'Maybe he climbed out the window, Sissy.' I tutted. 'This is stupid.'
'There's bars on the windows - Poodle's a rich guy, remember.'
I shrugged. 'I doubt if they make much difference. Sure the whole bloody place is made of wood. A medium-size rodent could gnaw its way out in half an hour. Can you get me some headache pills?'
Sissy paid me no attention. She nodded at the door. 'I don't think he's armed,' she said.
I turned the key in the door and we entered.
'Hello,' I said to the figure in the corner, 'we come in peace.'
'Hello,' said Marcus McLiam with a scowl the size of Scotland.
'Do you mind telling me what the fuck you think you're playing at?'
In the flesh he didn't seem any more threatening than Martin King. Small, wiry, well dressed in an overawed Irishman-onholiday kind of way. His accent was pure earnest patriot Belfast. He didn't appear to be carrying a gun and I wasn't close enough to check out the lingerie angle. 'We haven't met,' I said, 'but I've seen your video.'
He screwed up his eyes. 'What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell are you? And what the fuck did yees lock me in here for?'
'You called for us, mate, it's what you want that interests us. We were just showing you a bit of Belfast hospitality. You got it easy, there's boys in Beirut got chained to a radiator for five years for walking into the lion's den, y'know?' I sighed. I was babbling. I was half drunk. I was half sober. I was sore. I'd had my fill of crap terrorists. I wanted to lie down and dream of good things.
'And if you've come with more demands,' I snapped, 'you're too late. They've left for New York.'
'Demands for what?' He shook his head and looked at Sissy. 'Is Mary with them?'
Sissy gave him the eye.
'Fuck,' he said.
'You've released her then,' I said.
'What?'
'You decided to let her go after all.' I tutted. 'Better late than never, I suppose. What a pity you let it happen in the first place.'
He raised a finger to me. I suppose it was meant to be threatening. It wasn't. It was a couple of bones and some pale flesh. Threatening only to another pale bony finger.
'Listen, mate,' he growled, 'I don't know what kinda drugs you or your woman are on, and I don't much care, but I just came looking for my sister. I didn't expect to get locked in a fuckin' room for four hours and then get talked shite to.'
I looked at Sissy, who had retained a diplomatic silence throughout, although her mouth had now dropped open a little. In that respect, it matched mine. I put my hand up to him, palm out. Placatory. It worked. He removed the finger. 'Who's your sister?'
He looked from me to Sissy, and back. 'Mary, of course.'
'Of course,' said Sissy.
'Mary McMaster?'
'Yes. Mary McMaster. I just called to see where she was, I didn't expect all this shite.'
You're Mary McMaster's brother?'
'Yes!'
'But ... but ... your surnames aren't the same.' It sounded crap, and it was.
He gave me the look. 'Of course they aren't.'
I shook my head. 'I mean, her maiden name's Wilson, yours ... I mean, you haven't got a maiden name but your surname's McLiam.. .'
'How the fuck do you know that?'
'We know all about you - Jesus! We've been trying to track you down for the past three days I'
'Me? Why the...'
'Because we thought. . .' began Sissy.
'Because you kidnapped Mary!'
'Aye, I'd do that to my own sister!'
'Right! Right.' I put both palms up. 'Let's calm this down and get it sorted out.'.
He nodded, raised his own palms a little. 'Okay. Okay.'
'You're Marcus McLiam.'
'Yeah.'
'Not Marcus Wilson.'
'Yeah.'
'Yeah?'
'I'm Marcus Wilson.'
'Not Marcus McLiam.'
'Yes. Marcus McLiam. And Marcus Wilson.'
I looked at Sissy. Her eyes widened a little. 'Am I missing something here?' I asked
'Honey,' she said to, well, Marcus, 'you talking in riddles.'
A little light dawned in his eyes. 'I'm sorry. Yes, I am. I'm so used to it myself, I sorta think everyone else is used to it too. Yes, sorry. Yes, my name is Marcus Wilson. Yes, I am Mary's brother. I live in New York. I work for Noraid - you know Noraid?'
'We know Noraid.'
'Working for Noraid, I use the Gaelic spelling of my surname. So I'm Marcus McLiam.'
'Ah,' I said, 'and so the penny drops.'
McLiam nodded. 'But how do you know that I'm McLiam?'
'We watched you return Mary's shirts to Macy's. Or at any rate we watched you on video. Traced you through your credit card. But you'd left for Princetown.'
'But why watch me at all?'
'We thought you had her.'
'Had her?'
'Had kidnapped her.'
'But I'm her brother!'
'We know that now! Jesus! Look, Mary disappeared in New York, we followed up every lead we could. One of them took us to Macy's, we saw a tape of you returning some shirts she had bought. We traced you to Noraid ... meanwhile the first of the demands from the IRA had come in.'
He looked a bit doubtful. 'The IRA?'
'Well, someone like the IRA. We aren't really quite sure.'
'You're serious?'
'Yup.'
'But ... how? Christ, why?'
'You really don't know?'
'Of course I don't fuckin' . . .'
'So how did you come by the shirts?' Sissy asked.
'Well, Mary gave them to me, of course!' He blew out some air, shook his head a little, then went and sat on a chair in the comer of the room. 'Look, to tell you the truth,' his voice quieter, even a little shaky, 'Mary and I haven't got on for years. I've always been quite political, back home, then when I moved to New York I started working for Noraid. But I was never into terrorism. Maybe you won't believe it, but there are some of us aren't. So anyway, Mary comes to New York, comes to see me, brings me some shirts as a peace offering. She always thought I dressed like a tramp. Gave me tickets for the fight. We got on okay. I hadn't seen her for years - maybe we'd both matured a bit ... look, I'm sorry if this sounds like This Is Your Life ...'
'Never worry ... I'd like to know ... right up to the mystery guest at the end. . .'
He gave me a wan smile. 'Look, she went back to her hotel, didn't want me to go because I'd never got on with her husband. Religion, politics, you know how it is. She promised to come back and see me, never did. I thought, well, there you go. Maybe I'm not forgiven. I'd grown a bit since the last time she'd seen me, shirts were a bit small, so I took them back to get something bigger ... something a bit more fashionable, if you must know.'
'And some underwear.'
'Underwear?'
'Ladies' stuff. Y'know. Each unto his own.'
'Right sure. For my girlfriend. Does it matter?'
'No. Of course. Just polishing off a red herring. Go on.' He paused for a moment.
'Go on, honey,' Sissy encouraged.
'I got worried about her when I started hearing about the death threats against her husband. I was concerned for her safety, okay? I went to see her, but she wasn't there. Next thing I know everyone's left for Princetown. I'd been given some time off work anyway, so I thought I'd travel up, see if I could keep an eye on her, from a distance, like. Only I haven't seen her once in three days, and I'm worried, so I thought I'd insist on seeing her ... and I get locked in this fuckin' place. ..'
'And that's the honest-to-God truth?'
'Honest to God.'
'And you know nothing about the IRA kidnapping her.'
'I don't.' He shook his head slowly, then raised his hands to it and slowly rocked it. 'Fuck it,' he snapped suddenly, 'what a bloody eejit I am. They get me out of work, give me holleys when I've no time due to me, just so as I'm offside when they kidnap my sister. My own sister!' Hi
s eyes peeked out from between his fingers. 'Fine fuckin' reward.'
'Honey,' said Sissy, stepping forward and putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, 'you wouldn't have any idea where they might be keeping her, wouldja?'
'I don't,' he said, and then added slowly, 'but I've a good idea who might.'
38
It was 5 am. Still dark. Freezing. We swung by the beach to see if we could pick Matchitt up, but he was nowhere to be seen. There were some vague footprints on the sandswept boardwalk roughly where I'd left him, heading out along the coast, but none of us were Indian tracker enough to say whether they were his or not. Sissy called to him a few times from the shelter of the car, then reluctantly nosed the Mercedes out onto the main road and out of town. Soon we were cruising down the peninsula and off Cape Cod. She didn't speak until we hit Rhode island, and that was only to ask, 'Do you think he's okay?'
Of course he was. Matchitt could survive a direct hit with a nuclear warhead. Unfortunately he was also the kind of man could attract a direct hit with a nuclear warhead. Sissy couldn't see that, or wouldn't. I'd hoped maybe the incident with the whale had opened her eyes, but it had only narrowed them in the manner of a mother scolding a loved child. There would have been something nice about their fawning over each other if only I hadn't known Matchitt to be such a psycho, and but for the fact that her husband was only recently cremated.
We drove with speed and were blessed with a noticeable lack of highway patrol. Possibly they were all Irish and already half drunk for St Patrick's Day, or maybe we just had the luck of the Irish, that luck which had already made my research on a sporting biography so varied and interesting.
We had debated briefly what to do about McLiam's information. McLiam had joined in. Already he was one of us. There was no reason not to trust him. He knew enough about Mary to match what I had gleaned from her for her role in my biography of her husband, and I was prepared to accept him at his word. He just seemed trustworthy. Sometimes you have to go on your instincts, like Napoleon into Russia.
Our first decision was not to tell anyone else. To let McMaster go through with his speech and the parade, not to get him any more excited than he already was. If we got Mary out, well and good; if McLiam, through no fault of his own, led us on a wild goose chase, then no one would be any the wiser and McMaster would still have a chance of getting his wife back. All he had to do was beat Tyson.
Our second decision was to cancel the jet. It was to pick us up at 10 am at Princetown airstrip, but McLiam reasoned that a hell-for-leather drive back to the city would give us an hour's start on the search for his sister. Sissy wanted to wait for the jet. No, Sissy just wanted to wait. To give him another chance to turn up. We outvoted her and she reluctantly agreed. We called the pilot, told him we preferred to drive. He didn't sound unduly suspicious. It was St Patrick's Day.
While Sissy drove, McLiam and I lolled in the back of the Mercedes. I slept on and off for the first couple of hours as the headache pills kicked in. Each time I opened my eyes McLiam was staring out of the window. I felt a trifle sorry for him. I knew what it was like to be missing a loved one, even a loved one you didn't get on with half of the time.
We stopped briefly outside Providence for breakfast. Sissy loaded up on Egg McMuffins. I got some Diet Coke and chocolate. McLiam had nothing.
'Worried?' I asked as we climbed back onto the highway. 'What do you think?'
I nodded, half apologetically. 'She'll be okay.'
His eyes flared angrily for a moment, then he let out a sigh and asked in a voice of strangulated calmness: 'What possible basis have you got for saying that?'
I shrugged. 'I was just saying.'
'Well, don't. It's stupid.'
'I was just trying to cheer you up. Sorry I spoke.'
'Cheer me up by all means. But don't say something so blatantly bloody stupid. She'll be all right ... Jesus.'
'Okay. She won't be all right. They probably have her head on a spike even as we speak. Popehead.'
'Oh, that's not childish.'
Sissy glanced back: 'Please, guys.'
We fell silent, spent the next ten minutes looking out of our respective windows at the drab countryside. 'Sorry,' I said eventually.
'Yeah. Sorry,' he said.
'That's more like it.' Sissy's eyes caught his in the mirror. 'Don't worry. She'll be okay.'
McLiam snorted. 'Ha-ha,' he added.
Sissy smiled broadly. The McMuffins had cheered her up. 'How come you managed to avoid all the cops in Princetown?' she asked.
'What cops?'
'The cops we had out searching every hotel and guesthouse in town.'
'Didn't see a thing, mate. I saw plenty of you lot though. I was on a bike outside the house three or four times a day hoping to catch Mary.'
Sissy shrugged. 'I didn't see you. But then all you white guys look the same to me.'
'Aye,' I said, 'all but one.'
'You trying to say something, Starkey?'
'Nah.'
'Sure?'
'Absolutely.'
If I hadn't known that Americans don't understand sarcasm, I would have sworn that mirrored smile she gave me was a sarky one. Maybe I was rubbing off on her; maybe Matchitt was.
I offered McLiam a conciliatory slug of Diet Coke. It was pretty much flat anyway. He refused, but smiled. 'Thanks,' he said, 'I don't.'
I tutted. 'Mother Nature in her purest form,' I said, and showed him the carton. 'All they add is phenylalanine, caramel, aspartame, phosphoric acid, sodium citrate, caffeine and citric acid to the carbonated water. It adds life, y'know?'
'And teaches the world to sing in perfect harmony.'
We fell silent for the next few miles, lost in the drum of the heavy rain against the windscreen and the steady rhythm of the wipers. It reminded me of home. Dull. Wet. Widespread terrorism. The old dependables.
'Right now they're painting their faces green in New York,' McLiam said presently.
'Mixing the green beer,' added Sissy.
'And preparing to talk the biggest load of auld shite about the auld sod this side of the United Nations,' said McLiam. 'It is shite, isn't it?' I said.
'Complete and utter shite.'
'Shite. Shite. Shite. Shite.'
'And more shite.' He nodded enthusiastically. 'If St Patrick was alive today ... he'd be about thirteen hundred years old. But he'd still recognize shite if he heard it, would St Patrick.'
'Wouldn't buy you a pint, though. He was Scottish, wasn't he? Tight as fuck.'
'Scottish? Welsh? English? Who knows?'
'So Noraid must hate St Patrick's Day then, seeing as how it represents the first British colonization of Ireland.'
'Bollocks. He's an honorary Irishman. Like Jack Charlton. He did us proud.'
'How, threw out a few snakes?'
'Made Christians of us.'
'Christianity breeds contempt.'
'Familiarity.'
'Whatever. We would have been better off as heathens.'
'Catholic heathens or Protestant heathens?'
'Now there's a point.'
'Y'know,' he said, a little smile creeping onto his face, 'Noraid'll make more money today than it does in the next six months. A lot of drunks'll get whimsical over their Guinness and start writing cheques. Christmas for us really.'
'So you actually encourage the talking of shite.'
McLiam nodded.
'And you still feel the same way, now that they've kidnapped your sister?'
'They didn't kidnap her.'
'They bloody did.'
'Noraid didn't. The IRA did. Or their close cousins.'
'Marcus, it's all the bloody same.'
'No, it's not. Noraid are a legitimate pressure. ..'
'Balls. They're terrorists, just as much as Sinn Fein, just as much as the IRA...'
'The Army, the RUC . . .'
'You're getting away from the point. Your own people set Mary up. They got you out of the way, and they kidnapped
her, they've maybe even killed her. There must be an acute sense of betrayal lurking in there somewhere.'
'There is. Of course there is. But looked at objectively, if it's the IRA it's not such a bad move. I mean, what better opportunity to get some publicity on the world stage.'
'I wish I could say I admire your objectivity.'
'I'm not saying that I am ... I'm just saying that if I was, that's what I'd see.'
'What I see is your sister kidnapped by a lot of murdering bastards.'
'To a certain extent I can see that as well.'
'I mean, it's going to come out in the end one way or the other that what McMaster was saying was a result of blackmail, so where's the gain?'
'Ask the terrorists.'
'I'm asking you, you're Noraid.'
'I'm not Noraid. I man a desk in a little office. I do a job to help the folks back home. I don't run the show. You think if I ran the show I'd have pulled something like this against my own sister?'
I shrugged.
'Thanks,' he said.
'I'm sorry. I don't know you well enough to say you wouldn't.
No - I tell a lie. I honestly don't think you would do something like this against your own sister. But I'm not entirely convinced you wouldn't do it against someone else's sister. I've been up against enough zealots in the last few weeks not to rule anything out, Marcus.'
'I'm no bloody zealot.'
'Aye. Sure enough. Top of the mornin' to ya, St Patrick.'
'I'm no bloody zealot.'
'Aye.'
We spent fifty miles or more in renewed silence. Sissy hummed along to a Doris Day tape. Then some Sinatra. A little Waylon Jennings, though not little enough. The rain let up, the traffic began to get heavier as we approached the urban sprawl of New York.
'I used to read your columns when I lived at home,' McLiam said.
'Really?'
'Yeah.'
He drummed his fingers on the window and feigned interest in the back of Sissy's head. He waited. I took a sip of Diet Coke. It hadn't improved much. All it needed was a million bubbles and eighteen heaped spoonfuls of sugar. Maybe one day my teeth would thank me, and then they'd lock me up.
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