by Paul Charles
‘I need you to monitor Miles Bloom, 24/7.’
‘Like a stakeout?’
‘Not like a stakeout, but a stakeout.’
‘I knew it, I just knew it,’ DI Jarvis Cage hissed.
‘What did you know, Jarvis?’
‘I just knew when I woke up this morning that I was going to start working on my name-making case today, I just knew it!’
O’Carroll gave DI Jarvis Cage Miles Bloom’s address and sent him on the way with the strict instruction to make sure that Bloom never spotted him.
* * *
Earlier, as McCusker was leaving Louis Bloom’s office after the interview with Miles Bloom, Leab David handed him an envelope. The envelope contained the names of the four members of Magherafelt High School currently enrolled at Queens University, Belfast. McCusker read the four names aloud to himself as he sat down at his desk.
Sammy Bruce
Michael Lamont
Thomas Chada
Derek McClelland
Where to start? Barr was already busy checking if Al Armstrong had a criminal record. He also had Louis Bloom’s journal on his desk, ready to go through it. He was also working on discovering the monies Louis Bloom and Ron Desmond had raised on their joint funding ventures, in order to ascertain whether all of those funds had reached their designated accounts.
O’Carroll was getting ready to leave the office, on another of her blind dates, McCusker reckoned. It was probably Mr Niblock’s turn today. McCusker was quite sure her hairdresser had recommended him, but it was difficult to keep up with her industrious progress. She had even taken to using five-by-three cue cards, for heaven’s sake.
Leab David, recently revealed as the Vice-Chancellor’s true love, had kindly included street, email addresses and mobile phone numbers for the four former pupils of Magherafelt High School. So now McCusker had his starting point. He rang the numbers, one by one.
Sammy Bruce was both polite and friendly, and advised McCusker that he hadn’t actually been in Botanic Gardens since September. Michael Lamont was in a hurry to leave his room to meet with someone, so he answered questions as he walked along. He said that he didn’t currently have a girlfriend but that if there were spare kissing partners in Botanic Gardens, he’d make sure he visited there at the first available opportunity. Thomas Chada had his answer phone on and McCusker left a message. Derek McClelland was studying and was annoyed by the interruption – obviously not studying so intently that he had turned his mobile phone completely off, mind you. Perhaps he was scared of what calls he might miss. McCusker found himself wondering what calls McClelland was keen to receive. McClelland assured the detective that he’d also been studying the previous evening.
McCusker then began to try to convince himself that this – trying to track down the boy spotted kissing in Botanic Gardens last evening, just as Louis Bloom was murdered, or at the very least, kidnapped – was a foolhardy idea. To prove his point, he mentally listed all the reasons why his idea was a weak one, at best: the boy – well, more like young man, really – might have borrowed the scarf from someone in his accommodation; he might have borrowed it from the girl he was kissing; he might have found it; it might have been the scarf of an old girlfriend; he might have bought it at a jumble sale; he might have inherited the Magherafelt High School scarf in his current student accommodation.
McCusker paused work on his mental list when his desk phone rang.
‘Is this Mr McCusker from the PSNI, Belfast?’
‘Yes, I’m McCusker.’
‘You just rang this phone a few minutes ago.’
‘Yes, Thomas Chada is it?’ McCusker asked, thinking that the caller sounded more like a mature student than someone who’d be out snogging with a girl in Botanic Gardens. He had to admit this was an option he’d failed to consider and was about to add it to his mental “bad idea” list when the voice in his Bakelite earpiece replied:
‘No, this is his father – Harry, Harry Chada. Is Thomas in trouble?’
‘No, no, not at all, not in the slightest,’ McCusker continued, more than necessary, hoping to reassure the father. ‘I believe he was in Botanic Gardens yesterday evening with…’ McCusker was just about to say, “with a girlfriend” when he pulled himself up instantly in his tracks, not wanting to get Thomas in any more trouble, ‘…and he might have witnessed something. If you could just put him on, I’m sure it won’t take more than a few minutes.’
‘Oh, he’s not here, I’m sorry,’ Harry Chada said. ‘He arrived back home here in Magherafelt this afternoon, and his friends picked him up about half an hour ago. They’re headed off to Donegal for the weekend.’
‘Oh I see,’ McCusker said. ‘But he was in Belfast last night?’
‘Yes, he was in Belfast last night. Anyway, as I say, he’s away for the weekend and he rushed off without his mobile. Normally I’d never answer his phone, you understand, but I thought it might have been Thomas checking to see if his phone was here or had been stolen. I didn’t get to it quick enough, so it went to message, and then I got your message and thought the worst. It’s so difficult; this is the first time Thomas has been away from home for any period of time and it’s been very distressing for his mother and me. We’re missing him every day but, even worse than that, he seems to be totally happy in his new environment and seems to barely spare us a thought.’
‘Oh, you’ll be okay; Belfast is very close to Magherafelt, so he probably doesn’t even think he’s left home yet,’ McCusker replied, trying to put a spin on it, fully aware of the leaving-the-roost syndrome. ‘Could you maybe get him to give me a ring when he arrives in Belfast on Monday?’
‘Oh I will, Mr McCusker.’
‘And please warn him that he’s not in trouble.’
‘I will and thank you.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Just after 7 o’clock, McCusker was (genuinely) busy at his desk when he received a telephone call from Station Duty Sergeant, Matt Devine.
‘There’s a young lady down here called Le…’ Devine struggled to get his tongue around the name.
McCusker heard a voice in the background saying, ‘Leab, tell him it’s Leab David, Louis Bloom’s PA and–’
‘I assume you got that,’ Devine took over again. ‘She says she’s got something for you – she needs to hand it to you in person.’
‘I’ll be straight down.’
Leab David was on the way home, she didn’t want to go back upstairs with McCusker; she didn’t want to go into the warmth and then have to go back out into the cold again. She was well protected from the cold evening anyway, with her black hoodie, hood up, black trousers and Ugg boots.
‘I wanted to hand this directly to you,’ she said, as she removed a DVD in a Perspex jewel case from her canvas bag. Someone (perhaps even Leab, McCusker reckoned) had written in large letters with a Sharpie: “L. Bloom, Emeleus Lecture Theatre Oct 2016, Love Lecture,” on the front of the case. The same legend was also written on the DVD itself.
She handed it to McCusker. ‘This is a copy of a video recording I made of Louis two years ago. It’s pretty much the basis of the first lecture he gives to his students each year. The content might float around a bit, but then not really. I thought it might help you get to know Louis better.’ Her voice was breaking up a bit. ‘I wanted to try… to help you… to… you need to catch this person… please catch this person and punish them for what they did to Louis, Inspector.’
McCusker started off to explain that he wasn’t an inspector.
She cut him off near enough immediately with, ‘You and I are the only people who have a copy of this, so if it gets out… I’ll know where it came from.’ Leab turned on the heels of her Ugg boots and walked across the lobby.
‘Thanks Leab, I’ll be very careful with this!’ McCusker called after her. Leab didn’t turn around; she walked on and out of the door of the Customs House into Belfast’s cold, blustery, autumn night.
McCusker immediately rang O’Carro
ll.
‘Where are you?’ he asked, once they connected after what seemed forever.
‘What McCusker…’ she started.
He could hear a lot of noise in the background. ‘No it’s okay,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you, I’ll… it’ll do in the morning.’
‘No,’ she said, clearly having walked to a quieter area, ‘I can hear in your voice that it’s something serious – what is it? Please?’
The detective explained what had happened with Leab.
‘I thought we should view it together,’ he added. ‘But look, you’re out for the night, so I’ll save it until tomorrow.’
‘No we won’t,’ she said firmly, ‘on top of which he didn’t even shower and shave for our first and final date. You’ve just given me the perfect excuse to cut it short and not have to pretend to be sociable and waste another couple of hours of my life.’
‘Okay, if you’re sure?’
‘See you there in ten minutes. And get the DVD set up in the conference room so we can have a bit of privacy.’
Before she’d even disconnected the call, he could hear her say to someone ‘Look, I’m really sorry. Something has come up…’ before the line went dead.
Twenty minutes later, when this stunning looking woman walked into the office, McCusker had to blink twice before he realised it was Lily O’Carroll. He’d never, ever seen her with a skirt on before; she always wore trouser suits while on duty. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He couldn’t believe how perfect her legs were, or how her subtle make-up softened up her look somewhat.
McCusker was quite literally left speechless.
‘I appreciate the popping eyes, McCusker, and dropped jaw, but you’re spoken for already,’ she said, as she swished past him over to her side of their partner’s desk.
McCusker apologised for interrupting her date.
‘As I said, it was never going to work out. I will always forgive a man for maybe… well… let’s just say, not turning out in the best of clothes. That’s okay just as long as they’re clean and his shoes are shined – but a bar of soap and a packet of razor blades cost nothing. I think it’s written in the Bible somewhere: “For what shall it profit a man if he has a shiny brand new Jaguar F-Type in the driveway, yet he can’t afford to wash behind his ears”.’
‘And what exactly was it you were doing behind his ears?’ McCusker risked asking, before considering the wisdom of such an inquiry. ‘No, no, sorry, I really don’t want to know. TMFI.’
‘That’s a relief,’ she said, laughing.
‘What did he say when you told him you were bailing out?’
‘That if I left, he’d cry.’
‘No!’
‘Yes!’
‘How embarrassing! What did you say?’
‘I said I’d make his tears my souvenirs.’
‘Pass me the bucket. Do people really say this kind of stuff?’ McCusker spluttered. ‘It was a great line to come back with, though.’
‘Not mine sadly,’ O’Carroll admitted quickly, ‘Charles Aznavour got there before me in his song ‘She’.’
All the time, McCusker was tapping the DVD jewel case on the back of his hand. O’Carroll stared at his slow beat.
‘But thanks again,’ she said, ‘for holding off watching this until I was around.’
And without further ado, they headed off to the damp-smelling conference room in the basement. The basement actually smelled of a combination of the damp and the air-freshener it was regularly sprayed with in an attempt to disperse the mustiness. Though all such thoughts were instantly forgotten the second McCusker placed the DVD in the machine, pressed the “Play” button and the wall-mounted screen flickered to life. O’Carroll jumped up and switched off all the horrible fluorescent lights, focusing both their attention on the images developing on the screen.
The cameraperson – Leab David, McCusker figured – started off positioned by the entrance door to the Emeleus lecture theatre. She panned around the regal, original polished benches, which were fixed in gentle arcs across the room and inclined down in mini steps to a herring-bone-wooden-floor which was fitted right up to the platform. The room was side-lit by two tall single-bay windows, one either side of a four-bay window, all with red velvet curtains opened to their extreme to steal maximum light for the dark, woody room. The six inch high platform housed an in-situ antique desk-cum-lecturer’s station containing several drawers and cupboards on the lecturer’s side. To the lecturer’s left, on the desktop, were a computer, keyboard and mouse, and to the lecturer’s right was a large screen fixed to the wall. The camera actually caught the full extent of the excitement and the anticipation of the packed house of students, keen for their first lecture from the renowned Louis Bloom.
Louis himself appeared from out of nowhere and made his way, past the camera position, straight to his platform. McCusker was not prepared for his first look at Louis Bloom. Not because he had a dynamite presence, and not because he didn’t, but more because of the contrast of the moving images on the screen and the corpse he had witnessed the previous morning up at the Lennon Mausoleum in the nearby picturesque Friar’s Bush graveyard.
‘Good afternoon, I’m Louis Bloom,’ he began, pronouncing the silent “e” to his Christian name very positively. ‘The majority of you are here, I assume, because you feel this course, The Politics of Love, will show you the way to true love.’
Louis Bloom allowed the resultant muttering from his students to grow for a few seconds before silencing them again with, ‘It’s not going to happen. You’re all most definitely on your own with that one.’
McCusker wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear a sigh of disappointment from O’Carroll.
Louis Bloom looked even younger on the screen than he did in the photograph McCusker had seen earlier, up at his Landseer Street house. He was wearing tan chinos, black blazer and a white shirt. McCusker couldn’t see what kind of shoes he wore. The droopy moustache in the photograph was missing, and he looked all the better for being clean-shaven. His copper-coloured pageboy hairstyle was very evident and healthy. He seemed totally comfortable, at home even, in the old-world, library-look of the Emeleus lecture theatre.
He paused for another beat before adding, ‘And, if in your time here, any of you manage to discover such a path, if in fact such a path does exist, then perhaps you could share your secret with me. It’ll come in very handy for next year’s students.’
More laughing, and McCusker noted that the entire class visibly relaxed a little at this point.
‘So, what do we mean by the word “love”?’
‘It’s a cliché to describe a deep feeling,’ a girl in the front row could be overheard saying.
‘It wasn’t a question,’ Bloom stated to friendly laughter, ‘and I always find it’s good to note that we have the word “cliché” in our language for a reason and, unlike this, it was never meant to be used as a put-down.
‘But don’t be discouraged… sorry, what’s your name?’
‘Eileen Rea,’ the lone voice sheepishly replied.
‘Eileen Rea – I was going to say that you shouldn’t be discouraged,’ Louis Bloom offered in a very friendly voice, ‘even the dictionary can’t properly define the word “love”. One such tome states: “Babies fill parents with a sense of love.” Yes, but what is this thing called love that babies fill their parents with? Is it truly just the affection a parent feels for a baby? I really don’t think so. John Lennon wrote and sang “Love is asking to be loved”, and later in the same song “Love is needing to be loved.” But once again we have to repeat our question: “What is love?” We’re still none the wiser.
‘Another brilliant writer, Mike Scott – in one of his incredible songs, ‘How Long Will I Love You’ – wisely chose not to tackle the problem of describing love by opting instead to answer the question of his title and, in doing so, perhaps better than most, he captures some of the essence of love.
‘Maybe that’s t
he route we should choose to explore in this year’s studies. Not to try to define the word “love” but to try to show love,’ Louis said and then paused, paused just enough to change gear, ‘I love movies,’ he stated confidently as the cameraperson focused in on his face for the first time, catching him in a large, warm smile, one McCusker had never felt Bloom would be capable of from studying the photograph. ‘I love to go to the cinema. I love to get lost in a movie. In order to successfully get lost in a movie the environment has to work. For me, the cinema needs to be quiet, clean and dark. I feel I should point out at this stage that I never feel the need to say “very quiet, very clean or very dark”. To me a cinema is either dark or it’s not dark; it’s either clean or it’s not clean; it quiet or it’s not quite. Neither should a cinema be too warm or too cold. How many of you have seen the movie All the President’s Men?’
The majority of hands were raised and there seemed to be a general muttering of approval. McCusker wondered how many of the students picked up Louis’ switching from “quiet” to “quite” in that previous sentence. Was the play on words just for the students, or did he just throw it in there to amuse himself? Every time the camera panned to the students, hardly any of them were taking notes.
‘That’s one of my absolute favourite filums,’ Bloom continued, fully pronouncing one of the Ulsterisms McCusker was frequently accused of using himself, ‘in that when I watch it, I am not aware of a great screenplay, or great camera work, or great lighting, or how brilliant Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman or Jason Robards are. I’m not even aware that there is a screen. I am right there in the newsroom of the Washington Post and I don’t see Jason Robards’ Oscar-winning performance – no, I see Ben Bradlee and I believe it is Ben Bradlee. I see Woodward and Bernstein, not Redford and Hoffman. I am not hearing lines from William Goldman’s Oscar-winning script; I hear the words spoken by Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. I don’t see or hear actors pretending to be Messrs Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein. I’m able to suspend disbelief and be transported to the scene, totally, and, more importantly, I am not even aware that I am being transported. To me that is a successful movie: a movie where no pretending exists.