Nine Inches Read online

  ‘I could get used to this,’ he said.

  ‘Well don’t. The bathroom’s straight ahead. Go take a shower, you smell of smoke and cigarettes and sweat. The spare bedroom is on the left. There may be some food in the fridge, but there’s definitely Coke. Not that kind of coke. I have work to do, I have to go out again, so I’m going to leave you to it, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I can trust you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Though you would say that.’ He made eyes. ‘Okay. I’m not sure how long I’ll be; make yourself at home, keep your head down, I’ll sort what I can sort.’

  I nodded.

  He nodded.

  I left. I walked down the hall and pressed the elevator button. It came, and went, but I stayed where I was. I gave it three minutes. When I let myself back into the apartment, Bobby was standing exactly where I’d left him, with his arms folded.

  ‘Do you not fuckin’ trust me or somethin’?’ he barked.

  I said, ‘I forgot something. Okay? I can come back into my own fuckin’ home if I fuckin’ want to.’

  I crossed the room and sat down at my desk and switched the computer on. I had forgotten nothing, but it seemed important to check my e-mails.

  He said, ‘I’m gettin’ my shower now, okay?’

  He stomped towards the bathroom.

  ‘Bobby!’

  He stopped reluctantly. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t forget to wash behind your ears.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  He roared in and slammed the door. The handle moved up and down several times as he tried to work out how it locked. It didn’t. There were no locks on any of the doors, apart from the front. It was a design flaw, or a design preference depending on your point of view.

  After a bit, I finally heard the shower running, and the sliding doors open and close. Five minutes later, I shut the computer, stood up and crossed to the bathroom. I opened the door. Bobby’s outline was just visible through the steam.

  I did what any single man with a helpless, naked fourteen-year-old boy at his mercy would do.

  I stole his leg.

  19

  In position, Diet Coke, freshly purchased Twix, sober, keen, spare leg in the corner, I phoned Tracey. Nanny the nanny answered, and eventually I heard the click of heels on a polished wooden floor.

  ‘He’s not here,’ were her first words. Followed swiftly by: ‘But then you know that.’

  Jack was broadcasting. She could probably hear his voice in my background, and I could certainly hear it in hers.

  ‘I was thinking about inviting you for lunch,’ I said.

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Old times.’

  ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘Hammering,’ I said. ‘Getting some work done to the office.’

  ‘You must be doing well.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I had engaged a joiner to fix the door frame, and a locksmith to repair the locks. They both came in the form of one overweight man who charged for two. I had found him online and he had appeared within twenty minutes. He was either extremely efficient, or desperate. He had an eastern European accent and made Nanny seem like a conversationalist.

  ‘Why now?’ Tracey asked.

  ‘It’s been a long time, wanted to pick your brains, not that you have two. I thought a full and frank exchange of information might benefit us both.’

  She hesitated. ‘About what?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’ I said nothing. I waited. After a goodly while, she said, ‘Are you trying to bluff me, Dan Starkey?’

  ‘Moi?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ She giggled abruptly. ‘You never change, do you?’

  ‘You can’t improve on perfection.’

  ‘Course you can,’ laughed Tracey. ‘It’s called lipo. All right, you’ve convinced me. Where do you fancy? Have you been to the Shipyard?’

  ‘Tracey, the Shipyard is so last year.’

  We agreed on the Cloth Ear, the bar bit of the Merchant Hotel. I hung up and sat back in my chair with my feet up and listened to some more Jack. He was calling on the people of Ulster, Belfast and the Shankill in particular to come out en masse for Jean Murray’s funeral, to show their support for her stand and sacrifice, and their disdain for the gangsters who were controlling our streets. I knew they would turn out, too. Hundreds, perhaps thousands would see her off; they always did. And then they would go right back to doing what they had been doing before, which was a big fat nothing. Only Jack would keep the flame lit, using her to goad police and gangsters alike. He was a man who seemingly did not know how to shut the fuck up. And yet, and yet, his mood had lifted. His worries about little Jimmy had vanished. Something had changed. Had he in fact shut up, and I just hadn’t noticed? Because the events on the Shankill had so dominated his show, I had gone for them as the source of the problem, but it could just as easily have been to do with any one of the dozens of other subjects he tackled each week.

  I took out my notebook and traced down the list of items he’d featured recurrently in the podcasts prior to the kidnapping of his son, and then those he had covered since the night of the cocktail party, to see if any had been abruptly dropped.

  Fifteen minutes later, I had three that seemed to have disappeared: loyalty cards from major retailers that were supposed to give customers preferential treatment and discounts, but which actually cost them more; the Planning Service’s failure to clamp down on those who flouted the planning laws; and the epidemic of deaths caused by addiction to the ‘legal’ drug mephedrone, which overlapped to a certain extent with the existing problems on the Shankill. Any one of them might have been discarded because they’d come to the end of their natural life, or because Jean Murray was so dominating the programme that there simply wasn’t room. All I could do was wait for a few days to see if any of them returned as subjects once the Jean furore died down.

  I closed the notebook, listened to the rest of the show, and then paid my handyman a fortune for his work. When he was gone, I sat back safe and secure and had a think about what to do about Bobby. While Jean had clearly been foolish to place so much faith in me, she was right about one thing – it definitely wasn’t safe for him to be staying with his relatives. It would hardly have mattered in London or New York – those were places where you could just disappear – but Belfast is remarkably small. If Bobby went to even distant relatives, people would notice, and gossip, and word would spread. Likewise a children’s home, or even if social workers found foster parents for him; it would still trickle back.

  If I was going to deal with it at all, then it came down to either tracking down his father in England or sorting out the underlying problem. The only way to do that, since my approach to Boogie Wilson had backfired so spectacularly, would be to try the Miller brothers directly. As they seemed to think nothing of killing anyone who annoyed them, and they were currently involved in a potentially murderous feud with someone I had apparently allied myself with, I put that one to the back of my list of two.

  So I spent the rest of the morning making phone calls to old connections, and others to new acquaintances whom I tried to dazzle with my charm. They all seemed surprised that I was actually physically making a phone call. Even when I confirmed the details of what I was after, they would ask me to send an e-mail as well to double-confirm. The world is too much with us, late and soon.

  Love those beer mats.

  The Merchant is a brand-new five-star hotel hiding in the vacated Victorian headquarters of the Ulster Bank. It has a nice Italian-style façade, but I was more impressed by the fact that in the Cloth Ear you get a bowl of nuts with your drink. I was on my second pint when Tracey clacked up.

  ‘Started without me?’

  ‘It’s only my first,’ I said. She was looking marvellous. Leather boots with high heels, plaid skirt, leather blouson, lipstick red and perfect. ‘Do you want to eat five-star or will you settle for pub grub?�
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  ‘Do I look like a girl who settles?’

  ‘There’s no answer to that.’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘you can take a girl out of the Shankill, but you can’t take the Shankill out of the girl. I’d be happy with a plate of chips and a burger, been killing myself all morning at Pilates.’

  We crossed to a table. We ordered drinks. I had a third pint and she had a Californian Pinot Gris.

  I said, ‘I’d forgotten that’s where you came from. The Shankill.’

  ‘Yep, born and bred.’

  ‘Ever go back?’

  ‘You joking?’

  ‘Family there, old friends?’

  ‘Nope and no. We were gone by the time I was six. Thank God.’

  The drinks arrived, and the same waiter took our food order. I had the burger and chips as well. I’d only recently consumed an Ulster fry. I’d be lucky if I survived through to dinner. Tracey took a sip of her wine, then leaned forward, closer, and smiled.

  ‘So, Daniel,’ she said, ‘out with it.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Tell me what you’re after.’

  ‘Can’t a single guy invite a married woman out for lunch without there being an ulterior motive?’

  ‘Dan, as I recall, your whole life is an ulterior motive.’

  ‘Fair enough. I thought a swift one here, then straight upstairs. I hear the rooms are fantastic. I could tell the other night you were gagging for it.’

  ‘O-kay.’

  She held my gaze.

  ‘Or you could tell me straight out what’s really going on with Jackie boy and the mysterious disappearing case type thingy.’

  ‘The . . .?’

  ‘Tracey, I’m a little bit miffed.’

  ‘Miffed? That’s not really a Dan word.’

  ‘I’m a bit fucked off, then.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘With your worser half.’

  ‘Worser?’

  ‘It’s for your benefit, being from the Shankill and all.’

  ‘Fucked off about what?’

  ‘Getting sacked before I hardly got started. I went to some trouble, I put myself in danger, certain things have happened because I started asking questions, and besides all that, it doesn’t look good on my CV, getting fired off my first case. What do I tell my next one? So just tell me the truth. Why am I off it?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea, Dan. Is that why you lured me here?’

  ‘You’re easily lured. What’s it really about? Was it someone threatening to expose his affair?’

  ‘What affair?’

  ‘No idea. Just putting it out there. Successful, charismatic guy like Jack, nothing but young blondes at Cityscape.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You can raise all the eyebrows you want, Dan, there’s nothing going on.’

  ‘You would know?’

  ‘I would know.’

  ‘What then? Tracey, come on, we go back, throw me a bone here.’

  ‘Here?’ She smiled. ‘Dan, you weren’t sacked. The problem just . . . went away. Jack said it was over, so it’s over.’

  ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘He always has a hundred and one things on the go, it’s the nature of him. As long as my Jimmy is okay and Jack keeps me in new clothes, I don’t really enquire.’

  ‘I hear you maxed out your loyalty card.’

  ‘What loyalty card?’

  ‘You know, the one you maxed out.’

  ‘I told you I’m a Shankill girl; Mum would rather have killed herself than ask for anything on tick. Strictly cash, darling. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Me? Nothing. Still. Anyway. You’re looking well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ve obviously fully recovered.’

  ‘Recovered?’

  ‘Yeah, that mephedrone is lethal.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Or were you maybe dealing, is that where the money’s coming from?’

  ‘Is that what you’re on, Dan? ’Cos you’re talking shite here.’

  Our meals arrived. We paused until we’d unwrapped our cutlery and poured vinegar on our chips.

  I said, ‘Ah, never mind me, I’m just shootin’ the breeze.’ I smiled winningly across the table. ‘Seriously, Tracey, you are looking well. Fresh. Fragrant. You must get out in that lovely garden of yours often enough. Pity you’re selling it, though.’

  She shook her head. ‘Okay, let’s hear it.’

  ‘You’ve been trying to sell it for months; everyone else is building houses on every scrap of land, why shouldn’t you? You’ve got rolling acres of it, on the Malone Road? Must be worth a fortune, but the Planning Service isn’t playing ball, so Jack’s been chipping away at them on air.’

  ‘You’re suggesting my son was kidnapped by the Planning Service?’

  ‘They can be ruthless.’

  Tracey picked up her knife and fork, cut off a thin sliver of her burger and put it in her mouth. She spoke around it as she chewed.

  ‘Dan, no offence, but do you ever think you might be in the wrong job?’

  ‘Tracey, no offence, but did nobody never teach you not to speak with your mouth full?’

  ‘Dan, no offence, but did nobody never teach you not to use three negatives in a sentence?’

  ‘Tracey, no offence, but nobody isn’t a negative, and from memory, you always did have a problem swallowing.’

  It was kind of out before I thought it through. She looked suitably shocked. I raised my hands, peaceably.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’

  She pushed her chair back and stood. She picked up her napkin and dabbed carefully at her lips. She lifted her handbag.

  ‘I knew this was a mistake. Did nobody ever tell you to grow up?’

  ‘Frequently, yes. Sit down, Tracey. I’m sorry. I thought we were just winding each other up. Playful banter.’

  ‘Can I tell you something, Dan?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve moved on, I’m happy with Jack, and if you think there’s anything mysterious going on, you’re barking up the wrong tree. And one more thing?’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘You always were a useless cunt.’

  She picked up her glass and threw her wine over me. Then she strode away, clacking across the stone floor.

  There were many things I could have shouted after her, witty, pithy, funny things. But I held my tongue. I’m much more mature now. She was wrong about one thing, though, you could take the ghetto out of the girl. A true child of the Shankill would have necked the wine and then glassed me.

  20

  I sat where I was, and sipped my beer, and ate some of Tracey’s chips. I was happy enough, if a little damp. You see, you think you’re just having a bit of banter, and they’re right there with you, but then you go just a little bit too far and suddenly they’re in tears. Part of me wanted to think that I had misjudged the reason for her joining me. What I had dismissed as drunken flirting at her cocktail party could actually have lodged in her sozzled head as a real come-on. Even after so many years she retained strong feelings for me, and why not? She had agreed to lunch so quickly, and then arrived dressed to the nines, only to discover that instead of a secret affair, I was more interested in grilling her about the case.

  But most of me knew that was bollocks. She was from the Shankill, and they breed them tough there. Something was bothering her, something she’d hoped to share with me, but I’d wound her up too far and in her nervous state she’d snapped and bolted.

  Still, it suggested I might be on the right track, or a track, at least. When I emerged on to Waring Street, Tracey was standing at the end of the hotel, facing away from me, smoking. I walked up and she turned just as I arrived. She studied the pavement.

  I said, ‘Sorry, Tracey.’

  She turned panda eyes up to me. She took another drag, her hand shaking. ‘I can’t believe you finished your fucking pint rather than com
e running after me.’

  ‘I’m fond of a pint,’ I said.

  ‘You always were a bastard.’

  ‘As I recall, it was you who finished with me.’

  She threw the fag down and ground it into the footpath. ‘You’ve a good memory,’ she said. ‘What is it, once bitten, twice shy?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Still Trish, yeah?’

  ‘Yep, she’s the only one for me.’

  ‘Always hated her.’ She forced a weak smile. ‘Sorry about that in there. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s him.’

  ‘The voice of the people?’

  ‘Don’t, please. You were right first time. Those fuckin’ clippies from the station. I can fuckin’ smell it off him. I thought I’d have my wee bit of revenge, but when it came to it, I couldn’t.’ She lit another. ‘I could have had you, though, couldn’t I?’

  ‘You had me at chips,’ I said. ‘Tracey, love, something’s up. Is it just the affairs?’

  ‘Just?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Jimmy.’

  She held my gaze for a long time. Then she said, ‘No, it’s not just the affairs; there’s other stuff he won’t tell me about. He never has, Dan. I’ve never really been interested in the business end, so I can’t go crying to him now if he freezes me out. It’s just with Jimmy, I nearly die every time I think about what might have happened to him.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘I know. God, I know. And I know you understand. You lost one too.’

  I looked at the passing traffic for a bit. When I turned back to her, she was lighting another.

  ‘So tell me, what really happened? One minute he’s worried to death, the next he’s top of the world.’

  ‘And I’m telling you I don’t know.’

  ‘Is it to do with the show?’

  ‘You can ask me in as many different ways as you want, Dan, but I can’t tell you if I really don’t know.’

  ‘Well maybe you could find out.’

  She studied me. ‘You mean like . . .?’

  ‘Yes. Snoop around. Check his calls, his computer, anything.’