“What Suzuki?” His surprise seemed genuine enough.
“With Lucky Strike paintwork. It was on the ferry yesterday, came past us on the road up to the Giant’s Causeway this morning, and was in the car park at Bushmills.”
Daz’s face cleared and he shrugged. “No idea, mate. You worry too much,” he said. “Look, I’ll see the pair of you in the morning, yeah? Just do me a favour and don’t tell the others what I’ve told you.” He gave a rueful smile. “Old Paxo’s sulking enough with me as it is.”
It was only after he’d closed the door behind him that I stood and turned to Sean. “Why is he lying about knowing who’s on that Suzuki?”
“Who knows?” Sean said, getting to his feet himself. He collected the empty coffee mugs and put them back on the tray with the kettle. “I reckon he’s probably given us most of the full story there, but he’s still holding back.”
“Are you going to call Madeleine and see what she can dig out on any hooky diamonds?”
“Mm,” he said, distracted, moving across to flick on the bedside lamp and slip the chain onto the door. “I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” I glanced at the bedside clock in surprise. “It’s not that late. Why not do it now?”
“Why?” Sean echoed softly, closing in on me with such plain intent that my mouth dried even as a sliding heat drenched slowly through my belly. “Because I’ve been alone in a room with you, Charlie – and a bed – for
He backed me up until I bumped against the wall by the door with a breathless laugh. Suddenly his hands had infiltrated my shirt without me ever knowing how he’d undone the buttons. “That’s why,” he murmured against my tipped-back throat.
“Really?” I managed, my voice a gasp as my eyes went blind. “You must be losing your touch . . .
Twenty-three
The next day, Saturday, we rode down to Dublin. We left Portaferry just after breakfast, took the five-minute ferry trip across the Narrows to Strangford, then climbed through the spectacular Mourne Mountains to cross the border at Newry.
I’d been expecting more of a checkpoint but instead all I saw were the signposts suddenly swapping into kilometres, an extraordinary number of adverts for fireworks, and billboards proclaiming the innocence of the Colombian Three.
The main N1 road to Dublin was not dual carriageway for the most part, but it was wide enough for easy overtaking and, I was surprised to discover, most of the slower moving traffic obligingly put two wheels onto the generous hard shoulder to let you zip past with minimal exposure. Only the tourists seemed to stay out and hog the white line.
We made good time over the ninety miles or so, stopping only once just outside Balbriggan for fuel and a break in a little roadside cafe. We dragged two tables together and all sat, apparently a united group, but I could feel the divisions snake and rip between us. The tension was so manifest it practically needed its own chair. Nearly all the boys bore the marks of last night’s scuffle and Paxo was still limping slightly.
Sean went to the counter for the pair of us and came back with two bottles of mineral water so cold the outside of the glass ran with condensation. As he put mine down in front of me he reached out and casually brushed a strand of hair back from my face.
I froze at the simple intimacy of the gesture, without immediately knowing why. Then it hit me. In all the time Sean and I had been together before, we’d had to hide that fact from the outside world. In the army, regulations had forbidden him from fraternising with his trainees – certainly on the kind of level we’d risked.
And afterwards, in Germany and in America, we’d been doing our best to pretend that all we had between us was a working relationship. This openness was a new and vaguely disturbing development and, I realised as I gave him a belated smile, it was going to take some getting used to.
Paxo was still barely speaking to Daz. As soon as he’d finished his drink he muttered about going outside for a fag, colouring furiously as his unintentional
Daz sighed and would have followed him, but William put a hand on his arm.
“I’d leave him be, if I were you,” William said, his voice bland. “His preconceptions of you have taken a bit of a battering of late, but he’ll come round.”
Tess made a noise under her breath and pushed her own chair back, following Paxo outside. A moment later Jamie rose with a smile and went after her. Through the cafe window we could see Tess cadging a cigarette from Paxo as the three of them lurked together in the car park.
“Are they plotting my downfall, do you think?” Daz murmured.
“Well, somebody is,” I said. “We still need to find out who set Davey and his gang onto us in Portaferry. And we need to find out before you make this pickup on Sunday.”
William’s eyebrows climbed over the rim of his mug of tea. “You let them in on it, then?” he said evenly to Daz.
“I didn’t really think I could keep them out of the loop any longer, mate,” Daz said, sneaking a sly sideways glance at Sean as he spoke. “Without them we would have been in real trouble last night.” He rubbed ruefully at the plaster on his eyebrow.
William considered that one in silence for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. He eyed me assessingly. “You cut in on the cash, too?”
“Not interested,” Sean said briskly, speaking for both of us. He flashed a quick smile. “Although if it will make you feel better about it, I’ll invoice you for our professional services when we get back.”
