The Day of the Jack Russell (Mystery Man)

by Bateman, Colin

  I called Alison to tell her how well I was doing.

  She said, ‘See what you can do when you try?’

  It made me feel like I was eight years old, but in a good way, like it was praise from an imaginary mother. When I really was eight years old my actual mother took me to our local swimming pool, inflated my armbands, slipped them on to my feet and said, ‘This is what it feels like to drown,’ before pushing me in.

  But then Alison went and spoiled it by adding, ‘And . . .? What did Michael Gordon say when you called him?’

  ‘I haven’t called him.’

  ‘Well call him now. Remember last time you imparted any kind of information to Billy Randall? Jimbo and RonnyCrabs were executed very soon afterwards.’

  ‘But he was telling me about the driver . . .’

  ‘Yes, but only because you asked him to find it out. Now that he knows, what if there is a connection, what if . . .? Jesus, man, you’re not trusting him now, are you? Don’t you think—’

  But I had hung up. She had a reasonably good and valid point. If Michael Gordon had any light to shed on The Case of the Cock-Headed Man, it would indeed be better to speak to him now in case there was some remote possibility that that light might be extinguished.

  And there could have been a multitude of reasons why he wasn’t answering his phone.

  27

  ‘We are a good team, aren’t we? What with me being a cup half full and you being a cup half empty and cracked and leaking over your tractor trunks, we’re made for each other.’

  She was chirpy and not at all concerned about the dangers that came with blatantly walking along a Lisburn Road busy with traffic or the fact that we might be walking into a trap. Geographically, on a map, the Windsor Park we were heading for appears to be only around the corner from No Alibis, but actually physically walking it, it was at least a mile, and I wasn’t happy. I’m not designed for hiking: extended motion causes my calipers to bite into my leg skin. Also, exhaust fumes set off my asthma. More pertinently, we were going to call on Michael Gordon to see why he wasn’t answering his phone, and according to Alison, that meant that he was dead, murdered by Billy Randall or someone who was able to monitor Billy Randall’s calls, and that meant getting ourselves into another dangerous situation, one from which we would have no easy means of escaping because we were bloody walking because Alison thought it would be good for us and for our unborn. I had tried running, once, and it wasn’t for me. She also thought it would be better for the environment. I failed to see how my body decomposing on the sidewalk would be good for anything.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ I asked for the third time.

  ‘Nearly.’

  I had been phoning Michael Gordon right up to the point where I locked the shop up for the night, and then twice on my mobile as we walked, but still no response. There was nothing suspicious about it at all, I argued, we were only concerned because of the life we led: mystery books and murder. Lots of people didn’t answer their phone. He didn’t have to be in trouble; he could just as easily be at work, or at the laundry, or grocery shopping, or at the cinema, or buying pot plants, or discussing politics over a coffee in a fashionable café, or . . .

  ‘Murdered,’ Alison said.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Not as cold as him.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘I bet you all the money in the world that there’s something up.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. You don’t have all the money in the world.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes I do. It’s impossible. It’s so childish.’

  ‘You’re just scared of losing.’

  ‘I’m not scared of losing. It’s just stupid. Besides, we shouldn’t be betting when there’s a man’s life at stake.’

  ‘See, I’ve won already. You think he’s in trouble.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You bloody did.’

  ‘Just . . . shush.’

  ‘Don’t shush me, hypocrite.’

  ‘I’m—’

  She stopped me by kissing me.

  It’s an effective way to shush me.

  There, in the middle of the footpath, with going-home traffic all around us, potentially hundreds of people who could see that I had a girlfriend.

  Michael Gordon’s home was a crumbly-looking semi. There were lights on. Alison said that didn’t mean anything. His last dying move might have been to switch them on. The front-room curtains were closed, although what appeared to be a forgotten string of Christmas lights continued to wink on and off.

  Alison approached the door.

  I held back.

  She said, ‘What? Scared?’

  ‘No, I . . .’ I studied my shoes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I always feel slightly foolish when we say we’re private detectives.’

  ‘I don’t. I get like a sugar rush. Honey, you’re the man, you’re the brains, you’re the solver, don’t be embarrassed.’

  I shrugged.

  She held her hand out to me. ‘Come on. And if we don’t like the look of whoever answers, we can try Hallowe’en rhyming.’

  ‘It’s January.’

  ‘Never too early.’

  I joined her. She squeezed me. She rang the bell. It was an old-fashioned one and sounded laboured.

  ‘We’re not breaking in,’ I said, ‘no matter what.’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘You can’t just say chicken.’

  ‘I believe I just did.’

  ‘I have a healthy respect for property, and privacy.’

  ‘Chicken.’

  Further debate was rendered irrelevant by a light coming on above us. I could now see that the paint on the door was ancient and cracked and peeling. There was a fair to middling chance of getting lead poisoning from it, although probably only if I licked it.

  ‘See?’ I said. ‘Alive and kicking, scaremonger.’

  ‘Chicken,’ said Alison.

  ‘Yes? Who is it?’ A woman’s voice, suspicious.

  Alison nodded at me, I nodded back. She nodded at me, I nodded back.

  Alison shook her head and said: ‘We wanted to have a word with Michael?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  Alison nodded at me. I nodded back. Alison sighed. ‘We’re private detectives.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘In Belfast?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Private detectives?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stand in front of the peephole where I can see youse.’

  Alison stood in front of the peephole. She glanced at me. I stood where I was. I don’t like being observed, or judged. Alison grabbed my arm and dragged me into the picture. I winced. Haemophilia.

  ‘Youse don’t look like private detectives.’

  ‘We’re not supposed to,’ said Alison.

  ‘And what’s up with Smiler?’

  Alison looked at me, then hissed: ‘What are you smiling for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well stop it.’

  I did my best. Sometimes when I’m embarrassed I suffer from a kind of lockjaw.

  ‘He’s not smiling,’ said Alison. ‘He just has too many teeth.’

  The woman was quiet for a while. Then: ‘Is this a wind-up?’

  ‘No, madam, I assure you . . .’

  ‘Madam? Aye, right. Well I told you, he’s not here.’

  ‘Can we . . . come in and wait for him?’

  She laughed. ‘Good one.’

  ‘Or is there somewhere else we can contact him?’ That was me.

  The woman said, ‘He talks!’ Then: ‘Is this about that fucking dog?’

  We exchanged glances.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Now he won’t shut up.’ There was another, longer pause then, before a bolt was slid across. A
nd a second one. Then a third and fourth. Then a key in a lock. And the beep of an alarm being deactivated. Finally the door swung open. A large woman, her hair tied back, a glass of white wine in her hand, a cigarette in her fleshy face, looked us up and down. ‘I told him all these locks were a waste of time. If they’re going to get you, they’re going to get you. Youse might as well come in.’

  She led us into the front room. Magazines were scattered across a sofa and on the floor. There was a grey-muzzled Labrador sleeping in one armchair, and an ashtray sitting on the arm of the other. I am allergic to dogs. And cigarette smoke.

  ‘Park your bums there and tell us what this is about.’

  Alison began. ‘Well, it’s quite boring really. It’s not like Columbo.’

  The woman tutted. ‘Columbo wasn’t a private eye. He was a cop. Rockford was a private eye. I could jump his bones, any day of the week. Maybe he’s before your time.’

  ‘James Garner,’ I said.

  The woman smiled.

  ‘Anyway, we work for an insurance company. Your husband filed a claim and then—’

  ‘My husband is dead.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. Was this just—’

  ‘Five years gone. Michael is my son.’

  ‘Okay. Right. Still sorry, but . . . pleased. Michael filed a claim, and then he quickly withdrew it and . . . Well, we’re just doing a follow-up, on behalf of the company, to see if there was some reason, you know, if he was dissatisfied with his policy, or the service he got. They use a call centre in Scotland; sometimes the language barrier . . .’

  ‘And they hire private detectives for that?’

  ‘Yes they do,’ said Alison.

  ‘No they don’t,’ I said. ‘Mrs Gordon . . .’

  ‘Millie.’

  ‘Millie. Let me be frank.’

  ‘You’ve suddenly found your knackers.’ Millie took a sip of her wine.

  Alison was looking at me, pretending to be annoyed. It was a variation of the old good cop/bad cop routine. We hadn’t worked it out, it just came natural.

  ‘Millie . . .’

  ‘Are you here for him, that nutter who attacked him? Because if you are, you can just . . .’

  ‘No, we’re not.’

  ‘Well you’re not here for Michael. So maybe you’re representing the fucking dog.’

  She smiled, but it was a bitter kind of a one, with a hint of drunk thrown in.

  ‘Millie.’ This was Alison. ‘We can’t tell you about the case, but it really isn’t about your son. It’s a murder thing, and it’s really complicated, and one of those complications involves the man I think we’re both talking about, and the more we know about him the more it helps us to solve the case. We don’t mean any harm to your son, honestly, we just want to know what happened with the dog.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  ‘Do you have ID or anything, like a licence?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I said.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Millie repeated, smiling again.

  ‘A licence, that’s more of an American thing. We have business cards.’

  Alison nodded at me. I rifled in my wallet and held one out.

  ‘Sure any fucker could run off one of those,’ said Millie, declining to take it. ‘Not that it matters. He’s not here anyway, he’s gone off.’

  ‘Gone off where?’

  ‘England. Possibly.’

  ‘For a holiday, or . . .’

  ‘No, for fucking good. He was scared, wasn’t he?’

  Alison moved to the edge of the sofa. ‘Of what?’

  ‘Getting another hiding.’

  It came out in dribs and drabs, and a few dribbles as well. She was liberal but careless with her consumption of the wine, though not so liberal or careless as to offer us any.

  Michael Gordon worked in a bank, played football, had good friends, a steady girlfriend; just an ordinary bloke. His girlfriend lived in Comber with her parents. When he took her home at nights he usually drove through Hillsborough, then along the Comber Road. One summer evening, still bright, he was driving back down that road when a Jack Russell suddenly dashed out in front of his car. He braked, but too late. Michael, being a conscientious guy, jumped out of the car instead of driving on. The owner, having heard the skidding tyres and his dog’s dying yelp, raced out of the house. Michael, having done nothing wrong, tried to explain what had happened, but the owner was in a blind fury: he punched Michael in the face, he bounced his head off the bonnet and he kicked him repeatedly in the stomach. The owner’s wife came running out and dragged him off. Michael scrambled back into his car and drove home.

  Millie poured herself another glass. It was sparkling wine, and bubbled up over on to the arm of her chair. She massaged the spillage into the material before sucking her fingers. ‘He’d done nothing wrong, yet that animal laid into him. You should have seen the state he was in when he got back here. I know he’s twenty-seven, but he’s still my boy. I put him in my car and took him to casualty. They couldn’t do much about his nose, but they put a couple of stitches in above his eye.’

  ‘You called the police, though?’ Alison asked.

  ‘Of course. Told us to come down and make a statement. Michael was miserable, God love him, but I made him go down and do it. I took photos of his battered face on my mobile. And the damage to the car and the blood over the bonnet.’

  ‘Because . . .?’

  ‘Because you know what this place is like – I thought the bastard would try to sue my boy for killing his dog. And, you know, I thought we’d be entitled to a few quid ourselves.’

  ‘So he informed his insurance company when, next day?’

  ‘Nope, same night. Did that. Went to work as normal, he comes out and these two big fellas are waiting for him, bundle him into a car, take him up the Craigantlet Hills, put a gun to his head and say if he doesn’t withdraw his statement, if he doesn’t tear up his insurance claim, if he doesn’t get out of the country real quick, then he’s a dead man. Then they drag him out of the car and give him another kicking for good measure. He was outta the country without passing Go.’ Millie shook her head. Tears in her eyes. ‘I thought all that shite had gone away, but I guess it hasn’t. It’s just been hiding.’

  28

  Alison had her arm looped through mine as we walked back down the Lisburn Road. The traffic had lightened; it was crisp and cold and the moon was out. We both felt sorry for the sad old woman, but not at all sorry that we had ruthlessly grilled her for information. She had refused to give us her son’s phone number in England, but had promised to pass on our number to him before herself passing out in her chair. We let ourselves out of the house.

  We no longer needed to speak to Michael Gordon directly. What had happened to him was unfortunate, despicable given that the man who had first attacked him was the most powerful police officer in the land. But people lose their tempers. The Chief Constable had apparently further abused his power by forcing Michael to flee his home. But what did it have to do with the missing Jack Russell or our case?

  I said, ‘This is about Jimbo and Ronny, it’s not about Michael Gordon. And by the way, Michael Gordon not being dead means you owe me all the money in the world.’

  ‘I didn’t say he had to be dead, I said something must have happened to him to stop him answering his phone, and something did.’

  ‘Ages ago. It’s hardly the same.’

  ‘Anyway. Does it help us?’

  ‘Well it confirms that Wilson McCabe is prone to violence. That he’s not above using a couple of heavies to get his way. So if Jimbo and Ronny did cross him, and they were killed shortly after, then there’s a chance McCabe was either directly involved or ordered it.’

  ‘Which gets Billy Randall off the hook . . .’

  ‘No it doesn’t. McCabe or someone is still setting him up for it. But at least it helps us to know that he’s innocent. We can concentrate on who really is responsible. McCabe beat Michael up – but it’s not just one man losing his temper
; it’s his job, his public image, he must have known that if it got out he’d be out on his ear, so he calls the heavy mob. But we’re still only connecting him to a beating, not the murders. Then there’s Greg and MI5. Why do they feel the need to hold Jeff and threaten us? Just to get their hands on a stuffed dog? Why are they involved at all? MI5 deals with national security and terrorism. It doesn’t investigate murder. So, logically, the Jack Russell would have to have something to do with national security or terrorism, and it belonging to McCabe means that he must also have something to do with national security or terrorism, either investigating it, or involved in it, or he’s a target.’

  ‘You mean like the Jack Russell is a means of killing him? It’s a bomb, or it’s stuffed with anthrax?’

  ‘Well there are enough former terrorists running around; maybe one with a grudge wants to remove the new head of the PSNI and start the Troubles up again. Or maybe MI5 themselves want to remove him.’

  Alison stopped and looked at me. ‘To a certain extent I’m okay with terrorism. There will always be misguided nutters. But if you think MI5 are trying to get rid of him, then that’s . . . well that’s . . .’

  ‘A conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of power.’

  ‘Bonkers,’ said Alison.

  We walked in subdued silence for a little while, me with one eye on the traffic in case it suddenly dived at us, Alison with her eyes down and her lips moving very slightly as she debated something with herself. We reached the bottom of Botanic Avenue and were just turning towards No Alibis when she removed her arm from mine and gave me a grave look.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have to go back to Millie’s house.’

  ‘Why? She’s out for the count.’

  ‘Exactly. We left her asleep, with her ashtray on the arm of her chair, and a cigarette burning on the side of it. Do you remember the way she gave little jumps and starts in between snores?’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘What if she knocks the ashtray over and doesn’t wake up and the carpet catches fire? She doesn’t have a smoke alarm, I checked. I always check. The smoke will kill her before she even wakes up.’

  ‘She’ll be fine, don’t worry about her.’