by Bateman
THE PRISONER
OF BRENDA
Bateman
Copyright © 2012 Colin Bateman
The right of Colin Bateman to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 7870 8
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
About the Author
Also By
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
About the Author
Bateman was a journalist in Northern Ireland before becoming a full-time writer. His first novel, DIVORCING JACK, won the Betty Trask Prize, and all his novels have been critically acclaimed. He wrote the screenplays for the feature films DIVORCING JACK and WILD ABOUT HARRY and the popular TV series MURPHY’S LAW starring James Nesbitt. Bateman lives in Ireland with his family.
By Bateman
Belfast Confidential
Cycle of Violence
Empire State
Maid of the Mist
Wild About Harry
Mohammed Maguire
Chapter and Verse
I Predict A Riot
Orpheus Rising
Mystery Man novels
Mystery Man
The Day of the Jack Russell
Dr. Yes
The Prisoner of Brenda
Martin Murphy novels
Murphy’s Law
Murphy’s Revenge
Dan Starkey novels
Divorcing Jack
Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men
Turbulent Priests
Shooting Sean
The Horse with My Name
Driving Big Davie
For Children
Reservoir Pups
Bring Me the Head of Oliver Plunkett
Titanic 2020: Cannibal City
The Seagulls Have Landed
For Matthew
‘No Alibis’ is a real bookshop in Belfast. One or two other places also exist in real life. However, this book is a work of ficton. While the setting may be real, the plot and characters are made up. Nothing I have written should be taken to describe or reflect on real people. The fictional owner of ‘No Alibis’ bears no resemblance to the real owner of the shop.
Prologue
Alan Parker’s exuberant gangster musical Bugsy Malone was released in 1977. From the moment it hit the fleapit Curzon cinema on the Ormeau Road, just around the corner from his gloomy terrace, Sam was doomed to be known forever as Fat Sam. And with a surname like Mahood, perhaps his destiny was also decided. At the time, Sam was neither particularly rotund nor possessed of an obvious criminal mentality, but with a sad inevitability, he grew into both roles. He ate, and he stole. His parents liked to see him eat. They fed him up like they were preparing him for slaughter. And in a way they were.
On a breezy September night some thirty-six years after being so christened, during which time he transformed himself from bullied to bully-er, Fat Sam Mahood lumbered into the bright and shiny new All Star Health Club, situated in a retail park just off the arterial Newtownards Road in East Belfast. There was a swimming pool on the ground floor and a gym on the glass-fronted first. If you toiled on an exercise bike upstairs, you were treated to a perfect view of the McDonald’s opposite. It was like water torture, with burgers.
Fat Sam had never troubled the gym. His exercise regime amounted to fifty leisurely laps of the pool – after dinner, and before supper. He had an expensive tracksuit, cool trainers, a leather sports bag – and a Snickers before he got out of his car. He drove a Lexus, but only because the Porsche was in having its suspension checked.
He lumbered through the doors and grunted at Lesley, or Jackie, or Denise – he couldn’t quite remember who was who – behind the counter and she buzzed him in; she’d only been there a few weeks but already knew better than to ask to see his membership card. A cleaner was pushing a mop around, and Fat Sam could have rounded the wet patch, but chose to walk straight across it. The cleaner looked across at Jackie and rolled her eyes; Jackie rolled them back.
Fat Sam did big and scary very well; he made a good living from it. He didn’t like to exercise in front of other people, so there was an arrangement that he could turn up late at night after everyone was gone, and enjoy a swim in that twilight period between the official closing time and the management actually locking up for the night. Fat Sam was accorded this special treatment not because the manager of the All Star Health Club was sympathetic towards his body issues, but because he was frightened that he would send round the boys with the baseball bats to beat him to a pulp. Fat Sam was a gangster through and through. He had fingers in lots of pies. He loved pies.
The changing rooms were clean, towels were provided, there was a water cooler, free bottles of shampoo and conditioner and moisturiser. There was piped Muzak. Just getting changed, Fat Sam was breathing heavily. He laboured into his budgie smugglers. He kept his gold chain on. When he put his belongings in the locker, he didn’t bother to lock it. He ignored the rubber wristband he was supposed to wear. There were a few stragglers still getting dressed, but Fat Sam ignored them. Johnny, one of the fitness instructors, nodded across at him and Fat Sam nodded back. Johnny, not long in the job himself, had approached him once to offer his services and had been given short shrift.
In some ways, Fat Sam was the Van Morrison of gangsters – a grumpy sod, but a genius in his own way. Instead of a fortune from songwriting, he had one from protectio
n. He was rich, he was powerful, and he took no prisoners. He liked to set the rules, and do things his way.
On the way to the water there was a sign that said Please Shower Before Entering Pool. Fat Sam ignored it. The pool was empty, the surface untroubled. Fat Sam slipped in, and sank down until only his nostrils and the top of his head were visible above the water. Then he pushed off. But instead of relaxing into the breast-stroke, as one might imagine a fat bloke would do, he immediately stretched out into a crawl, thrusting forward, his massive arms churning into the water, his face down for five strokes at a time before twisting left to suck in air. He was, actually, something of a force to behold, and he knew it. He imagined himself a dreadnought going to war.
The pool was not small, but Fat Sam completed his first length in no time. He collided with the far end like a bumper car and sprang back before twisting with surprising dexterity into his next length. He swam, and he swam and he swam. Fat Sam might even have become a formidable athlete, were it not for Bugsy Malone.
He was on his fourteenth lap when the fluorescent strip high above him went out; he hardly noticed with his head in the water; but then the other strips blinked out too, one after the other, until by the time he was approaching the turn the entire pool was in virtual darkness, and he stopped short, standing up and roaring out: ‘HEY, I’M NOT FUCKING FINISHED HERE!’
Fat Sam stood there, his chest heaving, glaring towards the one source of light remaining, a rectangle around the closed door to the changing rooms.
‘DO YOU HEAR ME? I’M STILL SWIMMING!’
His voice echoed, and it was the only response. He muttered under his breath, ‘For Jesus . . .’ before crossing to the side and hauling himself up the steps and out.
Fat Sam crashed into the changing rooms and yelled, ‘I’m still swimming! You turned the bloody lights off!’
Still there was only silence. He spent a few moments dripping on the tiled floor while he decided what to do – whether to tramp the building looking for the idiot who’d blacked out his swim, or give it up for the night and tear their throats out in the morning. Fat Sam sighed and turned to his locker. He was out of the zone now. In the same way that one Minstrel can devastate a hardcore diet, someone flicking a switch had sucked the will to exercise from him. He grabbed one of the free towels and began to rub himself dry. He stepped out of his trunks and reached for his underwear. Somewhere behind him a locker door was opened. In the silence, the sound echoed.
Fat Sam turned towards it. It had come from the other side of the bank of lockers facing him. He didn’t like exercising with others, but he had no problem walking about naked. His huge bulk intimidated people even more without clothes. He rounded the corner, stomach first, cock lost.
There was a man standing at an open locker, at an angle, his back to him, his face hidden. He was in a black T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms.
‘Hey,’ said Fat Sam. ‘They turned the fucking lights off.’
The man did not turn, or otherwise acknowledge him.
‘Oi – I’m talking to you.’
Fat Sam was not a man you ignored. He looked about him in disbelief.
‘Mate – did they turn the lights off on you too?’
Still nothing.
Fat Sam barrelled forward and poked the guy in the back. ‘I’m fucking talking to you, deafo . . .’
At which point the man turned and Fat Sam saw that he was wearing a Hallowe’en mask, a fright mask, a Frankenstein’s Monster mask with plastic bolts and a huge forehead, and he was struck dumb by it – and mesmerised and momentarily paralysed, so that even though he could now see that the Monster had a knife in his hand, there was nothing at all that Fat Sam could do. It took three thrusts of the blade, lightning fast, for him even to register what was happening.
Another man, with multiple stabs to the gut, would have gone down. But Fat Sam was carrying so much blubber that he hardly even felt them. And yet these were not slices; these were going in up to the hilt. Fat Sam just stood there, shocked. He could – should – have grabbed the Monster by the throat, he was close enough. He could have throttled him. But instead he took a step back, and then turned and began to lumber away, his rolls of flab undulating as he crossed the tiles, blood streaming down his legs and leaving a crimson snail trail behind.
As he approached the changing-room door, Fat Sam glanced back, expecting the Monster to be right behind him, but he was still standing by the locker, the blade at his side, just watching him.
There was hope, there was hope, there was hope.
Fat Sam crashed through the door, back out to the pool.
And then before him: another figure, another mask. Dracula.
And another knife.
Straight into his stomach.
This time he felt it. Really felt it. Fat Sam lurched to his left.
Out of the darkness, a Werewolf.
Fat Sam stopped. ‘No,’ he said.
The Werewolf was barely a third of his size. He seemed to hesitate. The changing-room door opened. Frankenstein’s Monster emerged. Dracula moved closer. Fat Sam had no power in his legs at all. The pain was starting. It was a nightmare – he was sure it was. He willed himself to wake up.
The Monster hissed at the Werewolf: ‘Finish him.’
The Werewolf pulled his arm back. Fat Sam lowered his hands in a final useless attempt to protect his perforated stomach. There was blood everywhere.
The Werewolf ignored his gut and plunged the knife with considerable force into Fat Sam’s neck, burying it up to the hilt. The shock of it sent Fat Sam staggering back, preventing the Werewolf from retrieving the blade; Fat Sam pawed at it for just a few moments, and then his legs finally gave way and he toppled backwards, over the edge and into the water, creating a meteoric splash and a tidal wave that swept away across the full length of the pool.
Fat Sam, for all the size of him, still floated. The Monster, Dracula and the Werewolf watched him for a little while, just to be certain that he was really dead. Then they nodded at each other. Their night’s work was done.
But they were hardly getting started.
1
She came into No Alibis, the finest mystery bookshop in all of Belfast, bedraggled from the autumn wind and rain and sleet and hail, pulled her red hood down and spluttered hello and long time no see and wouldn’t this be a great wee country if we just had nice weather, all in one puffy gasp, and I gave her the look I keep for idiots who deserve to be struck about the head with a hammer, but made sure to add a welcoming smile just to confuse her. Times were hard in the book trade, and one couldn’t afford to look a horse-face in the gift-mouth.
I did in fact recognise her, because I never forget a long toothy gob, but I wasn’t sure if she would remember me. She had been nice to me in the past, but that was no guarantee of anything. People change, or they have ulterior motives. You have to be on your guard at all times. I have been stabbed in the back thousands of times and have the mental scars to prove it, and one physical one where Mother caught me with a fish hook.
She stood there, dripping, and said, ‘So how are you? How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ I said. There was a small sign hanging from the till that said Ask About Our Christmas Club. It was not aligned properly. I fixed it. Despite this, she did not ask. After a while I remembered to say, ‘How are you?’
My on-off girlfriend Alison had lately been coaching me in the niceties, but I found them difficult, and ultimately, hypocritical. I didn’t care how she was. I didn’t care how anyone was. What was the point? We were all going to die.
‘You do remember me, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Nurse Brenda.’
She smiled. ‘Nurse Brenda,’ she repeated.
‘Nurse Brenda,’ I said.
‘You always called me that.’
‘That was your name.’
She smiled. ‘So this is what you do?’
It was a pointless question. It was clearly what I did. If this w
as not what I was doing, what was I doing there at all? People are stupid. Really, really, really stupid.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This is me.’
‘I’ve often passed, meaning to call in.’
‘Do you read crime fiction?’
‘No, I haven’t the time.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
Her brow furrowed, causing little drops of rain to scoot across her forehead like irrigation on a Chinese paddyfield.
I indicated the display of books directly behind her on my Buy One Get One for Exactly the Same Price table. ‘There’s the new Nesbo there, or Henning Mankell or a movie tie-in Larsson. There’s a whole world of Scandinavian crime fiction waiting to be discovered. Best summed up in the phrase, the Viking done it.’
‘You’re looking well,’ said Nurse Brenda.
‘I am well,’ I said. ‘Or if you prefer something closer to home, there’s a whole range of medical thrillers. Robin Cook is a bit old hat, but he did manage a few classics. Coma? There’s a Patricia Cornwell there that comes with a free sick bag . . .’
I glanced towards the front window, just to make sure there wasn’t an ambulance outside. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that Alison had reported me. Or that Mother had made more false accusations. I could not see an ambulance. That did not mean that it wasn’t waiting around the corner. Or that they were in that Post Office van, lurking across the road, that it was some kind of Transformer that might at any moment morph into a vehicle with a padded inside and restraints adequate to transport me to a secure mental institution.
‘Well, that’s good. I like to see my boys doing well. Are you . . .?’ And she raised an eyebrow.
‘Am I . . .?’
‘You know, doing well?’
‘Exceptionally so,’ I said.
‘Married? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?’
I gave her a look. She was an equal opportunities nosy cow. ‘Girlfriend,’ I said.
‘Aw, lovely. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘She’s not my first,’ I said. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her about all the sex I’d been having, even if it wasn’t strictly true any more. ‘In fact, I’m a father now.’