Page 2 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Boring is good,” Beth said. “I like to hear that it’s boring. Boring means you’re not on riot duty or on foot patrol along the border.”

“I’m not up to any of those things,” I said. “I have the doctor’s note to prove it. My knees are too creaky for riot duty and foot patrols.”

“Are you going into the station tonight?”

“I am. Briefly. I have to hand in my time sheet.”

“Say hi to Crabbie and Alex for me.”

“If they’re in, I will. How’s Emma?”

“She’s great.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She went to bed early. I can wake her up, though.”

“No, don’t do that. Let the wee lassie sleep.”

“Do you want me to wait up for you?”

“No, you go on to bed too. I promise I’ll be quiet when I come in,” I said. The new SeaCat ferry from Larne to Stranraer in Scotland took only an hour to cross the North Channel, so if all went well, I could be in my bed in the house in Portpatrick by one thirty in the morning.

“Okay, love you, Sean... bye!”

“Love you too.”

I hung up the pay phone and walked to the cinema on Great Victoria Street.

It was a big multiplex with many options to choose from. Strangely, four of those options were Irish-themed films:Far and Away,starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman;Patriot Games,starring Harrison Ford;Cal,starring Helen Mirren;The Crying Game,starring Stephen Rea.Far and Awaywas the story of a conflicted Irish rebel who runs off to America to escape the evil Brits;Patriot Gameswas about a conflicted Irish rebel who tangles with Harrison Ford and the evil Brits;Calwas about a conflicted Irish rebel who kills an evil Brit and falls in love with the dead man’s girl;The Crying Gamewas about a conflicted Irish rebel who kills an evil Brit and then falls in love with the dead man’s girl, who then turns out to be a bloke. The only thing funnier than Brits doing Northern Ireland was Hollywood doing Northern Ireland soPatriot Gamesdefinitely had the greatest potential for camp comedy.The Crying Gamewas the most artistically interesting, but I’d been lifted in an IRA honey trap myself, and the whole thing was a bit too close to home.

I decided to have that quiet pint in the Crown Bar instead.

A well-poured pint of Guinness in the well-worn snug at the back of the beautiful Crown Bar, Belfast, is for many people their idea of heaven come to this earth. But I was undergoing my habitual end-of-duty existential event and wasn’t quite so chill.

It was the misfortune of many veteran police officers to acquire a messiah complex and go through the youthful temptations, the missionary journeys, the revelations, and finally the agony. Definitely the agony stage now for me. With the death of my double agent, I was a useless part-time peeler in the police reserve. Paperwork, chickenshit, and beat duty were how they punished part-time over-qualified coppers who came in only a few days a month.

I was in the snug at the back right of the Crown when I heard the unmistakable whoosh of Molotovs whistling through the air and exploding in petroleum fireballs as they hit the street.

I got up and walked down to the long red-granite public bar. “What’s going on, John?” I asked the big barkeep.

“Some sort of riot. The police have blocked the Orange Order march on the Ormeau Road, so they’ve come out with the old bricks and bottles. Fun and games, you know?”

This was what Belfast was like every July nowadays.

It used to be that the Orange Order could march anywhere they wanted in Northern Ireland and the cops would protect them, but in the past few years the police had been trying to be more even-handed and wouldn’t let the Orangemen parade through heavily Catholic parts of Belfast. Sometimes, the Orange Order and their sympathizers would take the diversion off their traditional marching route with equanimity, but other times they’d try to force the police roadblock, the police would resist, and there would be a riot. Often, Catholic neighborhood watch groups would come out to attack the Orangemen, and the police would get sandwiched between the two groups of rioters and then everyone, as they always did, would attack the cops.

As an off-duty, part-time detective inspector, perhaps it was my duty to see if I could help.

Stuff that.

I ordered another pint of Guinness and went back to the snug. I read the Ciaran Carson poems I’d bought, and a new book of verse by Paul Muldoon. It was a pleasant enough way to spend an hour, drinking Guinness by the fire while cops and rioters battled in the streets.

When I was done with my beer and went outside, things were ominously quiet.

Helicopters (police and army) were hovering over the west side of the city, and everywhere was smoke from burning tires and vehicles. A brand-new Mercedes, dull and ignominious in death, was upside down near the cinema. Dandified men in balaclavas and denim walked proudly over the median on Great Victoria and Glengall Street.

I looked for the RUC and discovered them pulled way back out of the trouble zone, behind a cordon of Land Rovers at Belfast City Hall. Glistening in their shields and helmets, they were the bristling Theban legions on the parched fields of Leuctra.