And before the full import of what I'd said dawned on me he drew a Samurai sword from within his overalls and lopped off my head with a single swipe.
I woke up in a yellowy room. The sun had penetrated the thin lace curtains and had combined with the ceiling to imbue it with a sick, jaundiced glow. I sat at the edge of the bed. I was still fully clothed. I looked at my hands. There was an almost imperceptible shake. I made tight fists of them, squeezing until my muscles ached and my fingernails had bitten into my palms. Then I said a prayer. It went: God bless Patricia. God bless Margaret. After a pause I added: God bless Parker.
It was 12.30.I had slept through breakfast. But there was no hunger, not even the welcoming rumble of a hangover, just a numbness like someone had removed my stomach during the night but the anaesthetic hadn't yet worn off.
There were no in-room facilities. There was a bathroom at the end of the corridor. As I approached it the door opened and a young man about my age emerged. His hair was shaggy from drying it without the benefit of a comb; he'd used henna on it, and that and his sharp features made him look fox-wily ... He was wearing a deep-blue suit; the top button of his white shirt was buttoned but he held a thin, crumpled-looking pink tie in his hand.
He looked up and apologized for nearly colliding with me, went to walk on and then turned back.
'Uh, mate, you wouldn't know how to tie a tie, would you?'
He held the tie up to me.
I shook my head. 'Sorry, mate, I can just about manage my shoes.'
He shook his head and laughed. 'I've been at this for half an hour. I've tried everything, but it's determined not to sit right. I nearly bloody hung myself at the last attempt. Sure you can do nothing for me?'
'I'll give it a go if you want, but I warn you your head may come off in the process.'
He put the tie around his neck and handed me both ends of it. He smelt clean and fresh and his eyes shone.
'What's the big occasion then?' I asked. He didn't look comfortable in the suit. It was contradictory clothing: old but seldom worn or new but out of fashion. The sort of suit a man would buy based on something he had spotted while trying to find the problem page in a three-year-old women's magazine in a dentist's surgery he was visiting to have an abscess drained.
'Meeting the wife for lunch. We split up about six weeks ago. She's had me living in this fuckin' dump ever since. I'm hoping we'll get back together.' Realizing perhaps that he had somehow compromised his manly pride, he added with a conspiratorial wink, 'I'm not that worried about her, but I really miss the record collection.'
I finished the tie as best I could. He thanked me profusely and walked off with something that looked like a contortionist's gay octopus friend knotted about his neck.
I showered and shaved and then returned to my room and spent the afternoon looking out at the traffic buzzing along the Malone Road. It had the reputation of being one of Northern Ireland's richest areas, but most of the real money had long since fled to the country, or fled the country itself for that matter. Most of the money and all of the brains were located in England now. I had palpably shown over the past few days that I had neither and was stuck here for good. That small yellow room, given a set of bars could be my prison cell. Home for eternity. Maybe I would be okay. I'd been there for hours already and I wasn't feeling claustrophobic at all.
During the afternoon the guesthouse owner made polite inquiries about my plans, as I was two hours past the checking-out time. I paid her for another night and she thanked me profusely and said she hoped my recuperation from the car crash would be without mishap. I began to feel that I'd been playing the car crash thing up a little too much. She said what a nice black man Parker was just before leaving the room.
Parker, the nice black man, had still not returned by tea time so I made my way downstairs to the dining room. There were three tables, each with four seats. My friend with the pink tie but now without the pink tie was sitting by himself at a table by the window and I sat down opposite him, taking care to sit with my elbow propping my head inward, away from any curious passers-by.
'AH right? How's it going?' He asked.
'Not bad, thanks. How about you? How'd your lunch go?'
He'd lost the suit as well. He wore a pair of black jeans and a black pullover with a little yacht motif over his left nipple. He shrugged. 'Okay, I suppose.' He looked a bit down in the mouth.
'But you're still here.'
'Yeah, well, you take these things slowly, you know?'
'Yeah.'
'It was quite nice really. There was no arguing, no cursing, no violence. The last time that happened she didn't turn up.'
'Sounds hopeful, anyway,' I said.
He made a bit of a face. 'I wouldn't go that far. She's seein' another fella . . .'
'Oh, I'm sorry, I. . .'
'Never worry about it. It doesn't bother me. I follow this philosophy where I don't allow anger or jealousy to cloud my thought processes. I picked it up in the East.'
'What, like in India or Nepal or something?'
'Nah, East Belfast. It's called the philosophy of who gives a fuck?' He said it straight-faced, but I could tell he was suppressing a cackle. I wondered what he would make of my marital troubles.
The guesthouse owner shuffled over and handed me a threadbare menu which told me what I was having rather than giving me a choice.
I ordered pork chops after a suitable minute of rumination. My friend ordered his. Rather perplexingly there was no boiled cabbage available, yet its aura hung over the dining room like a shroud.
'Paul Cook,' I said, reaching across to shake his hand.
'Lenny Morrison. Local?' He asked Ish.'
'You look like you've had a hard time.'
'Aye, the bruises are starting to go down, thank God. Car crash.'
'Jesus. You go through the window or something?'
'Nah, I was in the back seat. Headbutted the guy in front of me when we crashed.'
'Tough. You working?'
'On and off. Mechanic. In a garage. When they need me.'
'So I'll know who to bring the wagon to in the future?'
'Any time. What about you?'
'Civil servant. Same as most everyone else in this bloody country.' He laughed and then leant back from the table as his food was set down. As I moved back to allow the woman to set mine down I glanced across at the couple on my right. They looked to be in their sixties but may not have spoken since their thirties. They had the bluff red faces of country folk, he with exasperated wrinkles round his eyes that told of his annoyance at having to come up to the city to complete some farming transaction, she with the close-cut but still jagged white hair you get in a hill-farming community that has still not succumbed to the blue rinse. She was studying a knitting pattern set at the side of her plate, her meal half finished. He had cleared his plate and was intently studying an inside page of that evening's Belfast Telegraph, holding it up so that his wife could not see him. I was so intent on studying my neighbours that it was some moments before my eyes focused on the front page of the newspaper, and in particular on the picture of my wife. The headline read: MURDER SUSPECT MISSING AFTER GUN BATTLE.
A shiver ran through me. Footsteps on the grave. I leant over to read the story but as I did the man pulled the front page back towards him and stared at me. I sat back and gave him a little grin. He folded the paper so that it made a neat square he could set down beside his plate. I felt like reaching over and ripping it away from him.
'Friendly soul, isn't he?' Lenny said quietly.
'Probably just looking at the pictures,' I replied, just a little too loud. The farmer's face went slightly redder and I could see he was staring a little too intently at the paper to be really taking anything in. His wife's eyes flicked up at him, darted across to me and a slight smirk appeared on her lips; she went back to studying her knitting pattern.
'I have a paper upstairs if you want one,' Lenny said.
We finished our mea
l and he took me up to his room. There were newspapers and magazines scattered everywhere and his clothes were strewn about the room.
'Sorry about the mess. Pauline used to look after everything. I never was house trained.'
I sat down on the edge of his bed while he rummaged down the other side, against the wall, finally emerging with a crumpled version of that evening's paper.
He handed it to me and said: 'Doing anything tonight? You don't fancy going out for a drink? This place is driving me up the walls.'
I would have loved a drink. A lot of drink. I shook my head. 'Sorry, mate, love to, but I'm waiting for someone. Another time, eh?'
I took the paper back to my room and smoothed the front page out on my bed.
The photo of Patricia had been taken from her parents' house and dated back to the days before we were married. Young, free, single and alive, nothing she could put a claim on that day. She looked very pretty. Beneath the broadsheet's fold there was a much smaller picture of me. It appeared to be a poor reproduction of the picture used to head my column in the Evening News; doubtless the News would have printed the original. Still, it could have been worse: my face didn't cover more than a single column, black and white and my nose had to be seen in three dimensions to be unappreciated. A caption beneath it read simply: Police are also seeking journalist Daniel Starkey.
The news about Patricia had obviously just broken. With an exclusive tagged over it, it said that Patricia Starkey, who was being sought by police in connection with the McGarry double murder, had been abducted by person or persons unknown following a gun battle in Portstewart. Her parents were being treated for shock but were otherwise uninjured. She was described as a twenty-eight-year-old civil servant who had no known connection with paramilitary organizations nor a previous criminal record. 'She is the wife of Dan Starkey, a reporter and columnist on another Belfast newspaper whom police also wish to question.' There was a number of quotes from neighbours in Portstewart who had heard shots being fired and seen Patricia dragged screaming into a car, but nothing from her parents. There was no police substantiation on why they wanted to question her. Nothing, yet, about a love triangle. God, how they would have loved a love triangle. You never got love triangles in Northern Ireland, just endlessly repetitive murders which were written up to formula by bored reporters. Maybe if I'd worked at it I could have come up with a love rhombohedron. This reporter suggested that the abduction could be connected to a long-running feud between Protestant terror groups which had plagued the north-west of the Province over the past year. It recalled, helpfully, that previous abductions had resulted in the hooded corpses of the abductees being found several days later.
The bulk of the rest of the story concentrated on the double murder itself, the Telegraph having been well beaten to that one by the morning papers, and speculation on why it might have happened. It had clearly been written by a different reporter before the news about Patricia broke. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary the blame was laid clearly at the feet of the paramilitaries, although as the McGarrys were an Alliance family and were clearly neither Loyalist nor Republican, neither grouping was singled out as guilty. It was padded out with more of the usual condemnations from all shades of political and religious opinion. An opinion column on page three castigated the terrorists for carrying out such dastardly murders in a deliberate attempt to cause the maximum amount of heartbreak and upset in the days before the elections.
I lay back on the bed and took several deep breaths; they were hard to come by; it felt like there was an acorn lodged in my windpipe.
A number of things were clear from the story. Patricia was alive when she was abducted. The police had been closing in on her and were also after me. Nobody had any idea what any of it meant, but they thought it might have something to do with the elections. I agreed. I had no idea what it meant either.
The phone beside my bed rang suddenly, like they do, jolting me out of my thoughts. A young girl's voice. 'Mr Cook?'
'What?'
'Mr Cook?'
'Oh. Yeah.'
'This is Janice from downstairs.'
'Downstairs?'
'The manageress. Janice. There's a Mr Al Jolson down here asking for you. Is it okay to send him up?'
13
Parker didn't look anything like Al Jolson. For a start, Al Jolson was white.
Parker was far from white, although when he entered the room there was a desperate hint of paleness about him.
'Have you any idea how difficult it is to lose people in this city when you're my colour?' He asked. He sat on the bed, pushing the newspaper onto the floor. Little beads of sweat stood out on his brow and he was making a concerted effort to take shallow breaths which were barely enough to sustain life. He took three or four major breaths, held the last, then exhaled slowly. 'Four hours ago I left the hotel to come here and I've been dodging shadows ever since.'
I sat on the windowsill with my back to the Malone Road. There was a quiet hum of traffic behind me. 'You're not getting paranoid, Parker, are you?'
'Even...'
'Don't say it.'
T know I was followed, Starkey. You're big news.'
'Patricia?'
'Sorry. Nothing.'
'Oh, well,' I said. And dryly: 'No news is good news.'
'So they say.'
Parker didn't actually have to do any legwork of his own to find out what was going on. They'd queued at his door.
Neville Maxwell was the first to get to him. He was all flustered. He insisted that Parker make no mention in any of his stories that he had been accompanied to the meeting with Brinn by me. Parker nodded without promising anything.
'He seemed very jumpy. Too jumpy.'
'He doesn't like bad PR.'
'No. It was more than that. Jumpy.'
'You've never met the man, Parker. He could always be like that.'
'You have - is he?'
'Well - no. But I don't know him that well.'
'When I told him about being shot at he said something very curious.'
'Like?'
' "There's something very curious going on."'
'That is curious.'
'I'm serious.'
'I know.'
'Sometimes I can't tell when you're being serious.'
'I know. It's curious.'
'When he said, "There's something very curious going on," he didn't say it to me, it was an aside really, to himself. People who talk to themselves worry me. Either way, he wouldn't elaborate on it.'
'He asked you where I was, of course.'
'Of course. I said you'd run off after the gunfire and I'd no idea where you were.'
'And he believed you?'
'He didn't seem concerned. He said you'd be picked up one way or another. Oh yeah - he said he hoped it would be by the police. That mean anything to you?'
'I presume he means the same people who got Patricia might be after me.'
'That's what I reckoned. He recommended that I leave the country. He said things would probably get worse before they got better.'
'I don't think they can get much worse.'
'I don't think he particularly meant for you. He implied that I was in some danger myself.'
'So you're taking him up on his recommendation?'
'What do you think?'
'I don't know. That's why I'm asking.'
'I think he's trying to scare me off so I won't write about the lunch with Brinn or look any further into this thing.'
'So you're staying.'
'I can't go back with a half-written story, Starkey.'
'Good.'
'Then I had the Royal Ulster Constabulary come visit. They interviewed me for about an hour and a half. They were perfectly pleasant.'
'That's always a bit worrying.'
‘I know. They made it quite plain that they thought I knew where you were. The senior officer, a captain, I think, or what is it, a detective inspector? He warned me that I could be kept in
custody for up to seven days and then be charged with withholding information. The other guy kind of spoilt the threat by saying that of course as an American citizen they wouldn't do that to me. The captain gave him a withering look.'
Parker began rummaging in his inside jacket pocket. He produced a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to me. 'Then I had a reporter, said he worked with you. Mike Magee mean anything to you? Gave me this number and said it was important that you call him.'
'Important for me or for him?'
'A bit of both, I suspect. He seemed genuine enough.'
'I hate genuine. It's so false. Magee works with me on the News. But he also does some stuff for Maxwell.'
'So then I got followed.'
Maxwell, police and Magee, or representatives of such?' Parker shrugged. 'Magee I spotted. Police, I think, out of uniform.'
'Difficult to miss.'
'Like myself. And skinheads. Skinheads everywhere. I couldn't make up my mind whether they were following me because of this business or because I'm black. Or both, the way things are going.'
'Don't worry about the skinheads. By and large they're not as dangerous as they look. You can spend your life crossing roads to avoid them, then some twit in a nice blazer with a college scarf round his neck flattens you. You've heard of lager louts? It's the Liebfraumilch louts you've to watch out for.'
Parker looked up at me, squinting slightly as the dying sun's rays invaded the room around me through a late break in the clouds. 'Why do I get the impression that you're thinking up bright comments for your column as you go along? You're not in a very funny situation, Starkey.'
'It's the only thing that keeps me sane, Parker. And if it was happening to someone else, it would be very funny. In a tragic sort of way.'
'It takes a remarkable man to keep smiling through this, Starkey.'
I shrugged.
'Or a very sick one,' he added.
Parker brought a number of things back with him. He had a copy of the Evening News. Its story was much the same as the Telegraph's only it made even less of my involvement and there was no photo of me even though they had access to dozens. The editor. Big Frank, had not flinched in the past from making capital out of colleagues who got into trouble, so I could only hope that he had held off using my picture out of some kind of particular loyalty to me or perhaps in the hope that I would reveal all to him when the time was right. Either way it gave me a little extra time the police would doubtless have a photo, and if they had terrorists would have one, but at least I didn't have to worry yet about some idiot trying to make a citizen's arrest.
Divorcing Jack Page 10
