The City of Strangers. Michael Russell

as he sat down.

      The superintendent turned to the night porter.

      ‘You can piss off now. Leave the bottle.’

      The night porter put the bottle of Bushmills down on the table in front of the Special Branch man and walked back to the hotel lobby. The superintendent topped up his glass and then lit a cigarette. He took a few moments to do this. Stefan knew the game well enough; he thought Gregory wasn’t especially good at it.

      ‘I didn’t think there was a Mrs Gillespie?’

      ‘I’m flattered I’m worth finding out about, sir.’

      ‘I wouldn’t be too flattered. I like to know who I’m dealing with, that’s all. Still, it’s a relief to see a Mrs Gillespie of some sort on the hotel register. We’ve all been a bit concerned how friendly you are with your pals at the Gate, Messrs Mac Liammóir and Edwards. And she’s quite a looker.’

      The game had to go on, and Stefan Gillespie decided it was better to let it run its course than to tell the Special Branch superintendent to fuck himself. Gregory was enjoying the fact that he had something on him; it was how the detective branch worked; with Special Branch it was almost the only way they did anything. The more you had on people, your colleagues included, the stronger you were. Stefan knew he used the same methods himself, though perhaps he didn’t use them in the same way. Favours and threats, knowing what other people didn’t know, the little nuggets of information you carried in your head until you had reasons to use them – it was part of the armoury, and the higher up you went, the more it mattered. If Terry Gregory didn’t quite know what to make of this country sergeant who didn’t seem to behave like a country sergeant should, it didn’t matter. He had something on him.

      ‘My father was always suspicious of Wicklow people. He said they’re all in bed with the English too much down there. That was a long time ago, but maybe he was right so. Course, you’re a Protestant yourself, aren’t you? Well, I suppose that makes it all right, you being in bed with the English.’

      Gregory laughed, stubbing his cigarette and taking out another. He knew exactly who Valerie Lessingham was. He wanted Stefan to know he knew.

      ‘Isn’t her husband in the British army?’

      ‘I’m glad you’ve got time to investigate me, sir, when there’s so much on, but if there’s anything else you want to know, you can ask. It might save you some time. I know you’re busy. What’s happening with the investigation? Is there any news about Mrs Harris’s body yet?’

      Superintendent Gregory shook his head.

      ‘Don’t try to fuck a fucker, son.’

      But the game was over.

      ‘Ned Broy had a telegram from Mr McCauley, New York. It seems our Mr Harris wasn’t as enthusiastic about an invitation to come home for a chat as everyone thought. Not as I’d want to tell Ned I told him so, but I did.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘He’s gone. Not the biggest surprise, and I’m glad to say one that I don’t have any fecking responsibility for at all. I can kick that one upstairs.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘He walked out of the hotel, that’s all. And why wouldn’t he if he’s worked out what might be waiting for him in Dublin? So now he’s gone, the consul’s had to tell the New York police that we parked an axe-murderer in a hotel room with a bunch of queers to keep an eye on him, and never even mentioned it. And they were all worried about what we’d look like if something got into the American papers! I suppose we should be running the rosary through our fingers and praying Owen doesn’t get hold of an axe.’

      He grinned. He was clearly taking some satisfaction in all this.

      ‘So does that mean I don’t go?’

      ‘Oh no, Stevie, the plane’s all booked.’

      ‘But I thought you –’

      ‘It’s not my mess. The Commissioner seems to think the NYPD will pick him up quick enough, so the job’s still the same. You might want to take a pair of handcuffs with you for the journey back though. Of course the NYPD will be pissed off. We’ve been playing the bollocks on their patch, however much we tell them it was all about Owen Harris doing us all a favour and helping us with our enquiries. They will know better by now.’

      ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ said Stefan.

      ‘Turn up and wait till they find him.’

      ‘And if they don’t?’

      ‘I’d say they will. No one seems to think he’s much in his head. But the lad might want to go easy over there. They’re as likely to shoot him as look at him, knowing what he’s done.’ Gregory laughed. ‘The place is full of Irish cops who love their mammies after all. They won’t take to him, I’d say. Not that anyone here would be too bothered if he came back in a coffin –’

      ‘I thought nobody really wanted me to go to New York –’

      ‘Now everybody wants you to go, me included.’

      ‘In case it’s a fuck up?’

      ‘Got it in one. You’re a bright lad, Stevie. But it’s already a fuck up. McCauley’s fuck up in New York, Ned Broy’s here. I don’t intend to make it mine. So the grand thing about you is you’re nobody. You don’t matter.’

      ‘What about the NYPD?’

      ‘What do they care? They’ll deliver you a prisoner, or if we’re lucky a box. And you’ve got the trip to look forward to, a hotel in New York. Jesus, you’ll be the toast of the sheep shaggers for miles around when you get back to Baltinglass. And it’s not all bad news, Sergeant. If you could maybe make it a box, you might even be up for promotion. It’d save on the trial and for my money, well, if I had to choose between being shot and being hanged –’

      Terry Gregory drained the whiskey in his glass and stood up.

      ‘It’s an ill wind, eh Sergeant?’

      He walked out to the lobby and into the street.

      In the room Valerie was sitting up, reading. She laughed as Stefan came in.

      ‘What was all that about?’

      ‘The man I’ve got to bring back from New York has disappeared.’

      ‘So aren’t you going?’

      ‘They’ll find him. Well, that’s what the superintendent said.’

      He shrugged. She said no more. As he sat down on the bed she stretched out her hand to touch his back. He sat there for a moment, not moving, feeling her fingers. He was aware how much he liked her. That was the thought in his head that made him smile. It wasn’t love between them, it never had been, but it wasn’t nothing, for either of them. He turned round and reached across the bed, stroking her hair. As he kissed her she pulled him slowly down on to her. Neither of them needed to speak now to know that this would be the last time they would make love.

       6. West Thirty-Sixth Street

       New York

      Longie Zwillman stood at the counter in the window of Lindy’s diner on Broadway, between 49^th and 50^th. He kept his hat on and his overcoat done up, though it was warm enough in Lindy’s. He was thirty-five; he didn’t look older but somehow people felt he was older. There was age behind his eyes, and behind the half smile that was almost always on his lips there was nothing that suggested he found very much to laugh at. He was drinking the cup of coffee and eating the cheesecake Clara Lindermann had brought him personally.

      It was busy in Lindy’s, but there was space at the