Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

'Because. Now get the fuck out of here.'

  I put the car into drive and moved slowly down the cul-de-sac. Then I stopped it and reversed back. Burns and Seanie stopped halfway up the drive and stood protectively in the garden as I approached. The man himself took a moment to reappear, but was in place by the time I'd found park and wound the window down again.

  'You never gave me your number, Coogan,' I called.

  Coogan shook his head and turned back into the house. Seanie walked down the path and leant into the car. I moved back instinctively.

  'It's in the book, Starkey,' he hissed, 'under C. For Cunt.'

  28

  The first chance I had, when I was sure there was no one following, I stopped the car and phoned Lee's house. Directory Enquiries gave me the number. A man answered. I said: 'Is that the taxi place?'

  There was a slight pause and then he said gruffly: 'Starkey?'

  'Excuse me?'

  'Is that you, Starkey?'

  'I'm looking for a taxi, mate, I...'

  'If that's you, Starkey, Cow Pat has a message for ya. Get on with the fuckin' job and stop fuckin' around.'

  'I'm just. ..'

  'And if it's not, just fuck away off.'

  He rang off. I walked back to the car. I leant on the roof and looked up the road along the main thoroughfare of a village. It was about twenty miles from Crossmaheart. I missed its name. Bar-room beery chatter added body to the light breeze blowing in my face, vinegar and battered fish a slight odour. Teenagers lazed on corners. A summer's night. The election was in two days. Posters hung on every lamppost. Brinn's face. Mr Popularity. If Coogan had my balls in his pocket, he had Brinn's in his mouth.

  I drove on. I switched on the radio but it was too late for much in the way of news. For the first time in my life the idea of listening to rock music repelled me. I found a classical station. It wasn't exactly soothing. The music was slow and haunting, dark music suited to a night lit only by the moon and the occasional flash of a passing car. The commentator credited it to the Berlin Philharmonic and Dvorak.

  * * *

  A mile outside Bangor I came upon a police checkpoint. I thought, what a ridiculous time to be caught by the cops. I was upon it before I had a chance to even think about trying to get away. I dimmed the lights and waited to be arrested. When the tap on the window came I was calm and collected. I didn't have the energy to say you'll never take me alive, copper, never mind fulfil it. I smiled pleasantly and waited for the cuffs.

  'Good evening, sir, can you tell me where you're going tonight?'

  'Bangor.'

  'And could I take a look at your driving licence?'

  I handed him the licence I had stolen from the guesthouse in Belfast. He shone a torch on it, then on me, then round the interior of the car.

  'Where are you going in Bangor, sir?'

  'To see Mr Brinn. Of the Alliance.'

  He let that sink in for a moment. 'Yes, sir, and I'm the godfather of soul.'

  He leant in the window. He had a thick black moustache and stubble-darkened skin. He stared into my face.

  'Seriously,' I said, quietly and with a slight nod of my head.

  He gave me a little sarcastic smile. 'We'll see,' he said and stepped back from the car. He walked over to a grey police Land-Rover and reached inside. He stood back with a small radio microphone in his hand and started talking. Another policeman waved forward the traffic which had started to build up behind me. As I looked out my side window the lights of a car passing on the other side of the road picked out the bright eyes of a soldier lying crouched in undergrowth. His rifle was pointed at me.

  The policeman returned. He handed me the licence. 'Very good, sir, that will be all.'

  I said thanks and started the car. I moved off slowly. He stepped back and said quietly, 'Have a nice night now, Mr Morrison,' as I passed. The name was said with obvious sarcasm. Rumbled but free. How far did Coogan's arm stretch? And if it stretched that far, why did he have to bother messing around with little people like me?

  The gates to Red Hall were closed. Floodlights illuminated the driveway. On my last visit, a little old woman in a wheelchair could have breached the security. Now two guards, armed, young, and alert, stood warily to each side of the stone pillars, staring out through the metal gates. I drove slowly up and flashed the lights, then stopped the car.

  The gates swung inward. I moved forward with them and stopped the car again.

  'You Starkey?'

  I nodded.

  'Any ID?'

  I shook my head.

  The one doing the talking was tall and lithe and looked like a policeman. His uniform was black to the RUC's bottle-green, but otherwise there was little difference. His comrade was more rotund, like a prison officer, and somehow more threatening. Both had pistols, bolstered.

  'Right car though,' the prison officer observed. 'Right numberplates.'

  'But no ID.' The police officer rubbed his finger along the side of the passenger door, examined it, then wiped it on the door again. 'You should always carry ID, Mr Starkey.'

  ‘I have ID. But not mine.'

  ‘I suppose fugitives like yourself would have access to fake ID.'

  'It's not fake. It just isn't mine.'

  'Ah. You don't look like the kind of fella could give everyone the run-around for so long.'

  I shrugged. 'Or a murderer,' I suggested.

  'Oh, you look like a killer okay. You don't need brains to be that. No, I can recognize a killer when I see one okay. I was just thinking that you don't look like the kind of fella would have the wherewithal to keep one step ahead of everyone all this time.'

  'Thanks.'

  'Don't mention it.'

  I started the engine again. 'Okay if I go through?'

  'If he wants to meet a killer, he wants to meet a killer, be my guest.'

  'You're not worried about letting a killer through?' I asked, revving the engine slightly.

  'Worried? A bit. But Mr Brinn knows what he's doing, I'm sure. See, that's what I like about the man, he's up front about everything. He gets on the phone to me and says, "Bill, that reporter, Starkey, wanted for the McGarry murders, is coming to see me in the next hour or so. Let him through, would you?" And that's good enough for me. He didn't try to be mysterious or anything. Didn't try to pass you off as something else, y'know? Because I would have recognized you. He knows that. Clear?'

  'Right on.'

  It was late, but a dozen or more cars were parked outside the hall. A rattle of masts emanated from the marina a few hundred yards beyond the garden wall.

  The door opened before me. Alfie Stewart looked me up and down. Alfie had always been okay. 'Times are bad when the party's security spokesman mans the door,' I said.

  'Don't be stupid, Starkey,' he snapped and waved me in. He led me up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He was puffing slightly as he reached the top. I lagged behind, but still puffed. A sympathy puff.

  'A lot of cars here this late,' I said. 'Crisis meeting?'

  'The election's two days away, Starkey,' he wheezed. 'Of course we're meeting.'

  As I reached the top I stopped him as he gestured me forward towards the room where Parker and I had first met Brinn. Ah, Parker. If only he'd known then what was to befall him. And then I thought, Parker, CIA? Nah. No way. 'You know what this is all about, Alfie?'

  'Kinda.'

  'Kinda how much?'

  'You should discuss it with Brinn.'

  'You know I didn't kill Margaret McGarry.'

  ‘I don't know that. I know you're here from Cow Pat Coogan, and that yous might have something on Brinn to make him want to deal. I know it all sounds pretty shoddy to me.' He thrust his face into mine. 'You've fallen an awful long way, Starkey. An awful long way. You're down beneath the bottom of the barrel, son.' Alfie blew out his cheeks, turned on his heels and led me down the corridor to Brinn's almost familiar study. He told me to take a seat. 'And try not to destroy anything,' he warned. I smiled at him and
he turned to leave.

  'Hey, Alfie?' I said. 'You knew about Brinn, didn't you? His past. You knew all about him.'

  He waved an admonishing finger at me. 'It'll take a better shit than you or Cow Pat bloody Coogan to bring Brinn down, Starkey. He's a better man, a better politician than any of those fuckin' hellions out there, better by far.'

  'Yeah,' I said to the door as he slammed it, 'kinda.'

  'Ah, Mrs Brinn. Nice to see you again.'

  Agnes put her head round the door and stared at me. 'Are you coming in?'

  It had only been a few days since we had met, yet the additive-free face I had so admired had become rather haggard and her hair lay dank on her head. I was no oil painting myself, of course.

  She wavered uncertainly in the doorway then slowly stepped forward. She closed the door behind her and leant against it. She kept staring. It was unsettling.

  ‘Is he coming then?' I asked.

  'He'll be along when he finishes his meeting.'

  I nodded. My seat by the window gave me a good view of the floodlit garden. I turned away from her to watch the progress of the guards as they patrolled the perimeter wall, their black uniforms brightened only by the pinprick glow of cigarettes.

  'Why are you here?' She asked, her voice drink-dulled. 'To see the man.'

  'What about?'

  I kept my eyes on the garden. 'That's between me and the man.'

  She clicked a heel sharply against the door. I looked up at her. Her top lip was trembling. I'd never seen a top lip tremble before.

  ‘Why won't anyone tell me anything?' She was on the verge of tears. I started to rise from my seat but she tensed up against the door and I lowered myself back down. 'What's going on?'

  I opened my palms to her. It was better than shrugging. 'Too much,' I volunteered.

  'Why won't anyone tell me anything?' She repeated, running her hands through her hair, which can't have been pleasant. 'Why are you here? He didn't tell me you were coming, you of all people. I mean, after what you did . . . he brings you here?'

  'Agnes, I didn't do anything.'

  'He's been in foul form for days and he won't tell me a thing, and he used to tell me everything. Everything.' The tears started to roll. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. 'It's like I don't know him at all. And he's got everything going for him.'

  Then all of her was trembling. I stood up and walked across to her and went to put my arms round her but she pushed me away. 'It all started when you came here. Everything was going so fine till you came. It's like there's a curse on you. I don't know why he doesn't get the police and have done with you.'

  I crossed to the window again. There wasn't much I could say. Then she was beside me, looking out over the grounds, at a rabbit valiantly defying the floodlights. 'It's not going to work, is it?' She asked. 'After all we've achieved, it's all going to fall apart at the end, isn't it?'

  ‘I don't know. It's not up to me. I'm only a messenger.'

  'The devil's advocate,' she said.

  'That's a drink made with eggs, isn't it? No wonder he's so evil, it tastes like shite.'

  She gave a sad little chuckle and said wearily, 'In the middle of all this, you're writing.' It wasn't writing. It was wit. It was an entirely different thing. I hadn't thought of writing for an eternity. 'What will you write about it then, when it's over?' She asked.

  I shook my head. 'I never write something until I know how it ends.'

  The door opened. We both looked round. Brinn. The same pale face, but his eyes hooded now, menacing. 'What are you doing in here, Agnes?'

  She put her hand mockingly to her chest. 'Me? Oh, you can see me, can you? What a surprise.'

  'Agnes

  'Oh stop it, wouldja?'

  She took off across the room. He moved to one side of the doorway and she stormed past without looking at him. Brinn gave her back a lingering gaze, then closed the door and turned to face me.

  'Women,' I said, to break the ice.

  'Men,' he said, 'and what they do.'

  'Yeah,' I said.

  29

  We sat opposite each other. The decaffeinated coffee table was between us, as before. A copy of the Belfast Telegraph sat upon it, with a colour photograph of the masses attending Brinn's peace rally staring up at me.

  ‘Is that there for a reason?' I asked.

  'It may be. I didn't put it there. Maybe Alfie was being cryptic'

  'Yeah.'

  'Maybe he was just reading it in here. Maybe you're reading too much into it.'

  'As the great communicator I thought you might be trying to tell me something. Something about peace and love.

  No?'

  'From me? If you know what I think you know, you won't be expecting that, will you?'

  Slipping back into old habits, I shrugged.

  'So let's talk,' he said, 'about the pleasures of home taping. They say it's killing music, but I wonder if they thought about it killing democracy?' His smile barely curled above his upper teeth and tugged only lightly at his cheeks. 'Shoot,' he said.

  'Just the facts, then.' I spread my ten fingers before him and began counting them off. I had no plans to get as far as ten. 'As you know, I've been sent here by Cow Pat Coogan. He has possession of a tape in which you confess to the bombing of the Paradise restaurant in 1974 in which eight people died. He would like to sell it back to you-for

  £250,000, which, he says, isn't very much. Otherwise he will make it public'

  Brinn shook his head slowly, but it wasn't a negative response as such, more an instinctive reaction. 'And of course there's only the one copy,' he said. He stared at me for several seconds. '£250,000 isn't very much, is it? He wouldn't dream of bleeding me dry from now till kingdom come, would he, or controlling the country through blackmail?'

  'He gave me his word,' I said. 'Of course, he could have been lying. I imagine he isn't called Cow Pat for nothing.'

  ‘I imagine not.' Brinn stood up and walked to the window. He shook his head again as he stared out over the floodlit gardens. 'Tell me, Starkey, what's your role in all this? I've managed to keep out of the papers that I know you at all; I hoped that might be the worst of my problems. What was it, you decided the sword was mightier than the pen, or you just wanted to get rich quick? And why Cow Pat Coogan of all people?'

  His voice was wispy, carried on the slightly musty air of the paperback-lined room like a chicken feather rising on a thin beam of sunlight in a slaughterhouse. It wasn't easy to feel sorry for him. I felt sorrier for myself.

  'It's quite simple really,' I said. I'd get to the tenth finger yet. 'I was having an affair with Margaret McGarry. She gave me a tape. Somebody killed her. I got blamed. The tape was taken off me. Now they'll kill my wife if you don't deal. See? Simple. Your turn. The tape. It is authentic, isn't it?'

  Brinn turned from the window, leant against it. 'I haven't heard it, of course. But I have no reason to doubt its existence.' He tilted his head up towards the ceiling, puffed out his cheeks and blew air. 'These things do have a habit of coming back to haunt you, don't they?'

  'I'll take your word for it.'

  'I mean, things you do when you're drunk.'

  'You were drunk when you bombed the . . .'

  'No, no,' he snapped, 'when McGarry . .. betrayed me. Do you ever wake up after you've been drinking and you just go, oh no, when you remember what you've done?'

  'Always.'

  'That's what it was like. I'd been to a Party party, if you know what I mean. The campaign was just under way. I was with friends, so I was able to let my hair down a bit, first time for a long time. I just got drunk and a bit depressed over this and that. Maybe it was the bomb. It never really goes away, you understand? McGarry took me home. We had a long conversation. He was the first person I ever told about the bomb. Not even my wife.'

  ‘I gathered that.'

  'The more I think about it now the more I realize he steered the conversation towards violence, towards the bomb. Somehow
he got to hear about it and took advantage of me when I was drunk to tape what amounts to a confession. The bastard. To think of all the help I'd .. .'

  'Things like that always come out.'

  He shook his head. 'You'd be surprised. The number of things I could tell you about... people. You'd be appalled. But I'm not like that . . . forgive and forget.'

  'Difficult for eight families to forget...'

  'Jesus!' Brinn snapped. 'Don't you think I know? How do you think I got into politics?' He returned to his seat, crossed his legs, rubbed his fingers over a lightly stubbled chin. His eyes glazed in memory. 'I was only a youngster when it all happened. Easily led. I thought I was fighting for a just cause. They told me I was bombing a police dinner. I was bombing a police dinner, but the restaurant had double booked it and the police agreed to a change of venue at the last minute and I got to bomb the Cavalier King

  Charles Spaniel Club. You, and I mean you, might describe it as barking up the wrong tree.'

  'That's a sad comment on me.'

  'Yeah. It's all sad. You experience death like that, it changes you. It changed me. I worked hard. I got all this. I nearly got to be prime minister, didn't I?'

  'Nearly,' I agreed.

  'But not now,' he said.

  I shrugged. 'Things might work out okay.'

  'Don't be stupid, Starkey. This is all the Unionists have been waiting for. If this gets out, voters would rather slip tongues with lepers than vote for me.'

  ‘I always felt like that.'

  'Starkey,' he said bluntly, his gaze as close to withering as be damned, 'what the fuck gives you the right to sit there and be so bloody patronizing?'

  I sat back. 'My wife being held hostage because of a bomb you planted.'

  He snorted. 'We're both in the shit.'

  'Yeah.'

  'And you're the only one with any hope of coming out of this smelling of roses.'

  ‘I don't mind if I come out smelling of shit, Brinn, as long as I come out, and at the moment that's entirely up to you. You have an answer for Coogan?'

  He shook his head.

  'He wants to hear soon. So does my wife.'

  ‘I know this sounds harsh, Starkey, but I can't put your wife before the country.'