Belfast Confidential

by Bateman, Colin

  I said, 'How long have you been here?'

  He'd left his watch on the bedside table. He glanced at it and said, 'Four hours. I must have fallen asleep.'

  'And that . . . You woke up with that?'

  He shook his head. 'Viagra.'

  'Well, can't you do something about it?'

  He looked down at it – well, not down exactly, because the tip of it was almost at eye-level. 'I, well, I didn't want to disappoint, so I took three. I'll still be hard next Tuesday'

  I looked him in the eye. 'How do you know?' I asked. He shrugged. 'Have you done this before?' He shrugged again. 'With just as much success?' No shrug, but avoiding eye-contact. 'Right. Brilliant. Okay. Put some clothes on, Alec. Come downstairs. We need to have a talk.'

  We sat at the kitchen table. I made him a coffee. I drank Diet Coke. Too much drink. Alec was in his smart black suit again. He looked at the table a lot. I was glad it was there, between us, keeping his trousers and what they contained out of sight.

  'You must hate me,' he said.

  'Yes.'

  'I can't help falling in love.'

  'Uhuh.'

  'She is lovely.'

  'I'm aware of that.'

  'I couldn't help myself. I told her. She said she'd think about it.'

  'I know.'

  'You know?'

  'She tells me everything.'

  'What did she say about me?'

  'Alec, there is no future in this. You were employed to do a job. Patricia did not pick you out. But she is a friendly soul who made you welcome. That does not mean she wants to come home at night and find you in her bed.'

  'I'm beginning to realise that now.'

  'I mean, Christ, it's like the separation between Church and State: you have to learn that one thing is one thing, and the other thing is the other.'

  'I know. I . . . have an addictive personality. If someone shows me affection, I take more from it than I should.'

  'You said yourself it's happened before.' He nodded. 'When you were guarding someone else?'

  He shook his head. 'I haven't guarded anyone else before.'

  'You what?'

  'This is my first time.'

  'Your first time working for yourself. It was a company you worked for before. The Beckhams, Princess Diana.'

  He bit on his bottom lip. 'No, I never did. I worked as a door steward at Past Masters. May Li hired me. It wasn't great money, but it was more than I was earning there.'

  'But she paid for some kind of training, right?'

  Again, he shook his head. 'There wasn't time. I even had to provide my own suit. I had always wanted to do this kind of work though. I just wasn't allowed.'

  I look a deep breath. 'Why weren't you allowed, Alec?'

  'Well, I applied. But my eyesight's not great, and I can't wear contacts. And they seemed to think I had a mild case of attention deficit disorder.'

  I drummed my fingers on the table. The coffee vibrated. 'May Li hired a blind man with attention deficit disorder to guard me?'

  'That would appear to be the case.'

  'And all that stuff about assassinations and blood types?'

  'Well, I read a lot. I wear glasses at home, but I don't like to wear them in public. Self-conscious.'

  'Right,' I said.

  'Do you mind if I use your toilet?'

  'No, Alec.'

  'I also have irritable bowel syndrome.'

  He went to the bathroom.

  While he was gone I switched on the television news, and read the Ceefax report of Terry Breene's demise. There were three pages in all: one covered the circumstances of his death, one his playing career, and the third was taken up with tributes from other football stars. I had a lump in my throat reading them. The toilet flushed upstairs. As I returned to the kitchen I noticed the message light flashing on our answerphone. I pressed it: Toothless, on his mobile. 'Dan, for fuck sake, will you stay in one place? Been trying to find you all day. I've something for you. Gimme a buzz.'

  Alec began to come down the stairs. He got halfway down, then I heard him retrace his steps, and a moment later came the sound of the bathroom lock being secured again.

  I picked up the phone and called Toothless. He answered on the third ring. 'You have something for me,' I said.

  'And about bloody time. Yes, I have. Only thing is, I'm worried about your ability to pay. I heard you got the chop.'

  'I'll sort something out. What is it?'

  'Oh, wouldn't you like to know. Listen, I'll bring it round.'

  'Hold on a minute.' I set the receiver down and walked to the bottom of the stairs. 'Are you all right?' I shouted up.

  'Yus.'

  'I'm expecting a visitor.'

  'Okay.'

  'Which means you have to go.'

  'Christ.'

  He sounded like he was in considerable pain.

  'Are you sure you're okay?'

  'Yus.'

  'Well, are you going to be long?'

  'Christ. Sorry. Have you any idea . . . how . . . hard it is . . . to do a plop . . . when you have an erection?'

  'No,' I said. I returned to the phone. 'Toothless, it's not convenient right now.'

  'Well, it has to be. I can't hold onto this.'

  'Okay. All right.' I thought quickly. I was new to the neighbourhood, and hadn't really had a chance to work it out yet, but I had noticed a children's playground with a small car park beside it, just around the corner. I asked Toothless to meet me there in twenty minutes.

  He said, 'I love cloak and dagger stuff, don't you?'

  'No,' I replied. 'Familiarity breeds contempt.'

  40

  Alec Large was still in the toilet twenty-five minutes later.

  'Any joy?' I shouted up.

  'Not . . . yet. I'm really . . . sorry . . . about this.'

  I sighed. 'Don't worry about it. But I have to pop out for ten minutes. If everything works out for you in the meantime, just pull the door closed after you and never darken it again. All right?'

  'All . . . right.'

  I pulled my hood up against the rain, and hurried down the drive. I was late for my rendezvous with Toothless Malone, mostly due to the fact that I wasn't keen on leaving Alec alone in the house again. But I had no choice.

  I slipped down one avenue, then another, and out onto the main road. The playground was a hundred metres up on my left, and I could already see two cars sitting there. One, the closest, had its engine running, and there was a small plume of exhaust fumes coming from the rear. There was a vague outline of someone sitting behind the wheel. The other car was about ten metres further on, and appeared to be empty. There was a small copse beyond the car park, and a high wire fence surrounding a disused tennis court beside the playground. I walked along the far side of the road until I was roughly parallel with the first car, then waited for a gap in the traffic and splashed across. As I drew nearer I could hear the beat of heavy rock coming from within. Loud. I'd no idea what Toothless's car looked like, and didn't want to embarrass myself in front of some courting couple, so I stood by the window for a moment, hoping my presence might register and it would either be him, relaxing with Deep Purple, or some randy teenager telling me to fuck off. But he or they didn't notice, so I knocked lightly on the window, and then a little bit harder. Still nothing. I pressed my face to the glass and shielded my eyes against the glare from the streetlight above. It was Toothless okay, but he was turned slightly to one side, lost in the music. I could understand that, although not his choice.

  I drummed on the window, then tried the door handle. As I opened it, I said, 'Turn it down, would you?' in a chummy voice – only for Toothless to fall sideways. I stepped back instinctively as he sprawled half out of the car. I thought at first that maybe he was drunk, but he didn't move at all. I crouched beside him. 'Toothless, hey, Toothless – are you all right, mate?' I turned his head slightly, then recoiled in horror. His expensive teeth were all smashed and jagged and his jaw hung brokenly to one side.
His nose seemed to have exploded outwards. His eyes were wide and vacant. 'Smoke on the Water' was booming out, and Toothless was lying dead.

  My chest felt suddenly constricted. My brain popped and fizzed. He could only have been there for ten or fifteen minutes, maximum. And it definitely wasn't suicide. I stared towards the other car. Then into the trees. Across the tennis court. The swings were swaying gently. Deep Purple sang on. My heart thundered. I stared again at Toothless – what had he brought me? Was it still there? No, of course it wasn't! Whoever had killed him had taken it. Or what if it was just a random murder, wrong place, wrong time? Deep Purple sang on. No, of course not, of course not. Then, just for confirmation, the other car door opened. I was still crouching down. I stayed in that position, but took a step back. A man climbed out. With the rain and the glare of the light I couldn't quite see his face. I took another step back.

  'Police – stay where you are!'

  I raised myself a fraction, just enough to see over the edge of the bonnet.

  Brian Mooney. Detective Inspector. The good cop who'd warned me off. I took another step backwards. He must have followed Toothless. And if he'd followed, he must also have killed him. There was no other explanation. There wasn't time for anyone else to be involved. He hadn't just stumbled on a murder by accident. It had to be him.

  'Don't move!'

  Good cop.

  Bad cop.

  Where was the other one?

  Smoke on the Water.

  Movement, off to my right, coming from behind a twisting slide. A fuller figure, hurrying forward. It was Mayne, his partner. Had to be. I pivoted to my right.

  'Stop! Police!'

  There was traffic coming – but what the hell.

  I darted out. There was a screech of tyres and a Subaru planed sideways on the soaking road; it missed me by centimetres. Another car screamed to a halt behind it, just avoiding a collision. Mooney yelled something. I reached the other side and then jumped a set of gates and charged up the driveway of a detached house. Just as I reached the cover of the garage, a bullet cracked off the wall beside me.

  Fucking hell.

  I ducked down and raced up the side of the garage into a back garden. There was a low hedge at the rear. I dived over it into the adjoining garden. I rolled once, and was back on my feet and running again. It's amazing what you can do when someone puts the fear of God up you. I leaped a second hedge, then ran through to that house's front garden and crouched down behind a low wall. I peered out into one of the avenues I'd quite happily sauntered down just a few minutes earlier.

  All quiet.

  In the distance – angry motorists pounding their horns.

  Mayne and Mooney. They'd shot at me. No warning, just shot. And beside them, the dead body of their colleague, Bobby 'Toothless' Malone.

  Killers. In it together. No time for the whys or wherefores. The question was, had they recognised me? Or merely followed Toothless to see who he was meeting, killed him and left him as bait? I'd had my hood up the whole time, one of those big ones which seemed to swallow your whole head, so it was conceivable that they hadn't seen my face. What if they had? Then it wouldn't be hard for them to find out where I lived, and they could easily be on their way there now, thinking that I might just have run home. They'd find Alec Large, and probably kill him too.

  Somewhere close at hand, barking erupted. I crouched down further. A door opened and a woman called her dog in. I scanned the road again. Still empty.

  If they had recognised me, would they take the chance of calling at my house, with Toothless dead and hanging out of his car so close by? Maybe not. So perhaps I had time to get back there, pick up my car, get Alec offside. If they hadn't recognised me, they would surely soon work it out anyway. They were cops, after all. And Toothless had called me just a short while ago. Getting access to his phone records wouldn't be hard for them.

  I decided to risk it. I had no particular fondness for Alec Large, but having one person shot in your house was unfortunate; two would hit the resale value. I hurried along the avenue, ready to dive over a wall at the slightest hint of someone following me or if a car turned in. I stopped at the end of the street and spent several minutes observing the house from the shelter of a pine tree in the corner garden. The lights were on, but was anybody in?

  No way to tell.

  There was a mucky lane running along the back of the house. I decided that was the safest way in. No reason for it to be, really. One could cover the front, one the back. But I had to take some sort of precaution. That or I could just charge up to the front door, unlock it, slip inside and hope that a cheap deadbolt and some double glazing would keep out a couple of gun-wielding rogue cops.

  But it was something.

  I stepped over our garden fence and hurried down the garden path. I'd left the back door unlocked, so didn't need to bother with a noisy lock. I let myself in. Everything seemed to be as I had left it. I crossed the kitchen, opened a drawer and removed a bread-knife. Into the hall.

  Then a low groan.

  From upstairs.

  Then another.

  I gripped the knife hard. 'Alec?' I called softly.

  'For god sake – I'm going as fast as I can!'

  I breathed a sigh of relief, then turned the light off in the front room and crossed to the window and peered out. Everything quiet. I returned to the kitchen; Alec's jacket was draped across one of the chairs. I checked the pockets. I found his gun in his inside left. I know little about guns, but have handled enough to know when the safety is on. I slipped it into my own pocket. It wasn't particularly heavy. He probably wouldn't notice the difference, what with the weight he was already carrying in his pants.

  The phone rang suddenly behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It seemed louder than I could ever remember it.

  A criminal mastermind on the other end, telling me the house was surrounded.

  I picked it up.

  'Hi, hon.'

  'Trish.'

  'How you doin'?' Like Joey from Friends.

  'Fine.'

  'You're angry with me.'

  'No.'

  'You sure?'

  'Yes.'

  'You sound angry.'

  'No. Just stressed.'

  'That's my fault. I just needed a break. I'll be home tomorrow.'

  'No. I mean, may as well take a couple of days. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'

  'Aw. That's sweet.' Upstairs, the toilet flushed. A hundred miles away, Trish heard it. 'Who's with you?' Immediately suspicious.

  'Alec Large.'

  'Alec?'

  'Yup. He came to whisk you away to paradise. Unfortunately, he got me.'

  'Oh God, I'm sorry.'

  'You will be. Relax. I put him straight. He's fine.'

  'Really?'

  'Yes.'

  'Did you let him down gently?'

  'Yes. Of course I did. I'm not entirely insensitive.' He was moving down the stairs now. I didn't want to turn it into a three-way conversation. Or have him grab the phone and beg my wife to run away with him. 'He's coming, I have to go.'

  'Okay. Listen, it's lovely up here. I will stay an extra night, if that's all right with you?'

  'Yes, of course. As long as . . .'

  'Yes, I love you, and I'm coming home.'

  'All right.' I put the phone down. Alec Large stood rather sheepishly in the kitchen doorway; his cheeks were flushed, and his weapon of mass destruction continued to poke a menacing shape in his trousers. Worryingly, I was getting kind of used to it.

  'You took your time,' I said.

  'Well,' he replied, 'you gotta load them up before you shoot them out.'

  41

  We moved to the lounge. He went to put the light on and I said, 'No, leave it.' I stood at the corner of the window, looking out again. He sat on the sofa, a whiskey in his hand.

  He said, 'You're clearly very upset by all of this. I'm sorry. I've acted like an eejit.'

  I kept my eyes on th
e road.

  'I had a lot of time to think about things up there. I misread the signals. I do that all the time.'

  A car turned into the road. It passed the house. I caught a glimpse of a young woman, singing along to something.

  'I should go. I've done enough damage.' He went to get up, then winced, and clutched his stomach. 'Christ.' He sat down again, massaging himself. 'I'm sorry, I'm in no state to go anywhere right now. It flares up when I'm stressed.'

  A woman came walking past with her dog. She examined our front garden while it peed against our gatepost. They moved on. I glanced back at Alec, with his bulged-out trousers and his spastic colon. 'Relax,' I said. 'Drink your whiskey. Watch the TV, have a doze. I know what it's like to be in love.'

  'But you married her.'

  'Yes, I did. Although she put up a fight.'

  I stood there for an hour and a half; Alec talked about himself and I did the nodding and shrugging. I was a Samaritan with a revolver in my pocket. Eventually I couldn't take it any more. Stress. Fatigue. Boredom. I left him in there and went upstairs to our bedroom. Again I kept the light off. I packed a small bag in the dark. I'd no idea where I was going or what I was doing, but the house wasn't safe. I stood by the window. I could see further along the road in both directions. Between the houses I could even see glimpses of the road where Toothless had been murdered, and traffic appeared to be flowing freely. Suburban Belfast, as far as I could see, was at peace.

  I needed a plan. But how do you plan for the unknown?

  Our bed was high enough to give me a view of the road immediately outside our house, so I lay down on it and kept watch while I tried to gather my thoughts. About Mayne and Mooney. And Toothless. Once I had known a lot of cops, but not any longer. I'd gotten myself in so much trouble over the years that only Toothless was prepared to work with me. If Mayne and Mooney were on the take, who was to say that they were the only ones? And even if I was to call an ordinary plod on the desk, what would I say? Mayne had already shown me how easy it was to entrap someone. I was quite certain that if I let slip anything to do with the playground murder, I would be the one arrested for it, not the men I knew to be responsible.