“So, when you say there might be a bit of trouble with the coppers…” Jamie had the phone pressed to his ear to listen, a thankful Megan on the other end of the line, speaking twenty to the dozen, at last able to talk to him. Next to him Emmy had the wheel with one hand and the other fastened to his, her eyes straight ahead on the road as they wound their way through the welsh countryside, an exhausted Danny asleep in the back seat, talked out, used up with so many ‘sorry’s’.

Though right now, the next bit wasn’t looking so good. Seamus had of course sweet talked Mrs Murphy, the money what ever it was, would be in her bank account by the morning, and something extra for her trouble too, and “Yes of course he would be out in the summer to take her out for a ride down the coast, it was only the mad buggers that came to Dublin in the winter”. He’d not been so silver tongued to Jamie, not until he heard that the trouble was on account of that Danny Campbell, and that seemed to make it alright, Jamie decided to pick his time with that particular battle. “Will yer tell me mother I will see her later Seamus? I’ve got some business I need to see to” His uncle had laughed, “aye well have one for me too” and put the phone down, Megan however was proving a little more tricky.

“What the fuck?! Cocaine?” Jamie’s exclamation nearly woke Danny up from the depths, Emmy frowned and looked at him with a searching question in her eyes but he was listening to Megan rail about an Inspector Boyne and his flat being raided and a lawyer paid for by a friendly film star “Orlando fucking Bloom? What the hell does he have to do with it? A lawyer though...That bad?...Aye well I know about that part, Danny told me that he told them there was drugs in me flat.” the silence on the other end of the phone was palpable “Megan, Danny is here, in the back of the car with me...look it’s a long story…he hit Emmy…who is she? Ah Christ right, you never met her, well maybe you did a while ago...it is complicated Megan, she works at the Odeon, least she did. Yeah she came with me…no I just met her, sorta anyhow…yeah just like that...look we’ll be back in what? Emmy?”

Emmy shrugged and looked out at the scenery, for a sign, something “4 hours maybe.”

“Meet us at the police station in Camden at 3 ok?...I will tell you about it all over a pint…yeah...’that’s if I am not spending time at Her Majesties Pleasure’ right, thanks fer that. Will you call that lawyer too see if can meet us there? Grand, see yer then”

His fingers pressed ‘End Call’ and Emmy looked over at his face concentrated in a thought, brown eyes back now and definitely in his own skin, saving it being a bit of a preoccupation. “Shit! Well sounds like there’s trouble now whether we like it or not. The coppers are looking for me for class A drugs. Jumpin’ bail being the least of me worries!”

After another stop for bitter black coffee in scalding paper cups the deep greens and Black Mountains turned to the scarred slag heaps of once industrial old South Wales, their threat looming over little places with not enough vowels in them to tempt her tongue, Emmy wriggled down in to the seat to watch him drive, watch his hands lazy on the wheel as it slipped through his fingers and the little licks of his lips as he swung the car round the bends of the valleys. His mind was clearly however someplace else so Emmy let hers slide back to the night before.

It had been a longer wait than she had wanted and Mrs Murphy’s mouth had set in a thin line of worry by the time she finally had gone up to her own bed at 11.30 “Those boys will have been on the black stuff all night to be sure, don’t you go letting him to cause anymore trouble now!”. She had looked with kind eyes, but there was a sense of exasperation in her voice as she considered what she might find undone in the morning, not least to the source of her income. “Are yer sure you won’t go to me sisters down the road?” But leave she had at last, since there were breakfasts to be made at 7.30 am sharp, and Emmy sat alone in the resident’s lounge, flicking between the channels in the dim of the tulip shaped wall lights and the flittering of the real flame effect electric fire.

It was the sort of place that you'd see in one of those museums of real life; as if Mrs Murphy had found the style she was comfortable with some decades ago and saw no need of pandering to change. Like an old pair of tan slacks and V neck in off white polyester from M&S, she knew what she liked and that was simply that. The very air in the room tempted one to try to remember how to play Solitaire, or line up the wooden dominoes from where they were stacked in a musty box on top of Monopoly or Cluedo on the sideboard. Worn and oft repaired, the rope for the murder in the dining room by the po-faced Professor Plum long ago replaced by a bit of old wool, it still stood for a different time, of families gathered round tables with enthralled rosy cheeks before anyone had even thought of lonesome computer games. She had flicked through the worn copy of Lorna Doone on the shelf that sat along side the Readers Digests and Jilly Coopers, but mostly Emmy had fought hard a clenching knot in her stomach that was about being left alone again.

In fact it had been considerably later when he had slipped back through the front door, and taken a first few gentle steps towards the stairs, his eyes however were caught by the soft lamp light in the lounge through the frosted fleur de lys glass panel. Despite they were wide open he had nonetheless taken a moment to notice the small frame curled on the sofa, her hands between her knees and her head deep in the blue velour fringed cushions. But having taken her in, the moment had him stand still, unsure of whether to wake her, to carry her up to their room whose door leant unceremoniously against the wall, to fill her up with stories and explanations and himself. What he had done instead was quietly close the door behind him and slip onto the sofa next to her, wriggling his arm under her head, pulling her into his Dublin damp frosted body and feeling her warm steal into him as his kisses touched her hair. He hadn’t even been sure she was awake really for the softness of her voice when she whispered his name, he was just glad to hear it “Yeah it’s me, Jamie”

“Where’s Danny?” he had felt her start but held her still, his hands pulling her closer still

“He’s alright, don’t worry about him, he’s got lodgings of a sort at Fibber McGees, in the snug at the back. I was a long time...I am sorry…” Her nose and her mouth sought to find the soft dip of his neck, her body seeking to be closer than if they had been naked skin against skin as they had nestled into the indent at the back of the sofa where the springs had almost given up the fight against Ikea. She hadn’t cared not one iota really, how long he had been, a lifetime or two, he was back right then, and if she had considered herself  a singer she might have raised the roof with a halleluh before she had drifted off into happy sleep in the depths of Jamie McGuire

The clunk of cellars being refilled and the street cleaners hovering over the flotsam of the night had woken her to the chinks of Dublin’s grey winter sun straining to get through the curtains. She had lain awake looking at him, wondering if she should trust to let herself get used to doing just that, Christ it would almost be worth making a deal with the dawn chorus all the same. She had been so busy feeling and looking at this man squashed so close that their breath was the same one, that she had hardly noticed him opening his eyes, neither of them able to move and in no hurry to unstick themselves from each others bones.

“What are yer thinking Emmy?” His own thought on the matter had however pressed against her belly.

“I am thinking that Mrs Murphy will really call the Garda if you do anything with that. There’ll be guests wanting to watch ‘Good Morning Eire’ with their cup of tea coming through them doors any moment now”

He was hard to resist all the same and a fleeting thought had crossed her mind about pushing the huge winged chair up against the door and be done with it, a thought he winked at as she groaned just a little under his weight “Ah sure well stay where you are fer now though eh? I don’t want to feel cold air just yet” and so they had let desire smolder between them while he told her all that he and Joe and Danny and Aaron had thrown at each other in the hours of the night. About the coppers Danny had set on him back home and how he might not have been himself, might have been that Joe Byrne, but for that the tears that had poured down his face had been his and the words from his mouth all his own.

An hour or so later in the damp morning street, their goodbyes to Mrs Murphy having been taken care of with the aid of Seamus, they had stood outside the pub waiting for Danny, the car engine idling out its fumes into the chill. In truth they had almost to raise hell for someone to open the door, but Danny looked to have  been there and back anyway for shadows around his face. She hadn’t been so sure she was ready for the hug he had tentatively offered as they stood close by the open car door, an invitation to him that the next bit they would do together, but she had extended her hand instead, a reach through time that for now would do, an acceptance of a sort.

But right now they were hurtling back down the motorway, having left the sea and the mountains behind them and at last nearing London, all awake and ready almost to face anything.

Megan was already there, pacing up and down outside on the gum pocked pavement, looking up and down the street every time that a car passed, searching for familiar faces. If she had been able to untangle the threads of anxiety it would have been impossible to say which was pulling at her most, the likelihood that Jamie was going to be shuffled off with his hands behind his back whatever that fancy lawyer said, or meeting Danny face to face. Jamie she nodded to herself had been in a few more scrapes that most and always seemed to come out smelling of roses. Danny however…well there was that, and this women Jamie had picked up. Jesus these men would be the death of her, maybe they already had, but it seemed that either way they were all tied up right now, whatever their fates.

At last she saw them, a rather down at heel posse from along the street, High Noon in Camden evidently a less stylish affair and not even a tick of a large white clock, but all the same Megan swallowed hard as her eyes caught Danny’s. Meeting only apologies and a question in his uncertain, awkward movement she gave him a short nod and instead turned to smile at the woman who seemed to have a death grip on Jamie’s hand, before she put her own arms out to hold him. “Jesus, am I glad to see you… though I could ring your neck all the same.”

Jamie held her back to smile in her face “yer missed me then Lass? Ah now where are me manners? This is Emmy, she and I, well we go a way back that we didn’t know about ‘til a day or two ago” he checked her face for anything that suggested disapproval before putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, more by way of holding him steady than anything else. “Me and Danny, well we sorted out some stuff yer know?...Christ, Megan, will I tell yer later? Much as it makes any sense anyways? Right now I need to get this fuckin’ mess sorted out” His eyes glanced through the door to the police station with some concern “Is there a sign of the lawyer?”

Megan frowned some more and shrugged her shoulders “He said he would be here as soon as he could, you know how those fellas are. You’d best go in Jamie, get this over with. That Inspector Boyne was after your blood...sorry bad metaphor.”

He could feel his own wince echoed in Emmy’s hand, which tightened again around his. She was scared, he knew it, more for the memories and the fears that she carried with her than right here now, but taking a deep breath he spoke quietly to her ear “It will be alright, you know that it will. This isn’t Benalla Emmy, they can’t do just whatever they please anymore” and with that he pushed open the door, determined steps through the rows of plastic chairs  to address the desk sergeant “ I am Jamie McGuire, I believe you lot have a warrant fer my arrest, thought I’d save yer the trouble of finding me”

Behind him another voice spoke too “Aye and I want to change my statement, I need to see Inspector Boyne.” Danny at his shoulder and, with steady eyes, they watched the sudden flurry of activity behind the desk.

*

Jamie couldn’t quite look at her as the coppers did what he knew they would, one on either side and manhandled though the security door that led back to the cells, instead he closed his eyes and prayed that she wouldn’t cry. Don’t let them see you. The door banged shut all over again, he sat back against the wall and settled down to wait.

In fact outside the sealed room there was a great deal of activity. Just down the corridor Danny was sitting stoic, retracting his statement of assault, withdrawing his accusation of drug possession and taking the bile of the copper opposite him with dead pan determination. “I don’t have to explain why officer, I just need you to write it down”.

Further along Inspector Boyne, who had sent a junior officer off to interview Danny, paced the open plan office, his Sergeant keeping his head down in the paperwork and the kettle boiling on it’s own in the corner, preparing for a long session with ‘that bloody McGuire’. “We’ve got him now Sergeant! He thinks he so smart, but we’ve got him now!”

In slightly more salubrious surroundings the sharp creases of an even sharper suit worn by Mr Gaunson were displayed as he sat amicably in the leather chair the other side of the hardwood table of the Superintendent of the Camden Police Force. They shared what might have been considered a familiar joke even as he, at last, flipped open a thin elegant portfolio that seemed at odds with it’s contents: an arrest sheet, several statements and a warrant all containing the name James McGuire. “Not your usual type of client if I may say, David” the Superintendents eyes flickered with some interest as to the reason for this visit.

“Lord no…never even met the chap, but wheels within wheels Peter, and I have a mortgage to pay, a considerable one at that, and it is overlooking the Thames! This boy evidently has some friends outside of the depths of Kilburn. Any chance I might see him? I understand he turned himself in about half an hour ago. Save me another journey eh? And of course that is his legal right…”

The Superintendent grinned “you don’t have to play those games with me David, I’ll have one of my officers take you there right away, though it seems pretty cut and dried if I may say so…but listen, next Saturday…you still on for the match?”

“You try keeping me away! Give my regards to Linda!” and with that he had followed the officer who had been waiting outside the room along a scrubbed corridor, his heels clicking on the polished floor that led to the white cell door.

Jamie’s eyes were directly on him as soon as he stepped in, rather disconcertingly so he thought to himself but he forced an effusive smile all the same. “Mr McGuire…I am David Gaunson, your lawyer. I understand you are in a spot of bother…”