Two days ago, I arrived in New York with a man's name and some skeleton information. I was supposed to find this man and kill him. It would be done in a swift, painless way, from a distance, and no one would ever know that I was here.

Tonight, I am sitting in an Irish bar in Queens with a young woman from a state much farther south than this. She's in fear of her life, though she doesn't need to be.

You might well say that things aren't quite going to plan.

In a minute I'm going to start explaining all of this. But in the meantime, here's a little brainteaser for you. Maybe you can answer it. And if you can, drop us a little text or something so that I'll have the answer too, alright? Here we go:

The man I came to New York to kill is dead. I did not kill him. So is the job done, or what?

You mull that one over and I'll sit here telling you how I knew this was going to be a massive, glorious clusterfuck of a thing from the very beginning.

The very beginning is about a month ago, and my best mate came back from the dead. If you don't know, don't ask. It's a long story. To give you the short version, I had given up this whole professional murdering lark while he was dead. But he came back and convinced me… somehow, Svengali wept… that I should get back to it.

I went and sat in my nice, quiet life for a few beautiful days, knowing they were to be last, like Hitler in the bunker. And then comes the inevitable fucking phone call. 'Got a little job for you, mate. Don't worry. Easy one. You'll like it.' In actual fact, I think I called him first, but if anybody asks you this is how it went.

Now, when Jim gives me a job, it goes one of two ways. Either he's very precise, and he lays everything out – including the reason the death has to happen. Or he's very angry the entire time – showing the reason the death has to happen. And he didn't do either of those things. No, really, I think the only time there was even a flash of anger was when I tried to ask for a reason. Even then, it was only a flash. He crushed it back.

And if that didn't tip me off then frankly I deserve the events of this night.

"A loose end, alright, Moran?"

"You mean he knows too much?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's it exactly."

I've killed men for much less, and with less to go on. I didn't know how to ask him again. Instead, I tried asking the Angel – I know, I know, but desperate times and all that shite. That meant getting her alone, so I took her shopping with me. Like I say, I haven't done this in a while and, at the risk of sounding camp, I had absolutely nothing to wear. Stalking blacks are a very specific thing, y'know.

She was, as you might expect, absolutely no fucking use whatsoever. "I don't know," she said. That pretty little voice where she's considering something. Then she did the other thing she does, when she tells you stupid, inconsequential stuff, but it sounds like riddles. Like the key is there if only you're smart enough. Maybe I've never been smart enough or maybe, as I suspect, the key rolled off along with our poor Scout's marbles. "He found this photo, right? And I only saw it once and now I'm not allowed near it again. It was of him when he was still at school, with someone else. Another boy. And I don't know who that was, but it's someone who makes him feel nice, y'know? Wait, no… No, that's not right… It's someone who makes him feel like he is nice. Does that make any sense?"

Not really. So I tried putting that out of my mind. I came on out here. Said to myself that this was one job that should probably stay mysterious. I'd live, just this once, wouldn't I? So I'd come out here, and I'd do what I had to, and then I'd go home.

That's when I ran into my next set of problems.

See, usually it's not all that difficult finding somebody, even if you don't have a lot to go on. Unless someone is deliberately hiding, there's not a lot to it. Especially if it's someone normal. Especially if they've got businesses and family. Especially if it's someone with a distinctive feature, like a fading Dublin accent.

Oh yeah. Jim let that much slip. That's probably another thing I should have allowed to put me off this whole business.

All I'm saying is, it shouldn't have been too difficult to lay a pair of strangling hands on one Conor John Cleary, that's all. And you may take what you will from my phrasing and my frustrated tone.

The first night went by. So did the second. I found his bars, I found his wife, I found his kids and the apartment and the school and some of his mates. I did not find so much as a picked-off ragnail to suggest the presence of Conor Cleary. Nothing. This morning was also uneventful. I sat down to dinner wondering if maybe, just maybe, there was more to this. I would make sense, wouldn't it, if this were some sort of test. There'd be some extra bit here that I was supposed to puzzle out. I wasn't thinking about it very hard, because when I let that get into my mind I became very angry indeed with Jim. You don't send somebody on a job without all the details. I don't care if it is meant to be a trial. You just don't do that. It's cruel. More to the point, it's rude. More to the point, it's bloody stupid, because if that person gets caught or captured, you've given them no reason not to sell you right up Shit Creek and break your paddles over their knee.

That's what I was thinking about over dinner, in the little diner under the hotel.

That's what distracted me enough for someone to get very close to sweetening my coffee for me. I don't take sugar. Anyway, if a stranger is brushing nonchalantly past your table and tries very hard to fill your mug with fine white powder, it's probably sugar anyway. I grabbed hold of the wrist before it could turn and empty that little packet. Grabbed hard, and heard, from the far end of the arm, a feminine little yelp. Keeping my grip on her, tightening it, I guided her easily to the seat across the table from me.

Took away that little packet with my free hand and spilled it on the floor like salt.

She is sunburnt, freckles, long red hair. She's the one in the bar with me now. So I haven't killed her. She sat opposite me looking fairly certain that I would. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I might.

"You're Moran, aren't you?" Her breath was caught. Proper fucking terrified. I don't see that often. I never get this close to people I might be threatening. It's hard to say whether I liked the feeling or not. "You're Sebastian Moran."

"You know that," I told her. Sometimes it helps people to hear these things out loud, "And you still tried to kill me just now."

"Well, when it's you or me, you can't blame a girl for trying." Nervous, breathy laugh. She was going to bolt the second I let go of her so I kept hold. But I was pretty sure her name wasn't Conor and anyway, there is nothing of Irish on her voice. Touch of Foghorn Leghorn, maybe, that's it.

"You're safe," I told her.

A word of advice – I don't know how likely it is, but should you ever find yourself in a situation like this, this is where you stop talking. You argue for your freedom at that moment. Soon as I call you 'safe', you start the exit strategy. Certainly don't keep talking and give me more questions that you'll have to stay and answer.

"But… But you're in town. And you're asking about Cleary. I…"

"First, how do you know that?"

Our redhead friend got necessarily cagey. "Friend of mine. Works in one of his bars."

I could've pressed her on that. But I couldn't decide if it was important or not, and the perks of being the bigger, scarier half of a conversation include being able to come back to a question later on. "Second, where the fuck is Cleary?"

"Six feet under," says she. Me thinking to myself, if nothing else, it explains why I haven't been able to find him. "Five years since. I can take you where he's buried, if you want."

I'll return you now, if I may, to the question I asked you to ponder back at the top of all this. Cleary's dead, but I didn't kill him. So is the job done? It's not even that important. I'm just trying to decide what to tell Jim when I have to call him up.

In the end, we didn't go to where he's buried. We came here, to one of his old establishments. Nice little place, nice and cosy. I feel like I stick out, but nevertheless. We got here, and that friend of our red-haired friends stood us two drinks. We raised them in respectful toast to a full colour portrait photo up behind the bar.

You need to remember, I didn't have a picture when I got here. Otherwise that might have been a dead giveaway, don't you think? Oh, and to all of the sarky bastards out there who are asking why it never occurred to me that he might have passed, because I was sent to fucking kill him, alright? His untimely demise was both the first and last thing on my mind, thank you very much.

The girl next to me doesn't know this, but I'm just a tiny bit panicked right now. Because he didn't seem all that bothered about this, but what if Jim gets really fucking aggravated that we didn't get this kill? I might just stay in New York, y'know. Give him a week or so to calm down, maybe…

"But I don't understand," I tell her. Just so I'll have something to offer up to the enraged god at the temple, "What did Cleary ever do to you, love?"

"To me? No, no, honey. No, I'm in your line. I'm pro."

And she tried to slip me a powder. I get the feeling that what I do with a bullet, she does with a shot. With a 'friend' that worked right here under Conor Cleary's nose, it would have been easy. Something toxic and exotic.

"So who was the client, then?"

She begins to look at me strangely. Not like she's protecting her client. I'd appreciate that. We all do that. Well, the smart ones among us anyway. If they'll hire you to do one person, they'll happily hire someone to do you. It's not that sort of look at all, though. She looks at me as if I should already know this.

I get this cold, gathering feeling at the base of my ribs, like foreknowledge, like nausea.

Her brow is furrowed and she says, "But… I assumed that was why you were here. Didn't he send you for me? What am I, a loose end? I know too much?"

"Will you shut up with the me-me-me? I don't even know your fucking name. Now be specific. In as many words, first-name-and-surname, who was your client for Cleary?"

As specific as I asked her to be, in as many words, first-name-and-surname, "Jim Moriarty."

I stand up very slowly from the bar. I leave down the money for the drinks. Tell my poisonous new friend one more time that she is safe, and it was relatively nice to meet her, and it won't happen again. I have to go outside now. I have to get signal on my mobile and make an international call.

And I have to give that prick the fucking bollocking of his life. Sending me all the way out here? I'm five hours behind him, fucking timezones, just to take the piss? Sending me on a wild goose chase and for what? Just to see if I'd go? Sending me to bump off someone he'd already had bumped off, five years fucking since?! I've got a life in London now. I can't just be running off round the world over nothing.

I'm going to kill him. I don't know if that's possible over the phone but I'm going to give it a fucking good go and all…

And to think I was worried about what to tell him. He's dead. He's so dead and he doesn't even know it.

The phone rings once.

It begins to ring again when it is snatched up. "Hello?"

He's up late. It's only evening here, but it must be getting towards midnight, his end. Through my gritted teeth, "James! How do you do?"

"Did you find him?" He asks that so quickly. The second he recognizes my voice. I don't even know if I'd finished talking. That's the first question out of him. His voice is low and… worried. 'Worried' is not a word I use freely for him. But worried.

I don't think this is a joke. I know he can act when he needs to. But if he'd sent me here to take the mick, this would be the punchline. He would be laughing now. And he's not.

Worried. Jesus.

What do I do now?

"Yeah. Yeah I have." Lie. Lie like a journo at an official inquiry. Apparently that's what I do. "He's dead-to-rights. I'll be back in touch, in a bit. But it'll be soon done, alright?" I don't even know what I'm saying, not really.

"Cheers, Moran," and he sighs that away from him, real honest gratitude. "I do appreciate this, y'know." He doesn't know. Or remember, maybe, is a better word, but he doesn't know.

We say our goodbyes and hang up. There on the street, inside about twelve seconds, I compose a text. Send it to the Angel, hoping she's tucked up in bed or at least out of the room where he can't question her.

Find photograph. Burn it. No questions. Don't get caught.