I Hear the Sirens in the Street

sun.
    “His natural skin colour is quite pale, isn’t it?” Crabbie said, looking at the area where his shorts had been.
    “It is,” I agreed. “That is certainly some tan on him. Where would he get a tan like that around these parts, do you think?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’ll bet he’s a swimmer and that’s the tan line for a pair of Speedos. That’s probably how he kept himself in shape too. Swimming in an outdoor pool.”
    Northern Ireland of course had few swimming baths and no outdoor pools, and not much sunshine, which led, of course, to Crabbie’s next question:
    “You’re thinking he’s not local, aren’t you?” Crabbie said.
    “I am,” I agreed.
    “That won’t be good, will it?” Crabbie muttered.
    “No, my friend, it will not.”
    I stamped my feet and rubbed my hands together. The snow was coming down harder now and the grim north Belfast suburbs were turning the colour of old lace. A cold wind was blowing up from the lough and that music in my head was still playingon an endless loop. I closed my eyes and tripped on it for a few bars: a violin, a viola, a cello, two pianos, a flute and a glass harmonica. The flute played the melody on top of glissando-like runs from the pianos – the first piano playing that Chopinesque descending ten-on-one ostinato while the second played a more sedate six-on-one.
    “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Let’s see if we can find any papers in the case,” Crabbie said, interrupting my reverie.
    We looked but found nothing and then went back to the Land Rover to call it in. Matty, our forensics officer, and a couple of Reservists showed up in boiler suits and began photographing the crime scene and taking fingerprints and blood samples.
    Army helicopters flew low over the lough, sirens wailed in County Down, a distant thump-thump was the sound of mortars or explosions. The city was under a shroud of chimney smoke and the cinematographer, as always, was shooting it in 8mm black and white. This was Belfast in the fourteenth year of the low-level civil war euphemistically known as The Troubles.
    The day wore on. The grey snow clouds turned perse and black. The yellow clay-like sea waited torpidly, dreaming of wreck and carnage. “Can I go?” Crabbie asked. “If I miss the start of Dallas I’ll never get caught up. The missus gets the Ewings and Barneses confused.”
    “Go, then.”
    I watched the forensic boys work and stood around smoking until an ambulance came to take the John Doe to the morgue at Carrickfergus Hospital.
    I drove back to Carrick police station and reported my findings to my boss, Chief Inspector Brennan: a large, shambolic man with a Willy Lomanesque tendency to shout his lines.
    “What are your initial thoughts, Duffy?” he asked.
    “It was freezing out there, sir. Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, we had to eat the horses, we’re lucky to be alive.”
    “Your thoughts about the victim?”
    “I have a feeling it’s a foreigner. Possibly a tourist.”
    “That’s bad news.”
    “Yeah, I don’t think he’ll be giving the old place an ‘A’ rating in those customer satisfaction surveys they pass out at the airport.”
    “Cause of death?”
    “We can probably rule out suicide,” I said.
    “How did he die?”
    “I don’t know yet – I suppose having your head chopped off doesn’t help much though, does it? Rest assured that our crack team is on it, sir.”
    “Where is DC McCrabban?” Brennan asked.
    “ Dallas , sir.”
    “And he told me he was afraid to fly, the lying bastard.”
    Chief Inspector Brennan sighed and tapped the desk with his forefinger, unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) spelling out “ass” in Morse.
    “If it is a foreigner, you appreciate that this is going to be a whole thing, don’t you?” he muttered.
    “Aye.”
    “I foresee paperwork and more paperwork and a powwow from the Big Chiefs and you possibly getting superseded by some goon from Belfast.”
    “Not for some dead tourist, surely, sir?”
    “We’ll see. You’ll not throw a fit if you do get passed over will you? You’ve grown up now, haven’t you, Sean?”
    Neither of us could quickly forget the fool I’d made of myself the last time a murder case had been taken away from me …
    “I’m a changed man, sir. Team player. Kenny Dalglish not Kevin Keegan. If the case gets pushed upstairs I will give them every assistance and obey every order. I’ll stick with you right to the bunker, sir.”
    “Let’s hope it