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(BELFAST—JUNE 16, 6:00 P.M.)

He had finally gotten my attention. Having failed to kill me three times in half a day, each time a little more spectacularly, I knew I had to sort him out before I did anything else. Body O’Neill, whom I’d never even heard of before. Belfast Commander of the IRA.

Probably Darkey White’s long-lost brother. Or Bridget Callaghan’s tragic lover. Or a kid I used to bully in primary school. It would be something stupid. And if I had to murder the son of a bitch so he’d leave me alone, then so be it.

I wasn’t exactly sure where the Linen Hall Library was, but everybody else in Belfast was, so I was there pretty sharpish.

An attractive, dark, squarish building near the city hall with a bunch of people outside standing around a stall that was selling books, bootleg videos, and “comedic” singing fish.

“Get your copy of Star Wars: Episode III, the final film in the series, release date May of next year,” a hawker called out.

“Is this the entrance to the Linen Hall Library?” I asked him pointing at a pokey wee door.

“Aye, up the stairs. You want to see the new Star Wars? It’s got wookies in it.”

I ignored him and entered the building. An old concierge sitting at a desk. Behind him a glass door that led up the stairs to the library.

“Evening,” I said, walked past the desk, and tried the handle on the glass door.

“See your card,” the concierge said. “I don’t have a card.”

“No card, no admittance.”

He was one of those sons of bitches who had spent their entire lives thwarting the interests of people like me. Sleekit wee bureaucrat. It had made him shriveled, small and boney. He looked half dead under a peaked security guard’s hat.

“Listen, I need in to the library,” I said.

“Well, you can’t get in without a card. You’ll have to get a card.”

“I don’t want a card, I just want to see somebody up in the reading room. I don’t need to join or anything.”

“I cannot let you in without a card,” he insisted.

“This is ridiculous, I just need to see somebody in the bloody reading room.”

“Well, you’ll have to go through me,” he said, eerily echoing the extremely violent thoughts that I was having that very moment. Let’s see, shoot the bastard, break through the door, run upstairs…

But that was a crazy idea. This was the center of Belfast, the cops would be here in two minutes. And besides, a gunshot down here would send everyone upstairs into a panic. Give O’Neill a chance to run for cover.

“Can I send a message up to someone in the reading room? It’s quite urgent.”

The concierge thought about it for a moment.

“Shall I send Miss Plum down to see ya?” he asked.

“Miss Plum from the library?” “Yes.”

“Aye, and get Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe as well,” I said.

“What?”

“Please get her, it’s quite urgent, it’s a matter of life and death,” I said solemnly.

He raised an eyebrow and picked up the phone.

“Miss Plum, yes, it’s Cochrane. I’ve got a young man here who wants to get in to the library. He says it’s very urgent. Could you see your way to coming down here with a temporary card at all?”

Apparently Miss Plum said yes.

“She’s coming right down,” Cochrane told me.

I tapped my foot on the floor. I was bristling with anger and impatience. I had to deal with O’Neill right now while my blood was up. I had to know why he had been trying to kill me ever since I had arrived in this fucking country, and I had to put a bloody stop to it. Three attacks in one day: that was miles better than even Bridget’s record. And holy mother of God, now they’d even taken to sinking ships in order to nail me. What would be next? Aerial bombing? Anthrax?

Aye, well, we’d see O’Neill about that.

But there was another reason for seeing him too.

Something that had been nagging me since I’d been in the Rat’s Nest, and had become apparent on the Ginger Bap.

Something Seamus Deasey had said. Outside the pub, when he had told me Barry’s name and the fact he lived on a boat on the Lagan, Seamus had slipped in a boast that having Barry’s name and address wouldn’t do me any good. At the time I hadn’t even considered it, but now it seemed that Seamus had known that Barry was already dead. Seamus knew that Barry had been murdered.

How?

Unless he was the all comers’ lying champion of Sicily five years in a row, I didn’t think he was stroking me. When I’d looked in Seamus’s eyes, he seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of the kidnap. I think the word kidnap even surprised him: he thought wee Siobhan was still missing. And he was genuinely shocked when I’d suggested that one of his boys might be involved.

I could be wrong, though. He could be in it up to his eyeballs and I might have missed the one chance to break the case wide open. Would have been easy: kidnap Seamus, take him to a wee hidey-hole, and get cracking with my experimental interrogation techniques. But nah, even then I don’t think he would have fessed up to knowing anything about Siobhan Callaghan.

So where did that leave things?

It meant Seamus didn’t know why Barry had been killed, but he knew that he was dead. And thinking back, I’m no crime- scene expert but I don’t think Barry’s corpse had been disturbed. Donald hadn’t seen anyone go on board the Ginger Bap and that lock looked untouched since the murderers had jury-rigged it.

Since no one had messed with the scene, the only way Seamus could have known about Barry’s murder was if something had leaked out about it, or he had heard some word on the street, or perhaps the murderer had actually asked for Seamus’s permission to kill his boy. If he’d been a Belfast assassin, he probably would have had to do that. You don’t go around whacking members of other people’s crews, be they capo, soldier, or lowly drug dealer, without getting the ok from on high. ’Course, if the hit men were from abroad, London or Dublin, say, then it wouldn’t matter, but a Belfast-based assassin would have had to get a permission slip. Oh, you’d maybe explain that Barry had raped your sister or insulted your granny or some such shite like that. You’d give Seamus a couple of grand blood money and he’d be happy enough.

It was pure speculation. But the more I thought about it, the more I was reasonably certain that Seamus had not only known that Barry was dead but that he had a fair idea who’d been involved in it. Following my little stunt in the Rat’s Nest, I wouldn’t be able to get within a million miles of Seamus, but Body O’Neill was one floor above me. One minute up the stairs. For if Body O’Neill was the commander of the IRA in Belfast, it meant he was Seamus Deasey’s superior. O’Neill could order Seamus to tell me what he knew about young Barry. All it would take would be a sufficiently persuasive argument to convince O’Neill of the justice of my cause.

Maybe a Belfast six-pack would do the trick.

But certainly he could solve a lot of the questions that were troubling me. And I was damn well going to get the information I bloody needed about the hits on me and everything else I wanted to know.

I looked at the concierge.

“She’s taking her time, isn’t she?” He nodded awkwardly.

“Know much about the library?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said with the sinking feeling that he was going to tell me.

“When the Luftwaffe bombed Belfast in ’42, the military target was the docks and the shipyard but Göring instructed several Heinkel 111s to hit cultural and civic targets, and among those were the city hall and the Linen Hall Library.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Thousands died but the incident doesn’t even merit a mention in most histories of World War—”

“Shocking.”

“And did you further know—” I had to interrupt.

“Look, I’m sorry to be rude, but you wouldn’t mind paging Miss Plum again, would you?”

He paged her.

“Miss Plum, that gentleman is in quite a rush to get in,” he said into the speakerphone.

“It’s not André with the lobsters, is it?” Miss Plum’s voice replied.

The concierge looked at me.

“You’re not André with the lobsters, are you?” My knuckles whitened.

“Do you see any lobsters?”

“It’s not André, Miss Plum,” the concierge said. “But it is very urgent,” I said into the intercom. “I’ll be right down,” she said.

“Great.”

Eventually, after I’d endured more tedious tales of the library’s fascinating history, Miss Plum’s legs appeared at the top of the stairs.

She opened the glass door and came out to meet me.

A chubby, red-faced Kate Winslet type, brown eyes, tight skirt, pert, snarky mouth.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, look, I have an urgent message for a Mr. O’Neill upstairs.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, do you know Mr. O’Neill? Is he here today?” “He’s here,” she said.

“Well, I wonder if you might let me up to see him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. You’ll have to join the library to get in, at the very least you’ll have to get a temporary card.

Oh, don’t get so worried. You just have to fill out a few forms, provide proof of residence,” she said, looking with displeasure at the burnt fiberglass that had stuck to my leather jacket.

“Please, I’m in a big rush, I don’t have time for forms, I really just need to see him,” I said. I didn’t have time for bloody paperwork, and it was years since I could produce any proof of Belfast residence.

“I’m sorry, it’s the policy, this is a very select institution,” Miss Plum said with a winning smile.

She was a charming girl and in general I avoid killing women, but I was right on the goddamn edge here.

“Ok, look, Miss Plum, what’s your first name?” “Jane,” she said with a tiny sniff of suspicion.

“Look, Jane, first let me say I completely understand the policy. Very sensible, keep out the riffraff. Second of all, let me compliment you on your style, appearance, and professionalism. Has anyone ever told you that you resemble a thin Kate Winslet? You have an extraordinary skin tone. If you ever want a job with the Olay people, look me up, my cousin’s the vice president. But this is an emergency. Mr. O’Neill’s mother is dying. He’s turned off his cell phone and I just need to see him, to let him know, so he can rush to her side for the final moments. The priest has already read the last rites, we all believe she’ll pass within the hour.”

“His mother?” Jane said, shocked.

“Yes, his poor wee mother,” I said, staring off into the middle distance.

“Bloody hell, she must be over a hundred,” the concierge said.

“O’Neill’s an elderly gentleman then, is he?” I thought but somehow also said aloud.

“Oh aye, he’s well into his seventies,” Jane said.

“Well, I’m just the messenger,” I said, a bit thrown.

“His poor old ma, she’s probably in the Guinness Book of Records or something,” the concierge mused.

“Could be,” I began hesitantly. “But the information I have is that she’s on her last legs. Could I just go up and let him know? It really is at a matter of life and death, surely you can make an exception for that?”

I smiled at her and placed my hands in a pleading gesture. “Well, it’s not really the done thing….”

Thank Christ, I thought, and followed her up the stairs.

I was in such a hurry now that I didn’t even admire her bum waggling from side to side as it rose up the marble steps.

The reading room was a charming little affair, with old book tables, neat shelves, and a tidy Georgian appearance. Various oddball types reading magazines, newspapers, and books. The more stereotypical iron-faced librarians, with horn-rimmed glasses and a capacity for unspeakable deeds, patrolled the reference area, enforcing the strict rules on silence, shelving, and pencils only.

“That’s him sitting at the alcove behind the window seat,” Jane said.

“I don’t see him.”

“That’s because he’s in the corner, in the alcove.” “Ok, yeah, that’s the top of his bald head, is it?” “Uh-huh.”

“Thanks very much,” I said.

“Now please, try hard not to cause a disturbance,” she said. “Oh, don’t worry, love, disturbances are not my thing at all.”

I thanked her and walked to the corner alcove. The most secure spot in the whole place. Walls on three sides, near the emergency exit, but his one mistake—he had shifted his chair around so that he could get more light on his book from the

alcove window. Silly old fool. Now his back was to the entrance. Anybody could just walk over.

I watched him for five minutes to check for goons. Really should have been a couple of hours, but time was of the essence. No one that I saw. No one that wasn’t born before World War I, anyway.

I stood next to him.

A bald, wizened seventy-year-old, with a bit of a Parkinson shake, round reading glasses, and a wispy beard. Depressingly, this scholarly looking gent, who apparently was one of the most feared paramilitary commanders in Belfast, was also dressed in leisure wear: a white UCLA sweatshirt and black jeans. I checked that no one was paying attention and removed the .38.

“Body O’Neill?” He looked up.

I pointed the revolver at him, real close so that he could see it through those thick lenses.

“Yes?”

“I want to ask you some questions.” “Who are you?”

“Michael Forsythe,” I said.

Mild surprise in his watery yellow eyes.

“Ahh, I see, Michael Forsythe. For some reason I thought you might be dead by now,” he said.

“You know, funnily enough, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” I said, winking at him.

He smiled, stroked his limpid cheeks, looked around the room.

“Sit,” he suggested. “Why not?”

I sat beside him.

“You don’t mind if I just check you for a gun?” I said.

“I would rather you didn’t touch me. I assure you, I am unarmed,” he said.

“Well, just to be on the safe side,” I said and patted him down. He did not have a gun, which was a bit odd, but there was a little lump under the L in UCLA.

“What’s that? A pacemaker?” I asked.

“I asked you not to touch me,” he said, embarrassed. “Yes, but I have the gun,” I explained.

He frowned, looked around the room.

“You know why I like this place?” O’Neill said. “What place, the city?”

“No, the library,” he said. “No, why?”

“It’s eclectic. Postmen, dockers, students, everyone. You can bump into Seamus Heaney, and occasionally you’ll see Gerry Adams in here researching his so-called memoirs.”

“Now listen to me, O’Neill. I’m sure you’re just fabulous at playing for time, but I have a whole series of questions and my patience is already stretched very thin.”

“You have questions for me?”

“Yes, I bloody do. First, why have you been trying to kill me since Dublin?”

O’Neill regarded me with some distaste, not fear, but rather a condescending scowl that verged on utter contempt. I wasn’t going to let the old bat intimidate me. I was holding the gun, after all. I leaned back in the chair and rested the revolver on the book he’d been reading. I closed it with the barrel, aggressively snapping it shut.

“Better start talking, O’Neill,” I said with menace.

“The interview form is not one I enjoy, Mr. Forsythe. Question-and-answer is such a barbaric manner of discourse. If you have any questions, you should probably take them up with Mikhail.”

“And who the fuck is Mikhail?”

“I’m Mikhail,” Mikhail said, thumping my hand with a knuckle duster and removing the revolver from my grip in a fast, continuous motion. I winced and turned. Mikhail was a six-foot-six Neanderthal. Shaven head, narrow Mongolian eyes. Clearly the bloody bodyguard, fresh in from slaughtering insurgents in Chechnya.

My hand was killing me. Mikhail shoved a snub-nosed silenced .22 automatic into my ribs. He passed his boss my

.38.

“We don’t want a scene, Mr. Forsythe, but Mikhail will kill you stone dead if you say another harsh word,” O’Neill said quietly.

“Kill me in front of all these witnesses?” I asked.

“What witnesses? No one will hear a thing and we’ll shove you under the alcove desk and walk straight out of here. No one will find you until closing time and by then I’ll have an alibi and the case will be insoluble,” O’Neill said.

“Miss Plum knows I wanted to talk to you.”

“Look around, no one can even see us here, and I assure you, Mikhail is very nervous about going to prison. He had a bad experience in a Communist gulag. If you look even a wee bit like you’re going to shout or cause trouble, he’ll shoot without a second thought,” O’Neill said.

I nodded.

“Ok, or what?” I asked.

O’Neill looked baffled for a second. He hadn’t thought about the “or.”

“Or you come with us outside,” O’Neill said.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.”