Nine Inches Read online

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘So you’re doing him too.’

  ‘That’s just . . . ridiculous. I’m engaged, if you must know.’

  ‘Couldn’t be true then, fair enough.’

  She stood up. I stood up too.

  ‘I better fly,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck with that. And thanks for the info.’ I tapped the envelope. ‘I’ve been friends with Jack for twenty years, so don’t take anything I say about him personally. We like to wind each other up.’

  ‘Is that why he told me you were a sad alco who needed a break?’

  ‘He’s such a bitch.’

  She smiled. I smiled.

  I said, ‘I’m heading out myself. Can I give you a lift back to the station?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thank you, I’ve the car with me.’

  ‘The silver one?’ I asked.

  She looked suitably surprised. ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘I know many things,’ I said, cryptically.

  She stood her ground. ‘No, really, how do you know?’

  ‘Relax, it was an educated guess. Last year, sixty per cent of new cars bought in the UK, including that part of Ireland that will always be British, were silver. I have an endless amount of such trivia in my head.’

  ‘But why would you even say that? I might have been up all night worrying about how you would know.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m very good at keeping women up all night,’ I said.

  She gave me a tight smile. ‘Hard to believe,’ she said.

  7

  ‘Hey!’

  I had just locked the front door of the office and was turning away when the voice stopped me and I turned to find the butcher from the butcher’s standing in his doorway, mid-fifties, stripy apron matching his stripy awning. Bald head, toothy grin, sawdust on his loafers.

  ‘Catch!’

  He threw something and I caught it, a reflex action. In Belfast you should never catch things people throw at you. This was a white plastic bag, nipped with a tiny ribbon of harder red plastic at the top. Within: what I hoped were cold thick sausages.

  ‘Oh – thanks. I . . .?’

  ‘You’re new, upstairs.’

  ‘Yeah. Six weeks.’

  He’d served me twice in the shop, but I suppose one customer looks pretty much like another.

  ‘A private eye.’

  ‘No, I . . .’

  ‘That’s your commission.’

  I blinked at him. I lived in a city more familiar with decommission.

  ‘I don’t under . . .?’

  ‘Yer man Jack Caramac off the radio was in the shop yesterday, hanging around waiting to be recognised. When nobody did, he said who he was and that you’d recommended us. He was angling for free sausages. I don’t give free sausages to no one.’

  ‘You just gave . . .’

  ‘Like I say, commission. Eventually he bought some, and he must’ve liked them ’cos he was raving about them on his show this morning, gave us a name check’n all. Been busier than usual all day. So cheers.’

  He gave me a wink.

  I said, ‘Cheers, mate, and thanks for the sausages.’

  I’ve always had a soft spot for the Shankill Road, even though it’s hard as nails. One and a half miles of arterial road through a twenty-five-thousand-strong Unionist working-class ghetto. It’s one of the few places you can still buy a pasty, rather than a panini or a panacotta without them looking at you like you’re a fucking space cadet. The Shankill bore the brunt of, and equally was responsible for, some of the worst violence of the Troubles. Paramilitaries ruled it, and they still do, only they’ve transmogrified from Loyalist freedom fighters financing their struggle through robbery, drugs, protection and murder into gangsters who finance their lifestyles through robbery, drugs, protection and murder. They justify their continued existence in the face of widespread peace by occasionally rolling out their flags and yelling about their loyalty to the Queen and the imminent danger of a Republican uprising. Republicans usually oblige by shooting someone. It is the gangster equivalent of fixing the market. It works equally well for both sides.

  I turned off the West Link and spent fifteen minutes driving around reacquainting myself with the area. It used to be one giant slum, rows and rows of crummy terraces designed to squeeze in as many workers from the old linen mills as inhumanely possible. They’re gone now, the mills flattened and the houses bulldozed to make way for wider streets and modern, neat grey-brick houses, nearly every one of which now boasts a satellite dish. It gives the impression of a vastly improved lifestyle. But it’s just another PR job, stone cladding over rising damp. Community workers will tell you that it is still one of the most socially disadvantaged areas in Europe – the very same community workers who aren’t long out of pokey themselves for helping to make it one of the most socially disadvantaged areas in Europe.

  Shankill Road PSNI Station is actually just off the Shankill Road in the inaptly named Snugville Street. It is known locally as Comanche Station. In the dark days its inhabitants always preferred to fight fire with fire. Not exactly taking no prisoners, but taking them and then beating their heads till they talked. These days you have to be a bit more circumspect, but for all the softly-softly edicts about community policing coming out of HQ, on the Shankill you still need to be able to kick arse or you’re dead in the water, often literally. In other parts of Belfast, beat bobbies patrol the streets on bicycles. If you tried that on the Shankill, you’d be on stabilisers for life.

  In the old days, if something happened, you could just wander into Comanche Station and get the facts first hand; you could hang out, exchange info and gossip. Now you have to call the press office at HQ, and they get back to you with a sanitised version of a sanitised version; it’s depressing and half the reason I knocked straight news journalism on the head. Back then, the station was as dark and doomy as Mordor. Now it looks more like the regional office of a moderately successful insurance company.

  I drove past and turned back on to the Shankill and parked. There’s a café a few doors up from West Kirk Presbyterian Church. I went in and ordered a pot of tea and three German biscuits. I studied my notes for ten minutes and glanced at my watch. Then he came in, and he wasn’t alone.

  ‘Maxi,’ I said, ‘how’re you doing?’

  ‘Starkey,’ he said, ‘long time no see.’

  In my prime, I never would have called him by his first name. Maxi McDowell was a thirty-year veteran, a desk sergeant nobody dared cross, inside or outside of the station. He was the only cop in north and west Belfast who didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was a cop when he arrived for work; who parked his own car outside his own station and never worried that someone would try and blow it up, either with him in it or not. They knew it would only make him angry. Of all the contacts I had had in Comanche Station, he was the only one still working. Just about.

  ‘My last week,’ he said, ‘and then I get to put my size twelves up for good. That’s why I’ve brought DS Hood. Gary Hood.’

  I nodded at him. ‘Good name,’ I said.

  Hood gave me a wan smile. He was clean cut, early thirties, smart suit.

  ‘Heard them all before,’ he said.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ said Maxi, ‘though obviously I won’t say that to his face.’

  Maxi poured tea for the both of them. Then he picked up a biscuit and admired it. ‘I wonder how many of these I’ve had down the years? It’s all fucking energy bars now, isn’t it?’

  Hood said, ‘What’s this about? Journalists are supposed to go through—’

  ‘Easy, tiger,’ said Maxi. ‘I told you, Dan’s an old friend. Or enemy. I can’t quite remember which.’

  ‘Somewhere in the middle,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yeah. That sounds about right. Pain in the hole you were, Starkey, but you always stood your ground. And your round, as I recall. So. You were kind of vague on the phone about what you’re into these days.’

  ‘Well, it is kind o
f vague.’

  ‘Then tell me about Jack Caramac; what’s that fucker gotten himself into? I remember him when he was plain old Jack Cairnduff. He was a shite reporter then and he hasn’t improved much since. Done well for himself, mind, have to give him that.’

  ‘He’s being threatened. Him and his kid. For obvious reasons he doesn’t want to go through you lot. I’m just trying to work out who it might be, and why.’

  ‘I would think the why is fricking obvious. He’s an annoying fat prick.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s the nature of his show. I’ve been going through the transcripts, and the one that sticks out is this young fella, Bobby Murray.’

  ‘Bobby Murray,’ said Hood, shaking his head.

  ‘Bobby Murray,’ said Maxi, ‘deserves everything he gets. And then some. He should consider himself lucky he only lost the one leg.’

  ‘Ah well,’ I said, ‘he’s somebody’s son.’

  Maxi rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus, don’t get me started on that old bag! Thirty years of shite I’ve put up with, and she’s the one driving me to retirement. Never out of the shop, complaining about this, that and everything to do with her wee fucking sunbeam.’

  Bobby Murray himself wasn’t that important. He was fourteen, mixed up in the usual kid things, but with a Shankill twist. He hung out with his gang, he drank, took drugs, he dealt a little, he fell out with his supplier, his supplier was in the UVF, he got threatened, he was told to leave the area, he refused, he got beaten up and told to leave again, he stayed, so they kneecapped him. Blood poisoning set in, he lost a leg. It’s a common enough story. The Shankill Limp is a familiar sight all over the city.

  There are a hundred Bobbys on the Shankill, but they don’t all have a mother like Jean Murray. He wasn’t quite the apple of her eye, but he wasn’t entirely rotten either. She wanted to know why in this supposed peacetime the members of the UVF whom ‘everyone’ knew were responsible for her son’s shooting hadn’t been picked up by the police, why they were still allowed to walk the streets. When she didn’t get satisfactory answers, she decided her only course of action was publicity, and there was no better conduit than that self-proclaimed people’s champion, Jack Caramac.

  Most of the things Jack talks about usually enjoy a two- or three-day run, but this one seemed to prick the public’s imagination, and his own. He interviewed her on the phone, he brought her into the studio, he kept it going, and going, and going, for months, switching between lambasting the police for doing nothing and the UVF for exercising gun law over the poor downtrodden people. After a while it seemed that Jean had become the Shankill correspondent of the Jack Caramac show; and maybe she grew to like it a little too much.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Maxi said, ‘I wish Jack Caramac would shut the fuck up. He hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about. He calls us all the names of the day, so he does, and we have to sit here and take it. Dan, you can’t just fly in and round up the usual suspects these days; you need evidence, you need multiple witnesses, you need the weapon, the DNA. These guys, if they do something, they’re power-hosed, bleached and lawyered up before you can even type search warrant. And yes, she may know exactly who did it, but do you think her wee Bobby’s gonna stand up in court and point them out? You honestly think he’d live that long? Besides, with his record for dishonesty, he wouldn’t have a fucking leg to stand on. So to speak.’

  ‘And the thing that pisses us off,’ said Hood, pointing half a biscuit at me for emphasis, ‘is that Jack Caramac knows all this damn well. He’s just stirring the pot for badness.’

  We talked on for another twenty minutes, but pretty quickly it got back to Maxi reminiscing about the good old bad old days. I’d heard it all before, and so, clearly, had Hood. He began checking the text messages on his phone. When I eventually steered Maxi back round to the matter at hand, he gave me a couple of names of people I should talk to and then we left Hood to settle the bill – which he didn’t look too enamoured with – and dandered back towards my car.

  ‘How’s the missus, Dan?’ Maxi asked.

  ‘Fine and dandy,’ I said.

  ‘That bad?’

  I gave him my shrug and said: ‘Can’t imagine you retired. What’re you going to do with yourself?’

  ‘I’m going to sit on my arse and do bugger-all.’ He laughed. ‘The wife’s picked out a wee place up the coast; we’ll be up there by the weekend. Always been a city boy, but it’s all changed round here. Maybe get myself a fishing rod. Or maybe get my hands on some Semtex, catch them in half the time.’

  I hadn’t actually heard anyone say Semtex in years.

  ‘Go for it,’ I said. ‘What about yer man?’ I thumbed back towards the café. ‘Child protégé?’

  ‘Ah, he’s not a bad kid, Dan. When he joined, he was as straight as a Methodist hymn book and I got about as much joy out of him. But he’s learning, and I think he’ll be okay. I’ll text you his mobile number. Keep him in the picture, and you never know.’ Maxi thrust his hands into his pockets and gave a slight shake of his head. ‘I didn’t think you had much time for Jack Caramac.’

  ‘I don’t. But it’s a job, and there’s the kid involved. Hate that.’

  ‘Aye. Fair enough. I remember your wee one.’

  I nodded.

  We arrived at my car. It was a Range Rover, black, and had once been pretty sleek. It was another smuggled-away reward from Belfast Confidential’s glory days. Maxi’s eyes roved over the empty tax disc holder. He kicked lightly at a tyre. I’m sure he noticed the lack of tread. He smiled back at me.

  ‘Dan – word of advice. I know you’ve been out of it for a while, but don’t be fooled into thinking this peace shite means anything up here. Our pals in the balaclavas, maybe they were fighting for something once, but they’re doing it for themselves now, and they’re not even that bothered about the balaclavas any more. They always were a bunch of fucking animals, but in the old days they wouldn’t have dared touch a journalist; now they’ll fucking torch you as soon as look at you. So if you start asking questions, prepare for the worst.’

  ‘Bear it in mind,’ I said.

  8

  Dewey Street is just a few twists and turns away from Comanche Station. Jean Murray’s Housing Executive semi featured brand-new double glazing, with wire-mesh security grilles and scorch marks up the brickwork. There was one security camera facing down above the front door, and another covering the tiny garden. There were probably others around the back. As I parked outside, I saw a couple of kids sitting on a wall opposite. Teenagers. One skateboard between them. Cropped hair, neck chains, trackies, trainers, sullen looks. I nodded over and they nodded back. When I walked up to the front door and rang the bell, one of them shouted, ‘Whaddya want with that cunt?’

  I said, ‘A cunt’s a useful thing.’

  They were still thinking about that when a man’s gruff and tobacco-thick voice said over the intercom, ‘What?’

  I said, ‘Hi, ahm, my name’s Dan Starkey . . . I’m working for the Jack Caramac show. Would it be possible to talk to Jean Murray?’

  ‘You’re talking to her.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d heard her on the radio and knew her voice was deep, but this was much further down the scale. ‘Sorry, the speaker . . . Anyway, could I have a word?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’d really prefer to do it without the neighbours listening in.’

  After a moment she said, ‘How do I know you’re not sent from them to shut me up?’

  ‘Ahm, you don’t.’

  ‘You have ID from the station?’

  ‘Sorry, don’t have any. Jack’s employing me privately.’

  ‘So how do I know?’

  ‘You don’t. Don’t I look trustworthy?’

  I beamed up at the camera. Something that was halfway between a snort and a laugh came out of the box, and thirty seconds later I heard a single bolt being drawn back and the front door opened. Jean Murray was standing there, cropped red hair, freckled, housecoat, sl
ippers, fag hanging out of her mouth.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve a stupid cold, my voice has gone.’

  I said, ‘Shouldn’t you have better, bigger deadbolts than that?’

  ‘Aye, you would think that, but they tell me if a petrol bomb comes through the windies, you’re not going to want to spend ten minutes trying to get out of the house. It’s half a dozen of one, about four of the other. Come on in.’ She stood to one side, and I moved past her. She stepped back into the doorway and glowered at the kids across the road. ‘Why don’t youse go and play outside your own house?’ she yelled.

  ‘Fuck off, tout!’ one shouted back.

  ‘Fuck off yourselves!’ Jean yelled and slammed the door shut.

  Jean showed me into a front room. Although it was still early afternoon, she had three lamps on to counteract the filtering effect of the security grilles. There was a large TV with an untidy pile of DVDs beside it. A leather sofa and chair with what looked like cigarette burns and dotted with used tissues. A hearth with a lit gas fire, and above it half a dozen framed photos of a boy, taking him from a rotund baby on to primary school, cherub-faced and smiling, and then one for each year of secondary school. These later ones showed the biggest changes – from slightly chubby in a neat uniform with a tidy hairstyle to beanpole, ragged tie, greasy hair and acne. You could see it in his eyes, too: from innocence to defiance.

  ‘This Bobby?’ I asked.

  ‘Robert. Yes.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Shooting people.’ She thumbed above her. ‘On the Xbox upstairs. You’d think he’d have had enough of guns, but he’s at it all day. Zombies, mostly.’

  ‘Not at school?’

  ‘Well his attendance was random at the best of times, but he hasn’t been back since . . . all this shite started.’

  ‘I understand you’re a single parent, but was there a Mr Murray?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but Mr Murray skedaddled years ago. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘No. No. Thank you.’

  She sat on the single chair. She lit another cigarette. ‘Suppose you’ve come to break the news; Jack’s throwing the towel in as well? Fucking typical.’