Now and in the Hour of Our Death by Patrick Taylor Page A

taking Windy out tomorrow? Forecast’s good.”
    â€œLove to.” He’d started taking her sailing in April, and she’d taken to it like a duck to water. “Where’ll we go? Where the wind blows?”
    â€œBowen Island?”
    Around them the hum of the conversations of the other diners was punctuated by the gulls outside that bickered like the women of the Falls hanging out their washing and calling insults to their neighbours across the backyard fences.
    â€œLovely. I’d enjoy…” Fiona was conscious of someone standing near her.
    A harsh voice said in a thick Belfast accent, “’Scuse me. Fiona? Fiona Kavanagh? I don’t mean to interrupt like, but…”
    She knew that voice. She spun in her seat. She no longer could hear the sounds of background conversations, the mewling of the gulls.
    A short man shot out his lower jaw, grinned, and said, “ It is . It is, so it is. How’s about ye?” He turned to Tim. “I didn’t mean to intrude, like, but I’ve not seen herself there for about ten years and the missus says to me, so she does … she’s over there in the smoking bit … Siobhan’s with her. She’s my daughter,” he explained to Tim. Jimmy pointed to a table in the corner. “The missus says, says she, ‘See you that there woman who’s just come in? She looks a hell of lot like Davy’s Fiona.’ ‘Away off and chase yourself,’ says I, but the more I looked…” He held out his hand to Tim. “Jimmy Ferguson, by the way.”
    â€œTim Andersen.”
    Fiona glanced across the room to where two women sat, one middle-aged, the other young, tall, with waist-length blonde hair. They waved. Fiona waved back.
    â€œJesus, Fiona, the things you see when you don’t have a gun.”
    Gun. She flinched. Guns. Belfast. Jimmy Ferguson, housepainter and ex-Provo. The last time she’d seen Jimmy in Belfast, she’d run into him, quite by accident, in Smithfield Market, after she’d left Davy. She’d asked Jimmy to give her regards to Davy, and he’d phoned her. Asked her to meet him.
    She took a deep breath. “Are you living in Vancouver, Jimmy?”
    â€œAye. Me and the missus emigrated to join Siobhan in Toronto. She sponsored us. She’d been out there for a while. You mind she’d been visiting us when…? She went back after…”
    After—after Davy had met with her, told her he would leave the Provos and come to Canada—and the feelings she’d had that night flooded back. She slipped her hands under the table, not wanting Tim to see how much they trembled. After—after he’d done one more mission, the mission that had blown up in his face as Jimmy’s appearance here tonight had exploded in hers.
    â€œYes.” Fiona’s voice was cold. “I do.” She could see Tim’s brow wrinkle.
    Jimmy’s jaw flicked. “Aye, well, we’ll say no more about that . Anyroad, I’d enough saved up for to buy a wee painting business in Toronto. But the winters was fierce, so they were. I tell you, when I go to hell, ould Beelzebub won’t be asking me to stoke the furnace. He’ll hand me a snow shovel.” Jimmy tittered at his own joke. “I sold up and bought a partnership in a place out here a couple of years back. And do you live here, too, Fiona?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œI’ll be damned. Small world. I knew you’d come to Canada after us. Me and Davy still write to each other. He told me you’d come.”
    He wrote to Davy.
    Jimmy blethered on. “I’ll tell you one thing: You’ve not lost your Ulster accent.”
    â€œNor you, Jimmy.”
    â€œStill thick as champ.”
    â€œThat’s creamed potatoes, scallions, and buttermilk, Tim.”
    Tim’s frown had deepened. “Pay no attention to me. You two carry on.”
    â€œI’m