Page 94 of Hang on St. Christopher

I gunned the Beemer along the top road, to the North Road. Up the North Road to the Marshallstown Road and then at a healthy 95 mph clip to the Knockagh Road.

I caught Duffy’s eyes in the rearview.

Was this a smart thing to do?

Mirror Duffy was fine with it. Mirror Duffy had had a third of a bottle of whisky and was a complex blend of emotions: guilt, anger, remorse, and humiliation. Mirror Duffy wanted you to take action, and this was action.

That’s why you didn’t tell McArthur about the bug. Because a move like this was in the back of your mind. You were always going to play this. Break this case wide open tonight, motherfucker.

This wasn’t just the booze talking.

No. Not at all. This was the smart play. Completely self-defeating to call in backup. They’d only fuck it up. The eejits down the station? Forget it. Those goons at the DMSU and Special Branch? Amateurs. The only man Mirror Duffy trusted was Crabbie, and nobody wanted to drag him into this.

Solo Duffy it would have to be. Like the bad old days.

CHAPTER13

THE 750 NORTON

I pulled in front of the monument at the top of Knockagh Mountain. The memorial was a massive granite obelisk that had been put up here to commemorate the dead of the two World Wars.

I’d been up here many times since I moved to Carrick. It was a great place to smoke weed and look at the view, and you could see for fucking miles. On a very clear night, you could spot the planes landing at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow to the north, and on clear mornings you could see as far south as the Mountains of Mourne.

But I wasn’t here to smoke weed and enjoy the view. I was here to nail a murderer.

It was your usual impetuous, stupid, Duffy-not-thinking-things-through plan.

Duffy, it had to be said, was a man at war with himself. The mature, responsible suburban family man at odds with the dingbat eejit looking for trouble at the first opportunity. I wondered if all men were like this, and I wondered if there was anyone to talk to about it. Certainly not Crabbie—when conversations veered near the personal, you could see that big ganch looking for the nearest exit.

Stuff to work on, Duffy, stuff to bloody work on.

If this little adventure doesn’t kill ya.

I hid the Beemer in the shadows near the stone wall next to the sheep field, and then I ran down the Knockagh Lane and waited in the bushes.

I knew he’d come.

You don’t break into a peeler’s house and bug the phone with a very expensive piece of equipment, and then not come when the copper is about to meet an informant revealing exactly who you are.

He was smart, and he had the moves and access to the best of equipment, but what was going to nab him was old-fashioned police work. Classic fucking sting.

But you know, chickens/hatched, so I immediately touched wood.

I waited for ten minutes, looking at the streetlights in Scotland twinkle across the black water.

It was a still, cold night, and I could hear the fucking bike from two miles away. Was it a Norton? Oh, yes. I wouldn’t say I was an expert on motorcycles, but I knew my Triumphs and I knew my Nortons. Who didn’t? It was one of the classic binaries I was always on about. Liverpool / Man United. Presta valve / Schrader valve. Beatles / Stones. Triumph / Norton.

Over the years, I’d had countless boring stakeout conversations on the relative merits of the two companies and their machines. It was not a moot point, because although both companies went bankrupt in the 1970s, both were going again in the ’90s and making bikes in small but profitable numbers. I was a Triumph guy. The Norton had a reputation for looking good on the outside but breaking down under the slightest bit of pressure. I’d ridden Nortons before, and they were very cool, but I wouldn’t trust one to get me to the local chippie. Brando’s bike inThe Wild One?—Triumph. James Dean’s motorcycle of choice? Steve McQueen’s ride inThe Great Escape? Which bike did Evel Knievel use to jump the fountain at Caesar’s Palace? You get the picture. And which bike broke down repeatedly for Che Guevera as he rode around South America? Fucking Norton, wasn’t it? This particular Norton Commando was chugging its throaty, unmistakable way down the B road toward me.

I was amazed at the arrogance of this prick.

Even though he’d been ID’d riding this big black, noisy bike, he didn’t dump it. Didn’t burn it. Hubris. Yeah, there were eight thousand of them in Ireland, but he was still a cocky bastard.

My watch said 12:35. He was hoping to get here half an hour early and get the drop on us.

He came down the Knockagh Lane at 40 mph and skidded to a stop in front of the monument in the supposedly empty car park.

I watched him park the bike, turn off the engine, and then roll the machine into the shadows.