Driving Big Davie (Dan Starkey)

by Colin Bateman

  Now he was sunning himself on a beach in Florida and I felt as if the heart had been ripped from my body all over again.

  My instinct was to attack, attack, attack. To pound his head with sticks and stones. But instead I staggered away, back up into the grounds of the hotel.

  Davie was sitting at the beach bar. He was no longer watching the pool in the mirror, but had turned in his seat to keep an eye on the sloping path down to the sunbeds on the beach. The moment he saw me, a look of surprise and then anger crossed his face, just as it had before, when he'd caught me perusing swimming costumes in the hotel shop. But this time the anger was matched and bettered by my own.

  Davie started to come off his seat, but I was upon him.

  I headbutted him hard, once, across the bridge of his nose.

  He reeled away.

  I reeled away.

  I'd never headbutted anyone in my life. In fact, I hadn't headbutted him at all. I'd nosebutted him, and it felt like I'd broken it. His and mine. The barman was standing with his mouth hanging open while Davie and I bled on the ground.

  Davie was saying, 'Ah, oh, Jesus, ah Jesus.'

  I said, 'Christ, fuck, ah . . .'

  Mikey had followed me up. He lifted some napkins off the bar and held them out to me. The barman was in the act of calling for security, but Mikey assured him everything was okay.

  Davie glared at me.

  I glared at him. 'You bastard,' I said.

  'Dan, I—'

  'You fuckin' fucker.'

  'Dan—'

  'You fuckin' fuckin' fucked-up fucker.'

  Mikey took hold of my arm and said, 'Not here, Mr Petrocelli.'

  Davie looked from Mikey to me and said, 'He's right, Dan. Come on. Come on inside. I can explain everything.'

  'You'll never explain this in a million years, you fuckin' headcase.' I stormed off into the hotel.

  Behind me I heard Davie say: 'And who the hell are you?'

  'I'm Mikey.'

  'Well bugger off.'

  I didn't look back, but Mikey must have buggered off because when Davie finally caught up with me inside there was no sign of him.

  His nose had stopped bleeding, mine hadn't. He came up and said, 'Do you want me to pinch it?'

  'I want you to fuck off.'

  'Dan — please. Let me explain.'

  'Yeah. Right.' I continued on past the piano bar and into the lobby.

  As we approached the front doors the concierge appeared to recognise Davie. 'Sir, would you like your car brought round?'

  'And you can fuck off as well,' I snapped.

  Davie dropped back a pace and slipped the concierge a twenty. 'He's upset,' he said.

  'I'm not upset!' I yelled back. 'I'm fucking livid!'

  I was on the hill which led down to the main hotel strip. Davie hurried up behind me. 'Dan . . . Dan . . . wait.'

  I didn't. I ploughed on down the hill, then turned left. Our hotel was half a mile away along the hot asphalt. There were a million questions that Davie would have to answer, but there and then I couldn't speak to him. I walked on. Davie dropped back. 'Dan!'

  And then he stopped walking. He turned back towards the Don CeSar.

  Three hours later, with the beach cabanas stacked away, and dozens of people sitting on the sand to watch the sun set, Davie arrived back. I was sitting at a table beside the pool. I had brought half a dozen Buds from the fridge, but I'd only had three. I felt sick to my stomach. I had gone to the room and taken Davie's gun out of his bag. I had thought long and hard about marching back up the beach to shoot The Colonel. I thought about what Patricia would say. 'That would just make you as bad as him, Dan.' To which the appropriate response could only be: 'So what? He killed our son.'

  Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

  Davie approached my table and cautiously pulled back a chair. 'Anyone sitting here?' he asked.

  I just looked at him.

  'Dan, I—'

  'Just tell me what the fuck you're playing at, and what the fuck he's doing here.'

  He unzipped the cool-bag and took out a beer. He opened it and drank and stared out towards the sea for a while. Then he looked back and said, 'Okay. Truth. But it's kind of complicated.'

  'Not from where I'm sitting.'

  'Dan . . .' He took another drink. Then a deep breath. 'Okay. The Colonel. Michael O'Ryan. The—'

  'What the fuck is he doing here?' I demanded. 'He's supposed to be in prison, he's supposed to be banged up there for life and now he's sitting out there like he owns the fucking place! What's going on! Why are we here? Why am I here? Why do you have a fucking gun, Davie?'

  He started to smile, and then thought better of it. 'Let me explain.'

  I sat back in my chair and sighed. 'Okay,' I said. 'Shoot,' and gave him a sarcastic look.

  He glanced around to see how close the nearest tourist was. Satisfied that we wouldn't be overheard unless we started screaming at each other, he clasped his hands before him and leaned forward.

  'Dan, they're all out, you know that. Every terrorist, every hood who ever shot someone just for the sake of it then called it a political assassination, everyone who ever slit someone's throat just because he was a Catholic, everyone who ever bombed an Army base, everyone—'

  'I get the point, Davie. Except The Colonel got put away for killing my son. My toddler. There was nothing political about that.'

  'Well, he would claim that there was ― they always do. But that's not the point. The point is that The Colonel was doing the double for years: he was killing and shooting his way to the top, and all the time MI5 were paying him eighty grand a year to squeal on his colleagues. MI5 say he actually saved dozens of lives. He worked for them for twenty years, Dan, he had the codename Wheaten Loaf and he was the highest ranked mole in the whole Republican movement. They were scared to death of him; he moved between the various factions with impunity, he was the last person anyone would ever have thought of as a tout. But he was. MI5 told us to leave him alone, but we couldn't. We had him, we nailed him, we put him away — that's all we could do.'

  'So why is the bastard putting on factor twenty up the beach?'

  'Because it works both ways. Everything got peaceful but O'Ryan was rotting in solitary. He saw all the people he betrayed getting let out and he wanted out as well. So he threatened to spill the beans about collusion between the security forces and him, about the killings he says were officially sanctioned, about the people he killed to cover his tracks with the full agreement of MI5. That's a can of worms they don't want opened. So they got him out. They can do that. Far as I can tell, it came from the very highest level.'

  'They just let him out?'

  'No, of course not. Too many old enemies wanting to chop his head off. He was placed in a witness protection scheme.'

  'In the fucking Don CeSar?'

  'No. In Canada — Toronto.'

  'So what's he doing down here?'

  'Exactly.'

  I lifted a fresh beer from the cooler. It showed how messed up things in Northern Ireland still were despite the supposed peace, that nothing Davie had told me surprised me. But we'd still hardly skimmed the surface of what this was all about.

  'So what are you doing here, and why do you have a gun?'

  'Dan . . .'

  'You weren't turfed out of Special Branch at all, you didn't split up with your girlfriend. You're here to keep an eye on The Colonel. You're here on a special mission.'

  'No. Yes . . . sort of.'

  'Good, I'm glad we got that sorted out.'

  'Dan, I was turfed out of Special Branch. And I didn't really mind. You know, it's not the RUC, it's the PSNI and I didn't know who the hell I was working with any more. Do you know what I mean? The half of them used to be on the other side.'

  I shrugged. I had thought I was one to forgive and forget, but then I'd seen Michael O'Ryan on the beach and all that was now out the window.

  'Dan, I wasn't involved in it, but I knew all about what happen
ed with you and Patricia and your boy, your Stevie. I was absolutely gutted for you. I was at the funeral, man — I've never seen two people more devastated. You don't recover from something like that.'

  I hadn't seen him at the funeral, but then I hadn't seen much. 'I've done okay,' I said.

  'No, Dan, you haven't. You're all over the place.'

  'And how would you know?'

  'Dan. I know. And Patricia told me.'

  'Patricia?'

  'That day you came home and she was crying her eyes out and you wondered what the hell was going on. We were talking about you. She's so strong, Dan, she loves you to bits, but you've driven her to the brink so many times that eventually she's going to break.'

  'I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'm fine. We're fine. I've got a job.'

  'It's not about a fucking job, Dan. It's about the pain you're in.'

  'What are you now, a psychiatrist? Well, psychiatrist — heal thyself.'

  It wasn't quite right, but he knew what I meant. Who the hell did he think he was, talking to me as if he knew anything about what was going on in my head. All I thought about was football, music and sex, although not necessarily in that order. Stevie was the past. I was past it. We were past it. We had moved on. We were happy.

  'You're still not telling me anything, Davie. You're not telling me what any of this has to do with you.'

  'Do you know how many close colleagues I've lost over the years?'

  'No.'

  'Nine.'

  'I'm sorry. But what has that—'

  'They're still out there, the fuckers that killed them. We know exactly who they are. Some of them got sent to prison and are now out. Some we could never touch. Some we pass in the street every day. Some are still doing it, some just shrug it off as something they did when they were kids. Half a dozen of them are politicians now. One of them sits on the fucking policing board, do you hear what I'm saying?'

  'I hear what you're saying, Davie, I just don't know where it's going.'

  'I'm saying I lost nine people I knew and I couldn't do anything about it. When you pass them in the street you can't just take out your gun and shoot them. At least, that's what I thought.'

  He let that sit for a moment. His eyes flitted towards the sun which was now a huge orange ball just sinking into the sea.

  'What do you mean, that's what you thought?'

  'After I got out, some people I used to work with came to me. They were the same — they'd been phased out, they were too old, too reactionary, too set in their ways. They were sick, sick to the back teeth of seeing those guys out there walking about when our guys were pushing up daisies. So they decided to do something about it.' His eyes came back round onto me again and held steady. 'Do you know what I'm saying?'

  'They started a letter-writing campaign.'

  Davie smiled ruefully. 'No. They didn't.'

  'They went after some of those guys. 'Davie nodded.' They killed them?'

  They disappeared them.'

  'What's the difference?'

  'No body, no evidence, no charges.'

  'How many?'

  'I don't know, Dan.'

  'And you — you've been doing this as well?'

  'No. God, no. That's not how it works. There's a . . . how can I put this? There's like a personal angle to all of them. They approach you and say, "Look, this guy's out there walking about, he did this to your best mate or your brother or your family — do you want to do something about it?" They let you take your revenge, Dan. They either set it up so that you can do it, or they do it on your behalf.'

  'So they came to you.'

  'They came to me because they found out that The Colonel was out.'

  'But why you?'

  'Because I was your biggest fan, Dan. I had all your columns from the paper stuck up in my locker. I used to say you were my best friend, I never said I hadn't seen you in years. It's . . . kind of childish, I guess. But I was proud of you, your stuff — funny, you know.'

  'Davie, I wrote crap in the paper, but you were out there protecting us. I was proud of you.'

  We nodded awkwardly for several moments. Davie took another drink, then said: 'They knew how much I was affected by Stevie's death. I didn't know him, but I knew you. I always thought those punk years were the best of my life.'

  I nodded. They probably were. His and mine.

  'So they came to you and said, "We know where this guy is — do you want to do something about it?" That's why you're out here. That's why you have the gun. You're going to kill him.'

  Davie shook his head slowly. 'No, Dan. You don't understand. That's not why I'm here. That's not why I have a gun. That's why you're here. That's why we've set this all up, the boys, me — even Patricia: Dan, she knows about it. We're here because you have the chance to do what you've been dreaming about ever since it happened, since that fucker killed your son. The gun's for you, Dan. You're going to kill The Colonel.'

  14

  Davie looked at me and said, 'I think this calls for a good stiff drink.'

  'It calls for a good stiff mallet, you bloody head the ball.'

  But he wouldn't have it any other way. He went to the beach bar and ordered up Smirnoff vodka in big plastic cups with a Coke between us. He didn't even get Diet Coke, so I could tell he was serious. While he waited to be served I concentrated on stopping my head from rolling off my shoulders into the pool. What was he thinking of? More to the point, what was Patricia thinking of? Davie was within his rights to be as mad as a brush, but Patricia — she was my wife, and therefore had to be more responsible than any normal human being was expected to be. How could she even contemplate what Davie was proposing? How could she even consider dispatching me across the ocean to kill someone?

  'I know what you're thinking,' Davie said as he brought the drinks back.

  'Do you?' I snapped. 'I don't think so. I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about murder, and not The bloody Colonel. I'm thinking you. I'm thinking Trish. I was thinking about two weeks getting drunk in DisneyWorld, not blowing someone's head off.'

  Davie nodded for several moments, then said quietly, 'He's not just someone.'

  'I know who he is.'

  'Then what's the problem?'

  I slapped the table. 'Jesus, Davie, what's the problem? What's the fucking problem? What sort of a world do you live in where shooting someone while you're on holiday isn't a problem?'

  'He isn't just someone,' Davie repeated. His voice was higher, he was starting to lose his temper. 'He killed your son. He's sitting out there on the beach. Would you just walk away? Would you just go home to Trish and say, "Guess who I saw on holiday"?'

  I stared at the pool. 'This is crazy. This is fucked up.'

  'This is real life, Dan. You only get one chance.'

  'You obviously don't know me that well then. I get hundreds of chances. I have done many stupid things in my life, but murdering someone on holiday just because I have the opportunity is madness. It's wrong, Davie. And even if I thought it was right, I couldn't do it. I really couldn't.'

  'You could, Dan. When you look him in the eye, when you see what a monster he is, you could do it.'

  'You're wrong, Davie.'

  'Then I'll do it.'

  'No.'

  'It won't be a problem.'

  'I'm sure it won't, but no. No thank you.'

  'You should take some time to think about it. I've just kind of sprung it on you.'

  'Time to think about it? I'm not buying friggin' life cover, Davie.'

  'Well, maybe you should, considering what we're about to do.'

  'I'm not doing it!'

  'Sleep on it, Dan.'

  'Sleep? You think I'm going to be able to—'

  'I mean just take some time, talk to Trish.'

  'That's Patricia to you. You don't know her at all. You haven't earned the right to call her Trish.' I pushed my chair back and stood up.

  'Where are you going?'

  'None of your fucking busine
ss. You just wait here. And try not to assassinate anyone while I'm gone.'

  Davie nodded glumly. I lifted my drink and hurried away. When I got to the room I phoned Trish. It rang for nearly three minutes before she picked up and mumbled a groggy, 'Hello?'

  'Hi.'

  There was a pause, and then: 'Have you any idea what time it is?' She yawned. 'It's three o'clock in the morning.'

  'Not here it isn't.'

  'Dan, I'm tired. Is something wrong?'

  'Wrong? No. Nothing's wrong. I'm having a drink, I'm enjoying the views out over the Gulf, I'm looking at thirty years in the joint for shooting The Colonel.'

  'Oh.'

  'Oh. Is that it?'

  'Well, what about, uh-oh.' She sighed. 'Dan, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do.'

  'You didn't know what else to do? You didn't know what else to do? What about saying to me over the kitchen table that some mad bastard wanted me to murder someone? What about that for a start?'

  'Because if I'd said that to you, you wouldn't have gone.'

  'Too bloody right I wouldn't! Every time I turn my friggin' head Davie's buying another gun. Whatever made you think in a million years that I would even consider murdering someone?'

  'He's not someone, he's—'

  'I know who he is! I know he should be in prison! But I'm not Charles Bronson!'

  'And I don't want you to be, Dan. I just want you to do whatever you have to do so that when you come home I'll be getting the real Dan Starkey back. Because he hasn't been around for a while.'

  'What're you talking about?'

  'The Dan I know is full of life and fun and jokes and stupidity and love. Not a shadow. Not a ghost.'

  'I'm not a ghost.'

  'Yes, you are, Dan.'