Why? Why had she called me? What was this about? Had I disrupted her plans by coming over the wall and not through the gates? Had she got cold feet? Was it just a regular crank call?

I sat there, waited, watched.

She waited too.

The sky darkened.

Magpies descended to feast on the snails and earthworms.

“Hello!” I yelled out into the weather. “Hello!”

Silence.

I turned and walked back and it was only then that I noticed the envelope duct-taped to the back of the bench.

I immediately looked away and lit another cigarette.

When the cigarette was done, I turned round with my back to the exposed south entrance. If she was watching she wouldn’t know what I was doing. Perhaps she would think that I was pissing against the wall.

I took out a pair of latex gloves from inside my raincoat pocket and put them on.

I checked for wires or booby traps and finding none ripped the envelope off. I examined it. It was a green greeting card envelope. Keeping my back facing south, I opened it. Inside there was a Hallmark greeting card with a shamrock on the cover.

I opened it. “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” was the message printed inside.

At first I thought there was no message at all but then I saw it opposite the greeting.

“1CR1312”, she had written in capital letters in black pen on the top of the page.

You could, perhaps, have mistaken it for a serial number.

I noticed that actually there was a space between the 3 and the 1 so that really it read: “1CR 13 12.”

Even a non-Bible-reading Papist like me knew what it was.

It was a verse from the New Testament.

Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 12.

And not only that – it was something familiar. Something I should know.

The answers would be in my King James Bible back home. My house was only two minutes away, but there was something I had to do here first.

I put the card back in the envelope and retaped it to the seat back.

I pretended to zip up my fly, then I turned round and lit another cigarette.

I did up the collar on my coat and walked out of the shelter towards the cemetery exit. I didn’t look to the left or right, instead I hurried on down Coronation Road and only when I was at Mrs Bridewell’s house did I stop and turn and look: two kids playing kerby, a woman pushing a pram, a stray dog sleeping in the middle of the street; no one else, no strangers, no unknown cars.

I ran up the path and knocked on Mrs Bridewell’s door.

She opened it almost immediately. She had curlers in and she was smoking a cigarette. She was wearing a pink bathrobe, pink fuzzy slippers and no make up. She seemed about twenty. She was really very good-looking.

“Oh, Mr Duffy, I thought it was the milk man come back to replace those bottles that the—”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Bridewell, but your front bedroom must have an unobstructed view of the graveyard – from mine the big chestnut tree at the cricket field is in the way.”

“We can see into the graveyard – what’s this all about?”

“Do you mind if I run up there? We’ve been getting reports about vandals spray-painting the shelter and stealing flowers from the graves and I think I just saw one of the little buggers go in there.”

“Of course. Of course. That’s shocking, so it is. I’ve complained about them weans to the police but nobody ever pays any mind.”

I ran upstairs to her bedroom. Her husband wasn’t here as he was still over in England looking for work. The bedroom smelled of lavender, there was a white chest of drawers, the bed sheets were peach, the wallpaper had flowers on it. A black lacy bra was sitting at the top of a laundry basket. It distracted me for a second, before the bra’s owner followed me into the room.

“Why didn’t you just wait for him in the cemetery?” she asked.

“It’s a she. And if she sees me in the graveyard she won’t do anything, will she? But if I can catch her in the act from up here, then Bob’s your uncle, I’ll have physical evidence and we can haul her up before the magistrate.”

“Won’t it just be your word against hers? You should have brought a camera,” Mrs Bridewell said, which was her way of letting me know that she was not going to be dragged into this. Like everyone else on Coronation Road, testifying against criminals – be they paramilitary mafia or mere teenage vandal – was not an option.

“Aye, but the beak will always take the word of a peeler over a wee mucker any day of the week.”

I took up a position at the window.

I could spy out the whole graveyard from up here and could easily see if someone approached the shelter even through the heavy rain. It was possible that she’d already gone to check if I’d taken her envelope in that brief window between me leaving the cemetery and reaching here, but I doubted it. She was the careful type. She’d wait until she knew I was long gone.

If she was still there at all. The really smart play on her part would be to leave the envelope and never come back. But most people weren’t like that. That took real dedication. Or years of training. If she didn’t come back at all it might be reasonable to infer that she was a spook.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Mrs Bridewell asked.

“Love a cup.”

“I’ll just go downstairs,” she said.

“Where are the kids?” I was going to ask, but of course they were at school.

It was just me and her.

Steady lad, I told myself.

I opened the window and stared across Coronation Road towards the graveyard.

Mrs Bridewell came back in with a stool and a pair of binoculars.

“They’re me Dad’s ten-by-fifties, they’re good,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll get you that tea,” she added, with a Mona Lisa half-smile.

“Ta.”

Our eyes locked. I noticed that she had fixed her hair.

I am weak, I thought.

I am a weak man.

A stupid man.

She nodded, turned and went downstairs.

If my mystery caller didn’t show up it would mean big trouble here in the Bridewell household.

I focused the binocs and gazed through them towards the shelter.

A pigeon, a friggin’ seagull. Nothing else.

I scanned along the graves and the stone wall. Nada.

Mrs Bridewell came back with the tea and chocolate digestives. The tea was in a Manchester United mug, the biscuits were on a Manchester United plate.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome. So this is what they call a stakeout then, is it?”

I grinned. “I suppose, although its hardly The French Connection, is it? Catching a teen graffiti artist won’t get me a promotion.”

“You’ve done more than enough, Mr Duffy. There’s many round here that were dead proud of you last year but they wouldn’t say it to your face, cos, you know …”

I’m Catholic? I’m a cop? Both?

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

She put her hand on my shoulder.

Oh, Jesus.

“Listen, uh, Mrs Bridewell, you wouldn’t have a copy of the King James Bible handy, would you?”

“Pardon?”

“The King James Bible – I need to look something up.”

The hand fled from my shoulder and tapped the back of her hair.

“Of course!” she said, a touch indignantly. “Of course we have a Bible, just hold on a minute there and I’ll get it.”

I took a sip of tea and resumed scanning the graveyard.

I ate a chocolate biscuit.

And there she was!

She was wearing a black knit cap, a black leather jacket, blue jeans, white Adidas gutties. Her back was to me, but I could tell that she was of medium height, and limber.

I put down the binoculars and ran out of the bedroom.

I almost collided with Mrs Bridewell coming up the stairs.

“She’s there, if I leg it I’ll get her!” I called out.

“Oh! Go on!” Mrs Bridewell said, excited by the hunt.

I opened the front door and sprinted up Coronation Road, turned left on Victoria Road and was through the cemetery gates in under forty-five seconds.