‘But why would anyone want to warn you, Liam? The UDA don’t normally bother issuing warnings, do they?’

She was right, of course. In recent years there had been an unspoken agreement between the various political groupings not to assassinate the top echelons, an understanding that the leaders had to be able to talk with their opposite numbers without the constant fear of a shotgun blast through the letterbox or a pistol to the back of the neck. The Brighton bombing had shown that no one was safe, not even the Prime Minister, and the whole world had seen a President take a bullet from a lone gunman. The Paisleys and the Adamses and the Hennessys wouldn’t last a week if they ever declared open season on each other, but as it was they could move fairly safely through the city. They still kept their bodyguards and trusted the opposition about as much as they trusted the British Government, but the bad old days when a bodyguard had to take a bullet in the shoulder to protect Hennessy were long gone. But if the truce was now over, there’d be no warning, they’d just cut him down with a hail of bullets as he got out of his car. They wouldn’t mess around with do-it-yourself bombs. No, this couldn’t be political. But if it wasn’t political, what was it?

He stood up and put his hand gently under Mary’s chin, tilting her head upwards. ‘There was a man came round to the office yesterday, a Chinaman. His wife and daughter were killed in one of the London bombings. He thinks I’m responsible.’

‘He came all the way to Belfast to see you?’

‘He wants me to tell him who’s behind the bombing campaign. I sent him packing and a few minutes later our toilet exploded. Now this.’

She shook her head away from his hand. ‘Why haven’t you told the police this?’

‘We’re not sure it’s him. And anyway, it’s the sort of thing we can handle ourselves.’

‘Liam!’ she said angrily. ‘You’re playing with our lives here!’

‘If it is him we’ll soon stop him, don’t worry. He’s Chinese, he won’t be difficult to spot in Belfast.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ she said. The look of concern had gone now, and it had been replaced by something else, something that seemed to Hennessy to be uncomfortably like contempt. It was a look that his wife was giving him more and more often these days, he thought with a heavy heart. He couldn’t seem to do anything right. He decided not to try to win her around, knowing that he was sure to fail.

‘I’ll be in the study until Jim and Christy get here,’ he said as he walked out of the kitchen. Jackie rushed out from under the table, her claws clicking against the tiles, and loyally followed him out.

He went into his study and closed the door. Jackie went to her wicker basket by the side of the french window which led on to the small patio and she settled into it with a deep and mournful sigh as if offering sympathy for the rough treatment he was getting from Mary. He knew that she would prefer him to take a tougher line with the Protestant extremists, and on more than one occasion she’d urged him to mount an all-out offensive against the UDA. It was so strange, he thought, the way that he himself had mellowed over the years and she had become more and more committed to an armed struggle. The more he tried to persuade her that the only solution was a negotiated one, the more she seemed to turn away from him, physically and emotionally. But he knew that he was right, that his way was the only way forward. Anything else would only end in bloodshed. Knowing that he was right didn’t make him feel any better.