‘No. Jack’s as . . . committed as ever. It’s more a private thing. Jack’s being threatened; it may well be over this. He’s asked me to look into it.’
‘Threatened? Fuck, he should try living here, I get it every day. Scared to leave the house, so I am. Thank Christ for internet Tesco or we’d starve to death. Threatened how?’
I told her about Jimmy, about him being kidnapped for an hour and the jammy note.
‘The fuckers,’ she spat.
‘So what I’m really trying to do is find out who might be doing this, so maybe if I can get them for threatening Jack, that’ll take some of the heat off you and your boy as well?’
‘You really think?’
‘Well it might help to—’
‘Ah, you’re pissin up the wrong tree there, mate. I’m sorry if they’re hassling yer man because of my boy, but you know, at least he can do something about it. He has the money for people like you. He can move house if he has to. He can look after himself. What am I gonna do? I’m on my own here. You know how many times the house has been attacked? ’Cos I don’t. Lost track. They’ve burned my wheelie bins, my car, tried to burn me out, smashed the windies I don’t know how many times. And they’re going to keep doing it till they get him, get him dead. That’s all they want. Dead or out of the country, that’s what they want.’
‘You wouldn’t consider moving?’
‘Where the fuck to? England?’ She cackled. She stubbed out her fag and lit another. Her fingers were as yellow as her teeth. ‘You think I have the money for that? Anyway, this is our home. Why should we be chased out by a pack a hellions? Nah, fuck ’em, we’re here to stay. If we go anywhere, it’ll be out in a fuckin’ bax, so it will.’
I said, ‘What about Bobby? How’s he coping with it? Can’t be easy losing a leg like—’
‘Never mind the fuckin’ leg, it’s his fuckin’ attitude is driving me up the wall. And he had that before they shot him. Teenagers should be locked up until they get some sense into their fucking heads. You tell them one thing, they do the other. One minute they’re your best friend, the next they’re screaming their head off at you. Caught him taking money from my purse the other day and scalped the fucking hide off him. Wouldn’t even make ye a fuckin’ cup of tea.’
I nodded. ‘So can I have a word with him?’
‘What for?’
‘It’s just useful to get stuff straight from the horse’s mouth.’
‘No point, he says nuthin’ about nuthin’. Anyways, we all know who’s behind it. Those Miller boys are bad fuckin’ news, so they are.’
There was no arguing with that.
When I’d been covering the Troubles, the Millers would still have been in short trousers, but they were all grown up now, and had risen through the ranks of the UVF to the point where they now ran 1st Battalion, which covers the whole Shankill area. Thomas ‘Windy’ Miller and his brother Rab still had a boss, a brigadier general, who was supposed to keep them in line. They were supposed to sit down regularly and agree common policies with him and the six other battalion commanders, the so-called brigade staff, but they were still pretty much a law unto themselves. The perceived wisdom was that it was better to keep them within the organisation and try and exert some measure of control over them, rather than force them out and give them a reason to form their own paramilitary group where they would answer to no one. Through thirty years of the Troubles, Loyalist paramilitaries had killed twice as many of their own men through internecine strife than they had their Republican enemies. Nobody wanted to see that kind of open civil war on the Shankill again. That was the real reason the high command left them alone, and why the police themselves never came down too hard on them. In the larger scheme of things, Bobby Murray’s missing leg meant nothing.
‘They’re, ugh, not really the sort of guys you should be messing with,’ I said.
‘So everyone keeps telling me, but why the fuck not? Who are they to tell me and my boy to get out? Who are they to fuckin’ cut my boy’s leg off? They’re too big for their fuckin’ boots, that’s what I say. You know something? I saw that fucking Windy Miller in the fruit shop down the road, and I went right up to him and said what the fuck do you think you’re doing pickin’ on my wee lad, he’s only fucking fourteen, and do you know what he did? He got out of there as quick as he fuckin’ could, he ran away, so he did. Big man issuing commands to hammer my wee lad, but couldn’t even stand up to me in a frickin’ fruit shop. Big man. Big fucking man.’
She extinguished her half-smoked cigarette and tried to light another one, but her hand was shaking too much. She had a tear in her eye. She stood and went to the bottom of the stairs that opened directly into her living room.
‘Bobby!’ she guldered. When there was no response, she amped it up. ‘BOBBY!’
‘What?’
‘There’s a man here to see you!’
‘What about?’
‘He’s trying to help. Will you come down and talk to him.’
‘NO!’
‘Bobby! He’s come special to see you.’
‘No! Tell him to fuck off!’
Jean raised her eyebrows at me, and came back into the room. ‘See what I mean? Apparently you’re to fuck off. The language of him! Sorry, he’s just at that age.’
‘Not a problem,’ I said. I stood up. ‘Listen, thanks for seeing me. It can’t be easy.’
‘I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy. Not for the likes of us.’
There was nothing I could really say to that. I reached into my jacket and took out one of my business cards. I flicked it between my fingers for a moment and then handed it to her. She studied it.
‘It just says Starkey. What exactly do you do?’
‘Mostly I interfere in difficult situations and set off a chain of events completely beyond my control.’
Jean managed a smile. ‘You sound like a fuckin’ laxative.’
‘Got me in one,’ I said.
It was scary how close to the truth she was.
I said, ‘Give us a bell if you think of anything that might help, or there’s anything else I can do.’
I moved past her out into the hall and reached for the door lock.
‘Dan, is it?’
I turned back to her. ‘Aye.’
‘My wee fella, he’s no angel, but he’s not the worst kid in the world. He doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve any of it. And I’m not going to let them get away with it. Jack Caramac or no fuckin’ Jack Caramac.’
As I approached the car, I saw that PEDOFIAL had been scratched into the paintwork in very large letters.
The two boys were lolling on the wall opposite.
‘You do this?’ I asked.
‘Nah,’ said one.
‘And even if we did, what’re you going to do about it, pedo?’
I shook my head. I opened the door and climbed in. I started the engine and pulled out. I stopped beside them and rolled down the window.
‘For your information,’ I said, ‘that’s not how you spell paedophile. And even if I was one, I still wouldn’t fuck youse, youse fucking gormless inbreds.’
And then I drove on.
9
Patricia’s house – my house, that is – is on Cypress Avenue. We were united in the bidding for it for different reasons – she thought it was the nicest part of the city, and I knew it had inspired the Van Morrison song. Now that we had split, the song was tainted for ever. Another big fat fucking mark against her, that.
The house itself is a red-brick Victorian with dodgy slates and an infestation of woodlice. It is cold and draughty and costs a fortune to heat, which it never quite does. There are too many rooms for too few people. There are four guest bedrooms. We never had that many friends. We were a tight little unit, Trish and I, when the times were good. But with the first sign of trouble I was out on my arse, and I was now forced to stand outside the front door and ring the bell, as if I didn’t even have a key. It crossed my mind that sh
e might have changed the locks, but I didn’t have the heart to check. Because it’s such a big house, if you’re caught on the wrong side when the bell rings, you usually miss whoever’s there. I knew this, and waited. It was gone four in the afternoon. When she eventually opened the door, she was wearing a dressing gown. A black silk one I had bought her for Christmas and which I’d never yet seen her in.
I complimented it and her. And then added, ‘You’re home from work early.’
‘You said you were calling. In fact you’re the one who’s early.’
‘I’m not looking for a fight,’ I said.
‘Then stop trying to pick one.’
‘I wasn’t. How’s your lover?’
‘Oh fuck off.’
I held my hands up. ‘Okay. Truce. You know what I’m here for.’ She nodded and stepped aside. As I passed her I said, ‘Did he slip out the back way?’
She said, ‘No, he’s still tied to the bed.’
I smiled. She did not.
I followed her up the stairs to my study. I’d never done much studying there, but it was where I kept my music. There was a lot of vinyl and several hundred CDs already packed in cardboard boxes.
She said, ‘I don’t know why you don’t just toss all that shit out. I mean, you can download it for nothing.’
‘It’s not the same.’
‘Yes it is,’ she said.
‘You’ll never understand. That’s why we don’t work.’
‘Really. I thought it was because you’re such an arse.’
‘Takes one to know one. Though, nice arse.’
‘You noticed.’
‘I couldn’t not, the way you waggled it in my face coming up.’
‘That’s just the way I walk.’
‘You should get that checked out.’
‘Maybe I am.’
She gave me a smile. I didn’t give it back.
I was flicking through the CDs, taking them out randomly and checking that she hadn’t removed the discs from within.
She said, ‘How’s the case?’
‘It’s not a case. It’s a job.’
‘How’s the job, then, pedant?’
It was the second time I’d been called something similar in the last half-hour. I shrugged.
She sat on one of the boxes and said, ‘Tell me. I’m interested.’
I gave her a long look. When she didn’t crack a smile, I said, ‘Jack’s been championing this woman and kid from the Shankill the UVF are trying to chase out.’
‘Jean Murray.’
‘You know her?’
‘No, dummy, I’ve been listening to his show since you mentioned you were working for him.’
‘I’m not working for him. He’s one of my customers.’
She sighed. She said, ‘Well, despite you being an arse, I am interested. She’s hard as nails, isn’t she? And brave to the point of stupidity.’
‘Yep,’ I said.
‘So you’re thinking she and the kid are tied into the threat Jack got?’
‘It’s a possibility. I went out to see them. Not a great situation.’
‘Why did you feel the need to go and see them? Didn’t it all come out on the show?’
‘Not really, no. She keeps saying it, and God knows Jack keeps saying it too, that they know who’s responsible, but they won’t let her name them on the radio. Too worried about getting sued. The show’s not quite live, there’s like a twenty-second delay to allow them to yank something if it gets dodgy. Anyway, you know I always prefer to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.’
‘And sometimes you get taken for a ride.’
‘Nature of the business.’
‘And what business would that be?’
I looked at her. ‘I’m not a private eye.’
‘No you’re not, Dan. You’re a PA.’
‘P . . .’
‘Private arse. And you’ll get it kicked if you start messing around on the Shankill. You know that.’
‘It’s a distinct possibility.’
‘So why do it? There’ll be other customers; you just have to be patient.’
‘Trish. I need the money. We need the money. Unless you want to sell swanky Cypress Avenue here, then maybe I could afford to be a bit choosier.’
She smiled. ‘That’ll be the day,’ she said.
I put the last box in the car. She stood at the door and watched.
She said, ‘Somebody’s written on your car. Unless you’re advertising.’
‘Ten minutes on the Shankill and my reputation’s in ruins.’
‘Darlin’ . . .’ she began.
I put my hand up. ‘Enough already.’
‘So what’re you going to do now?’
‘A pie and a pint had crossed my mind.’
‘I mean about the case.’
‘It’s not a case.’
‘Dan . . .’
‘I’m going to ruminate, that’s what I’m going to do. But before that, if you don’t mind.’ I came up the steps. She stood against the frame, and there was a very slight arch to her back, as if she was expecting a kiss. ‘Do you mind if I use the bog before I go? Been on the road all day.’
She moved to the side, and I hurried past and up the stairs. I turned at the top towards the bathroom, but kept on going until I got to her bedroom. I had to check if that fucker was tied to the bed.
10
Visiting Trish was just a time-killer, with the remote possibility of no-holds-barred sex, while I waited for my anointed appointment with Boogie Wilson, publican, poet, and brigadier general of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Only two of these professions featured on his business card. He had come by the name Boogie not because he was scary in any way, although he was, in many ways, but because as a teenager in the seventies he had briefly been Northern Ireland disco-dancing champion. He always seemed inordinately proud of that. His poetry was widely regarded as ‘shite’, but he hadn’t had a bad review yet. Boogie always said he had a soft spot for me because I’d been instrumental in the permanent removal of his rival for the top position in the organisation, Billy ‘Dainty’ McCoubrey, nearly twenty years previously. Any time I’d met him since, he had been friendly, a great story-teller and liberal with the free drinks. You just had to keep at the back, or indeed front, of your mind that he was the leader of possibly the most vicious terror organisation in Europe.
Boogie Wilson’s pub is on the Newtownards Road in east Belfast. It is called, for some reason, the Red Hand, and if you sit at the right table, and crick your neck in a particular way when you look out of the window, you can gaze through a decorative arch above the road outside, celebrating the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and see the massive twin cranes Samson and Goliath, permanent tombstone reminders of the shipyard that had once seemed to employ every Protestant in Northern Ireland. The gable wall of the Red Hand is completely covered in a mural showing the men of the Ulster Rifles falling at the Somme in 1916. Inside there are framed posters, photos and newspaper clippings depicting the rise of the UVF in the mid-sixties and its hooded men armed to the teeth on various manoeuvres; there are pictures of POWs from inside the Maze, paintings by prisoners, photographs of visiting Hollywood stars calling in for a little local colour and to perfect their accent for an upcoming movie. You can buy T-shirts emblazoned with Proud to Be a Prod, UVF badges, scarves, jigsaws, No Surrender hoodies, flutes, twirling batons, and Oranjeboom lager imported from the homeland of the Duke of Orange.
The thing is, I’d been in the pub a little over a year previously on a different story, and there’d been none of this. It had just been an ordinary spit-and-sawdust bar, albeit the only one in town you could still smoke in because the inspectors were too scared to tell Boogie otherwise. The decor had been strictly seventies, and the menu consisted of a box of crisps and some salted KP nuts. Now you could order à la carte.
Boogie shook my hand, and I said, ‘What the fuck is going on with this place? It’s like Disneyland designed by a Kick the Pope band.’
Boogie did me the honour of giving an embarrassed grin, and said, ‘Ach, Dan, you gotta move with the times. We’re celebrating our Ulster-Scots heritage, so we are. We got a grant from the tourist board to do it up. Most of our drinkers now come off the tour buses. Tourists or Italians doing their PhDs on fucking post-Troubles stress. Isn’t it great? And it’s a licence to print money.’
‘You used to do that anyway,’ I said.
Boogie put a finger to his lips. ‘Shhhh . . . I still do.’ He gave me a wink. He probably wasn’t joking. He showed me to a table and then went behind the bar. ‘A pint, is it?’
‘No thanks, I’m driving.’
‘Latte?’
‘Seriously?’
‘We use only the finest beans, Fairtrade, hand-picked by Somalians, then smuggled in to avoid the VAT.’
I took that on board, and asked for a Diet Coke. It came via a spray and tasted like rusty water. It probably wasn’t made by Coca-Cola. In fact, it probably was rusty water.
Boogie made himself a latte and brought it across. He was in his sixties now, almost completely bald, muscled still but a little overweight. He wore a white shirt open at the neck and a thin gold chain. His sleeves were rolled up, purposefully revealing his many and varied UVF tattoos.
I said, ‘So the bar business is booming.’
He said, ‘Aye.’
‘And how is the poetry business?’
‘Cut-throat.’
‘And what about the business of saving Ulster from the Republican hordes?’
‘Ongoing.’ He shook his head. ‘Every year, every year on Remembrance Day, I issue a proclamation solemnly declaring that it is time for us to lay down the arms we haven’t already laid down and for us to disband. Every year I get roundly ignored by the rank and file. So I soldier on, trying to keep a lid on it.’
He gave me a wan smile. I nodded with fake sympathy. It was a bit like me and Trish, constantly fantasising about peace but locked in a perpetual state of war, except he seemed to enjoy more of the benefits.
I took a sip of rust. ‘And what about the Miller boys leaning on some poor wee woman and her one-legged son on the Shankill?’
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