Belfast Confidential

by Bateman, Colin

  Belfast

  Confidential

  Celebrity, Scandal, Revenge and a Very Big Mouse

  Colin Bateman

  Copyright © 2005, Colin Bateman

  The right of Colin Bateman to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For Andrea and Matthew

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  1

  Mouse never liked cats

  Nothing to do with the name, just he never liked cats. He valued loyalty, and friendship, and long walks. Cats aren't loyal, they're not your friends, and you can't take them for a walk, unless they're in a bag, weighed down with stones. So when he came round to help me move house, and he saw the Siamese playing with a dead sparrow in the middle of our newly sown lawn, it was natural for him to lift the rock. It was natural for him to throw the rock. He was a big man, with a strong arm, and he hefted it with all the grace, power and directional acumen of a major league pitcher.

  For Mouse, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

  If I had thrown a rock at all, it would have been to merely frighten the poor creature. Not to half cleave its head off, the way Mouse did.

  If I'd thrown it, it would have fallen short, or smashed into next door's greenhouse, and the cat would have given me a haughty look, picked up the bird, juggled with it for a while, then tossed it to one side before nonchalantly wandering off. That way, neither of us would have lost face. Mouse's way, the cat lost face. And ear. And top of skull. Before rolling over dead. Stone dead.

  We stood and looked at it. We could hear my wife, singing to herself inside. Something by Abba.

  Mouse said, 'Oh.'

  I said, 'Oh.'

  From the other side of the high wooden fence, our new neighbour said, 'Psssss-wsssssss, psssss-wsssssss, Toodles.'

  They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can experience: it's in there with giving birth, burying your parents, taking the driving test. I think people ought to get out more. You get pursued by religious maniacs, shot at by rampaging terrorists, threatened by drug-crazed movie stars and pummelled by heavyweight champions, and you soon realise moving house isn't stressful at all. It's a walk in the park. Till someone kills the neighbour's cat, and you have to scoop up the body, brains an' all, and stuff it in a box in the garage until you can decide what to do, all the time cursing Mouse under your breath and him grinning stupidly at you. And then you wander back out, blood still on your hands, and the neighbour suddenly appears head and shoulders above the fence, balancing on a stool, 'Nice to meet you! I'm George, this is my wife Georgie, and you didn't happen to see Toodles anywhere, did you?' And Patricia, my wife – she would say 'longsuffering', but then don't they all? – comes down the garden innocently shaking her head while I shrug and Mouse stands there grinning like an idiot. That's when moving house gets stressful.

  Instead of thumping Mouse I introduced him because I could tell they weren't sure which of us was the husband, and then they took a proper look at him and said, genuinely surprised and impressed: 'You're that Mouse?'

  Mouse grinned.

  'Right enough,' said Georgie, 'I've seen you on the telly. And I never miss a single issue.'

  They were talking about a weekly magazine called Belfast Confidential and looking at Patricia and me curiously, wanting to know what the Editor, owner and all-round celeb magnet and virtual-brandname Mouse was doing in our back garden. We were clearly not celebs, so that surely meant we were the other sort that BC delights in exposing – frauds, or thugs or sexual deviants or born-again Christians or terrorists. Except Mouse had a can of beer in his hand and he looked quite at home. Maybe we were relatives. Dim country cousins moving to the big city.

  It used to be that I was the well-known one – I had a column in the local paper, I stirred up all kinds of shit – but just as terrorists eventually hang up their guns and enter politics, I had long since resigned myself to the security and boredom of the post-Troubles newsroom. Belfast is like any city that has suffered war or pestilence or disaster – hugely relieved to no longer be the focus of world attention, but also slightly aggrieved that it isn't. In the old days you could say, 'I'm from Belfast,' anywhere in the world and it was like shorthand: a thousand images of explosions and soldiers and barbed wire and rioting and foam-mouthed politicians were thrown up by that simple statement. You were automatically hard, even if you were a freckle-armed accountant in National Health specs; you earned the sympathy of slack-jawed women for surviving so long, and you habitually buffed up your life story like you'd just crawled out of the Warsaw ghetto. You joked about the Troubles, but in such a way that you made it seem like you were covering something up. Perhaps you said you were once in a lift with that Gerry Adams and you thought he bore a remarkable resemblance to Rolf Harris, and you pointed out that you never saw the two of them in the same place at the same time, and your audience laughed and said, 'Right enough,' but at the same time you knew what they were thinking, that you were making light of it because actually you'd suffered horribly at the hands of masked terrorists or your mother had been blown through a window at Omagh or your father was shot down on the Bogside for demanding basic human rights. To say you were from Belfast was to say you were a Jew in Berlin, or a soldier of the Somme. But no longer. And as the Troubles had waned, so had the world's interest, and so had my star. Like a minor player in a soap opera who has been killed off, I no longer had access to (or, to tell the truth), much interest in the limelight. My job was boring, my wage was average, my family life was quiet, uneventful. But I was happy. I had seen and done too much; now was my quiet time. Mouse, on the other hand, had reinvented himself, and not just as a cat-killer.

  'Could we have your autograph? Would it be too much trouble?'

  Mouse didn't even bother to blush. The wife raced in and got her latest copy of Belfast Confidential and Mouse signed and dated it. He then obliged them with some TV gossip: Eamon Holmes was being wooed by Channel 4, and some local actor who used to be in CSI: Miami had checked into rehab again. Then we left Patricia to bask in the res
idual glow of his celebrity, saying we had to get on with the unpacking, but instead Mouse guided me to his new toy and I, who know nothing about cars, blinked at it kind of impressed. 'Is that a . . . ?'

  Mouse nodded 'You betcha.'

  The RA Jet is the kind of sports car you have to be young and beautiful or suffer the illusion of such to drive. I'd a fair idea of where Mouse fitted into the equation, but he was obviously deeply in love with it. He ran his hand down the sleek bodywork. 'This is one of only three working models in the entire world. They won't roll off the production line for another eighteen months.'

  'So how come you . . . ?'

  'Because if the Editor of Belfast Confidential has one, then it's the car to have, isn't it?'

  I nodded. 'Good to see you haven't got an over-inflated sense of your own importance.'

  Mouse shrugged. 'Doesn't matter what I have. It's what they think. So jump in,' he said. 'I'll show you what it can do.'

  I wasn't the slightest bit interested in what it could do. I was never a car boy. Strictly A to B. Mechanically illiterate. But Mouse was keen to show off, so I sat there with a can of beer from the coolbox he kept in the back, while he put it through its paces. I said, 'Very nice,' a couple of times, and asked about cylinders and horsepower and satellite navigational systems and he went into considerable detail.

  'I've to give it back next week. Liam Neeson is next on the list, and they're making him come here from New York to drive it.'

  'Wow,' I said.

  We'd been gone about twenty minutes when Patricia called my mobile. She said, 'Where the fuck are you?'

  I looked at Mouse. 'Where the fuck are we?'

  He pointed at the electronic map on the dashboard. 'Here,' he said.

  'Where's here?' I asked, squinting down. The writing was too small.

  'I'm not sure,' said Mouse. 'I haven't got my glasses.'

  'Neither have I.' Sad, really. 'Trish, it's official, we have no idea.'

  'Well, that's a big help.'

  'I know.'

  'If it's any consolation,' Mouse said, 'I'm going in for laser eye-surgery next week. Then I'll be twenty-twenty.'

  'Patricia, he says he's going in for laser eye-surgery. Then he'll have twenty-twenty vision and be able to read the maps in his own fucking car. Unless of course the surgeon sneezes or something and they blow the top of his head off.'

  Patricia sighed. 'Well, tell him good luck, and would you ever think of looking out the window and just telling me where you are?'

  I glanced about me. We were moving up Great Victoria Street. Lavery's Bar was only a few hundred yards away. 'Nope. Don't recognise it. He's got us lost, love.'

  Mouse's brow furrowed.

  'On second thoughts,' Patricia snapped, 'I don't care where you are. Just get back here and help me do this, will you? It's not fair, leaving it all to me.'

  'I know, I know, love, I'll be back as soon as I can. And we don't have to do it all in one day anyway, do we? We've got the rest of our lives.'

  'Yes, Dan, very romantic. Now stop trying to slink out of the fucking unpacking and get back here.'

  'Yes, Boss,' I said. I cut the line and pointed Lavery's out to Mouse. 'Some nights in there, eh?' Mouse nodded. 'Fancy one?'

  He snorted lightly. 'In there?'

  'Aye.'

  'I think we're a bit past Lavery's, Dan.'

  'Meaning what?'

  'Well, it's all . . . you know, drunks and students.'

  'So?'

  'We've moved on a bit from that.'

  'Speak for yourself.'

  Then he had a brainwave. He clicked his fingers. 'Tell you what – you hungry? I have a table at Cayenne.'

  'You what?'

  'I have a table at Cayenne.'

  'Yes, I heard what you said, I just don't know what the fuck you mean.'

  'Dan, for god sake. Cayenne. The restaurant.'

  I shrugged.

  'They used to run Roscoffs. Remember Roscoffs?'

  My knowledge of restaurants is largely confined to eating establishments that only get busy after the pubs close, but I remembered Roscoffs because before peace broke out it was the kind of establishment that politicians and PR people took foreign visitors to, in order to prove that every meal in Belfast didn't have to include chips. Anyone who was anyone ate there, and the owners were awarded stars, and their own TV show, and they joined the celebrity chef circuit. So I nodded and he said, 'They've redecorated and changed the name and it's a whole new concept in cooking and they've put the prices up. It's fantastic, and it's only around the corner.'

  'And you have a table.'

  'Well, it's not my own personal table, but they'll look after us.'

  I sighed. 'Has it really come to this?'

  'Come to what?'

  'That you have a table. Or at least access to one. "I have a table." That's what you said.'

  'Well, they're difficult to get.'

  'So who gives a fuck?'

  Mouse shook his head. 'They're friends of mine.'

  'Good for you.'

  'And besides, they want to make sure they're on the List, so it won't be a problem.'

  'The List?'

  'The List.'

  'What List?'

  'The List.'

  'Lost me, Mouse.'

  'The Belfast Confidential Power List.'

  'Ah. Right.'

  'Dan – you know about the List. I've told you about the List.'

  'Well, I'm getting on, I don't always remember everything you say.'

  He shook his head, because of course I knew the List. Everyone in town knew the List. On it were Belfast's top fifty movers and shakers. A canny mix of multi-millionaire industrialists, TV chat-show hosts, pop stars, gangsters and politicians – the people who shaped our booming little city. It was parochial to the extreme, and didn't mean a thing ten miles out in any direction, but in the three years since Mouse had launched the Belfast Confidential Power List, it had assumed an importance, a cultural relevance which was hard to quantify and difficult to pin down. It was just – big, and Mouse loved it.

  'Okay,' I said, 'that List.'

  'You don't have to say it like that.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like that. It's important, Dan.'

  'Uhuh.'

  'I don't mean to be on it, per se. It just – gives us . . . a sense of identity, do you know what I mean?'

  'Mmmmm,' I said. 'And by the way, do you think there's any danger of you disappearing up your own arse?'

  Mouse gave me a sad look. 'A bit of support, once in a while, might be nice.'

  He was my best friend. Thick and thin, mostly thin. 'I know. Sorry,' I said.

  'We just don't throw it together, you know.'

  'I know.'

  'Every entry is scrupulously researched, expert opinion is sought, we discuss every single detail . . .'

  'I know, Mouse.'

  'We don't just pull names out of thin air.'

  'I believe you, all right? Go to fucking Cheyenne then.'

  'Cayenne. Anyway, I thought you had to get home?'

  'I do.'

  Mouse turned the car back towards Shaftesbury Square. We didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. I thought I'd better break the ice. 'So,' I said, 'these Cayenne people. Are they on the Power List?'

  'Well, it depends what table they give me.'

  2

  Good table. Just where everyone could see you. Mouse loved it – being the centre of attention. Not just here. Everywhere. Being someone. Anyone. He had been my Editor for a lot of years, back when I had some kind of profile, largely based upon what was billed as a satirical column but which was really just me taking the piss out of the great and the good, and sometimes the bad and the bold. Usually it was the great and the good who came after you with a big stick; the bad and the bold just shrugged it off because they didn't care, or couldn't read.

  Through all the threats and bollocks, Mouse was my rock – solid, dependable, supportive. He could blow and
bluster and roar and scream with the best of them, but like most big, loud men, he was shy and lacked confidence and avoided the spotlight wherever possible. Not that it ever sought him out. He was a desk jockey, brilliant at his job, but perceived as not being dynamic enough to progress up the editorial ladder. He stayed anchored to the news desk, frustrated at his lack of progress at work, and living a quiet, repressed kind of life at home in the shadow of his abrasive wife. In my less modest moments I had sometimes thought that he lived vicariously through me. He pulled me out of holes and guided and advised but he did not put himself in the way of danger. That was my foolish lot. And since I had ostensibly retired from dangerous missions – or getting myself into trouble – Mouse was denied even that outlet. His nickname was sarcastic, but few people realised how deadly accurate it actually was.

  The first time I noticed something different about him was on holiday in Cyprus. On the beach, me hungover, Patricia pissed on frozen Pina Coladas, Wendy, his wife, red raw and defiantly refusing suncream and complaining about the sunbeds, the pool, stones on the beach, jellyfish in the water, the price of heating oil at home, tribal strife in Rwanda and saying she didn't find Terry Wogan funny at all – and Mouse staring blankly out to sea. It was a look that I'd become familiar with up and down the beach: the grown man's fear of the Jet Ski. Mouse wasn't a doer. He desperately wanted to be, but he always held back. Never paraglided, never scuba dived, never went on roller coasters, lived in fear of speed cameras and never drank more than one pint if he was driving.

  I was looking for headache pills in my wife's handbag, Wendy was yittering on about aviation fuel, and suddenly Mouse was standing jabbing a finger at her: 'You know nothing about aviation fuel! Shut the fuck up!'

  Then he turned, strode down the beach, and a few moments later he was racing across the waves on this bright yellow Jet Ski, yelling and hollering.

  We looked at him, agog.

  Agog. Not a word you use every day.

  Wendy blamed it on dehydration and made him lie down in a dark room for the next few days. And Mouse agreed. Docile and pliable, like it was a glitch, a sunspot. Or as it turned out, more like a virus. Soon his whole system was infected. Or affected.