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Then her whole body language changed and she adopted a pose of lazy sensuality, stared into her already empty cup, purred, 'I want more coffee.'

Fucking with me, a terrain I was better able to play on.

I said, 'Get it yourself.'

She didn't, considered something, said, 'This has been interesting, but so what? You have no proof. If you could do anything, I'd already be under arrest. You're full of shit.'

No argument there.

'Justice isn't always in a courtroom,' I said.

She loved that, asked, 'You think you can take me on, a beat-up old geezer like you? You've a hearing aid, you walk with a limp, you couldn't find your dick with a map.'

Maybe it was the arrogance, or how much I detested that guy who owned the warehouse, or just her virus rubbing off on me, but I suddenly decided to kill two birds with one stone. It seemed to strike me out of nowhere, and maybe that's how the worst things happen, spur-of-the-moment viciousness.

I said, 'It's not really me you have to worry about.'

Had her full attention and she asked what I meant.

I said in a slow measured tone, 'There's a man named King, owns a warehouse in Father Griffin Road, had a shine for Maria, and seemingly he has a way of proving you're the torch.'

I could see her literally mouthing his name, then, 'You tell him to stay the fuck out of my business.'

I was pleased to see I'd got to her, added some fuel.

'Nothing to do with me, but this guy has juice. Me, I'm nobody, like you said. But this fella, he has the means to see you get taken down.'

Her eyes closed for a moment and thank Christ I couldn't see whatever it was she was seeing.

She came back, said, 'I'm going now.'

I stared at her, she seemed almost ordinary.

Then, 'You stay the fuck away from me, Taylor, and, who knows, I may lose interest in you.'

I held her stare, said, 'There's the catch, me girl. I have no intention of losing interest in you. In fact, next up, I'm going to have a chat with your brother. And I know where you live, did you know that?'

Her hand came up and only with supreme control did she rein it in.

'Sleep lightly, Taylor. Sometime, I'll be over your bed, you'll wake up and you'll hear the sound of a match strike.'

I kept my face in neutral, said, 'I'll be expecting you. I might even get to show you the Irish version of a cross.'

She didn't get it, had to know, near spat, 'What the hell is that?'

'Oh, much like you did to the boy, with one difference.'

She raised her eyes in dismissive mode, asked, 'And that would be?'

'More nails.'

And she was gone, like some spectre that doesn't really belong to the daylight hours.

18

Cross that bridge when I come to it.

I went to the cemetery, feeling so guilty I hadn't attended Cody's funeral. And what to bring?

A little late for flowers and he wasn't really your flowers kind of kid. He'd been raving about the band Franz Ferdinand, so I bought one of their CDs, the assistant in the record shop telling me, 'They're past their best.'

Like I asked.

I wanted to add, 'Cody too.'

It was raining. Graveyards, I think they have a statute that rain is mandatory. As I walked among the crosses of the dead, I tried real hard not to read the inscriptions. I was carrying enough of the departed to keep a convent in perpetual prayer. Marvelled again that we're still the only burial ground with a Protestant and a Catholic side.

Up North, they wondered why the Peace Process was in shreds yet again and, here, even the dead were divided.

I found the grave within five minutes, a small temporary marker simply with Cody's name and the date of his death. You're not allowed to erect a headstone for a year. Why? Like you're going to change your mind and go, 'I've had some time to reflect on it and don't think I'll bother with the memorial'?

The plot was a riot of flowers, mini statues of every saint in the calendar, tiny fluffy animals, well sodden from the rain already, and a framed photo of Cody. It didn't look like him and I was kind of