I Hear the Sirens in the Street

suspected IRA men, suspected UVF men, suspected drugs smugglers. The payments were small: fifty quid, a hundred quid. There was nothing dramatic here. I passed it to Matty. I could tell that he wasn’t impressed either. I read it again just to be on the safe side and then I spotted something. The penultimate entry about a week before McAlpine’s murder was from an informant, codenamed Woodbine, who “had seen a suspicious character hanging round the Dunmurry DeLorean factory carpark”. For this information McAlpine had paid Woodbine the princely sum of twenty pounds. I pointed out theword Dunmurry to Matty and he nodded.
    “Who’s Woodbine?” I asked, passing the file back.
    “One moment,” Colonel Clavert said.
    He went to the filing cabinet and opened another file. “Woodbine, let me see, Waverly, Winston, Woodbine. Ah, yes, a chap called Douggie Preston.”
    “Address?” I asked.
    “11 Drumhill Road, Carrickfergus.”
    We thanked the Colonel, stubbed out our cigarettes and were about to leave when he asked us if we were going to interview the widow McAlpine in the course of our inquiries.
    “We might,” I said. “Why?”
    “Because she still hasn’t picked up Martin’s stuff and it’s been here four months now.”
    “What stuff?”
    “From his locker. His dress uniform. A pair of training shoes. There’s some money. A cricket bat, of all things. I’ve called her several times about it.”
    I looked at Matty. “Aye, we can take them down to her.”
    We drove out of the UDR base into a heavy downpour.
    “I suppose we’re going to Islandmagee now?”
    “Let’s try Mr Preston first.”
    Drumhill Road was in the ironically named Sunnylands Housing Estate – one of the worst in Carrick. Red-brick and breezeblock terraces, mostly packed with unemployed refugees from Belfast. Lots of kids running around barefoot, burnt-out cars, shopping trolleys and rubbish everywhere. This was RHC territory – the Red Hand Commando – a particularly violent and bloody offshoot of the slightly more responsible UDA.
    Preston lived in an end terrace. There was a smashed row boat in the front garden, a pile of old furniture, what looked a lot like an aircraft engine and a little girl about four in a filthy frock playing by herself with a headless Barbie doll.
    “So this is how the other half lives,” Matty muttered.
    I rang the door bell and when that didn’t work I knocked.
    “Who is it?” a woman asked from inside.
    “The police,” I said.
    “I’ve told you. We do not sell acid. Never have, never will!”
    “We’re not here about that.”
    “What do you want?”
    “We’re looking for Douggie.”
    She opened the door. She was mid-forties but looked seventy. Grey hair, teeth missing, running to fat. Her fingers were stained with nicotine smoke.
    “Have you found him?” she asked.
    “We’re looking for him,” Matty said.
    She shook her head sadly. “Aye, aren’t we all.”
    “How long has been missing?” I asked.
    “Since November,” she said.
    “No word at all?”
    “No.”
    “He lived at home?”
    “Aye.”
    “No girlfriend, anything like that?”
    “Nobody steady like. He was a shy boy, was Douggie.”
    Past tense. She knew he was dead.
    “When was the last time that anybody saw him?”
    “He was down the North Gate on November twenty-seventh, having a wee drink, said he was away home to watch the snooker. That was the last we heard tell of him.”
    I wrote the information down in my book.
    “They’ve topped him, haven’t they?” she said.
    “I have no idea.”
    “Aye, they’ve topped him. God knows why. He was a good boy, was Douggie, a very good boy.”
    “Did he have a job?”
    “No. He was at Shorts for a year. He was a trained fitter but he got laid off. He tried to get into the DeLorean factory inDunmurry, but they had their pick of the crop. He went back several times looking to get in, but jobs is scarce, aren’t they?”
    “They are indeed,” Matty said.
    “Dunmurry, eh?”
    “Aye, but there were ten applicants for every one job. Wee Douggie had no chance.”
    “He didn’t know anyone up there?”
    “No. More’s the pity.”
    “Have there been any strangers hanging around? Anyone asking about him?”
    “No.”
    We stood there on the porch while the girl behind us in the garden started to make explosion noises. Matty tried a few more lines of approach but the lady had nothing.
    “Well, if we hear anything, we’ll certainly be in touch,” I