“That’s where the story gets interesting, sir. Okay, so he goes back to America. Tells some of his pals that Northern Ireland is a wonderful place and he’s going back for more. This is last year, sir, right after the hunger strikes …”

I looked at Brennan, who stopped lining up the cue ball and nodded. We both knew what Northern Ireland had been like last year. Worse than now and now was bad.

“So obviously O’Rourke’s either a deluded old fool or a bit of a liar,” Brennan said.

“Americans can get sentimental about the Old Country, sir.”

“Indeed. Carry on, Duffy.”

“Second time around he arrives in Belfast on November eighteenth, stays at the Europa again for five days. Apparently he ate in the hotel restaurants most nights and he tipped fifteen per cent. He made no fuss, seemed to be enjoying life as a tourist, asked the bell hops no questions about hoors or product. He paid his bill with an American Express Card. Apparently there was no problem with the transaction.”

“That’ll do nicely,” Brennan said, and potted the blue.

“Quite a few people in the Europa actually remember him because he was so courteous and pleasant. One of the maids said that he was, quote, a real charmer and a bit of a smoothie, unquote, but again, there was no hint of any impropriety.”

“That’s when he disappeared?”

“No. Not quite. He next surfaced in the Londonderry Arms hotel in Carnlough on November twenty-fourth. We drove up there too and interviewed the staff, and again Bill had been a model citizen, attracting no adverse attention and tipping well.”

“This is good stuff, Duffy, go on.”

“Well, this is where it gets tricky, sir. He disappeared for two days after that until he paid a very large credit card bill at a bed and breakfast in Dunmurry called the Dunmurry Country Inn.”

“How much is very large?”

“Seven hundred quid.”

“Jesus!”

“Yesterday Detective McCrabban went to see the proprietor of the Dunmurry Country Inn and was refused entry. The place is owned by a Richard Coulter, and either he or one of his employees demanded to see DC McCrabban’s search warrant, which is why I’ve come to see you, sir.”

Brennan potted a red and a black. He was leading by seventy points now and it was mathematically impossible for me to win the frame.

“So you want me to call up a friendly judge and get you a universal search warrant for the Dunmurry Country Inn?”

“I’ve already taken care of that, sir. There are some other difficulties. We’ll be stamping all over Dunmurry RUC’s patch and I don’t want to make any waves.”

Brennan stopped mid-shot and straightened his back.

He got the message.

“Coulter’s protected, is he?”

“In a way, sir.”

“How so?”

“He comes from a prominent family in Ballymena. He has money, sir. He runs several small hotels and bed and breakfasts. He’s also well known for his charity work. He set up a shelter for abused women and runaway kids.”

“Classic cover.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Is he untouchable?”

“I’m sure he pays off to the right people. He’s not small fry and I doubt very much that Coulter filed the clearly fraudulent American Express claim but someone who works for him did and Coulter doesn’t want us to push too deeply into it. Fraud’s a serious business, sir. Murder’s murder but defrauding a CC company might even get the attention of Scotland Yard.”

“This Coulter, what is he, a terrorist? A paramilitary?”

“No, sir, not in the least. But he’s a known associate of Cyril Lundy who I’m sure you’re aware is the commander of the Rathcoole Brigade of the UDA. Coulter’s more of a shady businessman than either a gangster or someone actively involved in sectarian conflict.”

“But not someone you want to fuck with. Not with your track record, eh, Duffy?”

“No, sir.”

Brennan sighed, lurched towards me and let a big paw rest on my shoulder.

“I’m glad we had this little chat. When’s your warrant for?”

“This morning.”

“This morning, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, I can square things with the cops in Dunmurry.”

“I was hoping that you’d say that.”

“But there’s a price for my assistance.”

“A price?”

“I want to come with you. I want to come, and I’ll do lead if that’s okay with you? Funny how bored a man can get even in the middle of a so-called civil war.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I think I can handle this one on my own.”

“I said I’ll come with you, Duffy, and I’ll do lead if that’s okay with you?” he reiterated in a growling undertone.

“It’s absolutely fine with me, sir.”

11: NO PROGRESS

A wet April morning in a small provincial city on the fringe of Europe. A bunch of cops carrying out one of the most basic of all cop activities: executing a search warrant. And although everywhere the serving of search warrants is a protocol driven, largely crepuscular activity, nowhere in the “civilised” world does the task come with so much palaver as in Northern Ireland.

Three grey armoured Land Rovers driving up a dreary motorway towards Dunmurry, a drab, soulless sink estate in West Belfast, recently saved from perfect entropy by the DeLorean Motor Company which had been established here precisely for the purpose of resurrection.

Elsewhere on Eurasia in this spring of 1982 men are working in factories, making consumer goods and cars, harvesting winter wheat and barley, toiling in terraced rice paddies; from Shanghai to Swansea there is order, work and discipline and only here, at the edge of the continent, is there war. Funny that.

Getting the warrant has been easy and the Chief has wielded his magic with the local brass. He gathers Crabbie, Matty and myself in his pungent office to share the news. “We have our warrant and we have an okay from the RUC and Army chiefs. This is how the system works, lads. You just gotta be nice and humble to the higher ups,” he says, presenting the wisdom of the ages as some kind of hard-won insider scoop.

Chief Inspector Brennan, Sergeant Burke and Inspector McCallister are in one Land Rover. In a second there are half a dozen police reservists dressed up in riot gear. In a third Matty, Crabbie and myself.

As we drive through the seething estates the locals make us welcome by throwing milk bottles filled with urine from tower blocks and the flat roofs of houses. Of course, if it was night time or an occasion of particular tension, burning vodka bottles filled with petrol would be arcing in our direction.

The convoy pulls up outside a bed and breakfast which lies at the end of a terrace. Reserve constables fan out of the second Land Rover to guard the perimeter. We get out of ours. I am not wearing full riot gear but a simple blue suit and a black raincoat.

Matty is unimpressed by the Dunmurry Country Inn, which looks like a bit of a shitehole. “What was O’Rourke staying here for?” he asks.

An excellent question, that will, no doubt, be asked many times before this investigation is over.

“This way, lads,” Chief Inspector Brennan announces, and we follow him down the path. Sergeant Burke is with him for protection. Sergeant McCallister is waiting back in the Rover with his machine gun at the ready.

We knock on the door.

We are expected.

The door opens. A man called Willy McFarlane opens it and stands there large as life and twice as ugly. He’s five eight, lean, with a handlebar moustache, a black comb-over, aviator sunglasses. He’s wearing a loud blue polyester sports jacket over a yellow Six Million Dollar Man T-shirt. Knife scars. Jail house ink. I dig the T-shirt.

“Are you gentlemen looking for a place to stay?” he says, with a chuckle.

“We’re looking for Richard Coulter,” I tell him.

“Mr Coulter is at a charity lunch in London. Princess Diana is going to be there,” Willy McFarlane says.