The Cold, Cold Ground

had a square Celtic face, which reminded me a bit of FredFlintstone or Ian McKellen.
    “Are you the peeler who’s been ringing up looking for me?” he asked.
    “Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy from Carrick RUC,” I replied.
    “Is that a Catholic name?”
    “Yes.”
    He laughed a nasty wee laugh. “Ok, so what’s this all about?”
    “Tommy Little.”
    “Let me guess, you interviewed Walter Hays and he said that Tommy was coming over to see me? Is that right?” he said with animal cunning.
    “That’s right.”
    “You want to know how I know that?”
    “You have telepathic abilities?”
    “Because the IRA has already been on the phone to me, asking me when I saw Tommy last. Very polite they were too.”
    Of course the IRA and the UVF were sworn enemies who in theory tried to kill each other at every opportunity. In practice, however, there were many contacts between the two organizations. They cooperated to reduce friction between the two communities and to facilitate the distribution and the collection of protection money.
    “When did you see Tommy last?”
    “Tommy came over here about eight o’clock the night he was topped. The Tuesday.”
    “Why?”
    “We had business to iron out.”
    “What business?”
    “It’s not relevant, copper,” Billy said with menace.
    Like with Gerry Adams and Freddie Scavanni I knew where the power lay here. It was all with him. I had to go softly softly: he could terminate this interview any time he wanted and I’d never get another chance to talk to him again.
    “Was it about drugs?” I asked.
    He shrugged.
    “I’m homicide, not a narc,” I said.
    “Off the record then?”
    “Off the record.”
    “Swear it on the fucking Pope’s life.”
    “I swear on the Pope’s life.”
    “All right. Well, I can tell you’re dying to know so I’ll put you out of your misery. Some very bad lads had killed an enterprising young man up in Andy town who we had given a safe conduct to; and I was a bit concerned about this and I was also wondering what had happened to the three bags of brown tar heroin that this young man had been carrying.”
    My mind was racing. Brown tar heroin? A safe conduct? What had Tommy Little to do with all of this?
    “And what did Tommy say to that?” I said placidly.
    “He didn’t say much of anything. We went into my office and he gave me two of the three bags and asked me if I was happy with that and I said that I was.”
    “What time was this at exactly?”
    “Like, I say, about eight.”
    “How long did your meeting last?”
    “Two minutes.”
    “And then he was gone?”
    “And then he was gone.”
    “And you never saw him again?”
    Billy shook his head but didn’t speak.
    “You never saw Tommy again?”
    “No.”
    Billy was dressed in a red tracksuit, with Adidas sneakers and a golden chain around his neck. He had a spiderweb tattoo on one side of his neck and a red hand of Ulster on the other. It was very much the look of your middle echelon Protestant paramilitary, and yet there was something about it that didn’t quite fit.
    This was the external. This was the image he was projecting. But there was more going on underneath. Billy was clever and his accent wasn’t Rathcoole at all. There was more than a hint of Southern Africa still.
    “You were a copper too for a bit, weren’t you, Billy? In Rhodesia?”
    “Copper? Is that what your file says? Give us some credit. We were practically running that country. Only thing holding it together. Those were days. High times! That place could have been paradise. Look at it now! We should have killed Mugabe when we had the chance and we did have the chance, believe me.”
    I could imagine some of those high times: prison beatings, raids into Mozambique, torching villages, burning crops …
    “How many people did you kill in Rhodesia, Billy?”
    “More than enough, copper. More than enough,” he said chillingly.
    I rubbed my chin. Was any of this relevant? He was a stone-cold killer but I knew that already. “You ever hear of a wee girl called Lucy Moore?”
    “Who?”
    “Do you know who Orpheus is?”
    “What?”
    “Are you a music lover, Billy?”
    “Of course.”
    “Do you like the opera?”
    “The what?”
    “Opera. Wagner. Puccini.”
    “No fear.”
    “Not your line?”
    “Not my line.”
    We looked at one another while Billy lit himself a cigarette. He offered me one and I took it. A plane was landing at the Belfast Harbour Airport and I watched it stick