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now you're going to have to lie in it with that big fucking whale.
     
    At a little after seven he met Stirling at the Clifton Diner. They ate eggs and bacon while Stirling hummed and hawed over a press statement he'd typed up about the illustrious Pongo. By rights it should have gone through headquarters, but Corrigan didn't mind his partner having his little moment in the public eye. He'd probably shuffle into the photographs himself. There'd been half a dozen reporters outside the station. All of them for the swimmer. Evidently the station wasn't as leaky as he'd thought.
    Although the summer rush to the Falls was over and business was now winding down for the winter, the diner was as busy as ever. As usual there was a convention in town. Horticulturalists, this time. Here to network and see the Falls. But it took five minutes to see the Falls and you couldn't work all the time. So they were filling up on a big breakfast and getting ready to hit the casino. Corrigan had half expected them to be little old lady florists here for a winter break, but they were big guys, tough and sharp and bejewelled. It was just like any other business, he supposed; say it with flowers, sure, then nail them on the percentages.
    His phone rang. 'If it's Letterman,' Stirling said, 'tell him to join the queue.'
    Corrigan rolled his eyes. 'What?' he said.
    'Corrigan? It's Annie Spitz.'
    'Annie. What's happening? Has Kissinger emerged yet?' 'I think you better come down.'
    She sounded stressed. 'What's the matter, what's wrong? Is it . . . Lelewala?' He surprised himself by using the name so easily.
    'Just get down here,' Annie said plainly, then put the phone down.

9
    Corrigan was searched then ushered down the hall to Annie's cluttered office. She nodded grimly as he took a seat.
    'By my calculations,' Corrigan said dryly, 'yer man upstairs has cost the Canadian taxpayer somewhere in the region of $500 already. I hope to God you have good news for me.'
    Annie sighed. 'Corrigan, I don't normally do this, in fact I never do this, but as we seem to be working together . . . I should tell you that your ex-wife is upstairs.'
    'She speaks Tuscorora?'
    'She came in a couple of hours ago. I'm afraid she's been assaulted.'
    His first reaction was involuntary: his face reddened and he said: 'It wasn't me.'
    Annie's look was initially confused, and then sympathetic. She had first thought of him as arrogant and self-possessed, but this confirmed her later assessment of him as merely insecure. She could see the pulse throbbing on the side of his head, the fingernail going to his lips, the eyes settling on nothing, nowhere. She wondered which way he would go. Prior to her work at Turner Annie had worked as a probation officer and she reckoned there were two classic reactions to this type of situation: those who would rush immediately to console the injured party, and those who would first seek revenge on the perpetrator. Those who sought revenge first, she found, generally didn't love their wives at all, but were merely re-enforcing property rights; those who consoled their wives were generally in love. Those who did neither were rare. And usually unbalanced.
    'Is she badly hurt?'
    'Her face is pretty banged up. It'll heal. She asked for you.'
    Corrigan nodded. His eyes flitted to the pictures of the battered women on the wall. 'I loved her more than anything,' he said slowly, 'and she broke my heart.'
    'That's sad, Corrigan.'
    'Yeah.' And then his eyes jolted suddenly back towards Annie. 'Jesus Christ – Aimie. My daughter, is she . . .'
    Annie raised a placatory hand. 'She's OK. We've a play area out back; she's with the other kids.'
    Corrigan let out a sigh of relief. He pushed his chair back and stood. 'I should go and talk to Nicola.'
    Annie shook her head. 'Can't do that, Corrigan.'
    'Why the fu . . .'
    'He broke her jaw.'
    'Oh.'
    'We have a surgeon on permanent stand-by. We could do a heart transplant upstairs if we had to. Her jaw's all wired