Nine Inches Read online

  ‘About what?’

  ‘He has no idea.’

  Trish nodded, and for a moment concentrated on the tablecloth. More than a decade ago, during one of our regular splits, she had become pregnant to a ginger man, and had a gingerish son. We got back together, and I grew to love him, and then because I got involved in more foolishness, he died. For me, the sense of loss had faded with the years, but the guilt never would. Trish had no guilt, and professed not to have blame. But she had. It was bleeding obvious.

  ‘Has he gone to the police?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not. He spends half his show ripping into them; he’s not going to go crawling to them for help.’

  ‘So he came to you?’

  ‘He came to me.’

  ‘As a kind of last resort.’

  ‘As the next best option.’

  ‘So what’re you going to do?’

  ‘What do you think I’m going to do? Investigate. First thing tomorrow.’

  Our eyes met over our drinks. There had been a lot of water under the bridge, not to mention alcohol. We had always been connected, and we always would be. There had been love and loss and love again, and there had always been lust. Things would come around; they always did. We knew exactly how to push each other’s buttons, in a bad way and a good way.

  ‘Investigate to what end?’ Patricia asked. ‘I mean, I know you’ll probably find who’s responsible, but then what?’

  ‘Then the ball’s back in Jack’s court.’

  ‘Won’t that be . . . unsatisfying? It’s like doing all the foreplay and then someone else comes in for the money shot.’

  Our eyes met.

  ‘Where did you even hear that term?’

  ‘Oh, these long lonely nights, what’s a girl to do?’

  ‘Well the last few months of our relationship, Scrabble seemed to be the answer.’

  The soup came, and maybe later we would as well.

  It wouldn’t mean anything. It would be another pull on the auld roundabout and we would only know where we truly were with us when it stopped.

  She said, ‘I’m glad you’re doing this, really. You need a new start.’

  ‘Professionally,’ I said.

  After a suitable pause, she nodded.

  ‘Don’t be getting yourself into anything too dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t plan to.’

  ‘Jack Caramac, he’s a pain in the arse, a lot of people would want to harm him. But it’s not good when kids get involved.’

  ‘I know. I’ll find out what’s going on. More importantly, this soup tastes like cack.’

  ‘It surely does.’

  ‘And it’s probably worth mentioning now that Jack would only employ me on a results-based basis.’

  ‘You’re telling me in a not very roundabout way that I’m paying for this cack-based soup.’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  We nodded at each other over our bowls.

  None of this was a surprise to her.

  I said, ‘How many years is it since we last did a runner?’

  She said, ‘Too many. But in these heels?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said.

  3

  Of course, it ended in tears, and she fled my apartment leaving only a flurry of curses and a bra in her wake. I was alone once more, a porn-again single man.

  I spent the rest of the night quietly sipping in the Bob Shaw. It was only around the corner from my new home. The pub was artsy enough to be interesting, and with an old enough clientele that you didn’t feel like a child molester if you glanced appreciatively at someone. It was in the heart of what had recently been christened the Cathedral Quarter, which was kind of Belfast’s Left Bank without being particularly left, or featuring a bank. There were gay bars, galleries, coffee shops and bijou theatres. All in all a much greater variety of upmarket establishments from which to request protection money. The city was transformed, but it always had two fingers in the past.

  I was home for eleven thirty, inebriated. The apartment was on the second floor of a new complex at St Anne’s Square. It had started out neat and I did my best to keep it that way. Patricia had been impressed both by the decor and furnishings and the fact that I could afford it. I told her I’d got a good deal on the rent and when it came to the fixtures my latent good taste had flourished since our separation. Neither was quite true. In the dog days of Belfast Confidential, I’d squirrelled away a certain amount of cash rather than waste it paying bills, and that had served as a down payment on this show apartment, which came interior-designed and furnished to the hilt by someone who actually did have taste. I was two months behind on the mortgage.

  The square was designed around a piazza, with chic cafés where you could sit outside during any one of our three days of summer. On one corner there was a Ramada Hotel, on the other the MAC, a flourishing new arts centre. Most nights the area was pleasantly busy. I like to sit in my duffel coat on my veranda, sip a whiskey and listen to the chat drift up from below. I’ve never liked silence, and hearing drunk people talk shite has always been quite comforting. Belfast is so much more relaxing now than in the old days, when the city centre, encased in a ring of steel, was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop – usually having fallen out of a shoddy Libyan hand grenade.

  I refilled my glass, and took my laptop outside. I plugged in earphones and began to download podcasts of the past two weeks’ worth of Jack Caramac. I was guessing that whatever had annoyed someone enough to want to kidnap his four-year-old must have happened in the very recent past. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was listening for. It was just a case of letting it all soak in. Jack’s show was a mixture of the serious and the trivial: one minute teenage suicide, the next an earnest debate about the correct thickness of pancakes. People spoke passionately. Jack was good. Cheeky like your best mate, as sympathetic as a bereaved relative, and an attack dog when riled. I wasn’t just looking for the major topics that attracted hundreds of calls, but the little ones too, the insignificant items that failed to ignite the holy grail of audience participation and were very quickly cut off. I’d been a journalist for long enough to know that very often it was the odd throwaway line rather than some major accusation that most annoyed people. You could quite happily libel someone as a nut job, but if you said he supported Glentoran rather than Linfield, he’d start screaming blue murder.

  I woke shivering at just after three a.m. I’d the beginnings of a headache. While I slept, someone had thrown a pizza crust at me. It was resting on my shoulder. It did not taste unpleasant. When I was done, I took the glass and the laptop inside. I took the time and trouble to wash the glass. I dried it and put it away. I went into my bedroom. The sheets still smelt of Patricia. I lay on top, and sighed.

  Cityscape FM operates out of an industrial park on the Boucher Road. It’s a single-storey building with lots of post-Ceasefire glass. I parked and entered without having to be buzzed in. Considering that Jack Caramac had so recently been threatened, security was kind of lax. There was a good-looking blonde girl on the front desk. She wore a badge that said her name was Cameron Coyle. She smiled pleasantly and asked how she could help me. She appeared not to notice the twinkle in my eye as I replied, or else dismissed it as a cataract. I was getting to that age. I told her I was here to see Jack, and she took my name and told me to take a seat, he was still on air. It was being piped in, so I knew that. He was talking about dementia, but soon segued smoothly into poo bags for dogs.

  I said, ‘David or Diaz?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Are you named after Cameron Diaz or David Cameron?’

  ‘Who’s David Cameron?’

  ‘Fair point.’

  She answered a call. She was pleasant but firm.

  When she hung up, I pointed at the speaker and said, ‘What’s he like to work for?’

  ‘Jack? Jack’s the best.’

  ‘I mean, really.’

  She smiled. I smiled. I was interested in how loyal his peop
le were, or how pussy-whipped. I put that thought out of my head straight away and said, ‘We’re old muckers, I know what he’s like.’

  ‘He’s been very good to me.’

  She smiled and nodded and answered some more calls. Ten minutes later, another attractive blonde came through swing doors and asked if I was Dan and told me to follow her. I did so willingly. She led me into a surprisingly small studio. Jack had his feet up on the desk, half a sausage roll in his mouth and the other half in crumbs down his shirt. He gave me the thumbs-up and indicated for me to sit down. He had a pair of earphones around his neck, and through the glass I could see someone in the next studio reading the news, which was coming through loud and clear.

  Jack wiped his mouth and said, ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘It’s going fine.’

  ‘Get anywhere?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘With the case.’

  ‘Jack, I’ve hardly fucking started. Give me a chance.’ He started to say something, but then held up a finger and slipped his headphones back on. He turned to the next studio, where a new presenter had come in. They had a couple of minutes of on-air banter, and then Jack said his goodbyes. A green light above him switched to red.

  ‘So what are you thinking?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m thinking I need your call records for the past two weeks. I presume they’re all logged.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But there’s thousands of them. Tens of.’

  ‘I appreciate that. I’d like them all, though. It’s not just about the people you expose or humiliate on air, though they’re important. It’s just as likely to be someone who has a grudge because they didn’t make it.’

  ‘There are data-protection issues, Dan. We can’t just release—’

  ‘Am I working for you or the station? Who’ll be writing the cheque?’

  ‘Cheque! You’re so old-fashioned, buddy. The station, obviously.’

  ‘Then as an employee, I’m entitled to look at the call records.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘fair enough. I’ll organise it.’

  ‘Good. And I’m also thinking I’ll need to talk to the witness.’

  ‘Witness? You mean Jimmy?’

  ‘The boy, aye.’

  ‘Dan, fucksake. He’s only a tot, he can hardly talk.’

  ‘Maybe he could draw me a picture.’

  ‘He’s four.’

  ‘Four-year-olds can draw.’

  ‘Yes, Dan, but he’s not some kind of fucking autistic savant. It will involve crayons and scrawling. Is this your master plan?’

  ‘You asked me to do a job, Jack, let me do it. Did I mention I know a child psychologist who’d be willing to talk to him?’

  Jack blinked at me. ‘Talk how? What would he do?’

  ‘She. She’d beat him around the head with a space hopper. What do you think she’d do, Jack? Let her have a word, eh? See what she can tease out. If you’re serious about this, then you need to help me.’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s just, I’m not sure Tracey would approve.’ Tracey. Wife of twenty years. Formidable. ‘She doesn’t believe in that kind of thing. Thinks it’ll go on his record, all that, you know?’

  ‘Don’t tell her, then.’ He made a face. ‘Jack. Help me here. Is your boy in school?’

  ‘Pre-school.’

  ‘Who picks him up?’

  ‘I do. In about half an hour.’

  ‘See? Perfect?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘This is my boy. I love him. I was careless and someone nabbed him. I thank God every day that I got him back. This is serious stuff, Dan, and I need to be able to trust you. Don’t let me down.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You.’ He heaved himself up out of his comfy chair. ‘Okay. Let’s do this. But you had better not be yanking my fucking chain.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ I said.

  4

  We took Jack’s Jag. ‘Child seat,’ he explained. It was this year’s model. We drove to the Royal Victoria Hospital.

  ‘Do you know something?’ Jack asked, nodding ahead towards the huge, sprawling jumble of hospital buildings that dominated the skyline. ‘The RVH was the first building in the world to install air-conditioning.’

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes. Nineteen oh six. The engineers at the Sirocco Works, just down the road there, pioneered it. Doing this show, I learn a lot of useless shite.’

  With its setting in the heart of Republican west Belfast, it could be argued that some of the locals had themselves spent years since installing air-conditioning for free all over the city.

  I have always found the RVH a dark and depressing place. The only thing bright about it today was the sight of Leontia Law standing waiting patiently for us by the front gates. She was wearing a knee-length leather skirt and brown boots that met it halfway. Her hair was short and she wore no make-up. She had on a doctor’s white coat.

  As Jack drew up, I got out of the passenger seat and opened the back door for her. She slipped her coat off, folded it over her arm and slid in. I went with her.

  Jack glanced back and said, ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You sit up front with me. Or she does. If you both sit in the back, I’ll look like your chauffeur.’

  ‘Jack, who cares? And by the way, could you put your cap on?’

  He didn’t smile. I got out and rejoined him. He nosed the Jag into traffic while I made the introductions. He started telling her about the air-conditioning, but she said she knew.

  ‘Worked there long?’ he asked.

  ‘Two years,’ she said. ‘I’m actually in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children; it’s kind of tacked on to the other side.’

  Jack nodded in the mirror. ‘I don’t want you upsetting my boy.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Dr Law.

  ‘But the truth will out,’ I said.

  Jack’s eyes flitted across.

  The Cabbage Patch Nursery was based in a large Edwardian house festooned with security cameras, just off the Malone Road. Malone was money. Malone was class. Probably no child in the entire nursery had ever been near a real live cabbage patch.

  ‘You’ve moved up in the world,’ I said.

  Jack said, ‘Perhaps it’s you who’s moved down.’

  Unlike at Cityscape, there was an elaborate security system to negotiate. So we waited in the car while Jack went for Jimmy.

  Dr Leontia said, ‘Are you sure this is wise?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a frickin’ chancer,’ she said.

  ‘It has been known.’

  Jimmy came back on Dad’s shoulders. Cherub-faced, full of chat. Jack introduced us as his old friends Dan and Lenny. Jimmy wasn’t the slightest bit interested. He wiggled a plastic dinosaur in his dad’s face as he was strapped into his chair and said, ‘Dino wants ice cream.’

  It seemed like a plan.

  On the drive to McDonald’s, Leontia made small talk with him. They seemed to hit it off. He lent her Dino for all of five seconds.

  As we waited at lights, Jack said, ‘You never have kids, Dan?’

  ‘Kids? No.’

  ‘Then you won’t know what they mean to you. I don’t care about the hair on my head. But if anyone harms a single hair on his . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’ll be fine.’

  I was thinking mostly about the hair on Jack’s head. We’d worked together for years, and I’d a fairly clear recollection that his mane had been rapidly receding. Now it grew luxurious and thick. Weave was the way, these days.

  Jimmy demanded the drive-thru, but Lenny wanted the chance to talk one on one with him, so she quelled his protests with a promise of the largest ice cream he could eat, unstrapped him and walked him in, though not before he’d shaken his head and said that Daddy had said he wasn’t allowed to go off with strangers. Daddy reas
sured him that it was okay this time because she was Daddy’s friend. Satisfied, he toddled off, hand in hand with her.

  Kids are such fricking suckers.

  Jack and I stayed in the car. He shook his head at the packed restaurant before us. ‘Fuck me, it’s half twelve on a Tuesday; where do all these fucking kids come from?’ When I didn’t respond, he said, ‘Do you think he’ll be all right with her?’

  ‘Relax. She’s a specialist.’

  ‘She looks young to be a specialist.’

  ‘Cops and doctors both, Jack.’

  ‘Christ, I know. It would sicken you.’ He drummed his fingers on the wheel. Then he rubbed at his brow. ‘Do you know what haunts me, Dan? Do you remember where I trained as a reporter?’

  ‘Down in Bangor, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Aye. Family-owned paper. Not many of those around now. But the owner’s wife, this nice old dear, she got to write a column every week. Kind of about nature, and literature and poetry. She lived out in the country, and she found this baby badger . . .’

  ‘A cub.’

  ‘I know what it is, Dan. Anyway, she found this baby cub badger, abandoned, or I think maybe dogs killed its mum, and she raised it herself. From a wee tiny thing to a bouncin’ big badger, and she wrote about it every week, and published photos, and it was like house-trained and one of the family and it was so sweet, it was like a fucking Disney picture. People loved it. Kids came to visit.’

  He fell silent. After a bit, I said, ‘Your point?’

  ‘My point, one morning she came down to let it in, ’cos like it still went out foraging or whatever the fuck badgers do at night, but it always came home for breakfast and a snooze. But you know what one of her loyal and lovely readers had done? Battered it to a pulp and left it lying dead in her porch. And do you know why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because that’s what people are like. Evil.’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah, I probably knew that.’

  ‘And that’s what worries me, that they’ll do something to Jimmy just because they can. Children, they’re your fucking weak spot.’

  ‘What does Tracey think about it?’ Jack drummed his fingers again. He studied the passing traffic. ‘You haven’t told her, have you?’