and grabbed me by the arm.
“Who are you working for, Duffy?” he said.
“I can’t say, sir.”
“What’s this all about? Is it about me? Is it something I’ve done, or alleged to have done?”
I sighed. “Will that be all, sir?”
There was a nice beetroot quality to his cheeks now, and to really set a stroke in motion I gave him another uniformed salute, turned on my heel, and marched out.
A jazz trio version of “Last Train to Clarksville” took me across the office to the squalid CID section at the back of the building.
Matty and McCrabban were shoved into a little room with bare cinderblock walls overlooking the car park and the railway lines. The attitude regular cops had toward CID always surprised me. Why the contempt? It was the detectives who actually went around solving the crimes. I mean, who knew what regular cops actually did? I’d been a regular policeman for the last year and I still didn’t know.
I opened the door and went into the CID den.
“Room for one more, lads?” I asked.
The boys were genuinely pleased.
Handshakes, slaps on the back. To put McCrabban at ease I said: “Listen, mate, I’m Special Branch now, a DI on special assignment, I haven’t come to poach, this is still your manor.”
McCrabban was relieved but he tried not to show it. Tall, almost stooped, he had filled out a bit since I’d seen him last but his pale skin was just as pale and there was no trace of grey in his hair.
“Temporarily in charge, Sean. They’re supposed to be bringing in a detective inspector in the summer.”
“They always say things like that. If you hang tight you’ll probably get the job.”
Matty had cropped his hedge hair and there was a bit more color in his cheeks. His beak-like nose and prominent teeth were less to the fore in his still-youthful face. He still didn’t look like a peeler but that was OK because he never really wanted to look like one.
“It’s magic to have you back, Sean, in any capacity,” Matty said.
“I heard they stuck you down in some trench in South Armagh,” Crabbie added.
“Aye, they did. They were doing their best to kill me, I think. But I lived to spite the bastards.”
“You have nine lives, Sean,” Matty said.
“Who wants to sneak out to the pub? My shout.”
“Carter keeps us all on a pretty tight leash,” Matty said.
“Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You would know,” Crabbie said.
We retired to the Royal Oak next door and the boys filled me in on a year’s worth of office gossip and I told them straight out that I was looking for Dermot McCann and I might need their help at some point.
“You’ve to keep it under your hats, lads. It’s a Special Branch op and those nutters are as paranoid as anything,” I said.
Neither of them, I knew, would breathe a word of it.
We had a quick round of drinks and we ran into my old boss, Chief Inspector Brennan (retired), who’d heard I was back and had come by to say hello. He’d always had a tragic Polonian air about him, but now he was old and shabby and his nose was a metro map of capillaries. And worse than all that he was drunk. Drunk at 1:30 in the p.m. He insisted on standing us all a double Johnnie Walker and he told a few inappropriate stories about me and my insolence in the “bad old days.” Eventually he looked at his watch and muttered something about a golf game.
“There goes the ghost of Christmas future,” Matty said.
Murder, suicide, or cirrhosis—those were three of the most popular ways out of the RUC. The lads were depressed now and I walked them back to the station, requisitioned myself a desk, a chair, a lamp, a phone, and a brand spanking new Apple Macintosh computer.
Satisfied with my day’s work I drove home again.
“How was your first day back, Mr. Duffy? I hear Superintendent Carter is a bit of a hard horse,” Mrs. Campbell asked.
“Well, he’s certainly a—”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mrs. Rattigan says
“Who are you working for, Duffy?” he said.
“I can’t say, sir.”
“What’s this all about? Is it about me? Is it something I’ve done, or alleged to have done?”
I sighed. “Will that be all, sir?”
There was a nice beetroot quality to his cheeks now, and to really set a stroke in motion I gave him another uniformed salute, turned on my heel, and marched out.
A jazz trio version of “Last Train to Clarksville” took me across the office to the squalid CID section at the back of the building.
Matty and McCrabban were shoved into a little room with bare cinderblock walls overlooking the car park and the railway lines. The attitude regular cops had toward CID always surprised me. Why the contempt? It was the detectives who actually went around solving the crimes. I mean, who knew what regular cops actually did? I’d been a regular policeman for the last year and I still didn’t know.
I opened the door and went into the CID den.
“Room for one more, lads?” I asked.
The boys were genuinely pleased.
Handshakes, slaps on the back. To put McCrabban at ease I said: “Listen, mate, I’m Special Branch now, a DI on special assignment, I haven’t come to poach, this is still your manor.”
McCrabban was relieved but he tried not to show it. Tall, almost stooped, he had filled out a bit since I’d seen him last but his pale skin was just as pale and there was no trace of grey in his hair.
“Temporarily in charge, Sean. They’re supposed to be bringing in a detective inspector in the summer.”
“They always say things like that. If you hang tight you’ll probably get the job.”
Matty had cropped his hedge hair and there was a bit more color in his cheeks. His beak-like nose and prominent teeth were less to the fore in his still-youthful face. He still didn’t look like a peeler but that was OK because he never really wanted to look like one.
“It’s magic to have you back, Sean, in any capacity,” Matty said.
“I heard they stuck you down in some trench in South Armagh,” Crabbie added.
“Aye, they did. They were doing their best to kill me, I think. But I lived to spite the bastards.”
“You have nine lives, Sean,” Matty said.
“Who wants to sneak out to the pub? My shout.”
“Carter keeps us all on a pretty tight leash,” Matty said.
“Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You would know,” Crabbie said.
We retired to the Royal Oak next door and the boys filled me in on a year’s worth of office gossip and I told them straight out that I was looking for Dermot McCann and I might need their help at some point.
“You’ve to keep it under your hats, lads. It’s a Special Branch op and those nutters are as paranoid as anything,” I said.
Neither of them, I knew, would breathe a word of it.
We had a quick round of drinks and we ran into my old boss, Chief Inspector Brennan (retired), who’d heard I was back and had come by to say hello. He’d always had a tragic Polonian air about him, but now he was old and shabby and his nose was a metro map of capillaries. And worse than all that he was drunk. Drunk at 1:30 in the p.m. He insisted on standing us all a double Johnnie Walker and he told a few inappropriate stories about me and my insolence in the “bad old days.” Eventually he looked at his watch and muttered something about a golf game.
“There goes the ghost of Christmas future,” Matty said.
Murder, suicide, or cirrhosis—those were three of the most popular ways out of the RUC. The lads were depressed now and I walked them back to the station, requisitioned myself a desk, a chair, a lamp, a phone, and a brand spanking new Apple Macintosh computer.
Satisfied with my day’s work I drove home again.
“How was your first day back, Mr. Duffy? I hear Superintendent Carter is a bit of a hard horse,” Mrs. Campbell asked.
“Well, he’s certainly a—”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mrs. Rattigan says
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