“Is he a good boss?” I asked.

“He’s a great man,” she said.

“‘Genius at work’, it says on his desk.”

“Oh, that? That’s sort of a joke. That was a gift from Ronald Reagan when he was campaigning through Michigan.”

She began to roll a sheet of paper into her electric typewriter when suddenly another secretary came running down the hall and burst into Mr DeLorean’s office.

“What!” DeLorean yelled, and then a moment later: “Goddammit!”

DeLorean came out of the office, fuming.

“This, when I’m talking to a reporter!” he muttered to Gloria.

He turned to me. “I suppose you’ll want me to evacuate the place? Stop production?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve no idea—”

A young man came breathlessly up the stairs. “Mr DeLorean we’ve had a—”

“Yes, I know!” DeLorean exclaimed. The Daily Mail hack had come out of the office now and was writing furiously in his notebook.

DeLorean turned to the man. “You want to know what difficulties we have to deal with? This kind of goddamn difficulty! Every goddamn week!”

An alarm began sounding and the workers began putting down their tools.

“Who pulled the fire alarm?” DeLorean screamed.

“One of the shop stewards, probably,” the young man said.

“Jesus Christ! All right, all right, show it to me!” DeLorean said.

“I think we should evacuate the premises,” the young man said.

“Show it to me!”

The young man led DeLorean towards a fire exit. Gloria grabbed her handbag, notepad and followed and I followed her. We were met at the bottom of the fire escape by two uniformed security guards.

“Where is it?” DeLorean demanded.

“On the slip road to the south gate,” one of the security guards said.

I went with DeLorean and the motley band to the south gate. And there I saw what the problem was. Someone had hijacked a Ford Transit van and dumped it there.

“There is no bomb in there – I’ll show you!” DeLorean said, marching towards the van.

“Stop right there!” I ordered, and DeLorean froze in his tracks. “What’s going on here?” I asked the harassed young guy.

“Suspect device. Someone called in a bomb threat,” he said.

“There’s no bomb in that vehicle! We get this all the time, Inspector Duffy. It’s a hoax. I’ll show you!” DeLorean said, and continued striding towards the transit van.

“No, you won’t! You’ll go back inside and evacuate the factory and call the bomb squad,” I said, with a voice of absolute authority.

DeLorean glared at me with pure malice.

He pointed a finger at me, but said nothing. After a couple of seconds of this he nodded at the young man, who ran back towards the factory.

“I’ll check out the van, I’ll show you, Mr DeLorean,” a beefy Liverpudlian security guard said.

“Yes!” DeLorean said excitedly.

“You’ll do no such thing,” I insisted.

The security guard shook his head. “Every day, Inspector, it’s the same story. Someone calls Downtown Radio to request Fleetwood Mac and call in a bomb threat at the DeLorean factory.”

“Nevertheless, no one’s going to touch that van until the bomb squad shows up,” I reiterated.

“Okay, we’ll wait here and I’ll show you that I’m right,” DeLorean insisted.

I knew he was right. Nine times out of ten it’s a hoax. But that one time … that’s the time that gets you.

The Army bomb disposal unit showed up and the robot blew open the back doors of the Transit. The robot looked inside and fired a shotgun into a wooden box, but it only contained tools. Behind us the blue-collar staff was filing out of the factory, most deciding to go home for the day. An enterprising mobile chip van showed up and DeLorean bought our little group fish suppers out of his own pocket.

The Army EOD unit still wasn’t completely satisfied with the situation, so they carried out a further controlled explosion which destroyed the van completely, sending metal fragments and a fireball into the air. There had been no secondary blast which proved that the Ford had contained no bomb or combustible materials.

DeLorean was not triumphant. He was resigned now. Fed up. He shook my hand.

“I yelled out of turn,” he said. “You did the right thing. Better safe than sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I replied.

The Army gave us the all clear but some fool had left a backpack in the executive car park in his haste to evacuate and the disposal unit roped off the car park to carry out a controlled explosion on that too. It was five o’clock now. Many of the white-collar staff were effectively trapped until the Army said that this was a negative result too.

“My car’s in the visitor’s car park. Anyone need a lift going Carrick way?” I asked.

Gloria put up her hand. “I do,” she said.

“No problem.”

We drove through the centre of Belfast where rush hour and a string of incendiary devices on buses had created chaos.

“Where do you live?” I asked her.

“A town called Whitehead. An apartment overlooking the water. Wonderful view, full of charm.”

“Sounds like a nice place.”

“Oh, yes. Mr DeLorean picked our accommodations out personally.”

We were stuck in traffic for twenty-five minutes.

I was getting annoyed.

Worse. Losing face.

“This is ridiculous. Time for my Starsky and Hutch moves,” I said.

I took the portable siren out of the glove compartment and put it on the roof of the Beemer. I turned it on and drove the wrong way down the one-way system at the City Hall.

“Are you allowed to do this?” Gloria asked, in what I discovered later was a South Carolina burr.

“I’m allowed to do anything, love, I’m the Johnny Law.”

“You’re the what?”

“Put the windows down, sweetheart!”

She wound down the window and I cracked Zep in the stereo. Good Zep. LZIII. We ran the one-way systems and frightened the civvies and hit the ten lanes where the M2 leaves the city. Six camouflaged sacks of shit were stopping suspicious characters where the M2 merges with the M5, but the siren got me past them and on the M5 I got the Beemer up to a ton. At Hazelbank I killed the woo woo and took us down to seventy-five.

We drove past Whiteabbey RUC.

“A rocket went through that police station,” I said.

“A rocket?”

“Yeah, not an RPG. A rocket.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Oh, there’s a difference, baby. Believe me. I was in there half an hour later.”

I scoped her, and my God, she was a stunner. She looked like Miss World 1979, one of the ones Georgie Best couldn’t get.

“You want to get a bite to eat? I know this fabulous Italian that just opened up in Carrick. The food’s so good the place won’t survive past Christmas.”

“Italian food?”

“Italian food.”

“I’ll try anything once.”

“Oooh, I like the sound of that.”

She laughed and I knew I was in like Flynn.

The Tutto Bene was deserted apart from a bald gourmand who was loving everything he was given and kept sighing dramatically at each new dish. We were given the window seat overlooking the harbour. I ordered the second most expensive red. She plumped for the spag carbonara and I got the risotto.

She didn’t like the grub but the desserts killed her.

I asked her if she wanted to come back chez Duffy and hear my records. She said that that sounded interesting.

Coronation Road. Nine in the p.m. Curtains drawn. I was spinning Nick Drake, while Gloria checked out the Nickster’s sad eyes on the sleeve. Soften them with up Nicky D. and Marvin Gaye and then unleash the inner perv with the Velvets …

I made her a vodka martini and questioned her about her life and times. She was from a town called Spartanburg, South Carolina. She’d gone to Michigan State to major in business and from there it was a short hop to GM and JDL’s own company.

We were getting on famously when there was a knock at the front door. I turned the TV off and looked through the living-room window. It was Ambreena.