‘Not in the papers I read.’
Siobhan glared at him, then slipped the camera back into her handbag.
Dr Mendoza raised his hands apologetically to the Ambassador, then said, ‘Now if we can go back to my office, there are some papers to sign, then I can release the body to the mortuary.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ said the Ambassador, ‘I’d much rather you released the body into my custody.’
Dr Mendoza glanced automatically at Nurse Maria, his boss in the FARC guerrillas, then shook his head. ‘That is impossible, Ambassador. There are certain …’
‘Nonsense, Doctor. Whether I like it or not, Mr O’Boyle was a British citizen and I have a duty of care to the family. I must take responsibility for the body.’
‘Ambassador, you misunderstand. There are procedures which must be carried out if the body is not to—’
‘Doctor Mendoza, they can just as easily be carried out on sovereign British territory. Mr O’Boyle passed away in your care, and although we do not doubt for one moment your own thoughts on the cause of his demise, we must satisfy ourselves - on behalf of his family, of course - that this was indeed the cause. We will fly in our own pathologist. It is standard practice, I assure you. I’m sure you’ll concur with me on this, Siobhan?’
‘Concur that you should seize our martyr’s corpse?’
Ambassador Brown shook his head. ‘Really, Siobhan. You’re staying at the Hilton, aren’t you? Do you want to take him?’
She blanched at this. ‘Well, of course not, but that doesn’t mean I should trust him to you.’
The Ambassador turned back to the doctor. ‘Obviously I understand your concerns, Doctor. If it’s a problem, then let me speak to your superior. I’m sure we can get this cleared up quickly.’
Mendoza’s mouth opened slightly, but he was lost for words. The fact was that Redmond O’Boyle was as alive as any of them, merely drugged to give the effect of death. If the Ambassador had felt for a pulse, he would have found it. Dr Mendoza glanced again at Maria, who gave a short nod.
The doctor sighed. ‘Very well, Ambassador, if you will accept full responsibility, I will sign the body over to you.’
The Ambassador nodded curtly. Dr Mendoza hurried out of the room, followed by Nurse Maria. Siobhan gave him a hard look, then patted the camera in her pocket and followed. As the door swung closed Brown caught the briefest glimpse of Mendoza and his nurse gesticulating angrily at each other.
Alone, the Ambassador stood looking down at the outline on the trolley. It appeared that for the next several days he would be sharing his official residence with the mouldering corpse of Redmond O’Boyle. There would be no more sleep for the Ambassador now. How ironic that a man who had claimed to be on a bird-watching tour was about to be picked apart by the vultures of the press.
48
The Marsh of Time
They say that time is a great healer, but they never specify exactly how much time - days or weeks, months or years. Jimmy ‘Marsh’ Mallow was a methodical man whose career lived or died by evidence and certainty, but there was no certainty to his current situation, a widower with his wife in an urn in the wardrobe, no evidence that he was ever going to feel better about losing the woman he had loved, and treated so miserably. There was a massive hole in his life which he filled with work. He worked more overtime than anyone in the Department, and he pursued Pink Harrison relentlessly.
The gangster had run out of fingers to have in pies. Toes, even. As if being a paramilitary kingpin, drug dealer and dispenser of arbitrary street justice was not enough, he had connections to literally dozens of businesses which were either legal but used for money laundering, or semi-legal and keeping just one step in front of the law. Marsh was sure he was only aware of about a quarter of them. To make matters worse, Pink had for the past eighteen months been an Official Unionist councillor. There was something very ‘Pink’ about the fact that he had chosen the Official Unionists - and it was very much his choice - and not one of the really hardline Parties which were little more than fronts for the paramilitaries. No, Pink had chosen to throw his lot in where the money still lay, where influence wasn’t about shouting through a megaphone, it was much more subtle. The Unionist Party was looking for a saviour, and it was misguided enough, and just desperate enough, to believe that Pink might have changed his spots. A physical impossibility, of course. Leopards creep up on you. Then they eat you.
Jimmy Mallow sat in his car opposite Lemon Grass, a smart restaurant close enough to Queen’s University to be trendy, but too expensive to attract students as customers. He was thinking about his wife and how they’d never really gone out for meals. It was always home cooking. He liked it that way, and he had presumed she had as well. But now that he thought about it, he wondered why he had never taken her out to restaurants like Lemon Grass. He had always used the excuse that it wasn’t safe for him to go out somewhere conspicuous: between the first course and dessert, word could have gone out and by the time they returned to their car there could easily have been a gunman lying in wait to blow their heads off. That excuse had carried him through the 1970s, maybe the 1980s. He had seen too many colleagues die. Friends who’d let their guards down; who didn’t always check under the car. He had been careful. But maybe too careful - certainly in the years since the Ceasefire. He tried to think of treats they had shared as a family, but could hardly think of a single one that didn’t involve being in the house, in front of the telly. No drives in the country, no picnics. Too dangerous. No late-night shopping for Christmas presents. Too dangerous. No trips to the cinema. Never know who’s waiting in the dark. They had lived like prisoners. He was a cop, fighting for something that he had never experienced - a quiet, normal family life. No wonder his daughter had upped sticks at the first possible opportunity.
Oh, daughter of mine.
But this is your fault.
Marsh unfolded the sheet he’d printed out, a head and shoulders shot of a woman called Linda Wray. Over the years he must have looked at ten thousand perp sheets just like this. Put so many men and women away. She had that rabbit-in-the-headlights look. Short hair, a sharp nose. Early forties. He was good at faces: pick them out in a crowd, no trouble. How many stakeouts had he gone on where he had a sheet just like this, and the photo was invariably years out of date, the hair different, or gone, yet he could still pick them out, still zoom in like a seagull at a dump. He was the best. He hadn’t lost it. He scanned down the information, looking for her previous convictions, then he laughed out loud and slapped the wheel. There were no convictions. There were hobbies. There was no list of time served, there was star sign, and favourite movies. Christ, his daughter was right, he had to get out more.
His Jag was six months old now, blue. The tax was up to date. The inside was immaculate. There was a CD player which held five discs in the glove compartment. He was currently listening to a CD of the Rolling Stones live. It had been recorded recently and the sound was perfect. He liked ‘Angie’ and ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Satisfaction’. Some of the young pups he worked with now wouldn’t have believed he liked his rock‘n’roll. Jimmy Marsh Mallow was feared throughout the Department; he didn’t wear a uniform, but he might as well have done. He looked starched. He looked like someone who went to church every Sunday and liked easy listening music, or Country, or both. He looked straight. He had in fact gone to church every week with Lauren, but hadn’t bothered since. When he had gone, he’d prayed with his eyes open. Jimmy Marsh Mallow had seen too many horrors to believe that there was a God.
Jimmy folded the sheet and slipped it inside his jacket. He checked the dashboard clock. Eight thirty-one. She was a minute late.
Linda Wray had sent him a chatty email and suggested this restaurant. He had responded with equal enthusiasm. He had raged at his daughter about hooking him up with Let’s Be Mates but hadn’t been able to resist looking at the three responses he had already received. Of the three of them, this one looked the least desperate.
She worked for an estate agent. She liked long walks. Jimmy tried to think of the last time he’d had a long walk. He wasn’t unfit. He worked out in the gym at the office. He was tough, tough as f***ing nails. He just didn’t like to go out. He didn’t like to be seen. He wasn’t paranoid; it was just a hangover from the old days. He knew things weren’t quite so bad now, but he still had enemies - new ones, and old ones with good memories. Why give them the opportunity? Why expose himself? Linda Wray said she liked The Beatles. There, there was something to talk about. And she loved Casablanca and The Cincinnati Kid. Something else. His full name was James Michael Mallow, but Lauren, to protect his identity, had filled in the on-line form as James Michael. Like George Michael, she’d quipped. It wasn’t a lie - it was just an edited version of his life, like the rest of the info she’d provided. A widower. Truth. A Civil Servant. True, kind of. Interested in - photography. Yes, but mostly surveillance. In property. Yes, but mostly to do with confiscating it. Outgoing personality? Yes, particularly in an interview room, when he could go through you like a ton of bricks.
Eight thirty-five. Five minutes late.
Then he saw her, hurrying along the footpath. Her hair was longer. She was thinner of face. Even from this distance, she looked prettier in real life. She stopped short of the restaurant door, opened her handbag, took out a compact, examined her reflection, fixed her lipstick, patted her hair down. She put a hand on the door, took a deep breath, then pulled it open. Nerves.
Jimmy Marsh Mallow took his own deep breath. He reached for the door handle, hesitated. He could see her through the restaurant’s front window, handing her coat to the maitre d’, then being led to a table. She was smiling, making small talk.
Jimmy started the engine. He looked at her once more, her fingers smoothing down the tablecloth, then drove home.
49
M & Emma
The only thing Margaret could thank God for, in retrospect, was the fact that she wasn’t still wearing her Primark security guard uniform when Emma Cochrane, of Emma Cochrane and greedy bitch fame, came marching up to her front door. The rest she could quite comfortably curse Him out for - the fact that she was wearing a horrendous 101 Dalmations-style dressing-gown, the fact that she was living in near squalor in a rundown part of town, the fact that she hardly earned a living wage, the fact that she’d spent several days in a carrot-cake coma, the fact that she’d been forced into sleeping with her ex-husband in order to settle her hospital bill, the fact that her dreams of being a world-class fashion designer to rival Donatella Versace or Giorgio Armani or Stella McCartney - or even whoever the hell designed the dresses she’d tried to rip off from Primark - were on the verge of extinction. All of these things and many more. But the most pressing was the fact that the boutique owner with her finger on the doorbell was clearly here to force a showdown, or read the riot act, or demand to know why Margaret was throwing the opportunity of a lifetime back in her face.
Fear. That was why. Margaret knew that.
She might have kicked up a fuss about the name Emma wanted to use - anything but Margaret’s, basically - but it was really all about fear. She was scared to grasp this opportunity. She was not worthy. She felt like one of those sad women who spend their days reading sexed-up versions of Mills & Boon novels, dreaming of being swept up by their prince but who would, in reality, run a mile if he came knocking.
Now Emma Cochrane was banging on the front window. Margaret could just see the stick-thin boutique owner through the crack in the kitchen door.
Oh God. What am I going to do?
She turned and despairingly surveyed the tragedy around her. The Pisa Tower of dishes in the sink. The Rice Krispies scattered across the table, the most recent blowing gently back and forth in the ever-changing draught from the cracked back window; others stuck fast for weeks. The bottom layer of a Black Magic box lying on the floor by the pedal bin, with two uneaten black cherry sweets sitting abandoned in their plastic nest.
Emma knocked again on the window. Margaret wondered if it would be easier just to let her in, then kill her. Bludgeon her with something. But she’d been in such a rush to depart the marital home that she’d left all of her knives and most of her cooking utensils behind. If she was going to commit murder, it would be death by potato peeler. Or cheese grater. Far from providing an instant solution, it would require a considerable investment of both brute strength and time. She’d probably have to stop for snacks.
Then her eyes fell on the fridge. It was the one major item she’d insisted on bringing from the old house, but she hadn’t yet got around to removing the family snaps stuck to the front - including the one of her and Billy, capturing what she now thought must have been the only occasion on which she had smiled during the last five years of her marriage. He was throwing up, moments after coming off the roller-coaster at Barry’s Amusements in Portrush. She’d actually given the camera to someone to take the photo, so keen was she to feature in Billy’s moment of supreme embarrassment. Even now, with the enemy at the gates, she smiled at the image of Billy being sick on his favourite suede shoes while still managing to hold his precious tie up and out of the line of fire, and at herself grinning widely and giving a thumbs up.
The doorbell again.
Christ - what was she thinking of? She was being given the chance to become a fashion designer. It was her dream! Did she want to end up with someone like Billy again?
No! This was her chance!
Get your friggin’ act together, girl!
Margaret charged across the lounge and yanked open the front door. Emma Cochrane was just climbing into her car. A silver Porsche.
‘Emma!’
The boutique owner turned, surprised, then smiled as Margaret hurried towards her.
‘Margaret, I thought—’
‘I was on the bog!’ It was out before she could stop it.
Emma burst out laughing. ‘Too much information, darling!’ She came forward and gave Margaret a hug, which felt odd, then held her at arm’s length. She looked the dalmation dressing-gown up and down. ‘Please tell me it’s not one of yours.’
Margaret smiled as she shook her head. ‘Of course not.’
‘Margaret, sweetie - I must have phoned a hundred times.’
‘I know. Well, actually - twenty-three times. Or twenty-four if it was you doing the heavy breathing.’
‘So you were in, but avoiding me. Huffing.’
‘I wasn’t huffing.’
Emma folded her arms. ‘No?’
Margaret looked at the pavement. She was also wearing bunny slippers.
Emma said, ‘Do you want to do this out here, with half the street watching you?’
‘Well, it’s probably tidier out here.’
‘Oh, stuff and nonsense. Let’s have a nice cup of tea.’ Emma brushed past her and headed for the front door.
‘Emma! Please.’ She turned and hurried after her. ‘Emma - I’ve made my mind up.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
‘Yes, I have!’
Emma was through the front door now, and into the living room. There was no hall, as such. After the briefest look around, she began to make her way towards the kitchen, but this time Margaret caught her arm.
‘No!’ she said firmly. Emma stopped; she raised an eyebrow. ‘You sit down,’ said Margaret. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Margaret pushed her gently down into a chair, then scooted off into the kitchen, quickly closing the door behind her. The living room was a mess, but nothing compared to the kitchen. She shouted back in, ‘How do you like your tea?’
‘Weak,’ said Emma, ‘like my men.’
Margaret squeezed through the narrowest possible opening with the tray, and set it on the coffee-table. She was using her finest china, which in this case was two mugs; one had Rangers For Ever on the side, the other had once been white but was now permanently stained. Three chocolate chip cookies sat on a side plate. Emma picked one up.
‘In case you’re w
ondering,’ Margaret said, before her guest could take a bite, ‘they’re supposed to be soft. They’re not stale. You get different types of chocolate chip cookies. Some are soft and chewy and some are quite crisp. Those are the soft ones. They’re not off.’
Emma took a bite. She sipped her tea. She smiled and said, ‘Margaret, what are you so worried about?’
Margaret shrugged. ‘What have you got?’
‘Margaret, I love your designs. I think we could do something really special.’
‘I know that.’
‘So what’s the problem? Is it just the name?’
‘I suppose.’
‘I explained to you how important it was to me to hold onto the name.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘And you would still walk away?’
Margaret studied the carpet.
‘I don’t wish to pry, darling, but it seems to me that you don’t have much money coming in. And this area - it can’t be easy.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Well, you don’t look fine. This is a marvellous opportunity for you, could lift you out of all this - and I hate to see you throw it away over something so silly.’
‘It’s not silly to me.’
‘I understand that. And that’s why I think you should give some ground. If I give some, you give some.’
Margaret’s eyes flicked up. ‘What will you give?’
‘A lot more money upfront. And I’ll compromise on the name.’
‘Compromise?’
‘Yes, compromise. Not capitulate. Louise came up with it. We call the line M & Emma. M for Margaret, Emma for me. M & Emma. It’s catchy, and it’s a true partnership. You’ll have a one-third ownership.’
‘One half would be a partnership.’
‘But you like the name?’
‘I can put up with it.’
‘So we have a deal?’
I Predict a Riot Page 20