I Hear the Sirens in the Street

Service.
    Black clouds. Rain. Sleet on the high plateau.
    Bombings in West Belfast and Derry.
    Rocket attacks on police stations along the border.
    War news.
    The other war.
    In the South Atlantic.
    I walked down to the lough and sat on the beach.
    I watched the planes going both ways on the Trans-At.
    I got cold.
    At six I went into the station.
    Brennan was there already, reading the newspapers in the incident room. He hadn’t shaven. He looked unkempt. Therewas no point asking him what the fuck was going on in his life, but I wanted to talk to someone.
    I knocked on his door and opened it. “Morning, sir, can I get you a coffee or something?”
    “No, you can’t, Duffy! But you know what you can do for me?”
    “What?”
    “Give my head peace and leave me alone.”
    “Okay, sir.”
    I shut the door again.
    Maybe talk to McCrabban when he came in.
    I went to the coffee machine, got a coffee-choc, trudged to my office, put my feet up on the desk and looked out to sea.
    The sun limped up over County Down. It was a clear crisp day and Scotland was distinctly visible as a long blue line on the horizon. The guy trying to sell the goat went past without his goat. An entrepreneurial success story.
    The door opened.
    Brennan came in shaving with an electric razor.
    “What are you doing in at this time, anyway?” he asked.
    “I couldn’t sleep. I was out for a walk and ended up here.”
    “What do you know about Epicurus?”
    “Is it a crossword clue?”
    “It’s something I heard at a, uhhh, a meeting. I thought, I’ll ask Duffy. He’s a guy that knows things.”
    “Athenian. He taught in what was called The Garden.”
    “Sum him up for me in short words.”
    “He said that either there are no gods, or they don’t care about us. Ambition is a pointless quest. In a thousand years no one will remember any of us. All we’ve got is love and friendship, so take pleasure where you can find it.”
    Chief Inspector Brennan closed his eyes and swayed a little. “You believe that?”
    “I haven’t thought too much about it.”
    “What have you thought about?”
    “Uhhh—”
    “That O’Rourke murder, for example. Have you been thinking about that?”
    “Not lately, it’s in the yellow file which means that we are at something of an impasse.”
    “What have you got?”
    “We’ve established the name of the victim and how the victim died.”
    “And?”
    “That’s about it, sir, to be honest. Few red herrings along the way.”
    He put up his hand. “Progress, Duffy, what progress have you made since your last report?”
    “No actual progress.”
    “That’s what I thought. Is that what you boys do in here? Sit around drinking tea and concealing the truth from me? All right, so you bin it and you move on so the resources of CID can be used elsewhere.”
    “We solved that bank robbery.”
    “We need more of that stuff. Results.”
    He was spoiling for a fight out of sheer ennui. I was in no mood to engage. What did I care about the O’Rourke case or any other? “You’re the boss. If you want, I’ll move it from the yellow file to the cold case file.”
    “I am the boss and don’t you forget it. Now bugger off home and get some kip and come back at a Christian hour.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Home. Sofa. Kip. Cup of tea and Mars bar sandwiches and the classic Star Trek ep. Arena . You know the one. Kirk makes gunpowder to kill the guy in the rubber suit.
    The door bell went. It was Bobby Cameron with a bottle of Glenlivet. He offered it to me. “Fell off the back of a lorry,” he said. “No hard feelings, eh?”
    “About what?”
    “About your woman up the street. Sometimes the lads get a bit boisterous. Sitting around with nothing to do, the dartboard’s broke, it’s too wet to fly the pigeons and before you know it, it’s the fall of Saigon on Coronation Road.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    He winked, nodded and walked down the path. At the gate he turned. “You’ll look after yourself now, Duffy, won’t you?”
    It was hard to know if this was a threat or a warning, or nothing at all.
    “I’ll try to,” I said.
    “I like you, Duffy. We’ll kill you last.”
    “Cheers.”
    I decided to skip work entirely and rang a lithe reserve constable called Clare Purdy to see if she wanted to go to the pictures. She said yes and I took her to the ABC in Belfast to catch Blade Runner. We were the only people in the cinema. When we came out it was raining, dark,