May Li sniffed one of the Primark dresses, then handed it to Louise. She raised the small file of hand-drawn designs and waved them in Margaret’s face. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, then let loose with another flying grot which landed in the dead centre of the ceramic bowl.
‘You design these?’ May Li asked in a smoky rasp, her eyes fixed on Margaret’s.
Margaret eye-balled her back. ‘You bet,’ she said, then she too hacked one up and spat it straight across the shop floor towards the makeshift spittoon. It missed, landing on a summer dress, and dripped onto the floor. Neither of them had watched its flight, although Louise looked distraught.
May Li nodded slowly. She reached out and turned up the hem of the Primark dress. ‘These, I don’t like.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Margaret.
‘These,’ she waved the designs again, ‘I like.’ Then she smiled widely. ‘Very clever, very bright, these will be very nice.’
Relief flooded through Margaret. Emma beamed. Louise held the dripping summer dress at arm’s length and took it into the back room.
May Li was actually a doll, Margaret thought. A spitting doll, for sure, but still a doll. She was funny and quirky and smart. She knew everything there was to know about fabrics and materials and colour and zips and buttons and thread, and she did everything either by hand or on an ancient Singer. She spoke with a very strong Belfast accent. Margaret guessed she was about seventy years old.
‘Have you been over here very long?’ Margaret asked.
‘Forty-one years.’
‘And do you miss … home?’
‘Liverpool? No.’
‘You’re from Liverpool?’
‘Second generation. My family owned a restaurant right next door to The Cavern.’
‘Really? Did John, Paul, George and Ringo pop in for a … Chinese?’
‘No,’ said May Li. Then she cackled. ‘But one of Herman’s Hermits once came in.’
‘So how come you ended up here?’
‘I married a sailor. Merchant seaman from Sandy Row. He brought me home.’
‘To Sandy Row?’ May Li nodded. ‘Gosh, that must have been hard.’
‘It was … no problem. They did not mind that I was Chinese. As long as I wasn’t a Catholic.’
Margaret smiled. ‘And do you still live there?’
May Li shook her head wistfully. ‘My parents went on what you call the Long March with Mao Tse-tung in China in 1949. It was a march for change. I also went on a march for change, with the Civil Rights protesters in Derry in 1969. This did not go down well on Sandy Row. Our house was burned down.’
‘My God.’
‘There is an old Chinese saying. It says: make sure you have good insurance. We did. I have a nicer house now, in a quiet street.’
‘And your husband?’
‘He passed away.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
May Li nodded to herself, then said simply, ‘Yes.’ Then she hacked up again and … ping.
Margaret took a deep breath. It was time to take the bull by the horns. ‘May Li, I think we’re going to make a great team. But I need to ask you something, something personal. About the spitting.’
May Li looked at her, her brow already furrowed. ‘What spitting?’
Margaret laughed involuntarily. ‘The, you know, the ...’ And then she saw Emma and Louise gesticulating urgently at her from the door to the stockroom. Emma was making a cutting motion across her throat.
‘Just … just the … you know.’
May Li looked genuinely confused.
‘The uh … you know, all the spitting in Belfast. Everyone’s at it, aren’t they?’
May Li nodded in agreement. ‘It’s a disgusting habit,’ she said.
Later, while she worked away in the stockroom, making notations and marginal comments on the designs, Margaret, Emma and Louise stood around the counter drinking coffee.
‘But she can’t not be aware of it,’ said Margaret.
‘My husband scratches his balls all the time,’ said Louise, ‘and he always says he isn’t aware of it.’
‘I think she gets so caught up in her work,’ said Emma, ‘that she does it without thinking.’
‘He’ll be on the bus or in a queue in a restaurant or waiting to see the bank manager,’ Louise continued, ‘and all you get is scratch, scratch, scratch.’
‘But if she does it without thinking, how does she hit the spittoon every time?’ Margaret asked.
‘Or in the garden centre or during a christening and he once nearly got arrested in the swimming pool.’
‘Perhaps it’s just a God-given talent,’ said Emma.
‘And you never raised it with her?’
‘I tried, but no - just a blank look. And I don’t want to lose her, she’s a godsend. So I just try to keep her out of the public eye and provide something for her to spit in.’
‘It’s really not a Chinese thing,’ said Margaret.
‘No,’ agreed Emma, ‘it’s a May Li thing.’
‘I just thank God,’ said Louise, ‘that he never asks me to scratch them.’
88
Blackmail
George Green, the property developer with a penchant for rent boys, was just being marched into an interview room downtown when Jimmy Marsh Mallow was called to a phone. He snapped the receiver up impatiently, so keen was he to observe Green being nailed to a table. ‘What?’ he barked.
‘Mr Mallow?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Julia.’
‘Julia?’
Green was ushered in behind a desk. He was pale and sweating and demanding his solicitor.
‘From the other night.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Is there something I can help you with?’
‘You pushed me down the stairs.’
She had his attention now. Jimmy Marsh stiffened. He indicated to two colleagues standing watching Green through the glass with him to leave the room, and they hurried out.
‘Ah - right. Yes. Ahm - how are you?’
He didn’t care how she was. His mind was going in five different directions at once, as if it was a one-armed bandit and someone had yanked the lever. How did she track him down? How did she get hold of this number? How did she know his name? It hit jackpot almost immediately: the cheque. He had somehow managed to blank the whole incident from his mind, dismissing it as a tragic aberration, but it had lurked in there, festering, and now here it was suddenly out in the open again, entirely focused around his own crushing stupidity.
I wrote her a cheque. It had my name on it. Thirty years of putting killers away on the most fiendishly complicated evidence, and I forget my name’s printed on a cheque.
‘I’m not so good, Mr Marsh.’ It was almost a little-girl voice, yet he knew she was as hard as nails.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He could see Green with his head in his hands now.
‘My lip is all infected, and my nose is broken, and in my profession, that’s not good.’
‘No, I imagine not.’
‘So I was talking to a friend about this and she said I should report it to the police, and you know, get compensation.’
Didn’t take her long to get to the point. Relax. You’re an old hand. Slap her down, hard. Don’t let her get her nails in.
‘Well, Julie, I am the police, and I can tell you now, you haven’t a cat’s chance in hell of getting anything, apart from a shitload of trouble. Do you hear me? I don’t know what you call yourself - an escort girl or a call girl or whatever - but we both know what you are. And what you’re doing now is trying to squeeze me for some more money, and that’s just not going to work because first of all, I did nothing wrong, and second of all, I’m big enough and powerful enough to make your life a complete f***ing misery, do you understand?’
There was a short silence, then Julie said: ‘You threw me down the stairs.’
‘I did not throw you down the stairs. I was o
nly trying to get you out of the house.’ No, don’t start arguing.
‘You hired me for sex and then you got cold feet, that’s not my fault.’
Deep breath. ‘Julie, don’t f**k with me. I’m too big, I’m too strong, and I’ve been around too long. You made a mistake. You picked on the wrong man. Sort yourself out, move on, do you hear me? Because I’ll tell you this now, if I ever hear from you again, you will regret it. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘You’re threatening me.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘You’re a cop. You’re supposed to go to cops for help.’
‘I am helping you, Julie. I’m sorry what happened happened, but I’m sure you’ve had worse. I wrote you a cheque - go ahead and cash it, we’re even. All right?’
‘All right,’ Julie said weakly.
‘Good.’ Marsh hung up the phone. He sat in the darkened room, pulling at his bottom lip. His left leg jiggled up and down involuntarily. Through the glass he could see Gary McBride sitting on the edge of the table, passing photographs to George Green. Green was shaking his head a lot. Marsh flicked a switch so he could hear what they were saying. He usually liked this bit, when the enormity of their crimes, which was usually lost in the frenzy of the act, finally began to register.
Green looked suitably revolted. His voice was anguished, half-strangled. ‘Don’t, please. I’m going to be sick.’
‘So be sick. You can f***ing clean it up.’
‘Just take it away.’
‘They’re only photos, George. Later, we’ll bring the real thing in. The boy’s head. Be in a plastic bag, like, but you can say hello.’
‘Please, no.’
‘It’s no trouble.’
‘My solicitor, is he here yet?’
‘Let me just check. Oh, wait a minute, what am I, a f***ing pager service? When he’s here he’s here, George. But if you ask me, what’s the point? I’m sure he’ll cost you a f***ing fortune, but once he sees the evidence, he’ll just laugh and ask for his cheque.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘Oh yes. That’s right. You know, just before your brief comes in and rescues you, let’s just review the evidence, George. Let’s just review the prosecution case for the benefit of the jury. So you’re feeling a bit horny, right? You phone your pimp mate Benny Caproni who knows exactly the right boy for you. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, take a look at the phone records - there’s the call right there in black and white.” You’re so keen, you drive yourself round to Castle Street to pick him up. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to roll some CCTV footage for you which clearly shows defendant’s car and the victim climbing in.” Poor Michael Caldwell, he was never seen alive again. A few days later - “and if you’ll look at the map now, members of the jury - Michael’s body washes up here - and here - and here.” Chopped up in a vain attempt to dispose of any incriminating evidence, except any damn fool with digital television and a fondness for CSI knows that it’s almost impossible to get rid of all the evidence.’
‘Please stop! I hear what you’re saying, and I know how it looks, but it really wasn’t me.’
‘Oh, right. You promise?’
‘I swear to God.’
Gary laughed out loud. ‘Do your previous business friends know you’re into the wee lads, George?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Do they know that you like to give it to the wee lads hard, eh, George? You like it really rough, do you?’
‘I don’t … it wasn’t me.’
‘What about your sister and her kids, George - what are they going to think?’
‘It wasn’t me!’
‘But you phoned Benny Caproni, didn’t you?’
‘Yes!’
‘And you hired the boy, didn’t you?’
‘Yes!’
‘And you went and picked him up in your car, didn’t you?’
‘Yes! All right!’
‘And you took him somewhere for sex, and it got out of hand, and you killed him and panicked and chopped him up and dumped him in the river?’
‘No!’
‘Looks that way. Eight out of twelve jurors would say it looks that way. Ten out of ten big scary men in prison will say it looks that way, just before they poke your eyes out.’
‘Stop it, please!’
‘Then tell us what happened!’
‘Nothing happened!’ George raised his hands and made a patting, downwards motion, as if he was trying to calm a rising tide. ‘Look, I made the call; I picked him up. I took him to …’ He shook his head in disbelief at his own actions. ‘I got him for someone else. It was a … perk, a sweetener, a business deal. Christ, man, it happens all the time. Some people want money, some people want cars. He wanted a boy. But I had no idea he would …’
‘What? A big boy did it and ran away?’
‘Yes!’
‘So, you’d have his name and everything.’
George looked down at the table. He shook his head.
‘Might that be because he doesn’t in fact exist?’
George swallowed. ‘He exists.’
‘Yeah - in your head. What are you, Gollum? Do you speak to your other half all the time?’
George’s eyes stayed on the stained desk top. Tears ran down his cheeks. His voice cracked. ‘He said he would kill my sister and her children if it ever got out.’
‘Well, that’s convenient,’ said Gary.
‘Why would I make something like that up!’
‘In the vague hope that we might just say, “That’s okay then, George, you can go on home, we believe you”.’
Gary took one of the photographs of Michael Caldwell’s severed head and set it back down on the table. ‘Michael Caldwell,’ he said simply.
‘I know who it is.’
‘Nice lad, was he?’
‘Yes. I suppose.’
‘This other guy, supposing for a moment that he really exists, must be someone pretty special if he can get one of the richest, most successful businessmen in Belfast to act as his pimp, not only procuring an underage boy, but also delivering him right into his lap.’
George’s eyes flitted up from the photograph, then he nodded slowly, and there was something about the way he did it, the raw fear in his eyes, that made Gary glance up at the one-way glass for the first time, knowing that Marsh was watching and listening and thinking the same thoughts.
89
The Flying Priest
Somewhere over the Atlantic, Redmond nudged Siobhan out of a doze and said, ‘Do you remember when Nelson Mandela got out of prison?’
Siobhan blinked groggily at him. ‘What?’
‘Nelson Mandela, when he got out of prison - what did you think?’
Siobhan yawned. It was a long, complicated flight home, heading out from Bogotá to Rio - this time without the option of topping up her tan on the beach - with just an hour’s wait for the Heathrow flight they were on now, and she just wanted to sleep, not to have a mourning priest at her side bothering her. He hadn’t talked half as much when he’d arrived in Bogotá. Now you could hardly shut him up. Grief, she supposed, affected different people in different ways. Thank God she had earphones and could turn up the volume when his talking or wailing became too annoying without him really being aware of it. Now, observing the earnest look in his eyes, she had the dread feeling that her interrupted sleep was going to remain just that for some considerable time.
‘Nelson Mandela? I was too young. I think I knew about it happening, but I was probably out on my skateboard. Why?’
‘Nothing. I mean, I was just thinking about him, being a terrorist…’
‘A freedom fighter.’
‘Yes, of course, and there was such a huge build-up to his release - you know for thirty years, really - and all the protests and embargoes and Elvis Costello doing that song, remember it?’
Siobhan, more alert now, began to sing, ‘Free-ee-ee-ee-eee … Nelson Man-dela! Loved that.’
‘And it was all live on TV the morning he got out - wasn’t it a Sunday morning? And you expected him to walk out and be like this giant, then he came through the gates and he was like this real little fella and I can remember being quite disappointed. My mum called him a funny wonder. And he was supposed to be this huge statesman, but all I ever really remember him doing was strange little African dances and meeting the Spice Girls.’
‘What’s your point, Father?’
‘Well, that people forget, don’t they? Nelson Mandela wasn’t put away for his views, he was put away for blowing things up. But everyone seemed to conveniently ignore that.’
‘Because what he started eventually led to the end of Apartheid and gave black people their freedom,’ Siobhan said.
‘So you could argue that Redmond was a bit like that - you know, fighting to give his people their freedom.’
‘Well, yes. Although when Nelson got released he never went out and bombed some other country he’d nothing to do with, like Redmond did. Mandela believed in peace and democracy for South Africa.’
‘But he still bombed his way to it.’
‘Only in the early days. It became a peaceful campaign.’
‘But what Redmond did in Ireland, it became a peaceful campaign as well. You could argue that without his sacrifice, there wouldn’t be peace today. In some ways he was quite like Nelson Mandela.’
‘Father, I know you’re heartbroken by Redmond’s death, and it was a tragedy, but he was no Nelson Mandela. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but he was a bit of an anachronism, you know? Nelson knew when to lay down his gun; Redmond hadn’t a clue.’
The flight attendant stopped beside them with her trolley. ‘Can I get you anything, Father?’
‘Perhaps a little whiskey - it’ll help me sleep. If you could make it a double, I won’t trouble you till we land.’
The attendant winked at him and gave him his drinks, and ice, and three bags of peanuts and one of crackers. Siobhan ordered water, but kept her tray-table up as she pushed and pulled through the bags of Minstrels and Starburst and copies of Vogue and Cosmopolitan she’d crammed into her seat pocket, then finally extracted the in-flight magazine. She removed a pen from her bag, brought down the table, then began to circle items she intended to buy from the duty-free trolley.
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