Papercuts

by Colin Bateman

  ‘Without a bloody care in the world,’ said Alix.

  ‘Are you not going over to speak to him?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Sean raised his camera and took some pictures.

  Then he said, ‘If you’re scared of him, I can protect you.’

  ‘That’s reassuring.’ Despite her sarcasm, she liked their new young photographer. There wasn’t much to him, but he had a confidence, a brashness she found reassuring. ‘How’re you liking the work, second week and all?’

  Sean laughed. ‘This isn’t work,’ he said, ‘I was on a building site for six months, in winter. That’s work. This is easy.’

  To illustrate his point he took another photo.

  They sat for another twenty minutes. Dillon got another pint.

  Sean said, ‘The thing is, I’ve got other photos to take, so I’m going to have to get moving soon.’

  ‘Hold your horses,’ said Alix, nodding forward.

  Dillon had been joined on the wall by a woman with short black hair, wearing a low-cut top, shorts and sandals. It was a pleasant day, but it wasn’t that pleasant. Most of the rest of the out-door diners were well happed up. It was Northern Ireland, one swallow didn’t make a summer, or even an afternoon. They were sitting apart, so it didn’t look like they knew each other, but when she took out a box of cigarettes Dillon immediately offered her a light, and they were clearly talking, the way smokers usually do.

  Alix drummed her fingers. Dillon was enjoying his pints and his paper and his cigarettes and chatting – no, flirting – when he was responsible for the death of a beautiful toddler who would never get to do any of those things. And she could still hear bloody Rob Cullen telling her it wasn’t a story.

  Dillon drained his second pint – and then angled it at the young woman. She smiled. So he was buying her a drink. As he disappeared inside, Alix got out of the car. She didn’t say a word to Sean, and didn’t reply when he called after her. She stepped up into the beer garden. She stood in front of the girl, close enough that she looked up.

  ‘Sorry,’ Alix said, ‘I know it’s none of my business, but I couldn’t help noticing you were talking to Mark Dillon – is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘No problem, and no, I don’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘Oh right – well, just so you know, in case you’d any interest in him? He’s out of prison on parole – he killed a child. A lovely wee girl. So I wouldn’t be getting too close.’

  Alix raised her eyebrows, and then quickly strode away, back to the car. She didn’t know why the hell she’d done it, and didn’t feel especially good about it. It was stupid and unprofessional, but she told herself she hadn’t done it as a journalist – she’d done it as a human being.

  Sean said, ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She looked back across. There was now no sign of the woman. A few moments later Dillon emerged, carrying two drinks and crossed to the wall. He stood sipping his drink, waiting for her to return. Five minutes later, with still no sign of her, he drained his remaining half pint. The bar door opened again and he looked up hopefully, but when he saw it wasn’t her he raised the second pint and downed it in one. He dragged the back of his hand across his lips and then stalked away across the road to his car.

  *

  Gerry was still recovering from the bailiffs when his phone rang and Janine’s number lit up. He briefly considered not answering it – he was a businessman who’d been on the edge of bankruptcy for years, so he knew all about avoidance – and even though there was a possibility Rob was right, that she had been ripping him off, he found it very hard to be upset by it. He was a player, she was a player, and sometimes they played together. She hadn’t a clue that he hadn’t paid her National Insurance contributions in years. Or for any of his employees for that matter. So he answered it with a sympathetic, ‘Janine – how are you?’

  ‘Who did you tell?’

  ‘Who did I tell what?’

  ‘About me being suspended, and why?’

  ‘No one, Janine – I mean, I had to say to the staff, because everyone’s going to chip in on getting the advertising until we can replace... but I didn’t go into any detail, I didn’t...’

  ‘They’re watching me.’

  ‘They what? Who are?’

  ‘The guys, the boys, the men – the ones who’ve been getting the protection money, Gerry! They’re outside now...’

  ‘Outside your apartment?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Have they threatened you or tried to get—’

  ‘No, not yet. But they’re there. Oh, you could drive past and they’d just look like fellas chatting on a street corner, but I know them, I know their faces. Gerry, I’m scared. They’re used to getting their money. And if they don’t get it on time, they get angry. I’ve been there before Gerry, I tried to stop a dozen times and they don’t like it.’

  ‘Janine – are they there now, are you sure?’

  ‘I’m frightened, Gerry. Hold on, I’ll go back to... I’ve the curtains closed... No, no, they’re away again. But they’ve heard something and they’re letting me know they know where I live.’

  ‘Janine, we’ve been friends, more than friends for a very long time, I’m not just going to let you go, no matter what you’ve done...’

  ‘I was forced to...!’

  ‘I know... I know... Just... try and keep your head down for a while, and I’ll see what I can do from this end. All right, love?’

  ‘Okay, Gerry. Sorry. Thank you. I know you will.’

  When he set the phone down he looked up to see Rob standing in the doorway, arms folded, coat on.

  ‘Janine?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Gerry. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do about that bloody woman. Say what you like about her – she was very good at her job. I’ve been on the phone this last hour trying to sell advertising space and it’s no, no, no... I’m starting to think that maybe 80 per cent of something is better than 100 per cent of nothing.’

  ‘No, Gerry, it can’t work like that.’

  Gerry sighed. ‘So where are you off to?’

  ‘Going to see that woman who does the badger column. We forgot to run it last week and she’s spitting nails.’

  ‘That sounds like her. Mary... something?’

  ‘Aye, Mary McDermott. I’m going to apologize, but also suggest maybe our paper isn’t the right place for it. Encourage her to write a book or something.’

  ‘Absolutely right,’ said Gerry, ‘we’re an urban paper, we don’t need some mad old biddy going on about thrushes and stoats and bloody badgers.’ He got up from his desk and pulled his jacket on. ‘I’m going to pop home myself, I’ll walk down with you.’

  They left the office, chatting away. As they stepped into the car park Rob took his keys out and then stopped. His brow furrowed. He looked about him.

  ‘Something...?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘My... car... I could have sworn I parked it... I did park it, right there. Bloody hell, Gerry, my car’s been stolen.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s a rough enough area.’

  Rob’s mouth dropped open a little. ‘It what? What’re you—?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, it wasn’t your car anyway.’

  ‘Gerry?’

  ‘Truth is, Rob, your car is being used right now. It’s been borrowed. I’d a spare set of keys.’

  ‘How do you mean, borrowed?’

  ‘It’s being used as security against a debt.’

  ‘Gerry, Jesus – are you telling me it’s been repossessed?’

  ‘No, not at all – it’ll be back in the morning. Swear to God. It’s just a cash flow thing.’

  ‘Gerry, I’ve personal stuff in the car. And how am I meant to get to the badger woman without it?’

  ‘Everything will be safe and secure in a lock-up somewhere. And there’s a bus leaves...’

  ‘Gerry!’

  ‘Joking. Here...’ He took his own keys out of his
pocket and held them out to Rob. ‘You take it. I trust you.’

  Rob looked at the keys and smiled. ‘You’re lending me the Jag?’

  ‘No, it’s just a Jaguar key ring. I’m lending you Janine’s...’

  He nodded a few cars along. There was a tiny little smart car with the newspaper’s logo splashed across it.

  Rob said, ‘Jesus Christ, Gerry.’

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Gerry, and took out his own keys for the gleaming blue Jag parked a further three spaces along. ‘Enjoy your trip.’

  *

  They followed him back to the half-way house, watched him park and then stand smoking on the doorstep with a young man they presumed was another resident. There was scaffolding around the outside of the building and some major-looking work being done to the roof.

  Sean observed that it was a half-built, half-way house.

  Alix just shook her head. Then she got out of the car. As she crossed the road, Dillon was just throwing down his cigarette and was about to follow his friend back inside. Alix called his name – his Christian name, and he turned, half smiling at the thought of a friend, but then he stopped and his brow furrowed as he looked at her.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I work for the local paper, was wondering if I could have a word?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, a couple of things – I was wondering how you felt about coming face to face with the parents of the baby you killed? And then if you’ve anything to say about how you’re out drinking and driving again?’

  Colour came to his cheeks and he took a step towards her.

  With perfect timing, Sean appeared at Alix’s side. He said, ‘Easy there, mate.’

  Dillon looked from one to the other. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘We have photos of you, drinking three pints and then driving – do you think that’s what you should be doing, when you’re on parole for—?’

  ‘Oh piss off!’

  Dillon spun on his heel and hurried up the steps and into the half-way house, slamming the door after him. Alix stepped up and rang the bell. Repeatedly.

  Sean said, ‘Alix... maybe you don’t want to be—’

  ‘He should answer the bloody questions!’

  ‘Alix...’

  The door flew open again, and they both took a step back.

  But it wasn’t Dillon, it was a shorter, chunkier man in a short-sleeved shirt and tie. He said, ‘You’re press? You’re not allowed round here.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Alix, ‘I think you’ll find we’re allowed anywhere.’

  Even as she said it, she was aware of how self-important she sounded, but she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘You’re not allowed to hassle the residents,’ said the man. Now that she looked at him properly she saw that he had a name-badge on, reading, Thomas Brady, Manager.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Alix, ‘that may be, but we’re doing a story whether he likes it or not and he has a right of reply. And the fact is, we know he’s been out drink-driving and that’s only going to get him into more bother – and that’s not going to help the reputation of this place, is it?’

  Thomas Brady shook his head ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘I don’t know who’s rattled your cage, but there are ways of doing things, channels you can go through. If you were any sort of a reporter, you would know that. So if you don’t mind?’ Sean raised his camera to record the confrontation. Brady jabbed a finger at him. ‘And I don’t want my picture taken, all right?’

  Sean took it anyway.

  Brady scowled at him and turned back into the house.

  As the door slammed for a second time, Sean said, ‘Well, that went well.’

  They returned to the car, Alix swearing to herself. On a good day, when she was focused, when she was professional, she could charm the fairies out of the trees. This wasn’t a good day. As she started the engine she glanced back at the half-way house, and was pretty sure, if only for a fraction of a second, that she saw Dillon staring out at her from one of the bedrooms on the top floor.

  *

  The thing about local papers is that usually there’s no problem finding a front-page story. There is always something, whether it’s an act of criminality, something political, something about jobs or a fatal accident. No, the front page isn’t generally the problem, or even the next few – it’s filling the rest of the paper. There are pages and pages that require stories every single week and that can be difficult. It was a big enough town, but it wasn’t Belfast, just a few miles up the road. It was a commuter town, there was never that much going on, and that meant that the editor couldn’t just wait for stories to come to him, he had to get creative. In a local paper, that meant inviting contributions from readers, asking local experts in a dozen fields to write a weekly column, not because anyone was particularly interested in their material, but because it helped to fill the space around the adverts. If they were interesting, it was a bonus. The Express had a motoring column, a wine column, a bridge column, a camera-club column, five different Boys’ Brigade columns; a dozen different sports were reported on not by a sports reporter but by the sportsmen themselves; there was a religious column shared out between the local ministers, there was a fashion column, a column written by a local ‘disaffected youth’ who did not seem that disaffected, or, indeed, youthful; there was a ‘Green’ page which was big on recycling (though in fact the paper it appeared in was not on recycled paper – too expensive); and there was the bloody badger column. It wasn’t to be fair, entirely about badgers – it was also about art, and history, and botany, and interesting holidays the author had enjoyed; it was about food and classical music and the author’s memories of Switzerland shortly after the Second World War, where she had attended boarding school. It was about everything, and nothing, and might actually have been salvageable if the author was a decent writer, but she clearly was not. She wrote, Rob thought, as if English was her second language. It read, Rob thought, as if it had been originally written in German, but had then been translated into English by someone who was not, in fact, English. It was stilted, formal and entirely lacking in humour. Rob didn’t know why he was even driving out to see the stupid woman, in his stupid car, he should just have done it by email. But here he was, six miles outside Bangor, peering out of his rolled-down window, looking for Mary McDermott’s house – looking for the numbers on gate posts which were few and far between along a winding country road. Eventually, as he squeezed past a tractor on a narrow corner, he asked the big farmer behind the wheel if he was anywhere near her house, and he shouted back that it was about a quarter of a mile along on the left. Rob gave him the thumbs-up. Gerry was right, they were an urban paper, with no significant sales outside of town – there was absolutely no reason to continue carrying Mary McDermott’s tedious ramblings; he had been brought in to save the paper, and that meant re-inventing it, not being a slave to tradition. Mary McDermott could not continue to be published just because she always had been. She needed to make way.

  Rob turned into the driveway – and then there was another quarter of mile up a lane hemmed in on both sides by tall, thick hedges that admitted little light. He finally emerged onto a large, paved courtyard that led to an immaculate and impressive-looking ranch-style house. There was a mud- spattered Land Rover parked in front, with a this-year’s Porsche right beside it. He already knew that Mary McDermott wasn’t writing her column for the money, because there was none. But from the looks of this place she probably didn’t need it anyway. It meant that she was writing the column not for financial gain, but for the love of it. Which would make his task even harder.

  She was elderly, she was pleasant and she was genteel. She had a lounge filled with antique china, and oil paintings of wild animals. She had white hair that had a conditioning sheen. She insisted on providing a pot of tea and biscuits even though virtually the first thing Rob said was that he couldn’t stay long. He asked if he could give her a hand and she said no,
she was fine. He followed her into the kitchen nevertheless. There was a big black range with a pot of stew bubbling away on top. He said it smelled lovely and she offered him a bowl. He said no. She insisted. He gave in. He was actually starving. They sat at a long wooden table. It was lovely. He ate it too quickly, mainly because he wanted to get most of it down before the conversation turned to her column and her imminent sacking. In so doing, he burned the roof of his mouth. She got him ice-cold milk from the fridge to soothe it with. She was as nice as her stew. She told stories, he laughed, and genuinely; she remembered the old days on the farm, her experiences in war-torn Europe as a young girl. She was engaging and entertaining, neither of which pertained at all to her very dull newspaper column. She was half-way through one of her stories, this one about her pet badger – it had been orphaned and she had raised it from a cub and it now enjoyed the comforts of her home by day and went out with its badger mates at night – when she suddenly stopped, fixed Rob with a hard look and said, ‘Mr Cullen – I know why you’re here.’

  Rob, like a rabbit caught in headlights, said, ‘You... do?’

  ‘Yes. You want to kill me off.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I appreciate that you’ve done me the courtesy of coming out to tell me, face to face. That is indeed the mark of a true gentleman. But still, that is why you are here.’

  ‘Well, I, ahm, killing you off is a bit strong,’ said Rob, valiantly trying to maintain eye contact, ‘though I certainly do hope to discuss the column with you.’