Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  I lay there for a moment in stunned silence, then pulled myself into a crouch ready to plunge back into the fray. But there was only silence.

  I hissed into the darkness, 'Come on then, you fucker!' All the time waiting for the flash of a gun and the searing heat of a bullet that would finish me the way it had finished Margaret, but the only response was a low growl from the kitchen.

  After a few moments I stood up and carefully crossed to the lounge door and pushed it fully open; the light blinded me and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust.

  A dark form lay motionless at the bottom of the stairs, folded uncomfortably, like a widower's sandwich.

  I approached cautiously. Prodded. Poked. Got a look at the face. Dead. It looked like a broken neck.

  I walked into the lounge and sat amongst the chaos in the chair by the record player. The smell of the pizza made me feel sick again.

  My head was pounding. I was soaked in sweat and I could feel the dull throb of panic creeping into my body. Visions from the last few days flashed through my mind: fucking up my interview, meeting Margaret in the park, getting beaten up by my wife, making love to Margaret. Upstairs Margaret was dead, shot, murdered in the space of a few minutes while I was out buying food.

  I sat and thought of lovely Margaret. I had heard the last words she would ever speak, she had died in my arms. I wondered what she would think of me now, would she still love me now that I had pushed her mother down the stairs and broken her neck?

  8

  I woke up in a room with two corpses and a radio alarm which almost delivered a third.

  Seven or eight times during the night I lifted up the phone to call the police, only to put it down again. What could I say? Uh, my girlfriend has been murdered and I've killed her mother by mistake? I knew that every minute I put off phoning them I was getting myself into deeper water, but I could see no way out. If I admitted one I'd be a dead cert for the other. There was no way they would accept her mother's death as an accident. I'd reported enough courts to recognize a crap story when I heard one. Why hadn't her mum just said something instead of sneaking up barely lit stairs? Just hello, anyone there? Just called her daughter's name like any reasonably sane individual would do? She must have taken for her role model those dizzy blondes who always entered dark caves in horror movies when the obvious route was to get the hell out.

  Some time around midnight I lifted the pizza from the floor and picked my way through the mess of the lounge. The kitchen had been turned over as well. Patch was out of his basket, ears pricked, snarling, advancing slowly but aggressively towards me. He was limping. He'd been whacked but he wasn't in a mood to appreciate being alive.

  I stuck out a finger towards him and shouted with as much viciousness as I could muster, 'You fuckin' move and I'll kill you!'

  He stopped. The ears went down. He sat. All bark no action. I went to the back door to let him out but then stopped. Who could tell what was outside? A sensible killer would be long gone, but since when were killers sensible? He could be lurking in the garden, or out front, waiting for a chance to kill me as well and then I cursed myself for switching the kitchen light on and alerting him to my presence, and then I cursed myself again for being so bloody stupid because I knew if he had wanted to kill me he'd have killed me by now. And then I thought what I hadn't dared to think and the thought put me into a kind of daze and I opened the back door slowly to let Patch out, then closed it and locked it.

  Patricia. My Patricia. Not my Patricia.

  Patricia had always had a violent streak.

  Patricia had attacked Margaret's house.

  Patricia was not home when the attack took place.

  Patricia wouldn't have a notion where to lay her hands on a gun.

  I love Patricia.

  I betrayed Patricia.

  Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

  Who was Jack and why was he getting divorced?

  I put the pizza in the microwave to reheat. Then I went out into the hall and lifted the cold body and carried it upstairs to Margaret's bedroom. She was a small woman, but she had the weight of death upon her. I pulled the sheet back and, averting my eyes as best I could, laid her beside her daughter and pulled the sheet up over them entirely. I went back downstairs, let the dog in, found some food for him and then removed the pizza. I found a six-pack of Harp in the fridge and took it and the pizza into the lounge and sat down. My hands were shaking badly but I forced myself to eat and drink. When I finished the last of the beer I took the empties into the kitchen and put the plate in the sink. Patch was looking at me curiously now, his head cocked to one side. I clicked my tongue at him and he growled. Patch, the Jack Russell. Divorcing Jack? Nah.

  I opened the fridge again and found the half-bottle of chilled Polish vodka I'd spotted on my first visit. I took it upstairs into Margaret's room and sat down against the bedroom wall and sipped slowly from it until I didn't remember anything.

  Then the cool light of dawn was streaming through the spaces around the edges of the ill-fitting hardboard window and a Radio 1 DJ was shouting the news about inflation and I was lying on the floor, my heart steamhammering towards breakdown. When it slowed down I sat back against the wall and cried my eyes out.

  It was misty and exactly 7.30 a.m. when I let myself cautiously out of the front door. The street was quiet. The milkman had called about twenty minutes before. He left one bottle. I'd opened the door a crack and watched as best I could the houses opposite until everyone who was going to get their milk early had taken it in. Then I reached out and pulled it in quickly and drank it down. Wiping my mouth, I stepped out and walked towards the main road with my head bowed.

  Traffic was still light. The mist put a refreshing chill into my body as I walked. A police Land-Rover passed after about five minutes and my legs almost gave out beneath me; I steadied myself against an uninhabited bus stop until it and my palpitations were history.

  It was just over an hour later when I got home. I opened the front door quietly. Three items of that morning's mail were sitting on the telephone stand, all bills.

  I called softly: 'Patricia?'

  There was no one downstairs. I raced up to our bedroom. I hadn't made the bed since she had left; now it was back in neat order. My clothes had been tidied. The bathroom cleaned.

  Back in the lounge I found a note.

  Dear Dan, I spent the night here, alone.

  How's the whore? I burnt your signed photo of Sugar Ray Leonard.

  Patricia.

  I crumpled the note and threw it into the grate; the remains of a fire were smouldering. I looked at myself in the mirror above the fireplace and shuddered. My hair was matted, my face bruised, there was a dark stain on my shirt which I knew was blood but which anyone else might have mistaken for Ribena or, indeed, blood. The stain would have been covered by my coat on my walk through town, but if I'd been a cop I'd have stopped myself for questioning just out of curiosity.

  I phoned Mouse at his work. He worked for Short Brothers, making and testing missiles. Last time I'd spoken to him about his job he said his most recent prototype went wonky in the Arizona desert and landed on an extremely rare colony of insects, wiping them out.

  I said, 'This is the Insect Protection League.'

  He recognized the voice. 'YOU'VE GOT NOTHING TO LAUGH ABOUT, YOU STUPID FUCKER.'

  'You're telling me?'

  'I'M TELLING YOU, DAN.'

  'You've seen Patricia?'

  'YEAH. SHE CALLED AGAIN LAST NIGHT.'

  'What time?'

  'WHO CARES WHAT TIME? SHE'S STILL PISSED OFF. SHE'S BEEN TO SEE THAT GIRL OF YOURS.'

  'What time did you see her. Mouse? It's important.

  'WHY?'

  'Will you just fuckin' tell me?'

  'DON'T GET STROPPY WITH ME, SON. YOU HAVEN'T GOT THAT MANY FRIENDS.'

  'Mouse, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I need to know. Look. I'm in some trouble. It's important I know what time you saw her at.'

&nb
sp; 'GIRL TROUBLE?'

  'No. Yeah. Sort of. Serious trouble.'

  'YOU KNOW SHE PUT YOUR GIRL'S WINDOWS IN?'

  'I know. What time did you see her?'

  'I DUNNO. ABOUT TEATIME. SIX, MAYBE EARLIER. YEAH, EARLIER. I WAS JUST IN FROM WORK. SHE WAS ALREADY BITCHING AWAY TO THE WIFE.'

  'When did she leave?'

  'NOT LONG AFTER. I DIDN'T GET INVOLVED. BUT THE WIFE SAYS SHE WAS FUMING, STILL FUMING'

  'Did she say where she was going. Mouse?'

  ‘I THINK BACK TO YOUR HOUSE FOR A SHOWDOWN. NO SHOW, EH?'

  'No show.'

  'YOU OKAY? YOU SOUND A BIT STRANGE.'

  'Yeah, sure. Okay.' I laughed. Mouse, be in my shoes now.

  'WHAT SORTA TROUBLE YOU IN, KID?'

  'You don't wanna know. Mouse. But listen. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days for me, but I don't think it's going to be very pleasant. I may need some support. You there for me?'

  'OF COURSE.'

  'Thanks, mate.'

  I put the phone down. I sat down in front of the TV, watched a discussion programme without taking anything in. I was lost. Floundering. How long did I have before they caught up with me? Maybe only a couple of hours. Margaret's mum must have said to her husband where she was going. He'd be worried about her failure to return. But there'd been no phone call. Maybe she planned to stay the night with her after hearing about the attack on the house. Then he wouldn't be worried about her until the following day. Or maybe he'd already gone abroad. So they'd find the bodies. Launch a murder hunt. Who would the chief suspect be? The mad woman who'd smashed all the windows in the house. How long would it take to identify her? All the neighbours had watched her attack the house and then drive off. One was bound to have had the common sense to take down her number. So they wouldn't be long in getting her. She had a motive. But no murder weapon. Probably an alibi. Then they would come for me. My fingerprints were all over the house. A taxi to the house. Meeting a neighbour outside. Drinking a pint of milk. Feeding the dog and myself. How do you explain to the police, to anyone, how you behave after finding a lover murdered, and accidentally killing her mother?

  I put the bloodstained shirt in the washing machine and turned it on. I went upstairs and sat under the shower. If not Patricia, who? And why? She hadn't mentioned anyone called Jack to me. She was surely too young to have been divorced from him. The only people she had mentioned were her mother and father and Pat Coogan, ex-lover and Paper Cowboy. Coogan was in prison, I'd killed her mother. That left her dad. Perhaps if I explained to him before the news broke . . . No, madness, madness, he would probably kill me himself. I was down shite street without a petrol bomb.

  The door bell went. I pulled on a pair of trousers and a T-shirt. They clung uncomfortably to my damp heat. I walked slowly downstairs. My arms felt heavy as I went to open the door, like they were handcuffed already. It hadn't taken them long.

  I opened the door.

  Parker said: 'Morning, Mr Starkey, ready to meet the prime minister?'

  9

  Brinn stood with his back to us by a large bay window as we were shown into a musty book-lined room. Red Hall, built back in the twenties, had been acquired by the Alliance at a knock-down price from an aspiring newspaper tycoon who'd over-estimated an Ulster interest in free newspapers and beat a hasty retreat back to London, where they appreciated his kind of product. It wasn't quite a mansion, but it looked good and had fine gardens. The Alliance offices took up most of the space, but Brinn and his family occupied a suite of rooms on the first floor.

  Security was lax. There were two men on the big rusty gates who checked our ID, but neither appeared to be armed. Down in the hall we'd been searched, but it was the haphazard patting of coats and trousers that you used to get on the way into shops in the city centre. The sort of body search you could sneak a bazooka through.

  Brinn looked out at a concrete marina bristling with masts. Seagulls stood lazily in the sun. Without turning he said, 'You know they said they were going to landscape that marina when they built it. It looks like the Maginot line.'

  He turned towards us and strode briskly across the room. He put out a hand to Parker, shook strongly.

  'You'll be Parker,' he said. 'Good trip?'

  'Fine, thank you, sir.'

  He crossed to me.

  'And you'll be Starkey.' A warm handshake. His paleness, his thinness were accentuated by the strong sunlight coming in from the window. 'I must say I enjoy reading your column. Very smart. Could probably do with a little humour in some of my speeches, eh? What do you think?'

  'Never does any harm, Mr Brinn.'

  'Mind you, I'm not entirely sure all of your humour would go down with the voters that well. What was it you said about this town last year? "The cosy gold coast of Northern Ireland where paramilitary organizations hold coffee mornings, with an Armalite in one hand and a packet of Jaffa Cakes in the other." That was it, wasn't it? I was very impressed with that. Summed up the place just about right, I thought. Used to be a great wee town this, great place for holidaymakers from Belfast, Mr Parker. Used to get on the train, be here in twenty minutes. Like Rockaway Beach in your New York, Mr Parker, eh? An Armalite in one hand, hah! Might be on something of a sticky wicket if I used that line, eh?'

  I hemmed. He knew his stuff. Probably had as big a file on me as Parker had. Bigger. I wondered how warm his greeting would be if he knew what I'd been up to. Prime minister has tea with double murderer.

  There were three chairs arranged in a semicircle in the centre of the room and we sat down, bathed in the sunlight, and I immediately felt sleepy.

  Parker said: 'I'm glad you could spare the time to speak to me.' He produced a micro-recorder and set it on a flimsy table before him that looked to be on its last legs.

  As if he could see what I was thinking, Brinn said: 'I refer to it as my decaffeinated coffee table.' He didn't smile, but dared us to and we accepted.

  Parker said: 'A lot of people back in the States are very hopeful that a solution to the Irish question might be just around the corner.'

  Brinn touched his chin for a moment, trained his eyes on Parker. 'I understand,' he said, 'that you used to be in peanut butter.'

  Parker's mouth fell open. 'Excuse me?'

  'I understand that before you became a journalist, you worked in a peanut butter factory.'

  Parker looked shaken. His eyes darted to me for an instant. 'Why, yes, briefly.'

  Brinn nodded. 'A peanut butter factory. A motor factory. Started writing for a union newspaper, picked up by a weekly newspaper outside New York, then moved to Boston.'

  'Yes, I. . .'

  Brinn abruptly stood up and crossed to the window again. With his back to us he said: 'You see, gentlemen, the value of accurate information, of detailed information. It is the secret of good journalism, and it is very certainly the secret of good politics. Information can be the making or breaking of a man, the making or breaking of a campaign.'

  He lapsed into silence. Parker looked across at me. I shrugged. He shrugged back. We shrugged together.

  Brinn turned towards us again. 'My point, gentlemen, is that we're both in the same business, one you don't need any qualifications for at all, except a little experience in life, so let's not beat around the bush.'

  There was a wide smile now that seemed to breathe colour into his face and an animated look in his eyes. 'Let's dispense with all the usual crap. Let's start with your toughest questions, then we can relax and have some tea.'

  Parker, giving a little appreciative nod, drew a small notebook from inside his jacket and began to rapidly flick through several pages of questions. Brinn had taken the initiative masterfully. He may have been talking nonsense, but it was masterful nonsense.

  I said: 'Do you believe in capital punishment for murder?'

  Parker gave me a look that said: butt out.

  'For terrorists?' Asked Brinn.

  'All murder is terrorism.'

  'But no
t all terrorism is murder.'

  'Are you playing with words or answering questions?'

  'I'm playing with questions. Do you know what my party policy is on capital punishment?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well?'

  'I'm not asking party policy. I'm asking your views.'

  'But you're not suggesting my view could be more important than that of the party?'

  'It could be. I believe your party's success is as much to do with you as its policies.'

  'An interesting point of view.' He turned suddenly to Parker. 'Found your question yet?'

  Parker's head snapped up. 'Exactly how much of your body is covered in burns, Mr Brinn?'

  'Does it matter? Are you not more interested in mental scars?'

  'Are you going to admit to mental scars?'

  'I'd be a fool not to.'

  'So what mental scars do you carry?'

  'Well, I'm not very fond of fire.'

  Brinn returned to his spot by the window. 'You know,' he said, 'I have a small boat out there. Sometimes I go and sit in it for hours at a time, just listening to the wind and the rattle of the masts. It's very relaxing. Maybe that's a mental scar. I never used to appreciate things like that. That bomb made me appreciate the finer things in life. And most all of them are free. The wind, the rain, the sea. With the exception of marina fees, of course.'

  'You do much sailing?'

  'Never left the harbour. I just like sitting in my boat. I'd drown myself for sure if I got as far as the waves.'

  Most of the books that lined the walls were paperbacks, which was either a nice common touch or a piece of bad public relations. A lot of orange-spined Penguin Classics. A whole row of Hardy, complete Shakespeare, even a Bukow-ski. The bottom two rows near the door were children's books. Hopefully his son's.

  'Are you going to talk to the terrorists?' Parker asked.

  'No.'

  'Simple as that?'

  'Yes.'

  'What if they renounce violence?'

  'Then they won't be terrorists.'

  Parker got him onto the importance of American economic aid. My eyes started to flicker. I'd heard it all before. Parker listened intently, his eyes darting nervously to the microcassette from time to time to check that the tape was still rolling. Several times my head nodded forward and I shook myself awake ... I tried sitting back, out of the sun, but it made no difference. It was as if the rays were chasing me round the limited circumference of my seat and instead of imbuing me with life they were sucking it out of me.