‘Why would I have changed my mind?’ said Hennessy quietly.

‘You know why,’ said Nguyen.

Hennessy took a deep breath. ‘I think that perhaps it would be a good idea if we spoke about this again. It might be we can come to an arrangement. Come back and we’ll talk.’

Nguyen laughed without humour. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘You will not see me again, Mr Hennessy. But you will be hearing from me.’

‘It will take a lot more than a loud noise in my toilet to change my mind.’

‘So be it,’ said Nguyen, and hung up.

‘The bastard,’ spat Hennessy. ‘Who the hell does he think he is, threatening me like that?’ He slammed down the phone and glared at the two men by his desk.

‘Get his description to the boys,’ he said. ‘I want him found.’

‘It might be an idea if yez left Belfast for a few days, just in case,’ suggested Kavanagh.

‘Are you telling me that you can’t protect me in my own city?’ said Hennessy.

‘I’m not saying that, but it would be easier if we went down to yez farm. That’s all.’

‘No,’ said Hennessy. ‘He is not driving me out of my own city, he’s not going to make me run like a scared dog. Just put the word out.’

He waved them away impatiently and flopped down into his chair. He took a mouthful of whiskey, and then another. He knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper, but the bombing had shaken him badly. It made him acutely aware of his own mortality, that his own threescore years and ten wasn’t all that far away, and the fact that a vindictive Chinaman with a bottle of antifreeze could steal away the years he had left made him very angry. And afraid. The supercilious detective had said it had been a warning. Very well, he would regard it as just that.