Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  'Well,' said Maxwell, smiling nervously, his capped teeth to the fore, 'you're alive, which quite frankly surprises me, so you should consider that a bonus. Your wife is alive, which is another. There is a faint possibility that you could be charged with manslaughter over Mrs McGarry, but frankly I think that that is unlikely - as long as you are cooperative, that is.'

  'Meaning exactly what?'

  'You know a lot of things, Starkey. A lot of things that should remain out of the public domain for the immediate future. Things are very fragile out there at the moment, very fragile indeed. It wouldn't take much to tip them one way or the other.'

  It never did. 'Just tell me what you're proposing.'

  'Okay.' He rubbed his hands together briefly, then eased them down his trouser legs. He wasn't happy. He wasn't comfortable. 'The agreement must be this - I tell you what I can about what has happened to you and why, and you agree that it's off the record. In other words, no story.'

  'Maxwell, I lost interest in stories a long time ago.'

  'I hope so, because this one doesn't need to get out.'

  I gave him a hand to get started, because he was plainly in no hurry. 'Okay,' I said, 'in the beginning was the tape.'

  'No,' he corrected, 'in the beginning was the bomb. The 1974 bombing of the Paradise restaurant which killed eight people.'

  'Which was planted by Brinn.'

  'Which was planted by Brinn but whose detonation was organized by Coogan.'

  'Aha.'

  'Aha, indeed. Coogan was in command of a six-man IRA unit which organized the campaign in that particular area. Brinn was the youngest member, but an ambitious wee bastard nevertheless, even then. He was becoming something of a thorn in Coogan's bum. Coogan was more of a businessman than Brinn liked. The bomb on the Paradise was a hit on a police function, sure, but it was also because the owners refused to cough up enough protection money. We believe Coogan had a good idea that the police had already transferred their dinner before he ordered the attack. Anyway, Brinn was starting to catch the ear of some of the high-ups about Coogan's profiteering just around the time that the bombing took place. The bomb went off early, early enough to catch Brinn on the way out and give him some pretty horrific injuries.'

  'And he thought Coogan set it off early, deliberately to shut him up.'

  'Something like that.'

  'And did he?'

  'We have no way of knowing. Brinn was in hospital for months during which time he underwent a conversion to democracy.'

  'A miracle indeed. And he was never suspected of the bombing?'

  'No. We'd no reason to. Our information then wasn't what it is now. He was fresh on the scene and hadn't made it into those scabby little manila folders we used to have on prime suspects. As far as we were concerned then he was just an average punter who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

  Maxwell took out another cigarette for himself, offered me one again, lit up. 'So, all burnt-up and high on drugs, Brinn gives an emotional interview on TV condemning senseless violence which goes all over the world.'

  'And so the personality cult started. I know all that.'

  'Okay. So from patient to politician. And a good politician at that.'

  'But with a few skeletons in his closet. Eight, in fact.'

  'More.'

  'More? You mean yesterday's

  'Well, yes, bringing it right up to date, but before that as well.'

  I shook my head. 'Before when?'

  Maxwell pushed another smile onto his face. Blew out a little more smoke. 'Let's go back to Coogan. He's still in charge in bandit country, he's gotten rid of the little thorn. He moves progressively further away from Republicanism to concentrate on making money for himself. Eventually his unit is disbanded by the Army Council of the IRA, but he still remains the power in that part of the world, particularly in his stronghold in Crossmaheart. Follow?'

  'Follow.'

  'Right. So Coogan and his new gang reap the profits, occasionally working hand in hand with the IRA, but mostly not. He watches Brinn's rise with some amusement apparently, appears happy enough to leave him alone in his new career, while he builds up a fortune in his. But then things start to happen that get him worried. There are a couple of failed attempts on his life. IRA men start getting hit. But there's nothing random about the hits; the gunmen are acting on very precise information. Within a couple of years the four remaining members of the original cell which organized the Paradise bombing have been shot dead. And you know as well as I do the way that cell structure works in the IRA. Only the members of that particular cell would have access to that sort of information.'

  'You're not saying Brinn killed them.'

  'No. He didn't kill them. But he fed the information to whoever did. The UVF. We believe he surprised himself with the success of his politics. He knew it would only be a matter of time before word leaked out about his past, so he did some leaking himself.'

  'He turned Deep Throat.'

  'Deep Throat and deeply depressed. The rumours had already started ... he felt he had to take some action.'

  'So Coogan gets suspicious.'

  'Coogan doesn't get suspicious. He makes a decision and then acts on it, right or wrong. That's the thing about Coogan, he makes his mind up one way or the other, then gives it one hundred per cent. He sets out to get Brinn. But Brinn is already one step ahead of him. He got word, through whatever channels, that Coogan was going out for a bit of fun, a bit of cattle rustling. It's what he does to relax. He gets it to the UVF, who sit in wait for him. Unfortunately there's an informer on the UVF side who leaks the ambush to the police. The UVF gets offside sharpish, but Coogan gets caught in the act of rustling. He has everything in the book thrown at him, all the banks they know he did but can't really prove, in the hope that something will stick.'

  'But only the rustling does.'

  'Right. So he gets fifteen years, which is way over the top for the actual offence, but that's Diplock Courts for you. Not that I'm complaining.'

  'It wouldn't do to criticize the law,' I said. 'And with our cock-eyed remission system and good behaviour he's out in five and out for revenge.'

  Maxwell smiled wanly. 'In a nutshell,' he said.

  'What an apt description.'

  'And about the same time the pressure of being at the top, of knowing what he knows, gets to Brinn, just the once. The wrong time, the wrong place, again. The story of his life. He lets his hair down to a traitor with a tape recorder.'

  'A pity for him that the two events coincide. Coogan getting but, the tape becoming available.'

  'Well, it's not quite as simple as that.'

  'Oh, I know that. I come in and fuck up the equation.'

  'Well, yes. You do, if you'll pardon the expression, and with all due respect to the late Mr Parker, become the nigger in the woodpile.'

  'That's not showing much respect at all.'

  'It was only an expression.'

  'Expressions get you killed here.'

  Maxwell's head slumped and he gave what he thought was a pained expression. 'You don't . . .' he began and then stopped. His caps appeared over his bottom lip for a second, about as far away from a smile as teeth can be, like the forced grin you get on a skull after the flesh has rotted away.

  'Don't be so combative, Starkey. It doesn't help. I know you've been through a simply horrid time and I will try to take that into account.'

  I pulled at my bottom lip, exposing a little of my own teeth. 'That's very generous of you . . .' I could tell the sarcasm grated on him.

  'We were

  'If you don't mind me asking, Neville, who's we?'

  'Central Office of Information. You knew that all along.'

  Of course I did. I knew everything. I just didn't know that I knew, I always thought you were just some kind of press officer.'

  ‘I am.'

  'You must have fuckin' huge terms of reference.'

  He took a leaf out of my book. He shrugged. 'Press. I
nformation. The same thing really,' he said dryly. 'We were aware of the tape's existence. We were aware McGarry was trying to sell it.'

  'So why didn't you just nip in and nick it off him? Wouldn't that have been the wise thing?'

  Maxwell gave a little sigh, folded his legs. Blew some more smoke out. 'Starkey, you have to understand, sometimes it's better to watch and wait.'

  'To gather information.'

  'Sometimes these things have a way of working themselves out if you leave them alone.'

  'Brinn is dead. You knew something that could have saved the life of the prime minister, for God's sake.'

  'And would it not have been worse if he'd been unmasked as a killer while in office? Think about it. His . . . charisma, whatever ... got his party into office. They're there now, by popular demand. They have a chance to change things.'

  I shook my head. 'Do you know what happened to the Sex Pistols when Johnny Rotten left them? Did they survive and prosper?' He looked blankly at me. I persevered. 'Cut off the head and the body dies, Neville. Think about it.'

  'Prune a rose bush, it flowers again. Better than before. You think about it, Starkey - we have a popular government in power, a famous gangster is dead, a political fraud has been removed. There's hope again. There's little real harm done.'

  I put my head back on the pillows, closed my eyes, and asked him if any harm had come to Margaret McGarry.

  33

  Scout's honour, I won't tell a soul. Except I was a BB boy from way back. Maybe Maxwell with his Central Office of Information didn't know everything.

  I had four days of what he euphemistically called debriefing. It sounds like something vaguely humorous, like a Whitehall farce, but my interview sessions were ill-tempered shouting matches. He didn't say a lot himself, he had a team of experts to do that for him, but he was a brooding presence over it all, a probing, wistful spirit intent on entering every cranny of my mind in search of buried treasure, but shrouded in a perpetual gloom because nearly all the crannies were empty, or half full of a poisonous, swirling bile. They gave me drink and hoped it would loosen my tongue, but they were wasting their time because there was nothing more to tell; I was not privy to any secrets; I was not involved for any reason beyond my own stupidity; I was a fool first and journalist second and neither had overlapped during the whole episode.

  During working hours they interviewed me. During lunch I interviewed Maxwell. 'Who decided to let Brinn die?' I asked. He shrugged. We both picked at our hospital food, a wooden tray each. We sparred between swallows.

  'The decision was made.'

  'How did you know there was a bomb in the car?'

  'There wasn't a bomb in the car. There was a bomb in the cassette recorder. The unusual aspect is that the bomb was designed only to go off as the play button was activated. I mean, there was no timer or anything. That's the only thing that set it off. Could have gone off anywhere. Coogan's sense of humour, I imagine. Not something I can very easily relate to. Perhaps he knew Brinn that well that he could depend on him playing the tape. But he could very easily have gotten away.'

  I had clothes. My own clothes. Members of his team brought them from the house. I felt the same sort of bond with the clothes Alfie Stewart had given me as with the denims Parker had bought me. None. It was an amicable divorce in which I got fashion and Oxfam got back what was rightly theirs.

  Maxwell handed the clothes over to me personally. A black sports jacket, black jeans, a white shirt, black Oxford shoes. The shirt was expertly pressed.

  'Do this yourself?' I asked.

  'No,' he said, and after a moment added, 'Your wife did.' I looked at the clothes again. 'Recently?'

  'Day before yesterday.'

  'You mean she's home?'

  'She's home.'

  'And she didn't come to see me?' Maxwell shook his head. ‘I see.'

  He stopped shaking his head. Just watched me.

  'Any message from her?'

  'No.'

  'But she did press my shirt, so there's hope for me yet.'

  'Perhaps. You've put her through a tough time.'

  'It wasn't intentional. Maxwell. None of it was.'

  'So very little of it ever is.' It was a cryptic turn of phrase, but I was prepared to let it pass.

  I sat down on the bed and began to take my pyjama jacket off. All of a sudden he looked a little sad, as if his own revelation that not everything always went according to strict plan had rebounded on him, wounding his bureaucratic sensibilities. 'What's wrong. Maxwell? You're not suggesting there was a cock-up on your side as well?'

  He sat on the bed beside me, which made it impossible to get my arms into the shirt, but I let him be. I could sense a confession coming on.

  'We lost a very fine agent over this.'

  I nodded beside him. We both looked at the ground for a while. 'Parker was a good man,' I said.

  Maxwell's head twisted sharply towards me. The kind of twist that would give me a crick, but he was a well-oiled machine. 'Parker? God, no!' He spluttered. 'He was an incompetent of the highest order. Blundering about like . . . like...' He opened his arms, waved his hands with an exasperated flourish. 'Like you . .. Starkey ... and we have an excuse for you. He was supposed to be a professional . . . no, I'm talking about a very fine man who died along with Coogan.'

  I have never seen my own brows furrowing, but I could tell that they were. 'With Coogan?' Their faces flashed towards me. Whole faces. Noses. Cheeks. Eyes. Skin. None of them burnt. An identity parade of the dead. There was only one logical candidate. Only one who had shown any sign of intelligence or compassion.

  'Malachy Burns? Your own man was Malachy Burns?'

  Maxwell shook his head.

  'Not Seanie,' I exclaimed, aware of the shrillness in my voice. 'He didn't have the brains of . . .' He shook his head.

  I looked him square in the eye. 'You're not serious.' It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

  He let out a little chuckle; it sounded like an empty Coke can rolling down subway steps. 'Like I say, Michael Angus, Mad Dog to you, was a very fine man. Very professional. Very brave. He trod a very thin line.'

  'Jesus.' I shook my head. 'He didn't give much away, the last time I saw him he gave me the fingers.'

  'Like I say, he was very good.'

  'He was very good, but you were prepared to let him lie.'

  'No. Not quite' Maxwell clasped his hands before him, although they weren't quite set for prayer. 'Starkey, you see, in the information game, you can never quite know it all. Ultimately, it's what you don't know that makes it interesting. One door leads to another, or one door leads to a whole block of flats. We knew about Coogan's bomb for Brinn and were prepared to go with it. We didn't know about Brinn's bomb for Coogan. We were quite happy to have Coogan still around, he had his contacts with the IRA which Mad Dog could pick up on easily enough, and at the same time he was a divisive element in the Republican movement. But Brinn slipped that one past us. Someone supplied him with the bomb; I couldn't tell you who yet.'

  I stood up to complete my dressing. 'The same way as you can't tell me who killed Margaret? Coogan thought it was Billy McCoubrey'

  He unclasped his hands. 'I think it would be fairly safe to say her killer came from the Loyalist persuasion. But naming someone? No. Again, not yet. It will surface one day. Quite possibly it was McCoubrey or one of his soldiers. I doubt we'll ever be able to prove anything. But we'll know, as we so often do. I know it's not much compensation, Starkey, but these things do have a way of working themselves out. Eventually,'

  'Like Brinn.'

  'Like Brinn’

  And then it was time to go. Maxwell booked me a taxi. He never mentioned paying me for all my hard work with

  Parker. I wasn't up to asking in case he hit me with the bill for a nationwide manhunt.

  He didn't say goodbye. One of his men told me the cab was on its way and I was free to move on. So I stood in the sun waiting for it to arrive, a soldier on guard d
uty motionless and quite possibly asleep beside me. Wispy white clouds flecked the blue. The excited cries of children enjoying their summer holidays all but drowned out the steady hum of traffic outside the meshed wire of the Musgrave Park Hospital's military wing. The half-circle frontage of the King's Hall across the way advertised a gospel revival show. I was free. But not free. Healthy but scarred. Happy but desperately sad.

  The taxi drew up in a diesel roar. I climbed into the back and the Belle of Belfast City grinned round at me, her yellowed teeth sharp as a shark's. Her voice was a sea elephant's bark: 'Thought I recognized the name. How the fuck are ye? Yer gob's been all over the box this last few weeks, hasn't it?' She roared out into the traffic. She lit a cigarette, turned right, spoke into the radio and spat out the window all in the one graceful movement. 'The wee man at home told me I shoulda called the fuckin' peelers about givin' ye a lift once before, but I sez to him, "Billy, fuck up". I don't squeal to the fuckin' peelers about nothin'.'

  'I'm grateful.'

  'Never you bother yer head thankin' me, mate. Long as ye pay yer fare you're okay in my book.'

  Musgrave Park is only ten minutes in heavy traffic from the Holy Land, but in the daze of my release it felt longer. I tried to imagine how I used to be, coming home from a shift on the paper, or sitting at home trying to be literary, waiting for Patricia to come home from the tax office. Did I get a little tinge of excitement every time I saw her? Did I welcome her home with a kiss and a hug and a 'missed you dreadfully'? I couldn't really remember. But I suspected not. What did I do, storm through the door, open a can and flop in front of the box with barely a hello? Did she charge through, moaning that I hadn't put the dinner on? Dinner, beer: normality. I couldn't imagine it. How long since I'd sat down for dinner with my wife? How long since we'd made small talk over my burgers and her salad? Was she the love of my life any more now that I had slept with Margaret and she had screwed Cow Pat Coogan? What if I came through the door and she gave me that most terrible of all male'female murder phrases, the demotion with shame to the lowest of the low: I want us just to be friends. She would say it with alarming alacrity, flaunting her femininity and new-found independence. She would ask me to move out of our house, but she wouldn't be nasty about it. In my own time.