I Hear the Sirens in the Street

the dead … is that the vibe I’m catching here?” I asked him.
    DC Conlon reddened, gave a little half nod and said nothing.
    “The Inspector didn’t do much but come in late, sit in his office, drink, leave early, drive home half drunk, is that it?” I wondered.
    DC Conlon nodded again.
    “But what about the last couple of days? Did he seem different? More fired up? Onto anything?”
    “Not so I’d noticed,” Conlon said.
    “Nothing out of the ordinary at all?”
    Conlon shook his head. His hair seemed to move independently of his head when he did that and it made him look particularly stupid.
    “How did he get assigned to the McAlpine murder if he was such a bloody lightweight?” I asked.
    “Chief Inspector Canning was in for his appendix,” Conlon said.
    “And after he came back from his appendix?”
    “Well, that was an open and shut case, wasn’t it?”
    “It’s hardly shut, son, is it? No prosecutions, no convictions?”
    Conlon coughed. “What I mean is, I mean, we know who done it, don’t we?”
    “Do we? Who done it? Gimme their names and I’ll have them fuckers in the cells within the hour,” I said.
    “I mean, we know who done it in the corporate sense. The IRA killed him.”
    “The corporate sense is it now? The IRA did it. Just like they killed Dougherty himself.”
    “Well, didn’t they?” Conlon asked.
    “Yes, they did,” Tony said. He waved a file at me.
    I looked at Conlon. “That’ll be all. And do us a favour, mate, keep your mouth shut.”
    “About what?”
    “Exactly. Now fuck off.”
    He exited the office and I closed the door.
    “What did you find, mate?” I asked Tony.
    “Nothing of interest in any of them. Dougherty has nothing in his ‘active’ file and there’s a layer of dust on everything else.”
    “I take it that’s the McAlpine file?”
    He slid it across the table to me.
    The last notes on it had been made in December. He’d added nothing since my visit.
    I shook my head. Tony squeezed my arm again. “Everybody can’t be as impressed by you as I am, mate. I’m afraid you didn’t wow Dougherty as much as you would have liked.”
    “I suppose not.”
    Tony was almost laughing now. “Maybe you should have worn your medal or told him about that time you met Joey Ramone.”
    “All right, all right. No point in raking me. Let’s skedaddle.”
    We straightened the desk, closed the filing cabinets.
    “And look, if you find a case notebook in the house or the car or anything, I’d be keen to take a look at it,” I said to Tony.
    “You got it, mate,” Tony assured me.
    “And I did see Joey Ramone, he was right across from me in the subway.”
    “Big stars don’t ride the fucking subway.”
    We had almost made it out of the incident room when young Conlon approached us diffidently. “Yes?” Tony wondered.
    “Well, it’s probably nothing.”
    “Go on,” I said encouragingly.
    “There was one thing that was a wee bit of the ordinary,” Conlon began.
    “What was it?” I asked, my heart rate quickening.
    “Well, Dougherty knows that I’m from Islandmagee, doesn’t he? And he knows that I take the ferry over here every morning, instead of driving round through Whitehead. It saves you twenty minutes.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, I suppose that’s why he asked me how much it cost.”
    “He asked you how much the ferry cost from Larne to Islandmagee?”
    “Aye.”
    “And that was strange, was it?” Tony asked.
    “A wee bit. Because he hadn’t spoken to me at all this year. You know?”
    I looked at Tony. “He was going to take the ferry over to Islandmagee and he wanted to check the price.”
    Tony nodded.
    “Did he say anything else?” I asked.
    “Nope. I told him it was twenty pence for pedestrians and a quid for cars. And he thanked me and that was that.”
    I looked at Tony. He gave me a half nod.
    “You done good, son,” I told DC Conlon.
    Tony and I did the rounds, said hello to a couple of sergeants and left the station. We got in the Beemer and headed out into the street.
    “When he investigated McAlpine’s murder he would have had a driver. He would have gone over there in a police Land Rover the long way round through Whitehead. But he was going over himself in his own car,” Tony said.
    “Going to question Mrs McAlpine,” I said.
    “Possibly. What time is it?”
    I looked at my watch. “Nine thirty.”
    “I feel like that ad for the army: ‘We do more things beforebreakfast than you’ll do all