Page 106 of Hang on St. Christopher

“You are right. Look, Duffy, I’ve asked around about you. Wildly contradictory reports, if I’m honest, but a few people I trust tell me that generally you have good instincts. Do you want to come over and take a look? I know it’s not really your case anymore, but I thought you’d be?—”

“I’ll be right over. What’s the address?”

Fifty-five Holly Street, South Belfast.

Beemer.

The M5.

Lights on. Siren on. Yeah, I know, you’re not supposed to do that, but hey, I was a detective on a murder investigation.

55 Holly Street was a little red-bricked terraced house near the River Lagan. A nice street. University Street. Middle-class street. Number 55 was at the very end of the terrace. There were bloody peelers everywhere: beat cops, Special Branch detectives, forensic officers, even traffic.

So many people, it was actually a bit chaotic.

I found an FO I knew called Damian Shaw.

We shook hands.

“Damian, how goes it?”

“It goes okay. Surprised to see you. Heard you’d retired from detective work.”

“I have.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“This is very much a one-off,” I said, and explained the situation with Lawson, and the shooting of Alan Locke.

“Well, this one wasn’t shot,” Damian explained.

“What was the cause of death?”

“Are you squeamish?”

“A bit.”

“You might want to give this one a miss, then.”

“How was she killed?”

“There was a struggle. Looks like the killer broke into the house through the back window, intending to kill her in her sleep, but she woke up and defended herself. She went down fighting. They went at it in the bedroom and the kitchen before he finally beat her to death with an iron skillet.”

“None of the neighbors heard anything?”

“House next door is empty, and the house next to that is student accommodation and the students haven’t moved in yet.”

“Shit... Forensics?”

“Unfortunately not. She had a knife, though, so the bastard was lucky.”

“What’s the working hypothesis? Clare thinks it could be a hit?”

“Nah, I doubt it, nothing so exotic. Burglar thought he was coming into an empty house and he gets the surprise of his life by meeting Miss Ninja here. They go at it and he kills her.”

“Not a professional killing, then?”

“Far too nasty a scene for that.”