Mby 1

Chapter One

The big man at the end of the bar is sweating, He holds his head low over his double Scotch, but every few minutes he glances up and out, behind him, towards the door. A fine sheen of perspiration glistens under the strip-lights. He lets out a long, shaky breath, disguised as a sigh, and turns back to his drink.

‘Hey. Excuse me?’

I look up from polishing glasses.

‘Can I get another one here?’

 I want to tell him it's really not a good idea, that it won't help. That it might even put him over the limit. But he's a big guy and it's fifteen minutes till closing time and, according to company guidelines, I have no reason to tell him no, so I walk over, take his glass and hold it up to the optic. He nods at the bottle. Double, he says, and slides a fat hand down his damp face.

‘That'll be seven pounds twenty, please.’

It's a quarter to eleven on a Tuesday night and the Shamrock and Clover, East City Airport's Irish-themed pub, which is as Irish as Mahatma Gandhi, is winding down for the night. The bar closes ten minutes after the last plane takes off, and right now it's just me, an intense young man with a laptop, the cack- ling women at table two and the man nursing a double Jameson's waiting for either the SC107 to Stockholm or the DB224 to Munich-the latter has been delayed for forty minutes. I've been on since midday, as Carly has a stomach-ache and went home. I don't mind. I never mind staying late. Humming softly to Celtic Pipes of the Emerald Isle, Vol. III, I walk over and