Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  'You'd be surprised.'

  'I would?'

  'That's as much as you hear.'

  'Och, go on . . .'

  'Fuck off.'

  Which said it all really. We sat in silence. I could feel the throb in my leg again. The tear in the stitches hadn't been too bad; I'd lost some more blood, but not enough to keep me in bed.

  She said: 'Do you want me to come back later and pick you up?'

  'Are you serious?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Do you not think you've done enough? Jesus, Lee, you could be put away for this.'

  'So?'

  'You do have the innocence of a nun. You don't have to invite all this shit upon yourself. There's no point. You've done everything I could possibly have asked of you.'

  'I'm just trying to be polite, Dan, I don't really mean it.'

  Poker face, then a little blushing smirk as she realized she hadn't fully pulled it off.

  'Nuns can't lie, Lee. When they do they explode. It's a fact.'

  'No, I mean it. I mean, I've looked after you this far, so I'm already guilty. A few extra days aren't going to make things any worse for me, are they?'

  I brushed at the seat between my legs. Crumbs of dried blood.

  She shrugged. 'I will if you want me to. I'd like to help.'

  'I know you do. Listen, if I need help, I'll call you. I know where you are.'

  'Don't call us, we'll call you.'

  'I'm sorry if it sounds thankless, but it's better that way. I'm responsible for enough people being in the shit without getting anyone else involved. I mean, look at Giblet O'Gibber. I punched his lights in for nothing. Jesus, I nearly gave you a beating, Lee.'

  'You've the world on your shoulders, Dan. I'm just offering you a shoulder pad, y'know, to lean on?'

  I put my hand on her shoulder. I leant over and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  When we parted there were two elderly ladies staring at us and nodding their heads in unison.

  We burst into giggles.

  'I think you've just reinforced a few old wives' tales about nuns.' Lee laughed. 'Another time, another place, we could have taken it a bit further. Really given them something to talk about.'

  'Who knows?'

  She placed her hand on my leg. 'Look after yourself, Dan. Look after that leg. Find your wife.'

  I squeezed her hand and got out of the car. I closed the door and tapped the roof and she ground it into first gear and drove off.

  The two women were still standing watching. One, a bag of chips in her hand, said: 'You're disgusting.'

  'Fuck off,' I said and crossed the road to Ricci's.

  'Fuck off yourself, cuntface,' she replied. It was a nice area.

  Parker was sitting alone at a table for four at the back of the restaurant. He had a half-finished glass of lager before him and he was studying a large menu the front cover of which was a reproduction of an American dollar bill, albeit with George Washington biting into a pizza. He closed the menu and set it to one side as I sat down opposite him. 'Well?' I said.

  'As well as can be expected under the circumstances.' His face was sullen, charcoal grey as if his pigment was fading without the benefit of strong sunlight, his voice dull.

  'Well, you're full of the joys of spring, Mr Parker. Cheer up, sunshine, things are starting to look up.'

  'Are they?'

  He didn't look convinced. A figure appeared at my elbow. Without looking up I said: 'A pint of Harp and a vodka chaser, mate, please.'

  The figure pulled the seat beside me back and sat down. His hair was cropped short and prematurely grey. Piercing blue eyes and a strong square chin. He put out a hand towards me and I took it after a moment's hesitation.

  'You'll be Starkey then?'

  He shook my hand warmly. I glanced at Parker, who pursed his lips apologetically. At the table opposite, two men turned to watch us; one pulled the side of his black Harrington jacket back to reveal the butt of a pistol.

  He was still shaking my hand. He looked familiar.

  'The name's Coogan, Pat Coogan. Perhaps you've heard of me.'

  'Cow Pat Coogan?' He nodded.

  I looked across at Parker. He said: 'I'm sorry, Starkey. I'd no choice.'

  Coogan said: 'Shall we order?' I nodded.

  He said: 'I understand you killed my girlfriend.'

  'I'm not very hungry,' I said.

  18

  A waiter in a white jacket and crimson bow tie handed out two extra menus. He was tall and emaciated with thin silver hair. One eye was wide and glassy, as if it was propped open by an invisible monocle, the other narrowed and speculative. His voice was Belfast, with maybe three weeks in Florida and a couple of months in London.

  'Gentlemen, we offer a wide-ranging menu of international cuisine. Tonight I would particularly recommend a breaded escalope of turbot, which is prepared in a mixture of white bread and brioche crumbs, and served with a sorrel cream.'

  He stood expectantly for a moment and then moved across to the table opposite and repeated the spiel.

  I set my menu down and said to Coogan: 'I thought you were in prison.'

  ‘I was. I've been released, for good behaviour.'

  'Does this constitute good behaviour?'

  'What, eating dinner?'

  'You know what I mean.' I nodded across to his companions.

  'With a reputation like mine, you don't think I need some protection?'

  ‘I thought you usually offered protection.'

  'Me? Never. Not my line. I wouldn't harm a fly.'

  'You two know each other?' Parker asked.

  'I know of Mr Starkey from what he writes in the paper. You read everything there is in prison.'

  'And I know Mr Coogan from writing about him in the paper.'

  Parker, his visage more composed now, clasped his hands before him, elbows on table. 'Which leaves me the only person not knowing exactly who you are. This afternoon was illuminating, but in a different way.'

  Coogan nodded, raised an eye to one of the men at the other table, and accepted a sheet of white paper from him. He handed it across to Parker.

  'This is my CV. I had it prepared when I left prison. It saves a lot of time explaining how nasty I am.'

  Parker ran his eye down the sheet.

  'That's novel,' I said.

  'That's poetry, mate,' Coogan corrected.

  'The poetry of crime?'

  Coogan shrugged. 'To each his own. If I could produce a newspaper maybe I would. As it was I didn't get much past potato printing.'

  'You still IRA?'

  Coogan glanced across to his friends. They smirked back. His face remained serious.

  'Still? You think the 'IRA wear suits like this?'

  He had a prison pallor, a jawline heavy with stubble. So different from the youthful picture I'd seen of him in Margaret's bedroom, taken before he'd turned to crime and carved out a niche for himself as Cow Pat Coogan, before he'd made Margaret pregnant and split up with her over an abortion. Had he loved her at all, or too much or not enough? Had the split with Margaret pushed him round the corner into crime, or had he already been shaped by Belfast's bitter streets? I'd known once, I'd written about him, but the details escaped me now. Life stories pondered over in courts merged in repetition after a while until you could look back and identify only one common denominator, a gelled identity of misshapen lives, depraved by politics, gunfire, bigotry, repression and poverty, with God in a supervisory capacity.

  The waiter reappeared at our table.

  'May I take your order, gentlemen?'

  Coogan looked up at him, silently contemplating. The waiter gazed back, odd eyes holding Coogan's for an extended moment before looking away. It unsettled him, not being able to outstare a customer.

  Coogan said: 'I'd like a jam sandwich, please.'

  'I'm sorry?'

  'A jam sandwich. Raspberry if possible.'

  'I'm afraid that's not on the menu, sir.' He reached down and opened Coogan's
menu for him, adding haughtily: 'You are unlikely to find that on any menu in any restaurant in this city, sir.'

  'You have bread?'

  'Of course.'

  'You have butter?'

  ‘I see what you're getting at, sir, but.. .'

  'You have jam?'

  'For certain desserts, perhaps, sir, but my point is . ..'

  A gun at his earhole shut him up. One of Coogan's companions, the one who'd earlier flashed a pistol at me, stood up and offered the waiter some advice.

  'You make a fuckin' jam sandwich, mate, or we'll do a fuckin' Lord Mountbatten on ye. They'll find your fucking head and shoulders on the beach.'

  The waiter blanched, nodded.

  'Thank you, Frankie,' Coogan said, and Frankie sat, still glowering at the waiter as he replaced the gun. A courting couple seated behind Frankie, just entering their first course, glanced nervously back. Frankie's head, thick like a bulldog's, slanted towards them and they quickly looked away.

  The waiter, his voice shaky, said: 'Will that be all?'

  'Fish fingers,' Coogan said, closing the menu, 'to go. For all of us.'

  The waiter was about to burst into tears. He had my sympathy on that. He nodded sharply, completed writing the order and retreated to the sanctuary of the kitchen. Coogan guffawed.

  'What's going on?' Parker asked.

  Coogan smiled at him. 'Gun law,' he said, simply. His blue-black suit was a fashionably cut Adolfo Dominguez but it sagged a little at the shoulders, like it had been made to old measurements. A white shirt, grey silk tie.

  Parker handed me the CV. It was a litany of law breaking, dominated by a string of close-printed armed robberies he'd been found not guilty of, together with a string of offences he'd been questioned about but never charged with. Under a list of leisure pursuits it read, 'the cinema, theatre, and amassing a fortune by whatever means possible because I like to live well'.

  'Anyway,' Coogan said, to get back to murder.'

  I spread my hands, palm upward.

  'What can I say? I'm not guilty.'

  'Most everyone seems to think you are. In fact most everyone wants you dead.' I shrugged.

  Parker said: 'I don't think he did it.'

  'When I want your opinion, I'll let you know. Didn't this afternoon teach you anything?' Parker sat back.

  'What happened this afternoon?' Parker shook his head.

  'We got bored waiting for you to call,' said Coogan, 'so we had a game of Irish roulette. I won't go into it in detail, but it involves a petrol bomb and an ability to blow out matches very quickly. You didn't enjoy it very much, did you?'

  Parker shook his head again, his eyes lingering for a defiant second on Coogan's face before darting away.

  'I should tell you now, Parker, that those bottles were filled with urine. It was just Frankie's idea of a wee joke. He has a wicked sense of humour, our Frankie. He has never really warmed to Americans since they turned down his application for a visa. It seems an armful of convictions for violent assault doesn't help your chances. He wanted to go to Disney world.'

  Frankie smiled and nodded from across the way.

  'It was a fun afternoon,' Parker said humourlessly, his eyes fixed now on the courting couple who were explaining to a different waiter that they had changed their minds about a main course.

  I lifted Parker's glass and drained it. My mouth was dry. 'So what are you going to do, kill me?'

  'Possibly. I wouldn't mind knowing where the tape is first, though?'

  'He's looking for a tape,' Parker said.

  'A tape?'

  Coogan smiled wanly. 'Now let's not play stupid bastards. We all know about the tape, you hand it over now and we'll see what we can do for you that doesn't involve lead.'

  'That's kind of you.'

  'Don't get fucking smart with me, Starkey. Right now you're a flatliner and I'm God. Only I can bring you back to life. Give me the tape and that's a start.'

  'I thought you were concerned about Margaret.'

  ‘I am concerned about Margaret.'

  'But this tape is more important?'

  'For the moment.'

  'What's on it that's so great?'

  Coogan sat back in his seat. 'This is getting tedious. Star-key.' Abruptly he stood, his seat toppling backwards. It cracked off the polished hardwood floor. None of the other customers looked round. He nodded to Frankie and his companion and the pair stood up. 'We'll go somewhere they can't hear you scream, Starkey. Pain is a marvellous memory stimulant.'

  'Pain is bad enough, but the prospect of pain can be just as bad. Travelling towards pain can be worse than pain itself.'

  'Starkey, that is the most goddamn stupid thing I think I've ever heard.'

  'I was just trying to reassure you about what's to come.'

  'Starkey, they're not going to torture me. I don't know where the tape is. I didn't even know about the goddamn tape until today. You're the one they're gonna torture, so don't get philosophical about pain with me, save it for yourself.'

  'Will you two stop bickering?'

  Frankie leant back from the front passenger seat. He had locked us securely into the back of a small van which had GERRY BLACKS GARDENING SUPPLIES UNTIDILY PAINTED ON THE SIDE. IN CASE WE FELT LIKE TRYING TO ESCAPE, HIS MATE, WHOM HE INTRODUCED AS MAD DOG, SAT OPPOSITE US WITH A GUN POINTED BETWEEN US. COOGAN DROVE, INCONGRUOUS BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE TRADESMAN'S VAN IN HIS SMART SUIT. WE DROVE THROUGH THE CITY CENTRE AND TURNED TOWARDS THE WEST OF THE CITY. THE ROADS WERE QUIET. NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN DRIVING THAT LATE AT NIGHT IN THE WEST YOU WOULD BE STOPPED BY THE POLICE. LUCK HAD NOT BEEN RUNNING MY WAY; RIGHT THEN THE POLICE WOULD HAVE SEEMED LIKE THE ULTIMATE GOOD LUCK.

  'When we get close to where we're going,' Coogan said from the front, 'I'm afraid we'll have to blindfold you. We have to keep certain secrets, y'know?'

  'I don't see why you're taking me,' Parker ventured, 'I don't know anything.'

  'You'll see.'

  It was a disquieting answer. Parker slumped forward.

  'This is ridiculous. I should have turned you in to the police in the first place, Starkey.'

  'Think of the story, Parker.'

  'Fuck the story, Starkey.'

  Mad Dog leant across and tapped Parker on the knee, if he doesn't talk, we put the blindfold on, take you to a secluded spot and shoot you in the back of the head.'

  Parker looked up. 'Why put a blindfold on if you're shooting me in the back of the head?'

  Mad Dog smiled crookedly. 'I wear the blindfold. Sometimes it takes nine or ten shots. But it's a good laugh.'

  Frankie, his mouth half-full of sandwich, looked back again. 'Pay no attention to him. You'll be okay as long as you cooperate.' He started picking at a raspberry seed jammed between his front teeth. 'Good sarnies, Pat. Just what the doctor ordered.'

  'A doctor ordered these?' Asked Mad Dog. 'They brought us a doctor's food? What sorta fuckin' place is that?'

  'Maddie,' said Coogan, mock scolding, 'shut up.'

  We pulled into a side street off the Falls Road. Mad Dog put his gun away while he put blindfolds on us: not real blindfolds, but musty-smelling balaclava helmets, back to front. The barrel of Frankie's pistol peeked at us from the rim of his seat. The last thing I saw before the lights went out was a little wink from Frankie.

  Coogan started the engine again and we drove for another ten minutes. Then the van drew to a halt and a door opened on the driver's side; I felt the slight tilt of the vehicle as Coogan got out and a muffled knock on a door. It opened with a slight creak and I heard hushed voices.

  'What's going on?' Parker whispered.

  'Fuck up,' Mad Dog whispered back and followed it up with a dull thump which I presumed by the way Parker wheezed was the sound of metallic gun barrel on fleshy knee.

  The door to the van was pulled to again and Coogan climbed back in. The fuckers are down the road, we'll have to go the long way round.'

  We started off again and it was another ten minutes before we p
ulled to a stop. The engine was killed and the back of the van opened up. I heard the hum of a street lamp and a child crying somewhere way above me. Mad Dog pushed us forward and Frankie guided us down from outside. My feet splashed through a puddle and I smelt urine.

  Our feet moved from gravel to smooth cement and then a tiled floor. Then a hiss as an elevator door opened. We began moving upward. I counted twelve tings on the bell and then we stopped.

  Twenty feet along a corridor with the same smooth floor, and still the smell of urine. A door opened, closed. My mask came off.

  We were in a small, average-looking lounge. There was a poor reproduction of the Mona Lisa on one wall, a black and white television tuned to Channel 4 in one corner, a mustard-coloured three-piece suite afflicted with a series of cigarette burns along another wall. A smell of vinegar.

  Frankie had me by the arm, his grasp tight; his pistol was in his other hand, hanging down by his side. Coogan stood by a large window which opened out onto a balcony. He pulled the window inwards and stepped out until he was framed against the blacker-than-night colossus of the Cave Hill. So much for security - twelve floors up and with the Cave Hill behind him, it could only be Hillside Apartments, the tallest and ugliest public housing in Belfast. A breeding ground for rats and terrorists. Parker was by his side, still with his balaclava on, and held tightly by Mad Dog.

  'I don't believe in messing about, Starkey.'

  'I know.'

  Coogan nodded to Mad Dog who helped Parker up onto the balcony wall. Parker obligingly stepped up, but his body suddenly shuddered as he felt the cool breeze.

  'What's going on? What are you doing?'

  There was a frightened edge to his voice. He moved an exploratory foot six inches forward, felt the open space before him and arched back from the edge. Mad Dog held him firmly in place.

  'You stay where you are, Parker, and you'll be okay. As long as Starkey here cooperates you'll have nothing to worry about and a good story to write in the morning. Take it easy.'

  He turned to me. 'His life in your hands, Starkey. I'm going to make this very easy for you. We are twelve storeys up here. I am going to count to three. At the count of three, if you haven't told me where the tape is, Parker learns to fly. Okay?'