‘And what if you’re just some sort of pervert, and like slapping people.’
‘Then you’ll have a grand time, won’t you?’
He held her coat for her. When they were outside, she slipped her arm through his. They walked down past Morrison’s, where she usually drank with Margaret. They reached Shaftesbury Square, with Kentucky Fried Chicken on one comer. Behind and above them, a huge video screen silently played out the day’s news over the quiet hum of the late traffic. It was a warm, pleasant night for walking. They were both slightly drunk. She was just in the middle of saying something as they reached the far side of the square when he gently caught hold of her and kissed her lightly on the lips. They separated briefly, then she moved forwards, already bending her back slightly, happy to melt into him. Her eyes flicked up, anxious to record the scene in her own mind, because it was fantastic and dreamy and she wanted to remember it forever, but in drinking in his marvellous, slightly flushed face her eyes couldn’t help but also be drawn to the kaleidoscope of colours dancing on the giant video screen behind; the talking head, the scrolling text and then, suddenly, a thirty-foot image of her husband lying dead on a slab in darkest Colombia.
Maeve screamed.
52
The Body
Cars were burned overnight in West Belfast, and wisps of smoke still hung over the area as Jimmy Marsh Mallow drove along the motorway to work the next morning. It was a reflexive thing, this rioting when one of their own died. Barely half an hour after the photo of Redmond O’Boyle flat out on a slab appeared on TV, dozens of teenagers erupted onto the streets, burning, smashing, throwing, yelling. Jimmy didn’t mind that much. It was a working-class letting-off of steam. In South Belfast they might have gone out for a jog, or had a massage. The rioting was easily contained, and both sides were happy with that. For the kids it was an excuse to respond to petty grievances - smashing a neighbour’s window, setting fire to a shop where they’d been caught stealing, throwing a petrol bomb at the Sinn Fein rep who acted up worse than the cops. Half of them didn’t know who Redmond O’Boyle was. It was an excuse.
Halfway there, Marsh got a call redirecting him to the Ormeau Embankment. In the old days it had been pretty much of a wasteland, running along the edge of the River Lagan as it wound its way calmly down to the sea, a place where things happened in the dead of night and the cry of seagulls and wild dogs brought anxious relatives looking for missing loved ones in the early light, but in the past ten years dozens of apartment blocks had sprung up, the whole area gentrified beyond recognition. It was a good thing, of course. He knew that. In fact, he and the wife had looked over one of the apartments, with one eye on their retirement, but he talked her out of it. Too expensive.
There were half a dozen other police cars there, plus an ambulance and some TV people. Scenes-of-Crime tape had been set up at either end of a 100-metre stretch of riverside walkway.
Gary McBride, the DI he worked most closely with, stiffened visibly as he approached. Everyone did. It was a good thing, Marsh thought, to inspire this kind of reaction. They weren’t his friends. He didn’t have to impress them with the warmth of his personality; all he had to do was make sure they did their jobs properly. And sometimes he had to show them. He’d been doing it so long it was second nature to jump into the heart of an investigation. Only now he had to keep reminding himself to give others their head.
‘Where is he?’ Marsh asked.
No greeting. No handshake, familiar wink, no coffee thrust into his hand, no joshing over last night’s football or cracks about another terrorist stiff on a slab.
‘Along here,’ said Gary. ‘Guy out walking his dog found him, tangled up in weeds.’
Marsh followed him along the embankment. He nodded to a Forensics guy who then stood back to show them the body.
‘Christ,’ said Marsh.
‘Aye.’
No head. No feet. No hands. Naked. Bloated from the river.
‘Anything?’
‘Fifteen, sixteen maybe. Been in the water a few days. Divers on their way. Going through Missing Persons, but it’ll take a while. Most of them run away, that age.’
Lauren had run away, he remembered that. Fifteen. Sixteen. A fight over what? Spending too much money on make-up? Not phoning home three times a night when she was out? You could argue she’d never stopped running.
Gary said the press wanted a word.
‘You do it,’ said Marsh.
Gary looked surprised, then hurried away. He faced the cameras and said what a shocking crime it was, and appealed for witnesses, and said there was no place in society for anyone who could do something like this, though he didn’t specify what the this was or say that divers were about to start searching for hands and feet and a head. This was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, he said.
Marsh stared down at the water. He felt bad about last night. He wondered how the woman had felt, sitting in the restaurant all by herself. She’d looked nice enough. But what was he supposed to talk to her about? Movies? How far would that get them? How long before he got onto the subject of his wife? Why did she need to hear all that? And worse, what if she’d had a similar, sad story? You didn’t get to their age without baggage, without divorce and death and disease. What could be worse than sitting in a restaurant with a complete stranger, taking it in turns to unburden yourself, neither of them particularly interested in the other’s story, but nodding and making sympathetic noises, waiting for the next opportunity to dive in and steer the woe back to their own personal experience.
No. Better off by himself. Listening to the music.
Still, he’d left her sitting there. Hadn’t even sent an email. Should have come up with some excuse.
Lauren would be on the phone soon, all full of the joys of spring. ‘What was she like? What did you talk about? Did you snog her, Daddy, did you?’
Snog. What a word. When was the last time he’d snogged anyone? Did kissing your wife on the brow, on her cold brow, for the last time, did that count? No, of course not.
He missed kissing his wife. He missed listening to music with her. He missed saying who’d written the song and where it was recorded and who did or didn’t play on the track. She wasn’t interested, he knew that, but she pretended. In the early days she’d sit for hours while he played her this or that. Not so much in the later years. But still.
Jimmy Marsh Mallow caught his breath. Christ. He had a lump in his throat. He gripped the handrail, stared down into the murky water. It had been his personal mantra during the bad years, to treat every death as if it was one of his own - that’s what had driven him to such success. That poor sod with his head blown off, that was his son, his brother; you have to find out who did it, you will not rest until an arrest is made. And even the ones who got away, it remained personal for years afterwards. But the years had passed now, and death had finally visited his own home, and now this poor kid, this headless, handless, footless kid lying under a sheet, hardly raised a flurry of interest. Was it indifference? Or was he just numb?
‘Divers are here, boss,’ said Gary.
Marsh could hardly take his eyes off the water.
‘Boss.’
‘I hear you.’ He turned. He had never been able to tell his wife about this, and now he never could.
53
A Shoulder To Cry On
Margaret was never much of a news junkie, so it was only the next morning, sitting in her dalmation dressing-gown in front of Breakfast, with a bowl of Special K in her lap, that she discovered that Redmond O’Boyle was dead and that West Belfast had endured a night of rioting. She had in fact been perilously close to it, though blissfully unaware. She’d gone out with Emma to celebrate their new partnership and sworn undying allegiance over several bottles of wine. Emma had chosen a chic new place on the very edge of West Belfast - ‘It’s wonderful, darling, although another hundred yards down the road and it’d be a chip shop’ - and when they’d emerged, the air had been decidedly smoky
but Emma had passed it off with a mild admonishment, ‘Barbecues, and it’s not even summer!’ and Margaret had laughed hysterically because she was pissed.
Now, however, with her head rattling, and spooning in the Special K as if it was some kind of cure rather than treated cardboard, she stared in disbelief at the oft-repeated photograph of Redmond O’Boyle dead on a slab in some remote corner of the world, and immediately thought of her colleague Maeve and what she should do. The most practical, and easiest option was to phone, but Maeve’s mobile was switched off and her home number wasn’t responding. Damn!
So she showered and fixed her hair and drove straight into West Belfast, stopping only to peruse the houses on offer in an estate agents in South Belfast. Emma had repeatedly driven home the fact that Margaret lived in a shit-hole and needed to get out right now. And with a big fat cheque in her bag, why not? A nice swish apartment somewhere, that’s what she needed, somewhere down by the river, quite high up, with views over the city. A penthouse. She liked the sound of that. But then the very next item on the news was about some poor soul being found in the river right where those new apartments were and she laughed immediately at the thought of some grinning estate agent leading viewers out onto the veranda and saying, ‘Here’s your stunning view out over Belfast, the shipyard where the Titanic was built, the beautiful Cave Hill watching over our city, the Lagan winding lazily to the ocean, and just over there the Crime Scene Investigation team trying to solve the mystery of the headless, handless, footless corpse.’
Margaret had no idea where she was driving. All she knew was that there were lots of police on the streets keeping their eyes on teenagers with smoke-blackened faces and tired eyes, and the further in she got, the more lost she became and the fewer police she saw, so that she had to stop every few hundred yards and ask those hard-looking boys if they knew where Maeve’s house was. She always added in, ‘I’m a friend of the family,’ and despite her best efforts, always found herself giving a little wink as if she was in with them on some grand conspiracy.
Eventually, she found her way to Maeve’s front door, which was open, and into the house, which was packed with well-wishers and friends and old war buddies. The air was ripe with booze and fags. Gerry Adams was just going out as she was going in. He was looking grave but she still winked at him. If he noticed he didn’t respond (probably the botched Botox job). Women were probably winking at him all the time. Then finally she spied Maeve across the small, crowded lounge, and Maeve saw her about the same time and pushed her way over, and they hugged and Margaret tried to make all the usual noises but Maeve shushed her and led her out of the room and up the stairs, past the queue waiting to use the tiny bathroom, and into their bedroom. Maeve closed and locked the door, then sighed and said, ‘Thank God.’
‘I’m really sorry—’ Margaret began, but Maeve cut her off again, with, ‘He’s such a big ride.’
Clearly it hadn’t sunk in, or she was drunk.
‘Maeve …’
‘We went to Lemon Grass. I could have jumped him there and then.’
‘Maeve?’
‘Jack. Jack Finucane - we went on our date last night.’
‘But … Redmond …’
‘Like he was watching! Just as we move in for the big snog, Redmond appears right above me. I screamed and screamed!’
‘Like a ghost?’
‘No - on that giant TV thing in Shaftesbury Square. It was just the shock of it, but that wore off in about twenty minutes.’ She made a thumbing gesture downstairs. ‘But then all this circus started ...’
‘Well, it’s nice that people—’
‘Margaret, dear, it’s a bloody nightmare. I gave up on Redmond ages ago, and so did most of them down there, but now they’re fighting over his corpse like it’s the Christmas turkey in the poorhouse.’
Margaret took hold of her hands. ‘It’s a delayed reaction, love. You’re in shock.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Yes, you are. Have you heard what happened?’
‘Well, I know his arse went septic after he got stabbed, and in the climate out there they couldn’t control the infection and it was too much for his heart. He’s in the British Embassy. They won’t pay to ship him home though, they made that clear. Those lot down there, they’ll pay, but I don’t want that either. The old fighters want a big military ceremony. I think they just want one last excuse to pull on the black berets and shoot their guns over the coffin. The Shinners just want to wave their fingers and say, “Look, he used to be one of ours but this is what happens to very naughty boys”.’
‘Well, I’m sure you can’t afford it.’
Maeve looked at the ground.
Margaret couldn’t help but blush. She had a cheque for a large amount of money, at least by her standards, burning a hole in her handbag. There were at least a dozen things she’d thought about spending it on, but it’s safe to say paying for a dead terrorist to be shipped home from Colombia wasn’t one of them. But she was nice, and she felt slightly guilty that she wasn’t at least making the offer. Maeve would surely say, ‘No, but I appreciate the thought.’ But what if she said yes? Margaret really liked Maeve, but she knew for a fact that the people of West Belfast weren’t the type to look a gift-horse in the mouth. They would have it straight down to the knacker’s yard and sell it for glue. So Margaret sucked on her bottom lip and said nothing.
Maeve looked up from the carpet. ‘I haven’t told them what I’m going to do yet.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Margaret - they’re all waiting for Red to come home so they can start the wake.’
‘I thought that was the wake.’
‘Oh no, that’s just the pre-wake. The wake’ll only start when the body arrives. Then there’ll be the apres-wake - like skiing, I imagine, but colder - after the funeral; that’ll be another couple of days. I don’t want it, Margaret, none of it. I want my home back.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to tell the British Ambassador to have Redmond cremated out there.’
‘Oh,’ said Margaret.
‘You think that’s terrible, don’t you?’
‘No. I don’t really know. It just seems …’
‘Callous.’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t love him, and he betrayed me, and I don’t want all the crap that goes with having a martyr in the house.’
‘I understand that, love, but still ...’
‘If it was your Billy …’
‘If it was my Billy I’d have him cremated whether he was dead or not.’
‘Well then.’
‘I know - but my Billy’s not all over the news like your Redmond. What if it turns ugly?’
‘Well,’ Maeve began, and then hesitated. ‘You’ll think I’m awful.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I have a plan. I think it’ll keep everyone happy.’
Margaret shook her head. ‘It would have to be some plan.’
‘I’ll let the British Embassy go ahead and cremate him. Then I’ll announce that they did it without my permission.’
‘You can’t just—’
‘Yes, I can! It’ll keep everyone happy! Sinn Fein will have something to moan about and everyone else can go out and have another riot. It’s perfect!’
Margaret had never really appreciated how difficult life must have been living in an area like this, and how it couldn’t help but corrupt your sense of right and wrong, but looking at Maeve now with her hopeful eyes and absolute incomprehension that there might be anything immoral or soulless about what she was planning to do, she began to understand.
54
A Room With A View
The estate agent Linda Wray had endured a miserable day. Partly it was her own fault, for getting drunk by herself in that restaurant - but who could blame her - but mostly it was because of the police and what they were doing to her. She’d been showing clients around the Towerview Apartments f
or several weeks now and she had her script off pat. The flats were quite expensive, but they were undoubtedly luxurious - the kitchens especially. None of your MFI tat. She wouldn’t go so far as to say that they sold themselves, but the kitchens certainly contributed. What mostly did it was her smooth delivery, her winning smile, her enthusiasm and then finally, when she opened the doors onto the veranda and they got their first look at the view. It was stunning. She always said, ‘And at no extra cost …’ before opening the doors, though of course that was a lie. There was a huge extra cost, it just didn’t show up on the paperwork. But today, with her raging hangover, the ‘dry bokes’ as her mum used to call it, what she especially did not need was a body in the river and the PSNI swamping the whole area, making it look as though the apartments had been thoughtlessly flung up in the middle of a war zone.
Every single one of her clients today had stared down at the crime scene, transfixed, neglecting the beautiful Cave Hill and the harbour and the Waterfront Hall just across the way. People’s memories were so short; used to be you’d see that kind of a thing every day, but since The Troubles had ended, any sort of police presence - apart, obviously from in the Wild West - had seemed to evaporate. But now they were very definitely back, buzzing around the corpse like flies and scaring off her clients.
Now, thankfully, with the end of the day in sight, her head finally lifting and only one more client to see, the police were packing up and moving on. With any luck there’d be no trace of them by the time she brought this Walter North out onto the veranda.
She went into the bathroom to freshen up before he arrived, and wondered what he’d be like. Because you never knew when the right one would come along. Maybe one day she’d score the double whammy - sell the property and marry the client. It was as good a way as any to meet eligible men - certainly better than that bloody Let’s Be Mates, sitting in there like a prune all night. Maybe Walter North would be a rich businessman looking to add another property to his portfolio, and in the market for a trophy wife as well. Linda smiled. Trophy wife! She wasn’t bad-looking - age shall not wither her! - but if she was a trophy, she was the sort that got given out at school sports days, not the European Cup; small and valuable only to the person it was awarded to. She shook her head. She just hoped he wasn’t a time-waster. Half her day was taken up with clients who clearly couldn’t afford such a property, but just fancied a mosey.
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