I could be doing with something like that on my CV, to be honest with you! No, I’ll tell you what it is, Pat—the station’s been burned down!”
Pat gulped as he felt the color drain from his face.
“Ah no, Sergeant!” he chokingly replied. “Not the lovely station where you’ve spent God knows how many years toiling away in the service of the community!”
“Burned to a crisp, Pat!” the sergeant confirmed wearily. “The ganger told me this very minute. She’ll have to be built from the ground up.”
“Jesus Mary and Joseph, Sergeant!” gasped Pat.
The sergeant’s face grew tense.
“You can say that again, Pat. I’d say you’re looking at the guts of half a million.”
Pat could not believe his ears.
“Half a million!” he croaked.
“At the very least,” nodded the sergeant, continuing, “Well—I wouldn’t like to be in Guard Timmoney’s shoes, that’s all I can say.”
Pat was puzzled.
“Guard Timmoney?” he asked.
The sergeant drew a long, deep breath.
“Him and his deep-fat fryers,” he said. “Well—you know what this means, don’t you, Pat?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” agreed Pat, before diffidently adding, “What, Sergeant?”
“I’ll have to stop with you for a while. That’s the best way out of it. I can do my investigating from here.”
Pat felt the skin above his eyes tightening.
“Investigating?” he wondered. “What investigating?”
Without warning, the sergeant drew himself up to his full height and became stiff as a plank, delivering himself of the following sentence in a tone that was unmistakably frosty, officious, and uncompromising.
“I would appreciate it if you would account for your movements between the hours of three A.M. and seven A.M. on Thursday the seventeenth of September last.”
He paused and went on, “Well?”
Waspishly, Pat replied, “I was here!”
There was no mistaking the officer of the law’s wide grin. “Sure don’t I know you were, Pat, you auld cod you! I’m only pretending to be invesdgating! Slagging you, like!”
Pat felt such a fool, his downcast eyes as small reconnaissance spaceships endeavoring to decode the complexity of his situation as he raised his head and, crimson-cheeked, replied, “Of course, Sergeant! Oh, aye! Of course! Sergeant—do you hear the old carry-on I’m going on with!”
The sergeant sank his right hand deep in his pocket and said, “Indeed and I do surely, Pat! Sure don’t I know you from when you were a nipper! And your father!”
“That’s right, Sergeant!” replied Pat, a warm feeling beginning to assert itself in the region of his abdomen.
“And your mother!” continued Sergeant Foley.
‘Yes!” affirmed Pat, touching some crumbly clay with the toe of his Wellington.
“And all belonging to you!”
“All belonging to me!” grinned Pat. “Like they say in the films—yes sir!”
“Yes “beamed the sergeant.
“Yes Sir.’”grinned Pat, perspiring a litde uncomfortably.
The sergeant shook his head.
“Oh now!” he went on. “Don’t be talking! Pat, do you know what I was just thinking? You must be tired from all that digging you’re doing there. Are you not exhausted?”
Pat was a litde taken aback by the sergeant’s sudden concern and hastened to reassure him.
“Exhausted?” he replied. “No, Sergeant! Sure, what would have me exhausted?”
“Digging, Pat!” came the sergeant’s brusque reply. “Digging a hole for the body!”
A sickening taste came into Pat’s mouth.
“For the body?” he replied weakly.
“Aye!” the sergeant replied. “The latest one, I mean!”
The corners of Pat’s mouth jerked like the flick of whip.
“Oh, aye!” he laughed. “The latest one!”
The sergeant nodded.
“Sure that would have anyone exhausted! Not to mention the poor fellow that has to go and prove it!”
A muscle leaped in Pat’s right cheek—-just under his eye.
“Oh, aye!” he said. “Sure it’d be nearly as hard on him in the long run! Having to gather up all the evidence and everything!”
“And then go and convince the bloody judge! And you know what they’re like! Think it was us was on trial or something! I say, you know what they’re like, my old friend!”
Pat threw back his head.
“What they’re like?” he guffawed. “Oh, now, Sergeant, don’t be talking!”
Pat frowned and grasped the shaft of the spade tightly. His fingers left sweat marks, he noted.
“Don’t be talking to me now!” he chortled, although less insouciantly than he would have preferred.
“I will not!” declared the sergeant abruptly. “I’ll say nothing more to you now, only maybe yourself and myself go right up there to the old McNab Hotel and have ourselves a great big hot mug of tay this very second! What do you say, Pat?”
A huge sense of relief seemed to sweep over Pat McNab as he released his grip on the spade and smiled, saying, “You know what I’d say to