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earlier, walking in the direction of the Urney Road, according to the boy serving at the counter.
    We returned to the house where the immigrants lived, but there was no response to our banging on the door. No lights shone from any of the windows, despite the encroaching dark.
    I sat outside the house until 2 a.m. waiting for someone to return. When it became apparent that this was not going to happen, I reluctantly made my way home, wondering what further suffering my actions had caused Natalia.

Chapter Seven
     
    Saturday, 7 October
     
    The following morning I finally did what I should have done all along and contacted Jim Hendry, my counterpart in the North, asking him to meet me at the house. I was not wholly surprised when I drove over in my own car that morning to find the remains of Almurzayev’s house charred and smouldering, the heat still palpable from the ruins. A fire tender was still there, finishing what had been several hours’ work for the local fire service. Panic rising, I asked one of the firemen at the scene about fatalities and was relieved to learn that there had been no one in the house. It did not, however, remove the dread from my conscience that something would happen to Natalia. In attempting to save her from deportation, I had left her to a much worse fate.
    Hendry arrived a few minutes after me. We sat in my car, watching the last firemen picking up pieces of debris and throwing them out into the garden. I explained what had happened the night before and all that had brought me to that point. He was, unsurprisingly, pissed off, both at our incursion into the North and at my failure to tell him about the house or its occupants.
    ‘We got reports of gunfire last night, outside Artigarvan. One of our men spotted the accident site where your car must have hit. We figured it couldn’t be that bad if the car had been able to drive off again,’ he said, bitterly.
    ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I didn’t know what else to do,’ I explained.
    ‘Ignorance is no excuse. You should have told us you were coming across here, Devlin. Following suspects; withholding information relating to a crime; losing a houseful of illegal immigrants,’ he said, counting each incident off on his fingers. ‘You’ve royally fucked this one up.’
    I wanted to argue, to defend myself on the grounds of good intentions, but I knew he was right. ‘I got the registration plate,’ I said, as if this in some way compensated for the mess I had caused.
    ‘Not a silver Ford Fiesta by any chance, was it?’ he asked.
    I nodded.
    ‘Burnt out at the head of the town. No doubt it was stolen,’ he said. ‘You’ve got fuck-all, Devlin.’
    ‘Have you traced it?’ I asked.
    ‘Are you telling me my job?’ Hendry exploded. ‘Fuck you. Piss off back to Lifford.’
    With that he got out of the car, slammed the door and went over to talk with the firemen. I started the engine and drove off.
    It was scant consolation that he was less annoyed with me than Patterson was. The Super almost had a stroke when I explained to him what had happened. He told me he would have suspended me on the spot if plans for the Hagan visit on Monday hadn’t been so far advanced, and had Weston not seemed so keen to have me involved. I would pay for it in the long run, he warned me, before we left for another meeting at Orcas. I didn’t doubt it.
    Weston was less solicitous during our meeting this time. He said little as we ran through arrangements for Hagan’s visit. We would meet the Senator at the border after he had conducted a few engagements in Derry. Two unmarked cars would accompany him to Orcas through Lifford and Ballybofey; Hagan would travel with his own two security men, ex-Secret Service. I would be in one of the cars with a second escort behind, whilst Patterson would take care of dealings with Weston personally. Local Gardai would be on the ground at Orcas, ensuring crowd control, though the only crowd would be a small group of local