The Cold, Cold Ground

that.”
    She was sceptical.
    “Let me show you.”
    “Ok.”
    Favouring my good wrist, I lifted her up onto my right shoulder and slapped her bum.
    “Hey!” she yelped.
    I walked for about fifty feet and stopped.
    “See? You’re out of breath and—”
    I put her down.
    “Jesus! Look! There!” I said, pointing through the trees. About thirty yards from the road in a broad valley between two enormous chestnut trees there was a burnt-out Ford Granada.
    I ran to it.
    The glass had melted and buckled, the interior was a mess of black debris and blackened foam but there was no rust or erosion. This had been done recently. Within the last month. I opened a door and looked inside.
    It had been doused with gasoline and burned but then someone had killed the fire with a foam extinguisher. The number plates had been stripped off and when I lifted the bonnet I saw that the serial numbers on the chassis had been blow-torched away by arc-welding gear.
    “Mother of God!”
    “What is it, Sean?”
    “It’s Tommy’s car. Has to be.”
    “He drove a Ford Granada?” she asked, but I wasn’t even listening.
    “For some reason Tommy comes over and Freddie kills him. The girl’s a witness so he has to hang her. He cuts Tommy Little’shand off and shoves a musical score in his rectum. He drives to the home of the only other poofter he knows. He shoots him. He cuts off his hand. He leaves Tommy’s hand there.”
    “Are you sure this is Tommy Little’s car?”
    “It’s Tommy’s car. Freddie can’t be caught driving it and he can’t have the IRA finding it at his house, so he gets it off the road and burns it out.”
    “I don’t get it. He killed Tommy Little and drove him to Carrick?”
    “He kills him. He puts Tommy in the boot of his car. He drives carefully through the police and army roadblocks. He gets far away to the Barn Field in Carrickfergus, he dumps Tommy’s body where he hopes it will be quickly found along with Andrew Young’s hand. He hurries back here. He drives Tommy’s car off into the woods and torches it. But he doesn’t leave the car burning all night in case it attracts attention. He waits until Tommy’s body is found and then he calls the police and finds out my name and writes a bunch of gibberish on a postcard and sends it off to me. He calls the Confidential Telephone and starts in with the threats and false clues. He calls the Sunday World . He leads every one of us on a merry dance through the labyrinth. His bosses in the IRA know that Tommy is coming to see him but he tells them Tommy never made it over. The IRA are suspicious, sceptical, but when they find out that Tommy is mixed up with a sordid homosexual serial killer the whole thing is brushed under the rug. The misdirection works.”
    “But why, Sean? Why kill Lucy? Why kill Tommy?”
    “I don’t know. But I’ll find out. I’ll arrest him and charge him with terrorist offences and question him and crack him. Come on! Let’s go back to his house and call Carrick RUC. I don’t care if I do get bloody suspended, I’m taking him down.”
    “I still don’t see—” she began but was interrupted by a loud crack and bark flying from the chestnut tree behind her.
    “What was tha—”
    “Hit the deck!” I yelled at her. “And stay down!”
    She dived into the thick layer of leaves on the forest floor. I took out my service revolver and turned to look behind me.
    No one.
    Another crack and this time the bullet missed my head by inches.
    Where had it come from?
    Somewhere up ahead in the direction of the house.
    I ditched my raincoat, slithered through the undergrowth, got back into a crouch and ran through the trees in a big semicircle to my right.
    I kept Laura and the car in view and looked for him.
    He had anticipated my move and was waiting for me near a lightning-struck oak. I saw him out of the corner of my eye a split second before he fired. I dived to the ground and heard the crack of the 9mm three more times, I rolled behind the nearest tree, a slender Scots pine and then kept on rolling down a little embankment.
    Back on my belly again, moving sideways, silently, deliberately, holding my breath.
    “Where are you?” he yelled and I could see his profile ten yards to my right. He was still wearing his office suit, holding the gun in two hands and looking into the space where I had been.
    This time I had successfully outflanked him.
    I got to my feet.
    One step in front of another, carefully, toe then heel