Portable siren on. Roof light flashing. Lane ahead cleared. On the big diagonal across Ulster.
The motorway was a relatively recent development and this BMW was brand new, so it was possible that this was the fastest anyone had ever driven in Northern Ireland outside of the Ulster Grand Prix circuit and even there …
Screaming down the M1 and then the A3 towards Armagh.
What traffic there was moved aside.
Cars blurred.
I couldn’t risk fiddling with the tape deck at this speed so I turned on Radio 1 and prayed for something good.
John Peel was on repeat but Peelie was playing something way out of his comfort zone.
“This isn’t really my cup of tea, but I think this might be the beginning of a new form in metal music. Or not. Send the kiddies to bed, get headphones for granny. Here for your delectation is Slayer and their song ‘Raining Blood’.”
I cranked the volume, which turned out to be a good move.
Ulster dematerialised.
I was flying over it.
I was seeing it from the air.
I was peering through the Mir space station window.
I was unfolding one of poor dead Tommy’s secret maps.
I knew exactly where he was going. He was on the A3 now, the Monaghan Road, he was heading for the border just ten miles from Armagh.
Traffic cops didn’t have the juice to catch us in their Ford Sierras and Ford Escorts.
After Slayer came Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”.
Perfect.
Armagh. Milford. Madden. Middletown. He was heading for the Irish Republic all right. There was a checkpoint at the formal border where the A3 became the N12. But the checkpoint didn’t matter because he was going to ditch the Bentley somewhere along here where the road ran parallel to the border and where there were no boundary walls or fences or anything of the— I hit the brakes.
The Beemer screeched to a halt, fishtailed, thought about rolling, decided against it, fishtailed the other way and stopped.
There was the car. Ditched in a sheugh. Or sheughed in a ditch if you preferred.
Door open, Strong gone, out into the night.
Where was this place?
I got bearings. Typical border landscape. Boggy sheep fields rolling down the hills to a river.
The river. Yes. That’s where he’d go.
And then I saw a trail through the grass. No blood. Just a big heavy running man.
I got out of the Beemer and followed him across the grass to a stream that I learned later was called the River Cor. The other side of the river was the Irish Republic. A place beyond my jurisdiction.
The moon came out from behind the clouds. And I saw him at the top of the rise beyond the river.
“You can’t touch me, Duffy! This is the border! I’m over the border!”
“What are you going to do? Run and hide for the rest of your life?”
“Fuck off back to Belfast!”
“We’ll extradite you from whatever rat hole you bolt to!”
“Oh you will, will you?”
Hadn’t he learned anything about me from my file? Maybe not the greatest copper in these islands, but everybody, even my worst enemy, would agree that I was a stubborn son of a bitch. I’d fucking nail him if he went behind the Iron Curtain or a beach in Brazil or the Amundsen-Scott base at the South fucking Pole.
I looked at the tiny river separating him from me.
Was I going to be stopped by this … puddle?
Fuck that.
“What are you doing, Duffy? This is the Irish Republic!”
I waded into the river. It only went up to my knees. If he’d had more bottle he could have driven his car over. No need to abandon a decent car.
Strong pulled out his gun.
He shot once.
Missed.
Shot again.
Missed.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“I think you’ll find it’s empty,” I said, crossing the stream into Southern Ireland.
Reverse the shot.
Him looking at me wading the river. Nemesis.
Back to me, looking at him.
He still could have run. Run to the top of that hill, jumped the little barbed-wire fence, gone on through the sheep shit and the bog.
But he knew he was beat.
He put his hands up.
“You can’t touch me, Duffy. It’s illegal.”
I got to within six feet of him, took out the Glock and pointed it at him.
“You know why Death lets me live, John?”
“No, Duffy, I don’t.”
“Because I give him so much business.”
Hammer back.
“Please! No!”
“As I see it, there are four possibilities. Number one, I let you run. You run. You probably get caught but you might escape and assume an identity and live out your life on an IRA pension. That might be a good punishment for you. Always worried, living in fear. Number two, I shoot you. I shoot you and pick up the shell casings and carry your body back across the river. Fireman’s lift. Easy. What happened? Oh, he was making a run for it. Didn’t quite make it. I shot him in Northern Ireland, no diplomatic incident, no need to involve the Guards.”
“Please, Duffy—”
“Possibility three. I slug you across the face, drag you back across the river, deny you ever made it over and bring you in for trial. And then there’s possibility number four. We’ll get to that one in a minute, but first you talk.”