and headed upstairs.

The car returned at 1:37. Again it cruised slowly past Number 8, but this time it stopped next to the Škoda. At first, Keller pretended not to notice. Then, indifferently, he lowered his window.

“What’re you doing here?” asked the driver in a thick West Belfast accent.

“Waiting on a friend,” replied Keller in the same dialect.

“What’s the friend’s name?”

“Maggie Donahue.”

“And you?” asked the passenger in the car.

“Gerry Campbell.”

“Where you from, Gerry Campbell?”

“Dublin.”

“And before that?”

“Derry.”

“When did you leave?”

“None of your fucking business.”

Keller was no longer smiling. Neither were the two men in the other car. The window slid up; the car moved off along the quiet street and disappeared around the corner a second time. Keller wondered how long it would take them to establish that Maggie Donahue, the secret wife of Eamon Quinn, was at that moment working in the Lobby Bar of the Europa Hotel. Two minutes, he thought. Maybe less. He pulled out his mobile and dialed.

“The natives are starting to get restless.”

“Try giving them the flowers.”

The connection went dead. Keller started the engine and wrapped his hand around the grip of the Beretta. Then he stared into the rearview mirror and waited for the car to return.

At the top of the stairs was a pair of doors. Gabriel entered the room on the right. It was the larger of the two, though hardly a master suite. Clothing lay strewn across the floor and atop the unmade bed. The curtains were tightly drawn; there was no light other than the red digits of the alarm clock, which was set ten minutes fast. Gabriel opened the top drawer of the bedside table and illuminated its contents with the beam of his Maglite. Dried-out pens, dead batteries, an envelope containing several hundred pounds in well-used bills, another letter from Quinn. It seemed he wanted to see his daughter. There was no mention of where he was living or where a meeting might take place. Still, it suggested that Liam Walsh had been less than truthful when he claimed that Quinn had had no personal contact with his family since fleeing Ireland after the Omagh bombing.

Gabriel added the letter to his small collection of evidence and opened the closet door. He searched the clothing and found several items clearly belonging to a man. It was possible Maggie Donahue had taken a lover in her husband’s long absence. It was possible, too, that the clothing belonged to Quinn. He removed one of the items, a pair of woolen trousers, and held them to his own frame. Quinn, he recalled, was five foot ten, not a big man but bigger than Gabriel. He searched the pockets for litter. In one he found three coins, euros, and a small blue-and-yellow ticket. It was torn, half of it missing. Gabriel could make out four numbers, 5846, but nothing more. On the back were a few centimeters of a magnetic data stripe.

Gabriel pocketed the ticket, returned the trousers to their original hanger, and entered the bathroom. In the medicine chest he found men’s razors, men’s aftershave, and men’s deodorant. Then he crossed the hall and entered the second bedroom. In cleanliness, Quinn’s daughter was the precise opposite of her mother. Her bed was smoothly made; her clothing hung neatly from the rod in her closet. Gabriel searched the drawers of her dresser. There were no drugs or cigarettes, no evidence at all of a life kept secret from her mother. Nor was there any trace of Eamon Quinn.

Gabriel checked the time. Five minutes had elapsed. He moved to the window and watched the car with two men pass slowly in the street. When it was gone, Gabriel’s BlackBerry vibrated. He lifted it to his ear and heard the voice of Christopher Keller.

“Time’s up.”

“Two more minutes.”

“We don’t have two minutes.”

Keller rang off without another word. Gabriel looked around the room. He was used to searching the premises of professionals, not teenagers. Professionals were good at hiding things, teenagers not so. They assumed all adults were dolts, and their overconfidence was usually their undoing.

Gabriel returned to the closet and searched the insides of her shoes. Next he leafed through her fashion magazines, but they produced nothing other than subscription offers and fragrance samples. Finally, he thumbed through her small collection of books. It included a history of the Troubles written by an author sympathetic to the IRA and the cause of Irish nationalism. And it was there, wedged between two pages, that he found what he was looking for.

It was a photograph of a teenage girl and a man wearing a brimmed hat and sunglasses. They were posed on a street of faded old buildings, perhaps European, perhaps South American. The girl was Catherine Donahue. And the man at her side was her father, Eamon Quinn.

Stratford Gardens was quiet when Gabriel emerged from the house at Number 8. He slipped through the metal gate, walked over to the Škoda, and climbed into the passenger seat. Keller wound his way through the mean streets of the Catholic Ardoyne and returned to Crumlin Road. Then he made a quick right turn into Cambrai Street and eased off the throttle. Union Jacks fluttered from the lampposts. They had crossed one of Belfast’s invisible borders. They were safely back on Protestant ground.

“Did you find anything?” asked Keller finally.

“I think so.”

“What is it?”

Gabriel smiled and said, “Quinn.”

22

WARRING STREET, BELFAST

IT COULD BE ANYONE,” said Keller.

“It could be,” replied Gabriel. “But it isn’t. It’s Quinn.”

They were in Keller’s room at the Premiere Inn on Warring Street. It was around the corner from the Europa and far less luxurious. He had checked in as Adrien LeBlanc and had spoken French-accented English to the staff. Gabriel, during his brief journey across the drab lobby, had said nothing at all.

“Where do you suppose they are?” asked Keller, still studying the photograph.

“Good question.”

“There are no signs on the buildings or cars on the street. It’s almost as if—”

“He chose the spot with great care.”

“Maybe it’s Caracas.”

“Or maybe it’s Santiago or Buenos Aires.”

“Ever been?”

“Where?”

“Buenos Aires,” said Keller.

“Several times, actually.”

“Business or pleasure?”

“I don’t do pleasure.”

Keller smiled and looked at the photo again. “It looks a bit like the old center of Bogotá to me.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that one.”

“Or maybe it’s Madrid.”

“Maybe.”

“Let me see that ticket stub.”

Gabriel handed it over. Keller scrutinized the front side carefully. Then he turned it over and ran his finger along the portion of the magnetic stripe.

“A few years ago,” he said at last, “the don accepted a contract on a gentleman who’d stolen a great deal of money from people who don’t care to have their money stolen. The gentleman was in hiding in a city like the one in this photograph. It was an old city of faded beauty, a city of hills and streetcars.”

“What was the gentleman’s name?”