Now he couldn’t get the image out of his head of that sweet little weapon half sunk in the sand at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

A Belfast bloke he had met in one of the Soho clubs had given him the name of a fellow here who dealt in the kind of hardware he was looking for. Lenny something was the fellow’s name – Terry had the information written down on the back of an envelope at the hotel, his full name, and a telephone number where he could be contacted. He would go back in a while and give him a call, arrange a meeting at The Hangman, for old times’ sake, if the place was still there. But first he felt like a drink.

He wandered over to Wynn’s – this was turning into a right old stroll down Memory Lane – and sat in the front bar and ordered a pint of bitter. The barman wore a crisp white shirt, dicky bow and tartan waistcoat. Terry liked the people serving him to be properly dressed. This fellow was no genius, though. Didn’t know what pale ale was.

‘Pale ale?’ Terry said, with a disbelieving laugh. ‘It’s beer. Whitbread. Fuller’s London Pride.’

The lummox nodded and grinned, but still couldn’t understand. Terry was beginning to have serious doubts about Dublin. Maybe he should have gone to the Isle of Man, or Jersey, or somewhere like that – Canada, even. He had the funds, he could have gone anywhere, but home sweet home had called to him. He grinned to himself. Home – this place? Nowhere was home. Footloose and fancy-free, the world his oyster, that was how he liked to keep it.

In the end, he settled for a half-pint of Smithwick’s. It had a soapy taste, but it was ale, and it was pale. He lit a Capstan, and looked around the bar. Lots of mahogany and brass – the usual. Reminded him of a place near the Seven Dials, out the back of which one night he had shot a fellow in the face. A gyppo, he was, and had been putting the squeeze on one of Percy’s pansy friends. Nice quiet pub, though, decent clientele, not your usual crowd of spivs and five-bob tarts. Pity he wouldn’t see it again, not from the inside. He would never go back into a place where he’d done a job. It was another one of his rules.

Two priests were sitting at the far end of the bar, each with a tumbler of whiskey in his fist. No change here, then. Red-faced, well-fed, and half-crocked already. He thought again of Brother Harkness, but made himself stop. Didn’t want that curtain of red mist coming down again inside his head. Shooting priests was frowned on, over here. Anyway, no gun, remember? Felt half-naked, he did, without a piece in his pocket.