I Hear the Sirens in the Street

vitality.
    As I entered the office he was sitting in a “Helsinki” Java wood mahogany armchair reading a report, tutting to himself as he marked it up with a yellow highlighter.
    I liked his shoes – they were hand-made Oxfords in a soft brown leather.
    His socks were red which I also liked.
    He smelled of cologne and cigars.
    There was an engraved sign on his desk that said “Genius At Work”.
    “Inspector Sean Duffy of Carrickfergus RUC,” a tall attractive secretary called Gloria reminded him when I came in.
    He got up and shook my hand.
    “Inspector Duffy. Pleased to meet you. I take it this is about the fundraising ball?” he said, with a gleaming and rather charming smile.
    “No, this is about a rather different matter,” I said, momentarily thrown.
    “Oh?”
    His big eyebrows knitted together and I knew that Gloria was going to catch it after I left.
    “I’m investigating the murder of an Army captain called Martin McAlpine.”
    DeLorean shrugged. “Never heard of him, should I have?”
    “He was an intelligence officer. He was murdered late last year, apparently by the IRA.”
    “What’s the connection to us?” DeLorean said.
    “We went through Captain McAlpine’s notes and an associate of his was keeping an eye on someone who was spying on this factory. It could be unrelated to Captain McAlpine’s murder but I thought I’d follow up on the lead.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Would there be a reason why anyone would be interested in spying on your car plant?”
    DeLorean laughed at that. “Of course! Haven’t you ever heard of industrial espionage?”
    “Well, yes, I—”
    “They’ve been doing it to me my whole career!” he said. He got to his feet and pointed through the plate-glass windows to the factory floor. “You see what we’re doing down there? We are radically re-engineering the model of American sports-car manufacture. In Detroit they are terrified. If I can be blunt, Inspector Duffy, I have them shitting in their pants. Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota. Spying? Of course they’re spying. I expect noless of them. They have no original ideas. They have to steal them from me!”
    “Would they kill to get information about your plant?”
    DeLorean smiled and nodded. “Nothing would surprise me in this country. Nothing. You have no idea the kind of deals I’ve had to do with all sorts of people to get this factory up and running. Pretty unsavoury characters, I can tell you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you get my drift, Inspector?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    “No, nothing would surprise me, but as for actual secrets … Well, the blueprints of the DeLorean are well known and have been in the public domain for years. Our production design is also well known, even our factory layout is common knowledge. We don’t have that many secrets as such …”
    “New models or anything like that?” I inquired.
    “Oh, sure. I’m always sketching, planning, scheming, but I don’t keep that stuff here.”
    “Where do you keep it?”
    “In my house in Belfast, or my place in Michigan.”
    “Have you had any burglaries? Anything like that?”
    “No. Certainly not in my place here. The house in Michigan’s empty but I have a security firm looking after it. They would have told me.”
    “What about poaching of company employees, that sort of thing, I’ve heard that—”
    “No, no, no, you’re barking up the wrong tree, Inspector,” DeLorean said, becoming animated. “The reason people work for me is that they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. All my people have already been offered more money elsewhere, but they want to be part of a company they can be proud of. No, my staff is loyal. I wouldn’t put it past your local thugs to try and kidnap someone who works here, but they’re not leaving to join fucking Ford.”
    “So you can’t think of any reason why someone might benosing around the plant?”
    “A million reasons! Desperation! Panic! They know I’m going to wipe the floor with them. But they can’t stop it! Ten years from now we’re going to be the biggest car company in the word. Not just sports cars. Light trucks. Mid-sized economy sedans. You name it. Electric cars. You should see my plans for electric vehicles.”
    “And it’s all going to be headquartered right here in Belfast?”
    “You bet!”
    He looked at his watch. Our time was almost up.
    I gave him my card. “If anything out of the ordinary happens, I would