Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  He also brought a change of clothes, washing materials, and three six-packs of Harp. For himself he had brought half a dozen bottles of Rolling Rock. We sat and drank.

  He said: 'You can't stay here for ever.'

  'I know. Just tonight. Tomorrow I start finding out what's going on.'

  'And how do you do that?'

  ‘I was thinking about it this afternoon. The one clue we have to go on is that last thing Margaret said to me. Divorce Jack. We've got to find out who Jack is.'

  'You think it's that important?'

  'It was the last thing she said on this planet. It has to be.'

  'It could be gibberish. You don't know what goes through a person's mind when they're just about to die.'

  'It has to be important. What else have we got?'

  'If only she'd said "Klatu barada nikto" we could have blamed it on aliens and been done with it.'

  'The Day the Earth Stood Still?'

  'The same. Then I'd really have a story.'

  'This isn't getting us anywhere.'

  'I know. So how do we find out about Jack?'

  'I'll phone Magee tonight. But you go and meet him. I'll tell him it's too dangerous for me to come out of hiding. If he's assigned to the murders then he'll have done some work on Margaret's background; see if there's a Jack in there somewhere, without letting on that you're that interested. I'll take a dander round her university, see if I can track down any of her friends.'

  'Is it not too dangerous to go out, Starkey?'

  'I'm going to have to do something about my appearance.'

  I stood up from the windowsill and crossed to a cracked mirror set in the gloomy alcove above the dressing table. I was still bruised about the face, but the swelling had gone down considerably. I reached up and pulled my hair tight back against my skull. 'You think I'd look good as a skinhead, Parker?'

  'Well, you wouldn't look any worse.'

  'Thanks. Margaret once said I reminded her of James Stewart.'

  Parker looked incredulously at me. 'I suppose you do. If you're mad.'

  'I'll need some denims. Jacket and trousers. Old. You can get me some in the morning from a charity shop, okay?'

  'Okay.'

  'And no flares on the trousers. I'm not wearing flares.'

  'You're a murderer on the run. You can't afford to be fashion conscious.'

  'I can and I will. I'm not wearing flares for the same reason I won't get a curly perm in my hair.'

  'Which is?'

  'I'd look like a spastic'

  I borrowed some scissors from downstairs and went into the shared bathroom to cut my hair. It's impossible to give yourself a proper skinhead without a set of shears, but I gave it a good go. When I had finished my hair was short and tufty and I looked as if I was suffering from radiation sickness. But at least I looked a little bit less like the Dan Starkey everyone knew and loved.

  As I was leaving Lenny was coming up the corridor. He said: 'Jesus, I'd see a barber about your head, mate. Did you fall and break your hair or something?'

  'Very funny.'

  He had a towel in his hand. He said: 'You finished in here? Going for my weekly bath.'

  'Sure. Go ahead. Did you not go out?'

  Aye, I did, but you know what Belfast's like during the week. Dead as a doornail.'

  I smiled and let him pass. I lingered outside my room until he locked the bathroom door and then walked down the corridor to see if he'd left his door unlocked. I tried the handle. The door opened and I peered in. The room was in darkness. I switched the light on and went in. I was pleased to see that he'd tidied it up a bit. Boredom had never yet driven me to tidiness, but each to his own. I found what I was looking for on the floor beside his bed: a bottle of henna for my hair. The final touch. His suit was on a hanger behind the door. I checked the pockets and found his wallet. I pulled out his driving licence and studied the photograph; it was fuzzy and indistinct and could have been anyone. I stuck the licence in my pocket and put the wallet back. He only had ten pounds in it, which I left, so that he could buy himself a new bottle of henna.

  Later, when I'd reoccupied the bathroom and dyed what was left of my hair, Parker gave me a once-over. 'You've managed to dye part of your skin as well,' he said. He reached across and rubbed some colour from below my ear. Then he examined his fingers, rubbing the dye between them. 'You looked like you were wearing make-up, Starkey. Terrorist face powder. Or Khmer Rouge.' He smiled broadly.

  'We'll make a writer out of you yet, Al,' I said and went to admire myself in the mirror.

  'You look like a punker.'

  'A punker? You mean a punk, I take it.'

  'Whatever. A sick punk.'

  'I don't care if I look like Winnie the Pooh, just as long as I don't look like Dan Starkey.'

  'You look like a punk version of Dan Starkey. But you might get away with it if they don't look too closely.'

  After he was gone I prayed for Patricia and asked God to lead me to Jack. He didn't reply, but then He was probably busy moving in mysterious ways. Up there, He was probably having a good giggle.

  14

  There is no experience quite like walking the streets as a fugitive. Fear claws at your heart like a circus tiger claws at its trainer, closer, closer each time, until one day, in an unguarded moment, it strikes home. How to be alert, yet natural. Assume everyone is your enemy, and friend. Everyone recognizes you but nobody knows you. A friendly smile is a knowing smile. A blank expression is a mask of fear. The pump of a horn is a signal. The screech of brakes an ambush.

  In fact, all eyes were upon me, because I looked so bloody ridiculous. Parker hadn't done too bad a job with the denims. Although the trousers clearly weren't flares they were somewhat less than straight: bell-bottoms was the term they were afflicted with in their heyday. He found them in a nearly-new shop on the Sandy Row, and knowing that part of the city well, I could easily believe that they were. Fashion and thuggery have never gone hand in hand. My hair had not benefited further from a fitful night's sleep. It looked like toffee poured into an icicle mould, brittle and unwieldy. The bruising on my face, all but invisible in the yellowed light of my room, was more noticeable, but ignored, as most everyone was too busy looking at my jaggedy hair. My skin was pale and chalky and my eyes red from an alcohol sleep. They wouldn't have sold me glue in a DIY shop.

  I didn't check out. I just walked out. Parker, off to meet Magee, had a good laugh at me and disappeared with my decent clothes.

  Although it was before eleven the sun was blazing down as I took my first tentative steps along the Malone Road. It was the first time it had really felt like summer: car windows were down; T-shirts were on; summer frocks were being taken out of mothballs on the Sandy Row. By the seaside the last candyfloss seller in Ireland would be rubbing his hands. His day had come. It was the sort of day when anyone would feel good to be alive. Depressing, really, under the circumstances.

  The McGarry murders had dropped to second place on the morning news: eight British soldiers had been killed when a lorry full of explosives exploded while passing a foot patrol in South Armagh; the driver, whose wife was held hostage while he was forced to drive his lorry past them, was blown to bits. It was the biggest single army loss for a couple of years and the news bulletin was extended to cover it. The McGarry murder story was little more than a re-hash of the night before. Margaret and her mum were to be buried the next day. Elsewhere overnight there had been rioting in West Belfast following the arrest of two Sinn Fein party workers out canvassing and three Loyalist bombers had escaped following a firebomb attack on a Dublin shopping centre because the Garda still refused to carry guns. The elections were nine days away. The Government had sanctioned an unprecedented weekend election to allow absolutely everyone the opportunity to vote at least once. Brinn was still well ahead in the opinion polls. His position, if anything, had been strengthened by the McGarry murders.

  The further I walked, the more confident I became, Keith Moon on my hea
rt began to ease off. People were looking at me slantily, glancing at my hair, my bruising, but being careful not to catch my eye; when they walked on most bore little smirks on their faces that said: ha, the fallacy of youth, but there was no hint of recognition, no flicker of fear. I walked past Queen’s University, looking dowdy in the sun, it’s old red brick walls smudged black by pollution, it’s lawns neglected by students now that the exams were finished, only the strawberries of graduation ahead.

  I stepped into a taxi at the bottom of Great Victoria Street feeling pretty proud of myself. I had passed two police foot patrols and neither had given me so much as a second glance.

  I shut the door and the Belle of Belfast City turned to me and said: 'What the fuck do you want?'

  I went to open the door again, my heart in my mouth, but when I looked at her there was no hint of recognition in her eyes; it wasn't even anger; it was just her way.

  'I want to go up to Jordanstown.'

  'You got money?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Let's see it.'

  I showed her a fiver. She started the engine, looked back. 'I've been ripped off by too many of you bastards.'

  'Not me,' I said as she swung out into oncoming traffic. A roar of horns.

  'Fuck off out of it, ya Fenian bastard!' She wailed out of her window.

  It wasn't difficult to track Margaret's friends down. A list of the geology department's end of term results was pinned to a notice board in the quiet main foyer of the university. She'd passed, which was slim compensation for being dead. I noted down the names and crossed to the Students' Union where I was referred to an accommodation officer who was already working on the next term's housing shortage.

  He was podgy. He had calculated that a black polo neck and black jeans with a two-day stubble would make him look cool but he had missed by a mile, although I was nobody to pass comment. He was maybe twenty-six and he had that relaxed air of somebody prepared to be an eternal student. I knocked on the table he was working at, his head down, double chins exposed. He looked up with a pained expression, mouthing a calculation. He said, 'Hold on,' went to write something down, then added, 'Oh fuck,' and put his pen down.

  'Hi, John,' I said.

  'Hi.' No recognition.

  'Like the hair?'

  He looked at the mess on my head and a smirk crept onto his face. He nodded. 'It's different,' he said. 'I'm sorry ... I. . . ?'

  'Sorry ... nobody's recognizing me like this ... it's my summer look ... Phil.. . Phil Cameron . .. You helped me with that grant down in the Holy Land last year. Remember, the ceiling?'

  He thought for a moment, nodding at the same time. 'Yeah, sure, yeah. What can I do for ya, Phil?'

  He motioned me into a plastic seat before him and I sat, leaning in towards him. I looked briefly behind me and then said in a low voice, 'It's terrible about Margaret, isn't it?'

  He leant forward, hooked already into my conspiratorial tone.

  'Jesus, I know. Desperate. A great wee girl she was.'

  'I've been walkin' around in a daze. How could anyone do that?'

  'It's a madhouse this place. Total bloody madhouse.'

  I sat back a fraction. 'Anyway, that's why I'm here.'

  He moved back a little himself, then forward again as if I was about to divulge some great secret.

  'You know the funeral's tomorrow?'

  'Yeah. I can't go. Wish I could.' It was a can't go which was a could go, but won't go.

  'No need, John. You know, she's gone now. It's only a ceremony, you know. But I thought it would be nice, you know, to get a wreath together and send it. As a mark of respect.'

  He nodded morbidly, his chins resting now on his folded hands. 'Yeah, just right. I think the university's sending one though. I hear most of the staff are going.'

  'Oh, I know that. I've been in touch with them. But I thought it would be nice to send a special one, you know, from her special friends, her classmates.'

  'Yeah, sure, of course. Good thinking.'

  'I'm sure they'd all like to contribute, John. The only thing is we've broken up for summer now and I didn't take any home addresses of the rest of the class. It's not the sort of thing you plan for really, is it?'

  'God, no. '

  'So I was talking to her tutor, and he suggested you'd probably have the addresses here.'

  'Yeah . . . yeah, we do . .. although, like, it's not really my place to give them out

  'I appreciate that, John. Do you want to check with her tutor? He said it'd be okay . . . it's just the urgency of it with the funeral tomorrow. It's a pity you can't go.'

  He looked thoughtful for a moment.

  'I have all the names here I think . . .'

  I handed him a sheet of paper onto which I'd hastily copied the names from the exam results. 'Only a dozen or so,' I said.

  He scanned the sheet. He nodded his head again, blew air out of his cheeks. 'Why the hell not,' he said finally and pushed himself back from the table, propelling himself across the room on the casters of his chair to a battered filing cabinet.

  Ten minutes later I had all the addresses I needed, and a five-pound contribution towards the wreath.

  He was very helpful, our John. I said: 'You couldn't do me a favour, could you?'

  An exasperated look. I smiled cheekily. 'Only a wee un. There's no way I'm going to get round all these people today if I'm hoofin' it. Any chance of borrowing a phone for ten minutes, so I can call them? And a bit of privacy to make the calls? I'm sure the university wouldn't object, under the circumstances.'

  Five minutes later he had me installed in a small office on the first floor of the Students' Union. It said Entertainments Officer on the door and there was something inscribed in Gaelic beneath it that had been partially scrawled over.

  There were sixteen names on the sheet and I spent ten minutes with a telephone book and Directory Enquiries matching them to numbers. The first three I called weren't in. The fourth was a girl called Stephanie Murphy.

  'Miss Murphy?'

  'Yes?'

  'Sorry to trouble you, Miss Murphy, this is Detective Inspector Boyle. I'm calling from RUC headquarters in Belfast.'

  'Yes?' Her voice had the harsh Newry edge and there was a slight falter in her voice as she replied.

  'I understand you were a classmate of Margaret McBride? That is, Margaret McGarry?'

  'Yes, yes, I was. I... I didn't know her that well though.'

  'We're following up several lines of inquiry into the murders. Miss Murphy, and we're trying to trace someone who may or may not be able to assist us.'

  'I didn't really hang about with her much.'

  'Were you aware of someone she may have known called Jack?'

  'Jack?' There was silence for a moment. 'No. No one called Jack. In fact I don't think I know anyone anywhere called Jack.'

  'You're sure?'

  'There might have been one in primary school.. .'

  'No, I mean, no friends of Miss McGarry.'

  'None I knew of. Like I say, I didn't really hang about with her.'

  I thanked her and tried another two or three; they were all in but not much help. The last one referred me to a girl called Colette Stewart who wasn't on my list but she said that she was Margaret's best friend at the college. She even furnished me with a number.

  Colette answered the phone herself. She had a light Scottish brogue. I introduced myself again. She immediately burst into tears and I couldn't get any sense out of her for a few minutes. Finally she calmed down sufficiently to apologize.

  'Nonsense,' I said, 'it's quite natural. I'm told you were one of Margaret's closest friends.'

  'Yeah. Yeah. We were very close.'

  'Are you aware of her having any enemies at college?'

  'Margaret? Everyone loved her.'

  'Somebody didn't.' I let that sit on her for a moment. 'What about outside of college, you hang about with her outside of school?'

  'Yeah, of course, all the time. Except the las
t month or so with the exams coming up, I'd to spend a lot of time at home studying. I'm not a natural brain like Margaret . . . was ... I had to work at it; it always came so effortlessly to her.'

  'What about boyfriends?'

  She let out a throaty chuckle. 'Yeah, we'd . . . she'd lots of boys on the go . . . she was a very popular girl.'

  'Anybody in particular?'

  'Not since I've known her. Never more than a couple of weeks. Said she wanted her freedom. It was always her that ended things, if you see what I mean. Nobody dropped Margaret. I had an idea that she was going out with someone last week. She sort of dropped hints on the phone, but she wouldn't say. That usually meant they were married. She kept those ones quiet. I think it gave her a bit of a kick, you know? Intrigue.'

  'Are you aware of anyone she would know quite well called Jack?'

  'Jack? No ... in fact yeah, yeah, Jack.'

  I could feel Moonie at my heart again.

  'Jack who, Colette?'

  'I couldn't honestly tell you. I didn't really know him, he was an old friend of hers from way back. I think they were quite close. From her pre-student days, a good bit older as well. Seriously weird individual Jack is.'

  'Weird in what way?'

  'I don't mean dangerous or anything, Inspector. Jack is . . . well, sure you've probably heard of him yourself. He's a comedian, literally. Semi-professional, I think - you know Giblet O'Gibber? Does a turn in the Abercorn every Friday? That's why the name threw me. Margaret always referred to him as Gib, you know, his stage name. He doesn't use Jack much himself, only when he's signing on, I think. Maybe I shouldn't say that.'

  'That's okay. No one else needs to know that.'

  I'd heard of him okay. I'd always steered clear of going to see him because I didn't like meeting people who were funnier than me.