The Cold, Cold Ground

big for number two. And the rain didn’t help him.”
    “The rain?” McCallister said sceptically. “Forget the rain! It’s the Pope. It was bad luck for Frankie to kick the bucket just a few hours before somebody tried to kill the Pope.”
    I’d done an analysis of Belfast riots from 1870–1970 which showed an inverse proportion between rain and rioting. The heavier the downpour the less likely there was to be trouble, but I kept my trap shut about that – nobody else up here had gone to University and there was no gain to be had from rubbing in my book-learning. And big Sergeant McCallister did have a point about John Paul II. It wasn’t every news cycle that someone shot the Holy Father.
    “He was a scumbag was Frankie Hughes. A rare ‘un. It was his ASU that killed Will Gordon and his wee girl,” Sergeant McCallister added.
    “I thought it was the wee boy who was killed,” McCrabban said.
    “Nah. The wee boy lived. The bomb was in the car. The wee lad was severely injured. Will and his young daughter were blown to bits,” McCallister explained.
    There was a silence after that punctuated by a far-off discharge of baton rounds.
    “Fenian bastards,” Price said.
    Sergeant McCallister cleared his throat. Price wonderedwhat that meant for a beat or two and then he remembered me.
    “Oh, no offence, Duffy,” he muttered, his thin lips and pinched face even thinner and pinchier.
    “No offence, Detective Sergeant Duffy,” Sergeant McCallister said to put the new constable in his place.
    “No offence, Sergeant Duffy,” Price repeated petulantly.
    “None taken, son. I’d love to see things from your point of view but I can’t get my head that far up my arse.”
    Everybody laughed and I used this as my exit line and went inside the Land Rover to read the Belfast Telegraph .
    It was all about the Pope. His potential assassin was a man called Mehmed Ali Agca, a Turk, who had shot him in St Peter’s Square. The Telegraph didn’t have much more information at this stage but they padded out the story with the shocked opinions of local people and politicians and a few right-wing Protestant nuts, like Councillor George Seawright who felt that this was an “important blow against the Anti-Christ”.
    Sergeant McCallister poked his big puffy face and classic alky nose round the back of the Land Rover.
    “You’re not taking the huff at Price, are you, Sean?” he asked in a kindly manner.
    “Jesus no. I was just getting out of the rain,” I replied.
    Sergeant McCallister grinned with relief. One of those infectious grins that I had not been blessed with myself. “That’s good. Well, look, I was thinking, do you want to call it a day? No one is going to be needing us. They’re more than covered down there in the riot. They’ve got redundancy in spades. Shall we bog off?”
    “You’re the senior sergeant. It’s your call.”
    “I’ll log us in to midnight, but we’ll skip, what say you?”
    “Alan, I think that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard since we bloody came up here.”
    On the way back down the mountain McCallister put a cassette in the player and we listened to his personal mix tape of Crystal Gayle, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton. They droppedme first on Coronation Road, Carrickfergus. “Is this your new manor?” McCrabban asked, looking at the fresh paint job on number 113.
    “Aye, I just moved in couple of weeks ago, no time yet for a house-warming party or anything,” I said quickly.
    “You own it?” Sergeant McCallister asked.
    I nodded. Most people still rented in Victoria Estate, but a few people were buying their council houses from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive under Mrs Thatcher’s privatization plans. I had bought the place vacant for only £10,000. (The family that had lived here had owed two year’s rent and one night just upped and vanished. To America, some said, but nobody really knew.)
    “You painted it pink?” Price asked with a grin.
    “That’s lavender, you colour-blind eejit,” I said.
    McCallister saw that Price clearly hadn’t got the message yet. “Hey lads, you know why Price nearly failed the police entrance exam? He thought a polygon was a dead parrot.”
    The lads chuckled dutifully and somebody punched Price on the shoulder.
    McCallister winked at me. “We have to head, mate,” he announced and with that they closed the back doors of the Rover.
    “See you!” I shouted after them as they drove off, but it was unlikely