“You’re back in one piece?”

“Not exactly.”

He arrived in his Land Rover Defender, smoking a pipe and looking worried.

“You want some steaks?” I asked, showing him the box.

“Are they stolen?”

“Aye. They’re from the UDA,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

We went into the living room. I made tea and put on Alessandro Scarlatti to calm my nerves. I told him everything. I told him about the photos, and the cops and the car accident. I told him O’Rourke was Treasury. I told him that the FBI and Treasury were planning some kind of hit on DeLorean and O’Rourke was part of the intel gathering team.

Crabbie’s dour, unsurprised, unflappable expression did not change.

“You want to hear my theory?” I asked.

“Go on,” he said.

“The DeLorean Motor Company is a fucking disaster. DeLorean has been keeping fraudulent books to hide this fact. US Treasury Agents are all over it. One of them is an old, experienced field hand called O’Rourke who they send to Ireland to scout for local info. He comes to Ireland, he takes photographs of DeLorean’s meeting with Provos or paramilitaries or whoever. He goes back to America and puts them in a safe place. He comes back here. He starts to feel lonely. It’s raining all the time. He has no kids, no wife, he wonders what the fuck he’s doing with his life. He’s in Ireland. The Old Country. Where there’s riots every day and eighteen per cent unemployment and things are fucked beyond all imagining. And his job now is to destroy the DeLorean Motor Company? The only firm that’s providing manufacturing jobs in this pathetic country. He misses his wife. He spent two years helping her fight the fight. He watched her die, perhaps he even helped her die in the end …”

“What do you mean?” Crabbie asked.

“He was a chemical engineer. He knew about pharmacology. He grew rosary pea plants on the balcony of their condo in Florida.”

“He made the Abrin himself?”

“It would take some skill. But O’Rourke had skills.”

“So then what?”

“He’s sitting in that bed and breakfast in Dunmurry. His wife’s dead, his friends are getting old and dying. It’s raining and miserable and he just doesn’t see the bloody point. He swallows one of the Abrin pills he’s brought with him for just such an emergency.”

“No suicide note? No explanation?”

“Maybe he did leave a note and McFarlane destroyed it. Maybe O’Rourke had a hunch about that thieving bastard, which is why he taped his stuff behind the mirror. Who knows? The point is McFarlane finds him dead and goes through his gear and figures out that he’s a fucking federal agent and panics and calls in a couple of lads who work in the meat business and they take the body away and throw it in a freezer until McFarlane can figure out what to do with it. In the meantime a greedy and stupid McFarlane forges O’Rourke’s signature on an extortionate American Express bill.”

“And the body?”

“Time marches on. Either the heat’s coming down or McFarlane just can’t see any good coming of keeping Mr O’Rourke in a freezer forever so he has his mates chop up the body and dump the poor lad in a skip. They do this to avoid us and keep their boss Richard Mr Connected Coulter out of the loop.”

Crabbie finished his tea and leaned back in the armchair.

“It’s possible,” he said. “How would you go about proving something like that? McFarlane’s an old lag. You could beat him with a rubber hose and he wouldn’t talk.”

“Maybe he will talk. What are we accusing him of? Disposing of a body? Concealment of evidence? What’s that? A year? Six months? If he pled guilty he could be out in ten weeks.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to go prison at all. Maybe he feels that if he’s inside for any length of time, he’ll be looking shaky.”

“Perhaps.”

Crabbie looked at the bag of pills sitting on the coffee table.

He sipped his tea and leaned back in the chair.

“Your face is a mess, Sean.”

“Aye, they give me a good hiding and no mistake.”

“I told you not to go.”

“You did.”

“This case had plenty of warning signs all over it.”

“It did.”

“We’ll both have to learn how to read those signs better, won’t we?”

“You’re sounding like the Chief Inspector, mate.”

“I’ve got a couple of kids, now. Gotta think of my future.”

I said nothing.

The nothing went on a for a while.

Even after two years with him I couldn’t tell what the hell he was thinking. Opprobrium? Annoyance? What?

Finally he sighed. “This is too deep for the likes of us. Too deep.”

“I know, Crabbie,” I said.

He got to his feet. “You need to rest up, Sean. I don’t think we should bring McFarlane in formally. Not yet. I’ll take a wee run up to the B&B and see if they’ll tell me anything. I’ll go softly softly.”

I stood too and offered him my hand.

“I’m sorry about all this, Crabbie. Like you say we’ll have to learn to read the arcana better.”

“And listen to me next time,” he said shaking my hand.

I waved to him as he drove off.

I had a can of Harp and popped two more of the white pills.

They were helping.

I called up Emma.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said.

“You’re back? Did you bring me a present from the Land of the Free?”

“I forgot.”

“I was only kidding. I don’t want a present.”

“I’ve got a huge box of steaks here that nobody wants.”

“Steaks?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take them.”

“Have you got a freezer? It’s a big box.”

“I don’t, but Harry’s got one.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you in about half an hour … Don’t be freaked, but I, uh, I had a bit of a car accident, I’m slightly beat up.”

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Should you be driving?”

“Yes! I’m fine. Look, I’ll see you in a wee bit, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up and wondered if I really should be driving all the way down to Islandmagee.

Well, we’d soon find out.

I dressed myself without much difficulty and went out to the Beemer.

I was wearing jeans and a tight black sweater. They’d shaved my head in the hospital to put the stitches in. The ensemble made me look like I was a paramilitary thug. To complete the thing I went upstairs, got my .38 and shoved it in my belt.

“You look like an eejit,” I said to my face in the mirror.

I kept the BMW at a reasonable pace down to Islandmagee.

The private road to Sir Harry’s land had a different goon guarding it now. A kid with big ears, red cheeks and a red hunting hat that he was wearing backwards.

“Is that thing loaded?” I asked, looking at his twelve-gauge shotgun.

“Aye, it is, so you better piss off, mate! This is private land,” he said.

“I’m a peeler, son, open the bloody gate!”

He got off his arse and opened the gate.

I drove down the lane to Emma’s house.

It began to rain.

I parked the car. Took the box of steaks out of the boot. I’d stuffed the freezer compartment of my fridge full but there were still thirty or forty of the bastards left.

I carried the box to the front door while chickens pecked about my feet and Cora barked at me all the way. I leaned them on top of the oil drum for the central heating.

Emma opened the door. “Hi,” she said, and then, “Oh my word.”

“I’m not a pretty sight, am I?”

“Not in the least.”

“Where do you want these?”

She looked in the box. “That’s a lot of meat. I’ll cook two for us tonight and we’ll leave the rest up in Harry’s freezer.”

She was making an assumption that I was staying for dinner and she suddenly felt embarrassed about that. Her cheeks coloured and she looked all the more beautiful for it. “That is unless you have plans, or work, or—”

“I’d love to say for dinner. And there’s no work this week. I’m still officially on leave.”

“Have a seat, leave those things on the kitchen table.”