"Killian?"

"Ugh."

"Killian!"

"I'm okay."

"I'm worried about you. Maybe this was a mistake. This is too big for the likes of us."

"No. It's fine. Look, I'm hanging up. Find me that address. Call Rocky."

"Okay. If you say so."

He killed the phone and set it on his seat.

Ballymena?

Beltoy Road to Kilwaughter and then the A36. Twenty miles of single- lane country roads through bog and hill. Closer to twenty-five if he was being honest with himself.

He flipped the lights, found Cla.s.sic FM, and drove off. There was probably still that bug of Ivan's in the car but he could do f.u.c.k all about that.

Two miles later on a bleak stretch of the Tongue Loanen Sean called.

"The address is 3 Slemish View Lane, Carnalbanagh Sheddings."

"Was that in English? Where the f.u.c.k is that?"

"Near Broughshane. Satnav it."

"I'll need to, never heard of it."

"Rocky's on his way over. I promised him a grand."

"Tell him to be careful, the guy's good."

"Ach, you know Rock. He'll be fine."

"Aye that's what I thought till Ivan f.u.c.ked me up."

"Second thoughts, mate? Maybe we should let him take it if he wants it so badly?"

"Are you f.u.c.king kidding me? Coulter hired me. I had dinner with him and his wife. I flew to f.u.c.king China for this gig. This is mine. I will f.u.c.k that skinhead up so bad he'll wish his hoor ma aborted him."

He hung up, turned off the music, wound the window down.

Muggy air had wafted up from Larne Lough into the boglands. The hard rain was over now and a drizzly warm front was hanging over the Antrim Plateau like a sculpture.

A mile further down the road he saw a car ahead of him. Ivan?

He took the Fiesta up to a hundred through the village of Glenoe and pa.s.sed it but it was a Vauxhall Astra, not a Range Rover. The phone.

"Bad news?" he asked.

"Is there any other kind?" Sean said.

"Okay, what?"

"Rocky can't find the house. He's says it's in the a.r.s.ehole end of nowhere up near Slemish."

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. Tell him to keep on it." "Did it come up your satnav?"

"Haven't done it yet, was waiting till I got to Broughshane." "Aye well, hopefully one of you will find it. Where are you? How far are you away?"

"I'm bombing it. I'm doing a ton on the A36."

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"What's his start?"

"Hours. Maybe three."

"Jesus f.u.c.k. Who do we call? Tom?"

"Tom? b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. This is his play. This is his boy."

"What then?"

"Tell Rocky to get his head out of his a.r.s.e." "Okay."

"Tell him to look out for a big white Range Rover - big honking thing, won't be able to miss it."

"Watch where you're going. Don't f.u.c.king kill yourself." I won't.

The warm rain was coming sideways from the mountains now and he had to flip the wipers. He turned on the radio again but the reception up here in the wilds was s.h.i.te. All he could get was accordion music from Radio Scotland.

He nixed it when the phone rang again. "Did you get Rocky?" he asked.

"Aye, I did," Sean said.

"Says he wants two grand now."

"Cheeky b.u.g.g.e.r. What did you say?"

"What could I say?"

"Good man. So, what's the story?"

"He found the house, he was right, it's on a country road, right out in the a.r.s.e end of nowhere."

"That's bad for us. No witnesses."

"It is. And there's worse."

"Spill."

"Ivan's already there." "How does he know?"

"He sees the car. Yon big white Range Rover." "d.a.m.n it! I'm hanging up, tell him to call me." "Okay."

The phone rang a few seconds later. "Hi," Killian said.

"This is Rocky, is that you, Killian?"

"Aye."

"Thought you were retired? Off at college or something?"

"You heard wrong. What's going on, mate?"

"I see your boy's car."

"You're at the house?"

"Am I born daft? Good bit down the road, so I am."

"Nice. Now this house, lights are on or off?"

"Off."

"Is he in the car?" "I don't think so." "Hmm."

"Look, I'm going to go a wee bit closer and take a look. I'll call you back.'.

"Wait a minute! Hold the f.u.c.king phone, Rock. This is only a scouting op, okay? You'll do nothing until I get there? Understand?"

"I got ya."

"Make yourself useful. Write down that licence number and check the car. f.u.c.king approach with caution, mind? Our man's a hard case from Yak Central. Be careful."

"Where am I from, Tickletown?"

"Seriously Rock."

"Okay, okay, so do a scout and then what? Go in the house?"

"No, no, no! Wait for me. If he drives off, follow him at a distance and I'll meet you on the road, okay?"

"Okay."

"And mate, please proceed with caution. This character already did a number on me. I'll be along in ten."

"Dead on mate. I will. Over and out."

Killian had reached Ballymena now. Traffic was non-existent. Ballymena was the capital of Free Presbyterian Ulster, it was Paisley Country, Ireland's most conservative town by a country mile and come midnight all good Presbies were long abed. By 1.00 a.m. you could have walked down the high street naked playing the tuba and not a curtain would have twitched.

Killian kept his kit on but he hit 105 mph on the bypa.s.s to Broughshane.

The only people who saw him at all were a couple of smack dealers who were in the middle of a moan about the collapse in prices of real estate, stolen cars and brown tar heroin.

He finally plugged the address into the satnav and a Welsh voice took him through Broughshane, to a spot on the map where there didn't appear to be anything at all - merely green blankness and dotted lines instead of roads.

The windscreen told him the same story: rolling hills, boggy sheep farms, cottages abandoned since the famine and not much else. In the starlight you could see the looming presence of Slemish Mountain, which dominated this part of Country Antrim. St Patrick had been a slave on Slemish for seven years and it had a reputation among Killian's folk as a haunted and unlucky place. Killian, who'd never quite got over his superst.i.tious-in-f.u.c.king-spades childhood, shivered.

The satnav was all Catherine Zeta Jones in the nineties. "You are approaching your destination. You are approaching your destination. You have reached your destination."

"I have?" Killian said and peered out into the gloom.

Nothing.

He was wondering if he'd programmed the thing correctly when he saw a car parked ahead. Not a white Range Rover.

He flipped the Fiesta's headlines to full beam.

Aye, definitely not a Range Rover - a grey Renault Es.p.a.ce, a big family car.

"Rocky's wheels," Killian said to himself.

It unnerved him.

He called Sean.

"Sean, did Rock ever ring you back?"

"Nope. I thought he was calling you."

"He didn't."

"Is there something wrong?"

"I don't know. I see his car but I don't see the Range Rover. Can you give him a buzz while I park."

"Sure."

Killian pulled the Fiesta into the sheugh two hundred yards back from the Renault. He still couldn't see the house from here but it must be just over the dip in the road.

He killed the lights, got out, listened.