Nine Inches Read online

  NINES INCHES

  BATEMAN

  Copyright © 2011 by 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.

  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 7866 1

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 51

  Bateman was a journalist in 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 BBC TV series Murphy’s Law starring James Nesbitt. Bateman lives in Ireland with his family.

  Praise for Bateman’s novels:

  ‘The funniest crime series around’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘As sharp as a pint of snakebite’ The Sunday Times

  ‘Sometimes brutal, often blackly humorous and always terrific’ Observer

  ‘A delightfully subversive take on crime fiction done with love and affection. Read it and weep tears of laughter’ Sunday Express

  ‘An extraordinary mix of plots and characters begging to be described as colourful, zany, absurd and surreal’ The Times

  ‘A joy from start to finish… witty, fast-paced and throbbing with menace’ Time Out

  ‘Twisty plots, outrageous deeds and outlandish characters, driven by a fantastic energy, imagination and sense of fun’ Irish Independent

  ‘Bateman has barged fearlessly into the previously unsuspected middle ground between Carl Hiaasen and Irvine Welsh and claimed it for his own’ GQ

  ‘Extremely funny, brilliantly dark, addictively readable’ Loaded

  By Bateman

  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

  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

  Belfast Confidential

  Nine Inches

  For children

  Reservoir Pups

  Bring Me the Head of Oliver Plunkett

  The Seagulls Have Landed

  Titanic 2020

  Titanic 2020: Cannibal City

  SOS: Icequake

  SOS: Firestorm

  SOS: Tusk

  For my brother David

  1

  It was a dark and stormy night.

  Or it might have been, for all the light getting into the office. I was three floors up, and the only hint of an outside world came from a skylight overshadowed on two sides by newer, taller buildings that blocked out ninety-nine per cent of whatever vague sunlight was managing to break through the otherwise solid grey of a Belfast spring afternoon. Somewhere in the far distance there were bagpipes, rehearsing for marching season. And pneumatic drills, tearing up footpaths, providing ammunition for marching season. We had moved on, and then put it all into reverse. It was like married life; we never knew if we were coming or going.

  I had a nice desk, a laptop, a lamp, a phone and a family bag of Smarties. I was sorted for E’s.

  I was trying to remember the last time the phone had rang, or if it should be rung, when the intercom buzzer sounded and a garbled voice said, ‘Starkey? Can I come up?’

  In a better, more prosperous world, I might have had a security camera to tell me who it was, but as it was, I had to rely on my investigative skills to find out.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  There was an audible sigh. ‘It’s Jack Caramac.’

  ‘Jack Caramac off the radio?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just let me check.’

  I drummed my fingers on the desk. After a couple of months I said, ‘Jack Caramac, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it raining out there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have an umbrella?’

  ‘No.’

  I said, ‘Jack Caramac, Jack Caramac, Jack Caramac . . . oh yes, Jack Caramac. Your appointment is for three fifteen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s only three ten.’

  ‘Let me up, Starkey, you bollocks, or I’ll take my business elsewhere.’

  ‘Smoothie,’ I said, and pressed the buzzer.

  Jack Caramac – not his real name, incidentally, in case you’re a moron – had, as they say, a good face for radio. If you took a bag of Comber spuds and sucked the goodness out of them and refilled them with Polyfilla so tight that it leaked out of their pores, then you’d have an idea of Jack’s complexion. I have no idea if potatoes have pores, but that’s neither here nor over there, where a man who ran naturally to fat but who felt compelled by his listeners to try every diet under the sun was squeezing through my door. He ballooned, he deflated, he ballooned he deflated; his skin now had the elasticity of bamboo. As he lumbered into the office, it was clear that he’d recently hit the wall on his latest attempt. As he shook my hand and smiled, there was evidence of Crunchie between three of his capped front teeth.

  He sat and said, ‘Jesus, get
a lift, I’m all out of puff.’

  ‘Exactly why I have stairs,’ I said. ‘It sorts the wheat from the chavs.’

  He had on a black sports jacket, black trousers, a black shirt open at the neck. It all looked designer expensive. But it was a bit pointless. People would just say he was a well-dressed fat bloke. He looked around very briefly and said, ‘What a dive. I can’t believe you have an office above a butcher’s shop.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s cheap, and the sausages are amazing.’

  He looked at me. ‘Same old Dan,’ he said.

  ‘Same old Jack,’ I said.

  I’d known Jack Caramac for twenty years. In fact, since before he was Jack Caramac. He was a journalist once. So was I. I’d covered hard news, and tough stories, and put the boot in often, but always with a smile; I’d also been a columnist, which had brought me a certain amount of fame, and infamy. In some ways I was the print equivalent of what Jack had decided was the better career for him: for the past fifteen he’d hosted a call-in show on Cityscape FM, Belfast’s most popular commercial radio station. But there was a crucial difference: my journalism was never about me; Jack’s show was all about him, and exploiting the misery or mental imbalance of others. By and large, the kind of people who phone radio shows are the last people in the world you’d want to spend any time with: they are the loudmouths, the bigoted, the numbskulls and the egotists; they are the moaners, the blinkered and the self-righteous. They are the religious maniacs, the cynics, the warmongers and the apologists. They are also usually more to be pitied than scorned. It was not an accusation you could place at the large feet of Jack Caramac. Though he was the living embodiment of all of these personality disorders, somehow his whole became something more profound than its constituent parts; nobody particularly liked him, but everyone wanted to listen to him. In the business he was known as the biggest cunt this side of Cuntsville, and he loved it. I used to think I rubbed people up the wrong way, but Jack took the biscuit. In fact, he took the whole tin, and usually between meals.

  ‘Never thought you’d end up like this,’ he said.

  ‘Like what?’

  He flapped his flappy hands around my pride and joy and said, ‘This. Man, Belfast Confidential used to be a licence to print money. Where did it all go wrong?’

  ‘Who says it went wrong? I sold up, and now I’m a gentleman of leisure, taking on whatever jobs interest me.’

  ‘This wouldn’t be the same Belfast Confidential you sold for one pound because it owed a million quid?’

  ‘They covered my debt, and I was a pound up on where I was when I went in. This day and age, who can complain about that? Anyway, did you just call round to rain on my parade, or is there something I can do you for?’

  ‘Well,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ I said.

  ‘I heard you were out of the journalism racket, and into like . . . investigating. Like a private eye.’

  ‘I’m nothing like a private eye. I offer a boutique, bespoke service for important people with difficult problems.’

  ‘Dan, no offence, but that sounds a bit wanky.’

  ‘It’s my specialist subject. I was, as you know, one of this country’s leading journalists. That’s still what I do, except I don’t publish unless my client requires it. I enquire. I get answers. Then you tell me how you want me to deal with those answers. That can mean referring them to the forces of law and order, or using my public relations expertise to spin them into something positive. You know, on Facebake, or Twitter, maybe the Ulster Tatler, all the new media.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Have I sold you on me yet?’

  ‘Only because I’ve nowhere else to fucking go.’

  I smiled. He smiled.

  ‘I’d make you a coffee, but the kettle’s broke. I can send down for some mince if you like.’

  ‘You’re a funny man, Dan. But I don’t need funny. I need help.’

  ‘You were kind of vague on the phone.’

  ‘I don’t like phones.’

  ‘You spend your whole life answering them.’

  ‘That’s different. That’s work.’

  ‘Oh yeah. The shock-jocking.’

  ‘I’m not a shock jock.’

  ‘As I am not a private eye.’

  ‘I’m the people’s champion.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that one of my people is threatening me.’

  ‘So isn’t that par for the course?’

  ‘This is different. Usually it’s just the nutters being annoying, but this time . . . this time they actually did something. They took my kid.’

  ‘Took?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  ‘You think . . .? Jack?’

  ‘He’s frickin’ four, he can’t exactly tell me, can he? But he was gone for about an hour. And when he came back, he’d a note in his pocket.’

  ‘What kind of a note?’

  Jack slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. He set it on my desk and pushed it across.

  ‘Is that blood?’ I asked.

  ‘Jam,’ said Jack.

  The note said: Shut the fuck up.

  2

  I had been riding high, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Belfast Confidential, the crusading news/vacuous celebrity magazine I inherited from my late friend Mouse, had given me a glimpse of the good life, and then the bitch of an economy had snatched it away. My tendency to burn bridges hadn’t helped. Print media was dead and everything on the web was free; nobody was prepared to pay for what I did best, which was putting a spanner in the works. I was trying to reinvent myself, and Patricia thought she would give me a hand by chucking me out of house and home. Thirty-three minutes after I left, she’d changed her Facebook status to single. I would have changed mine to couldn’t give a fuck if there had been a fucking button that allowed me not to give a fucking fuck.

  Now here she was crossing the Lisburn Road, barely a hundred yards from my office, and entering the Shipyard, my city’s most prestigious restaurant, looking fantastic for forty-two. Patricia, not the restaurant. She wore her hair long, dyed brown, and her clothes tight. Even the contempt of familiarity couldn’t prevent me giving her the kind of once-over I normally reserved for strangers. She looked hot, and she knew she looked hot. She was bad to the bone.

  I said, ‘Are you going somewhere later?’

  ‘No, I’m having dinner with you.’

  ‘Oh. Right. It’s not exactly dinner, it’s only gone five. Is there a mid-afternoon equivalent of brunch? Not quite dinner.’

  ‘High tea? Does it matter?’ She smiled. I tapped my upper teeth and nodded at her own. ‘Lippy?’ she asked.

  ‘No more than usual.’

  She rubbed at her teeth. There was nothing there, but that wasn’t the point. She would be wondering if everyone she’d spoken to since she left home had noticed her mistake. Of course she wouldn’t have called it a mistake. She’d have called it a faux pas. She had developed certain airs and graces while the money was good at Belfast Confidential, and now that it was gone, she was still trying to hold on to them.

  ‘Better?’ she asked.

  I pointed to a different tooth. She rubbed some more. In marriage, it is the small victories that are important, particularly as the larger ones are hard to come by.

  And we were still married. Just about.

  She said, ‘So to what do I owe the honour? Last time we ate somewhere as plush as this . . . come to think of it, we’ve never eaten somewhere as plush as this.’

  ‘A small celebration.’

  She raised an eyebrow. Before I could continue, a waiter arrived at our table and asked if he could get us a drink.

  I said, ‘White wine, please.’

  He said, ‘Perhaps a Chardonnay or a Sauvignon Blanc?’

  I said, ‘Don’t confuse me with science. White wine, and something for the mother.’

  He kind of half laughed, in that patronising way waiters do, forgetting for the mome
nt that they are fucking waiters. Patricia ordered a Smirnoff vodka and Diet Coke and said, ‘I hate it when you do that,’ as soon as he’d left.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘The smart-alecky belittling thing.’

  ‘You used to love it.’

  ‘In fact, no. I just used to have a greater cringe threshold. So what are we celebrating?’

  ‘I have a client.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. And you thought of me?’

  ‘Well, I thought you’d be interested. And a problem shared is a problem halved.’

  ‘Why would I want half a problem?’

  ‘Because I always appreciate your input. And I want you to understand what I’m trying to do here with this business, and bear that in mind when it comes to me paying my share of the upkeep on our house, which I am currently struggling to do.’

  ‘That’s not my problem.’

  ‘You threw me out.’

  ‘Only because you’re a useless waste of space.’

  ‘Well clearly not any more. I have a client.’

  The waiter returned with our drinks. He asked if we’d had a chance to peruse the menus.

  I said, ‘It says soup of the day without specifying what it is.’

  The waiter’s eyes flitted down to my shoes and back up. ‘It’s quail eggs and shark fin with ginseng,’ he said. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. ‘It’s eighteen pounds fifty-six.’

  I nodded. ‘Is that with a bap or without a bap?’

  ‘With,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll have the soup, as a main course.’ I smiled across at Patricia. ‘She’s worth it,’ I said.

  Patricia smiled. He turned away. I called him back.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Just one thing. Is the bread Ormo?’

  Patricia shook her head. The waiter was only about eighteen and hadn’t the foggiest notion of the old advert I was joking about.

  When he’d gone, Patricia said, ‘Ordering for me? You’ve never done that in your life before. I think I like it.’

  I sipped my wine. She mixed her vodka and gulped.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘what’s the nature of your problem?’

  ‘Jack Caramac.’

  ‘As in . . .?’

  ‘The very same. Someone kidnapped his four-year-old son. But only for an hour or so. Sent him back with a note suggesting he shut the fuck up. The father, not the son.’