It was obvious that American spooks had been involved in the Michael Kelly case, but I had never understood why. And never in my wildest dreams would I have cooked up something so completely crazy. And yet there it was. Was this the dumbest administration in history? Or only dumb because they got caught?
I got a can of Bass and called McCrabban back.
“It’s definitely him,” I said. “He’s on Channel Four right now.”
“What do you want to do about this, Sean?”
“About what?”
“Now we know everything. The whole story. Do you want to reopen the case files on the Michael Kelly murders?” Crabbie said.
A younger Sean Duffy would have reopened the case files. Would have pulled the temple down about his ears. The me of five years ago. Maybe even the me of two years ago. But this Sean Duffy had learned his lesson.
Sleeping dogs. Whatever you say, say nothing. Choose your cliché.
“I don’t think so, Crabbie.”
“Me neither,” he said.
“We really should have let that one go to Larne RUC,” I said.
“Aye. But you weren’t to know. I wasn’t to know,” he murmured.
“No,” I agreed.
“No.”
“Nice christening today,” I said.
“It was.”
“I’ll let you get back to your family.”
“OK, Sean, take care now.”
“You too, mate.”
He hung up.
I turned the TV off and lay there on the sofa watching the street get dark.
I finished the beer and went to the shed, where I’d put Kate’s picture so Beth wouldn’t ask any questions about her.
I opened the box.
Kate in Oxford outside the brasserie on Banbury Road. Half tore. Smiling happily in a way she never smiled.
I should have been with her on that helicopter.
If it hadn’t been for my injuries I would have been.
If I hadn’t been pushed down the stairs . . .
Perhaps she would even have sent me instead of her and maybe that would have been best for all of us.
Maybe.
AFTERWORD
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead is entirely coincidental. That being said observant readers will have noticed that I have borrowed several elements from several real historical incidents of the time period: the tragic death of Olivia Channon at Oxford; Lt Col. Oliver North’s bizarre attempt to obtain anti-aircraft missiles using an Irish passport and the pseudonym John Clancy (borrowing the surname of his favorite spy novelist) during the Iran-Contra affair; the events surrounding the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement; the Chinook helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre in which an entire cadre of MI5 agents based in Northern Ireland were killed; and the theft of Blowpipe and Javelin missiles from the Short Brothers factory in East Belfast. As this is a novel I have been able to bring together fictional characters who would never have met in real life and I have taken the liberty of compressing events of slow gestation into a tighter time frame.
DI Sean Duffy is a fictional character too, who just happens to live in the house where I was born and grew up: 113 Coronation Road, Victoria Estate, Carrickfergus. Duffy’s neighbors are imaginary constructs bearing only a passing resemblance to the actual residents of the estate in that time period, although I did in fact know a guy who kept a lioness in his council house.
ABOUT . . . ADRIAN MCKINTY
Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University, he moved to the United States, living in Harlem for seven years where he worked in bars, bookstores, and building sites. In 2000, he moved to Denver, Colorado, to become a high school English teacher. His debut crime novel, Dead I Well May Be, was shortlisted for the 2004 Dagger Award. His first Sean Duffy novel, The Cold Cold Ground, won the 2013 Spinetingler Award and was shortlisted for the 2013 Prix du Meilleur Polar and the 2015 Prix SNCF du Polar. The second Sean Duffy novel, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, won the 2014 Barry Award for best crime novel (paperback original) and was shortlisted for best crime novel at the 2013 Ned Kelly Awards and for the 2014 Theakston Award for best British crime novel. The third Sean Duffy novel, In the Morning I’ll Be Gone, won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award and was named one of the top-ten crime novels of 2014 by the American Library Association’s Booklist.
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