I Hear the Sirens in the Street

26: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

I stopped at Paddy Kinkaid’s BMW dealership in Whitehead and parked the car in a lot full of brand new Beemers. If old Paddy wanted to keep them new he’d need to get the bloody hose out because smoke from Kilroot power station was depositing a fine grey-grained soot on all the windward surfaces, as if the golden head of the enormous chimney top was in sinister coitus with the friggin’ place.

I lit a tab and went inside.

It was basically a big plywood shed painted BMW white and blue. An elderly woman was playing an electric organ in one corner of the showroom and when I saw Father O’Hare I thought perhaps the two were connected by some nexus – a wedding rehearsal or funeral preparations or the like, but in fact they were unrelated. She was Paddy’s wife, playing away to herself, and Father O’Hare was in looking for a car.

“I haven’t seen you in a while, Sean,” Father O’Hare said cheerfully enough, although perhaps with a hint of admonishment. And if a hint was there, I didn’t effing like it.

“Big mistake, Father,” I said.

“What?”

“You can’t be a priest and drive a BMW. It sends out a bad message.”

“Sean, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Popemobile, as they call it, is manufactured by BMW.”

“The Holy Father survived an assassination attempt by the direct intervention of Our Lady of Fatima and can therefore pretty much do what he likes in the vehicular realm; with all due respect, Father, you’re not up there yet.”

He nodded and countered with “I wonder how it looks to have a policeman driving a BMW?”

“Perhaps an inspector in the Vice or the Fraud Squad might have cause for concern, but not a simple homicide detective.”

The organ reached a complicated part of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Father O’Hare could see from the look in my eyes that I’d already had a somewhat trying morning.

“Perhaps you’re right, Sean, I was only picking up a brochure anyway. Will I see you at Mass before Lady Day?”

“Yes, Father,” I assured him, and he went outside to his rickety 2CV coupe which had death trap written all over it.

Paddy was annoyed with me. He was a tubby, complacent man with a welcoming suntanned bald head, but when he heard the tail end of me chasing out Father O’Hare he was furious.

“That was a customer, Sean. A customer. You don’t see me going around to your manor and solving murders, do you?”

“You’re welcome to, Paddy.”

Paddy went on a rant about Father O’Hare’s pressing need for a new motor and pointed out that the Catholic Church used wealth to glorify God and show the common people a glimpse of the infinite. I was in no mood for the dialectic so I told him that he had a point and apologised and asked about the windscreen.

Paddy told me he couldn’t possibly get a replacement in less than a week and offered me a loaner of a black BMW 320i for only fifty quid. It was a canny move on his part for he knew that I’d be hooked after a couple of days behind the wheel of that four-cylinder, fuel-injected, 125 BHP beast.

She purred right up and I notched her at 115 mph on the straight run from the old ICI factory to Eden Village.

I turned right up Victoria Road, left on Coronation Road and parked the car.

I found Bobby Cameron’s wean and give him a pound note and told him he’d get another one if he kept all the wee shites away from the Beemer.

I was exhausted.

I turned on the hall light to look at myself in the mirror. A pitiful bedraggled wreck of a man.

The hall mirror.

The hall looking glass.

Alice Through the Looking Glass. Alice Smith because Alice Liddell was too obvious. I see through a glass darkly.

I saw the phone sitting on the table. I recalled the conversation with our special guest mystery caller.

I walked outside to the Beemer and drove to William McFarlane’s bed and breakfast in Dunmurry.

Mrs McFarlane didn’t recognise me without the riot squad to back me up

I asked if I could have a look at room #4.

She said all the rooms were the same.

I said four was my lucky number.

She said fine, go ahead.

I went upstairs to room #4.

I looked at the huge mirror above the dresser.

I looked at those strange wear marks on the carpet. Exactly where they should be if someone had moved this heavy thing out from the wall.

I moved the dresser out from the wall.

Behind the mirror someone had duct-taped an envelope.

I put on latex gloves and opened the envelope.

Inside:

Bill O’Rourke’s Massachusetts driver’s licence, five hundred dollars in fifty-dollar bills, and a key with the number 27 stamped into the metal. Taped to the key with Scotch tape, a piece of paper that said “Ten Cent Bank Safety Deposit, Jefferson Street, Newburyport, Massachusetts”.

I moved the dresser back and told Mrs McFarlane I’d have to think about the room.

I went back to the borrowed Beemer and sat there.

The mystery caller had known about this all along.

I see through a glass darkly. She had seen through it. She’d seen through it to the other side, but was leaving it to me to do something about it.

There was only one thing to be done.

I knew the drama that would erupt if I asked for official permission to go.

The Chief. The Consulate. DeLorean. The Americans. Especially the Americans.

The case would be taken away from me.

The case would vanish into the ether.

We’d never find out who killed Bill O’Rourke. Perhaps someone would, but not us.

“No, not us,” I said aloud.

I drove to Carrick RUC and found Kenny Dalziel among the pay stubs in the sub basement. I told him that before the marching season got going in a month or so now was as good a time as any for me to take my personal days all at once.

He said that he’d sound it out with the Chief.

Half an hour later the Chief called me up to his office and declared that I looked as if I needed a break. He recommended Blackpool, which was bracing and inexpensive at this time of year.

I told him that that sounded like a great idea.

I told Kenny I was taking five working days and a weekend exemption from riot duty. I told them that Crabbie was in charge of CID and he should be paid for the week as an acting sergeant. Kenny baulked at that until I said that I’d pay the extra four quid out of my own pocket.

I went back upstairs and told Crabbie about the acting sergeant thing and he was as pleased as I’d hoped. I didn’t tell him about the mirror. Not yet. No point dragging him in until we saw where it all led.

I called Emma McAlpine and said that I had to go out of town for a few days but I’d really like to see her when I got back.

“That would be nice,” she told me.

I ordered Emma flowers from the same place I’d got them for Gloria.

I drove to Grant’s Travel Agency in Carrickfergus and had them book me a flight to Boston. Tomorrow at noon from Heathrow.

I’m not a superstitious arsehole but just to be on the safe side I found out when the next Mass was going to be …