Belfast Noir

by Adrian McKinty

  The jury, who up until then had only theory and conjecture, felt like they were getting the truth; I could see it, they were riveted to every word.

  “Did you see her afterward?”

  “No, she wouldn’t see me again. She blamed me, you see, for the photo and what happened after.”

  “Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt my wife. Jesus, I’d put her through enough in our marriage. I just wanted the past to stay buried,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

  “What happened to Betty Stoke?”

  “She killed herself a year later; hung herself in her sister’s bathroom.”

  Mickey broke down and the courtroom seemed to pause in the silence that only comes from the deafening truth. Then sound flooded the room: Mickey crying in the witness box and Agnes sobbing in the gallery.

  The jury saw the pain. It had been a cruel thing to do to Agnes. I hadn’t given her any warning of this because I wanted the jury to see her reaction, her pain, and feel it themselves, making it real.

  Mr. O’Neill handed round the last paper clipping, from 1983, just three sentences:

  A Belfast woman committed suicide yesterday. She was found by her sister. Police are making no further enquiries.

  The clippings added corroborative force to Mickey’s evidence. Mr. O’Neill and I had done all that we could. Fozzy did his best to catch Mickey in a lie during cross-examination, but his evidence remained consistent because it was the truth.

  Closing speeches were short, and the jury took less than an hour to bring in a verdict of not guilty.

  Mickey turned in the dock, desperately seeking out his wife, but Agnes had gone.

  Within ten minutes of the verdict I put a pint of Guinness and a shot of whiskey in front of Mr. O’Neill and Mickey respectively, as we took our seats in Rumpole’s just a couple of hundred yards from the courthouse. The pub no longer bore that name, but for me it remained Rumpole’s. Its clientele consisted exclusively of hard men from the markets, lawyers, and judges, whom would all frequently join forces to throw the police out of the bar whenever they attempted to evacuate the area because of a bomb scare.

  Mickey sniffed and supped his Powers, his head low despite the acquittal.

  “I’ve lost her,” he said.

  “She’ll come round, it was thirty years ago,” said Mr. O’Neill. Technically, he was correct, but Mickey and I both knew that for Agnes, the betrayal was fresh, public, and brutal.

  Blood dripped onto my beer coaster. I’d opened the cut on my finger.

  “If you keep fuckin’ pickin’ at that cut it’ll never heal,” said Mickey.

  Glancing through the window, I sucked at the fresh blood. At that moment, snow began falling on the city, covering everything in a clean, white veil.

  ROSIE GRANT’S FINGER

  BY CLAIRE MCGOWAN

  Titanic Quarter

  As soon as she walked into my office, I knew I was in trouble.

  Well, okay. I don’t have an office. Ma’s front room. But I knew it all the same. It’s not every day a good-looking older lady wants to see me, and she’s crying.

  I tried to be professional. “How can I help you, madam?” I thought she’d like that. She was in her early forties, I’d say, and wearing more jewellery than a Turf Lodge wide boy after a ram-raid at Lunn’s.

  “Are you the detective?”

  “That’s right. Aloysius Carson, private eye.”

  “It’s your ad in the phone book?”

  “I doubt there’s another PI of the same name.”

  “I was expecting someone older.”

  “Most people are. Older. But lots are younger too.”

  She looked round the front room/office, none too impressed. I’ve tried to get Ma to move the baby pictures but she isn’t keen. “I suppose you might know where young people go? Being one yourself.”

  “I might,” I agreed. “We go all kinds of places. School. The bus. McDonald’s. Are you missing a young person?”

  “This is my daughter Rosie,” she said. From her bag she took out a photo in a frame. That was a bit weird. Nowadays people normally show you something on their phone.

  “Why’s it in a frame?”

  She gave me a funny look. “I didn’t want to take it apart.”

  “Can I hold onto it?”

  “The frame’s silver.”

  I put it down carefully on Ma’s coffee table. I often think that if I had a nice big desk I’d get a lot more respect from people. “Rosie’s missing?”

  “We haven’t seen her for two days. It’s not like her.”

  “Called the police?”

  She shook her head. “We’re afraid she might be in some kind of trouble.”

  “How old?”

  “Eighteen.”

  That was the same as me, but I didn’t say. I thought it might not inspire the necessary confidence in my abilities.

  Rosie smiled out of the picture. It was a posey one, where she was leaning on her hand, but even so she was the kind of girl I would stare at all the way home on the bus and not be able to say a word to. Gavin would call her a grade-A hottie, but he watches too much American TV. She had that reddy sort of hair that Ma says is called strawberry blonde.

  I took out my notepad and tried to look businesslike. “You said she might be in trouble?”

  She made a face. “There’s a boyfriend.”

  “There’s always a boyfriend,” I said wisely.

  “Not with Rosie, this is the first. His name’s John Joe. John Joe Magee.”

  And that name told me the situation was about to get a whole lot stickier.

  * * *

  You might ask yourself how I came by such a name as Aloysius Carson. The truth is, my parents had what we call a mixed marriage. He was a Prod, God rest him, she’s a Taig. Love across the barricades, that sort of thing. They still cared about that in the ’90s, decade of my illustrious birth. So I’m not really one or the other. Usually, people like me to be, and which one depends on who I’m taking to. So I could see the problem Mrs. Grant had right away. I could tell the family were of my father’s persuasion, shall we say, and Rosie’s fella wasn’t just a Taig, he was the nephew of super-Taig Nasher Magee. You know the name? If I showed you a picture of a top UVF man called Charlie Forster, all shot up like a colander, you’d remember. Nasher did that, while he was banged up inside the Maze. They still don’t know how.

  So I did what I always do when there’s a difficult case: I promised Mrs. Grant I’d get right on it, and when she’d gone I ate a Pot Noodle. Would you not let me make you a sandwich? Ma always says, but I like it. The hard twisty bits getting soft and untangled. That’s what solving a case should be like.

  The next thing I do is some meticulous in-depth research. As long as you persuade your ma to get broadband then you’re laughing. I was on Google in seconds and learned that Rosie Grant was the daughter of “successful tyre magnate and member of the Orange Order Harry Grant.” That explained the jewels dripping off the mother; they were loaded.

  Then I looked up Nasher Magee. He’d been out of jail since the Good Friday Agreement and owned a pub off the Falls Road. John Joe was Nasher’s favourite nephew. Only son of his only brother, who’d been shot by an army patrol in 1993. He’d brought the boy up as his own, given him a stake in the business. I wondered how in the world someone like Rosie Grant, at her posh Protestant girls’ school, had even met a body like John Joe Magee.

  I decided onsite research was best, so I told Ma I’d be back for dinner—shepherd’s pie—and I hopped on my bike. It’s got ten gears, so it’s pretty speedy.

  The pub was called Wolfe Tone’s, even though oul’ Wolfe was actually a Protestant fella, which just goes to show nothing ever makes sense in this place. I got off and sidled round the walls. All the windows were barred, and from inside came the sound of a football match in Irish.

  “Who might you be, son?” I was being watched by a white-h
aired man smoking a cig. He had tattoos all down both arms like a long-sleeved vest, if you could get a vest that was made of Celtic crosses and pictures of the Virgin Mary.

  I knew immediately I was in the presence of Nasher himself, so I called on my detective training to blend in. “Just admiring the unusual signage, sir. Fascinating example of mural art.”

  He stared at me. “You a fruit or something?”

  “Eh, don’t think so, no.”

  “Well, get on out of it. You’re attracting attention.”

  I pedalled on, noting that Nasher had seemed quite hostile and reluctant to let anyone near the pub. Was Rosie being held there?

  * * *

  Every PI needs a computer expert in their corner. Did you know that nowadays over 90 percent of cases are solved online or by CCTV? That puts the amateur like myself in a wee bit of a bind. Luckily I have Gavin. I met him on the first day of primary school, when he’d dismantled his Etch A Sketch to see how it worked. He lives in his mum’s basement off the Lisburn Road—it’s got its own door, so it’s pretty cool really. He’s filled it with several computers so there’s always this sucking noise, and there’s no light, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind much of anything except when the wrong actors get cast in the films of his favourite comics.

  “If the elves live forever, how do they die?” he said as I went in.

  I quickly realised we were on Lord of the Rings. “Um, I think they just retire. What you working on?”

  “Hacking into the Pentagon,” he said, taking a honk of his asthma inhaler. He had an open packet of Frosties on his knee and was scooping them up, spilling crumbs on his dinosaur T-shirt.

  “Here, I brought you a sandwich. You need proper food.”

  “What’s those funny green bits?”

  “It’s called salad, Gav. It’s good for you.”

  “Hmm.” He started picking the lettuce out, but ate the ham and bread.

  “Rosie Grant,” I said. “Need to find her. Any ideas?”

  “Background?”

  “Subject is eighteen. Father is Harry Grant. Owns some tyre business.”

  Already Gavin’s left hand was tapping as he ate the sandwich with the other. “Protestant?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. It’s all the same to Gavin, just a keystroke in a different column. “Royal Belfast Girls School?”

  “That’s her.” I was impressed. He was already in her Facebook profile, a big smiling picture of her making the peace sign like girls do when they’re trying to be hippies, and lots of messages off other girls with smiley faces and bad spelling. “I need to know who might have taken her. She’s going out with Nasher Magee’s nephew.”

  Even Gavin raised his eyebrows at that. “Where’d she even meet him?”

  A good question. Gavin would make a useful assistant, if only he’d wear trousers more often.

  “I’ll get you it all,” he said in a bored voice. “You want police records? Bank statements?”

  “Er—only if it’s relevant. And don’t get arrested again, Gav.”

  He sighed. “It’s not my fault if they won’t build proper firewalls around things.”

  I decided it was time to check out Rosie’s friends, and thanks to the Internet I knew who to go to first.

  * * *

  It was child’s play to track down Chrissie, Rosie’s best friend according to Facebook. She put her entire life up there, so I knew she’d be leaving school at four p.m. after her first aid class. I recognised her blonde curls and short school skirt as I pulled up beside her on my bike with a bit of a screech, pretty cool.

  “Chrissie Carr?”

  She gave me the sort of look girls like her give to boys like me. “Who’re you?”

  “Aloysius Carson, private eye.”

  She chewed very slowly on her gum, showing the inside of her pink mouth. “Who?”

  I explained Rosie’s mother had asked me to find her. “She’s been missing for several days.”

  “I thought she was off with her fella, like.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “I dunno.” She seemed to think about it. “Should I be, like?”

  “Her mother seems to think she’s in some danger.”

  “You talk funny,” said Chrissie, wrinkling her nose. “Rosie is grand, I’m sure. She’s always going off with fellas. Here,” she added, looking me over, “what kind of name is Aloysius? You a Catholic too?”

  For a moment I tried to think what she might want to hear—yes or no. “No,” I said, and she lost interest.

  “Pity. It’d wind my da up something desperate. Tell Rosie to text me if you find her, all right?”

  * * *

  I cycled home through town, past City Hall and the shops. I like cycling, it helps me think. I like hearing the spokes go round and the whicka-whicka noise. I was going past the Opera House when I realised what Chrissie said didn’t make sense. Rosie was always going with boys? According to Mrs. Grant, John Joe was her first boyfriend. I smelled a rat, only it smelled like Impulse body spray and bubble gum.

  At home, I chained up the Raleigh and let myself in. “Ma? Are there any Pot Noodles?”

  She was hovering in the kitchen doorway. Behind her I could hear the theme tune of Coronation Street. “There’s someone to see you.”

  A man rose up from the sofa—sitting in my office space, cheeky article. “Aloysius, is it?”

  “It’s Mr. Carson,” I said coolly.

  He laughed. “And I’m His Lordship Detective Sergeant Sam Taylor.”

  A peeler. I kept my face the same. “And?”

  “And you’ve been getting up the nose of some important people, son.”

  It’s hard to be dignified with your ma standing there. “Thanks, Ma, could you let us have a moment, please?”

  She sniffed. “Your shepherd’s pie’s almost ready.”

  Taylor was still laughing as she shut the door. “I won’t stop. Just take this as a wee friendly warning. You don’t want to be snooping round certain pubs on the Falls Road anymore.”

  “I don’t know to what you are referring.”

  “I think you do. Now I don’t know what your business here is, and it’s fine by me if you want to play Number One Boy Scouts’ Detective Agency, but we’ve been watching Mr. Magee ourselves for quite some time, and we don’t need schoolkids getting in the way.”

  “I’ve never been in the Scouts.”

  “Keep it that way,” he winked. “What’s a wee fella like you doing with a detective agency anyway?”

  “There aren’t any jobs. And there are lots of crimes the police can’t solve,” I said pointedly.

  “Working on one at the minute?”

  “I can’t say,” I said, thinking of Rosie. Her family wanted to keep the peelers out of it.

  “You got a phone, Mr. C? Let me see it a wee minute.”

  “I don’t have one,” I said, stalling for time. “I, eh . . . don’t believe in them.”

  “Do you think I came up the Lagan in a bubble? Don’t make me use my stop-and-search powers, Aloysius.” He gave me a threatening look and I handed over the phone. It’s a smartphone—I convinced Ma I needed one as a legitimate business expense. He fiddled with it for a minute. “There’s my number. You find out anything you shouldn’t, you give me a wee phone.”

  “How will I know if it’s something I shouldn’t?” I said sulkily.

  “Just be prepared. Dib-dib-dib, son.” He patted my shoulder in a patronising way and left. How rude! I’d been out of school for five whole months.

  I thought about what he said. Did this mean the PSNI were mounting surveillance on Nasher’s pub, maybe checking out his lucrative side industries of drug dealing, arms trading, and extortion? Surely they’d have seen Rosie if she was there. But then the Grants hadn’t reported her missing.

  I was mulling it over with a Pot Noodle (they were on special offer in Dunnes, Ma said, but I wasn’t to eat too much and spoil my tea), when my phone start
ed ringing. “Aloysius Carson, PI.” Gavin says I should answer with “Carson’s the name, crime’s the game,” but he is very immature.

  There was a sound like a deflating balloon on the other end. That was odd. “I’ve got voice-recognition software,” I lied.

  “Please . . . come . . . come now.” It was Rosie’s ma.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Grant?”

  “Rosie . . . her finger . . . please . . .”

  “Her finger?”

  “Please!”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “The address—”

  “No worries, I have it.” No need to explain Gavin had hacked into their tax return data. I wiped my chin, hopped on my Raleigh, and pedalled toward the Malone Road, Ma shouting after me that she wasn’t making any more dinners to be ruined if I couldn’t stay to eat them.

  * * *

  The Grants’ house was the biggest on a street of big houses. It took me a good few minutes to bike up their drive, getting my tyres stuck on the gravel. The door was opened by a teenage girl, the spit of Rosie but with glasses and heavy dark makeup. “Yeah?”

  “I’m the detective.”

  She sighed. “In there.” From the living room came the loud sound of crying. “Are you going to take your shoes off? The carpet cost like ten grand.”

  I was wearing my Spider-Man socks. “I’ll keep the shoes on. It’s part of my process.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Go on then. She’s too busy bawling to notice.”

  It was a swanky room, with a big fire and nice squashy sofas, but I didn’t have time to take it all in because Mrs. Grant was on one of them, crying her eyes out. A red setter sat at her feet, looking up sadly. Standing by the fire was the sort of sports jacket–wearing fella you see in golf clubs. He was holding a big glass of what I thought was whiskey.

  “Mr. Grant, I presume?”

  He looked at me like the dog had done something nasty. “You must be the PI fella. Wee bit young, are you not?”

  “Lots of people are, sir. What seems to be the trouble?”

  Mrs. Grant started talk-crying and it sounded like, “Ba-ha-ha-ha finger, oh my Rosie.”