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there was a light powdering of snow at the side of the runway as the Lear jet lifted off. As they leveled off, Mary said, “How do you feel?”

“I’m not sure,” Brosnan said. “It’s been a long time since I was in Belfast. Liam Devlin, Anne-Marie. So long ago.”

“And Sean Dillon?”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t forgetting him, I could never do that.”

He turned and stared far out into the distance as the Lear jet lifted up out of the clouds and turned north-west.

Although Dillon wasn’t aware of it, Brosnan and Mary had already landed and were on their way to the Europa Hotel when his flight touched down at Aldergrove airport outside Belfast. There was a half-hour wait for the baggage, and when he got his case, he made for the green line and followed a stream of people through. Customs officers stopped some, but he wasn’t one of them, and within five minutes he was outside and into a taxi.

“English, are you?” the driver asked.

Dillon slipped straight into his Belfast accent. “And what makes you think that?”

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” the driver said. “Anywhere special?”

“I’d like a hotel in the Falls Road,” Dillon said. “Somewhere near Craig Street.”

“You won’t get much round there.”

“Scenes of my youth,” Dillon told him. “I’ve been working in London for years. Just in town for business overnight. Thought I’d like to see the old haunts.”

“Suit yourself. There’s the Deepdene, but it’s not much, I’m telling you.”

A Saracen armored car passed then, and as they turned into a main road, they saw an Army patrol. “Nothing changes,” Dillon said.

“Sure and most of those lads weren’t even born when the whole thing started,” the driver told him. “I mean, what are we in for? Another Hundred Years’ War?”

“God knows,” Dillon said piously and opened his paper.

The driver was right. The Deepdene wasn’t much. A tall Victorian building in a mean side street off the Falls Road. He paid off the driver, went in and found himself in a shabby hall with a worn carpet. When he tapped the bell on the desk, a stout, motherly woman emerged.

“Can I help you, dear?”

“A room,” he said. “Just the one night.”

“That’s fine.” She pushed a register at him and took a key down. “Number nine on the first floor.”

“Shall I pay now?”

“Sure and there’s no need for that. Don’t I know a gentleman when I see one?”

He went up the stairs, found the door and unlocked it. The room was as shabby as he’d expected, a single brass bedstead, a wardrobe. He put his case on the table and went out again, locking the door, then went the other way along the corridor and found the back stairs. He opened the door at the bottom into an untidy backyard. The lane beyond backed onto incredibly derelict houses, but it didn’t depress him in the slightest. This was an area he knew like the back of his hand, a place where he’d led the British Army one hell of a dance in his day. He moved along the alley, a smile on his face, remembering, and turned into the Falls Road.

ELEVEN

“I REMEMBER THEM opening this place in seventy-one,” Brosnan said to Mary. He was standing at the window of the sixth-floor room of the Europa Hotel in Great Victoria Street next to the railway station. “For a while it was a prime target for IRA bombers, the kind who’d rather blow up anything rather than nothing.”

“Not you, of course.”

There was a slight, sarcastic edge which he ignored. “Certainly not. Devlin and I appreciated the bar too much. We came in all the time.”

She laughed in astonishment. “What nonsense. Are you seriously asking me to believe that with the British Army chasing you all over Belfast you and Devlin sat in the Europa’s bar?”

“Also the restaurant on occasion. Come on, I’ll show you. Better take our coats, just in case we get a message while we’re down there.”

As they were descending in the lift, she said, “You’re not armed, are you?”

“No.”

“Good, I’d rather keep it that way.”

“How about you?”

“Yes,” she said calmly. “But that’s different. I’m a serving officer of Crown Forces in an Active Service zone.”

“What are you carrying?”

She opened her handbag and gave him a brief glimpse of the weapon. It was not much larger than the inside of her hand, a small automatic.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Rather rare. An old Colt .25. I picked it up in Africa.”

“Hardly an elephant gun.”

“No, but it does the job.” She smiled bleakly. “As