Page 135 of Hang on St. Christopher

“You won’t protect us, that’s for sure,” I said.

He purred, grew irritated with the stroking, and tried to bite me.

Music would wake the whole house, so I turned on the TV, but it was that dead time when nothing was on but the Open University. I turned it off again. I was restless, troubled. My subconscious knew something that I hadn’t quite processed yet.

I had made it personal with O’Roarke.

I was on his radar now.

I was a legitimate target.

As a Catholic policeman, there would always been a bounty on my head until the day I retired—hell, even after I retired, but few gunmen would take the trouble to come over to Scotland to off one Fenian peeler.

But O’Roarke would, wouldn’t he?

I’d annoyed him.

And he’d tried to get me and squibbed it.

And he would try again.

Damn it.

I poured myself a glass of Bowmore and opened the French doors.

Salt and cold and a sea breeze that was coming from the north. I was still spooked, so just to be on the safe side I went outside onto the street. Quiet. The lights on both neighboring houses were out. It was so quiet, I could hear every curl of the sea on the shore.

Into the back garden with its view of the North Channel.

And there across the water was the Kilroot Power Station chimney, and the lights of Whitehead and north Down. The angle isn’t quite right to see Coronation Road, but with a good telescope you could see Carrickfergus Police Station. In fact, you can even see Lawson’s office window.

This stretch of water was nothing to a man like Brendan O’Roarke, and finding out my home address would not be difficult for him.

I sat down on one of the garden chairs damp with dew. I rested the Glock on the glass tabletop.

I never get dreams like that, and it had unnerved me.

O’Roarke wouldn’t do the actual killing himself. He’d send one of his assassins if he wanted me dead. If he could spare one of his assassins, because someone had been going around killing those very assassins, getting closer every day to killing O’Roarke himself. One way of looking at it was to think that the person was doing me and everybody else who wanted peace in Ulster a favor.

But that’s not quite the way I looked at it.

They’d committed a murder.

On my patch.

And he’d killed a cop right in front of me.

And if I still could, I’d bring the bastard down for it or help Lawson or Special Branch bring the bastard down.

I’d protect my family, but I’d bring him down.

I finished the Bowmore and had no more reflections or insight or anything else. I just didn’t know what to do, and for someone who’d had a little bit of power for eighteen of the past twenty years, this feeling of impotence was new and unpleasant.

Have to get used to it. When I retired properly, I’d be handing in my gun, and although I got on well with the Dumfries and Galloway cops, I knew they wouldn’t tolerate a rogue peeler in their parish, so I’d have to be on my best behavior. No gun, no bullying the neighbors, no heroics. There were millions of us forty-year-old men going to seed in contemporary Britain. Getting fatter, getting slower, complaining about the music.

“Fuck it,” I said, and went back to bed.

The next morning, Emma got me up and I made everyone scrambled eggs and toast with butter and marmalade. I kissed Beth goodbye and walked Emma to kindergarten.