Belfast Confidential

by Bateman, Colin

  As we walked, I said to Alec, 'If there's no backup, who's covering me when you're off duty?'

  'I'm never off duty.'

  'But you must sleep.'

  'Yes, I do. But believe me, when I'm needed, I'll be there.'

  'Okay,' I said. 'So if we'd employed you earlier, you would have been able to stop Liam Miller's murder.'

  'He wasn't murdered.'

  'You what?'

  'Liam Miller wasn't murdered. He was assassinated.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'The prominence or importance of an individual distinguishes his or her death from an ordinary act of terrorism or murder. Liam Miller was famous, he was known in every home in the land, therefore his death qualifies as an assassination.'

  'What, like Gandhi was assassinated?'

  Alec nodded.

  It was kind of a surreal idea, placing a bent flower-arranger up there with the Indian Yoda. But Liam would have been pleased.

  'Okay, so if you'd been on duty you think you'd have been able to stop Liam's . . . assassination?'

  'You can never be one hundred per cent sure. But ninety-five, yes, I believe so.'

  'Well,' I said, 'I can't ask for much more than that. If you stick with me day and night, and I cooperate with schedules and varying the way I travel to work and basically do everything you say, and in exchange you don't get distracted by my wife offering you a cooked breakfast, you can be fairly certain you'll be able to prevent my assassination.'

  'You won't be assassinated.'

  'Excellent.'

  'You're not nearly famous enough or prominent enough. But I will do my best to stop you from being murdered.'

  I stopped. Alec stopped. He scanned the pavement around us, and touched a finger to his earpiece. I said, 'Wait just a minute. I'm the Editor and part owner of Belfast Confidential – surely that qualifies me for assassination?'

  'I would argue that you're new to the job, and most people have never heard of you.'

  I glared at him. 'What was Mouse then – murdered or assassinated?'

  'Oh, definitely assassinated.'

  I snorted. 'Is this how you get your kicks, drawing up infantile lists?'

  'Yes.'

  'And do these lists exist anywhere outside of your head?'

  'No.'

  'So there's no global system for checking on whether someone qualifies as murdered or assassinated, no fucking Dow Jones Index of the recently violently departed?'

  'No.'

  'So why am I even having this conversation with you?'

  'I have no idea. But I think we've stayed in this position for far too long. If you wouldn't mind moving along . . .'

  I took a deep breath, and started walking again.

  'One thing to consider though,' Alec said, moving just a little behind me. 'If you do get murdered, that in itself might make you famous enough to be considered a candidate for assassination next time – that is, if you had the nine lives of a cat.'

  'Right,' I said. 'Thanks for that.'

  I don't know who was kidding whom. He was bound to be aware just as much as I was that cats didn't have nine lives. They had one, and then they got buried under a badly sown lawn.

  30

  JJ Howe had been dead for fifty years. The man in charge now was called Peter Marshall, a rotund, bald-of-head chap in a designer-crumpled blue linen suit that was slightly too large. He led me through a showroom full of paintings – mostly modern – to a tidy office at the rear. He said his receptionist and fellow evaluators were off on their lunch, otherwise he would offer me coffee. I didn't see what was preventing him getting up and making it himself. After all, I might have been a billionaire wanting to splash some cash about. Perhaps he suspected I wasn't.

  He said, 'Now then, Mr Stark.'

  'Starkey,' I corrected.

  He nodded. 'Donald.'

  'Dan.'

  He glanced down at a small notebook on the dark wooden desk before him, then he lifted a pen and made a couple of amendments to whatever was written there.

  'Now then, Mr Starkey. Daniel.'

  'Dan.'

  'Dan. I understand you have an item for evaluation. It must be very small.' He smiled wanly. I nodded. 'May I ask if this is for insurance purposes, or do you wish to sell the item in question?'

  'There's a difference?'

  'Oh, most certainly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so any valuation for sales purposes is generally quite vague. But if you're merely insuring it, we have to nail down a rather more specific, and usually lower, figure.'

  'Well, I haven't decided. Perhaps if you take a look?'

  I produced one of the slides Concrete Corcoran had provided for the Advertising Department and slid it across the table. He looked a little pained as he picked it up. 'I cannot base any official evaluation on a slide,' he said bluntly.

  'You could give me an opinion, a ballpark figure.'

  'I suppose. Although not in writing.'

  'I understand,' I said.

  He opened a drawer in his desk and produced a small magnifying glass with a slot in one end, into which he slid the slide. 'And the artist?'

  'Well – I'd like you to tell me.'

  He raised an eyebrow, then began to examine the slide. He tutted almost immediately, then followed it with three more. He lowered the magnifier again and said, 'Are you having me on?'

  'No,' I said.

  'We specialise in works of high art, Mr Stark, costing anything from tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Not this kind of . . . tat.'

  'Don't beat around the bush,' I said.

  'The problem,' Peter Marshall pointed out as he raised the magnifier again, 'is that I can't tell if it is a bush. The brush-strokes are hideous, there's no definition, the scale is all over the place, even the colours are so badly . . .' He trailed off, as he lowered the magnifier. 'If I didn't know Liam Miller had been assassinated I'd think this was one of his reality show set-ups.'

  I cleared my throat and said, 'So as far as an evaluation goes . . .'

  'I wouldn't give you the skin off my custard for it, Mr Stark.'

  'I see. Could you explain to me then how you or a member of your staff recently provided paperwork giving this a valuation of twelve thousand pounds.'

  'We – don't be ridiculous!' Marshall angrily removed the slide from the magnifier and began to push it back across the desk towards me. 'This, sir, is not worth twelve pounds, let alone twelve thousand.'

  'Even if it's painted by Concrete Corcoran?'

  'Ah.' He stopped the pushing. In fact, he clawed it back. He raised it up to examine it again, this time without the benefit of the magnifier. 'Concrete Corcoran. That's another matter entirely.'

  'I don't understand,' I said. 'If it's tat, it's tat.'

  'Well, not necessarily. It's a Corcoran.' He turned the slide a little to throw some extra light on it. 'Ah yes – I see now. It's so refreshing to find an alligator in the River Lagan.' As he lowered it again he said, 'If one of my staff has valued this at twelve thousand pounds, then I don't doubt he thinks it's worth it.'

  'But it's still tat, and technically it's all over the place. You said so yourself.'

  'Yes, quite, but in this case it doesn't really matter. You see, our valuations are based on a certain number of criteria, Donald, and very few of them actually have anything to do with the technical aspect of the work. I mean, take a look at any of the pieces we have on display out there – who can say whether they are technically efficient? They are what they are. A series of dots on a blank canvas. A square of black paint on a yellow background. We base our estimate on what the piece or similar pieces might have raised at past auctions, and the critical response to that work. So, for example, Corcoran's previous exhibitions have received outstanding reviews. Outstanding. They have also sold extremely well and there is a continuing and expanding demand for them. Naturally we have taken this into account when evaluating the work.'

  'But they're crap.'

  '
You can't say that.'

  'You did.'

  'Before I knew who the artist was. I didn't know about his struggle, I didn't know about his suffering.'

  'Most of his suffering was inflicted on others.'

  'That may be, but that is part of the attraction. I don't like the term myself, but there's a kind of terrorist chic developing out there, and people will pay to be part of it. It's like Paul McCartney's paintings, or Ron Wood's – you're not actually paying for the painting, you're paying to own a little bit of someone who has excelled in another field. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and ahm, in this case, bloody mayhem.'

  We talked some more about art and terrorism, and eventually I got around to revealing who I was. He seemed mightily impressed, although not enough to put the kettle on. He said, 'Then you'll be covering Concrete's exhibition.'

  'Yes, I expect so.'

  'I understand that between him and his colleagues at Easel there'll be over two hundred works on display. His entire oeuvre. It's quite, quite mouth-watering.'

  'Something like that,' I agreed.

  I reclaimed the slide and thanked him for his time. As he walked me back through the gallery, I could appreciate what he meant about beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Concrete Corcoran's paintings might not be technically perfect, or even adequate, but at least they looked like something recognisable. It looked to me like JJ Howes had cornered the market in dots and splodges.

  I shook his hand at the door. He held onto it for longer than he needed to. 'It's a queer business, art,' he said.

  'I imagine.'

  'Concrete Corcoran is a perfect example. If he was to die – say of a heart attack or stomach cancer – well, it wouldn't affect the value of his work at all. But if he was to die violently, then you'd be talking about a tenfold increase, almost certainly. Funny that, isn't it?'

  'Hilarious,' I said.

  I stepped out into the crisp autumn air and started walking. A moment later Alec fell into step behind me.

  31

  Mouse had reinvented himself, and so had Concrete Corcoran. Who was I to begrudge either of them this priceless luxury? And I was beginning to realise that it wasn't only those two, but that possibly the entire country had ducked into Mr Benn's changing room and emerged fresh and vibrant. The evidence was all around, like love. Yes, Mouse was dead. Yes, Liam Miller was gone. And yes, Concrete Corcoran still had his thuggish side, but he was at least trying to move on, just as Belfast, now increasingly at peace with itself, was as well. Business was booming instead of going boom. Both communities were thriving – in fact, in some respects they were beginning to blend in.

  For years Ireland's articulate middle classes had shown the way forward through their support of an all-island rugby team, and now it seemed that the rest of us were slowly coming round to their way of thinking. There was no longer any border to speak of, the smoking ban was creeping north, the Euro was almost a universal currency, and according to Patrick, the price of cocaine on either side of that invisible border had more or less stabilised. What if I was the only one trying to hold on to the old ways, the old divisions? I had chastised anyone who would listen, that this newfound beauty was only skin deep, that we were as bigoted and hateful underneath as we had always been. But perhaps it was just me, burned by decades of reporting and chastened by harrowing personal experience, who had failed to emerge from a self-imposed political, religious and mental hibernation. How ironic then was it that I was the part-owner and Editor of Belfast Confidential, which in its own way was meant to symbolise everything that was new and bold about this country of ours?

  I was thinking this, and other deep thoughts, as I arrived back at the office. Alec took up a position just to the left of a small cloakroom where he could leap out and severely frisk anyone who got past Mary without an appointment.

  Not that Mary was at her desk when we got back.

  Nor indeed was anyone else at their desks.

  Their computers were on. There was music coming from a digital radio. But the phones were ringing unanswered.

  I called, 'Hello?' despite the evidence before me, and when there was no response I ordered Alec up the stairs to see if they were planning a surprise (and mistaken) birthday party. He took out his gun and moved cautiously towards my office. I followed a couple of steps behind, unwilling to wait in the hold of the Marie Celeste, while estimating with quiet confidence that Alec was big enough and stupid enough to take the full brunt of any bullet or bomb that was waiting for me upstairs.

  But no, my office was empty as well. Not even a booby trap.

  I was just saying, 'What the fuck is going on?' when there was a tap on the front door and a small woman in a grey business suit nodded through the glass and up the stairs at me. She indicated for me to open the door. So I hurried back down and pulled it open, despite Alec's orders for me to wait for him to check her out first.

  'I'm looking for Dan Starkey,' the woman said, glancing from me to Alec, who had just clattered down beside me. His gun was held to his side, but she wouldn't have noticed it unless she was looking for it.

  'And I'm looking for twenty-seven employees of Belfast Confidential. I'll swap you.'

  She said, 'This isn't a laughing matter. We need to talk.' She held up a laminated badge bearing what appeared to be a recent photograph. It read Becky Winstanley, Equality Commission.

  I'd just started into the familiar, 'I'm kind of tied up right now' routine I use on time-wasting do-gooders when I realised she was also carrying a copy of Belfast Confidential under her arm. So I stopped myself and said, 'What's this about?'

  'May I come in?'

  I gave her a stern look and said, 'If you're holding them hostage you're not going to get much for them. They're pretty useless.'

  'Please don't talk about them like that, you're in enough trouble already.'

  'Me? What have I done?'

  'Perhaps if we could talk in-side, Mr Starkey?' She moved forward, only for Alec to block her way.

  'Madam,' he said, 'I'll need to look in your handbag.'

  'Excuse me?'

  'He has to,' I explained, 'in case you're carrying a Luger.'

  'That's ridiculous. And no, you may not.'

  'Then I'm afraid I can't allow you in.'

  She snorted and tried to move past him, but he stood firm. It was good to know he could protect me against small women in business suits.

  She wasn't happy with this. Equality Officers wield a particular power around Belfast and have been known to make grown men weep. Mostly over positive discrimination.

  'Honestly!' she barked. 'We're not living in the Dark Ages any longer. You have absolutely no right to look in my handbag.'

  'That may be,' said Alec. 'Nevertheless.'

  He stood his ground. She stood hers.

  'Last time this happened,' I pointed out helpfully, 'we were standing here for three months. Although if you smile nicely at him he'll let you take him home and make him breakfast.'

  Becky Winstanley's nose was turned up just enough to hang a coat on, although because she was so short it would probably have to dangle in the dust.

  'Well, do you have a badge or something?' she asked eventually.

  'No, he doesn't,' I answered on Alec's behalf, 'but he does have the courage of his convictions, and unless you have something to hide, why not give him a quick decko so we can get to the bottom of this?'

  Becky Winstanley rolled her eyes, tutted, but finally opened her bag. Alec took a little longer than he needed to, going through her stuff, the way security people will when their authority is questioned. When he was done he gave her a polite thank-you, madam, then took up his position by the door. I led her upstairs to my office.

  We faced each other across my desk. 'So,' I began, 'I pop out for ten minutes and when I get back my entire workforce has vanished. What have they gone and done, staged a coup in Equatorial New Guinea?'

  'No, Mr Starkey, they haven't done anything.'

  'THEN LET
MY PEOPLE GO!' I thumped the table for added effect, but she didn't even do me the courtesy of jumping the way Mary had.

  'Mr Starkey you seem to be treating this as some kind of a joke. This is a very serious matter.'

  'Okay,' I said. 'All right. Put me out of my misery: what have I done?'

  'As Editor, Mr Starkey, you have a very poor grasp of what is going on in this company. You don't even seem to be aware that at this very moment, your staff are in the pub across the road organising a strike.'

  'There's a pub across the road?' Her eyes narrowed. 'A strike? What the fuck about?'

  'The Equality Commission goes to a great deal of trouble to work hand-in-hand with companies like yours, to ensure that religious discrimination is banished from the workplace.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'I'm all for that. Show me religious discrimination and I'll banish it. I'll give it a boot in the hole. Now do you think you could get to the point?'

  A haughty smile slid onto her face. 'You really don't know? Well, sir, we have taken great pride in forging a good relationship with Belfast Confidential in particular because it is such a success story. You might describe it as the flagship for what we are trying to achieve. It must therefore stand up to even greater scrutiny than other companies of a similar size.'

  'Yes, okay, could we just get to the—'

  'It's important that the make-up of your employees is not only equally representative of both cultures and communities, but that that workforce is shown to be working in complete harmony. As your magazine reflects the world we live in, it also in some respects acts as a window for that world to look in upon us, and it's vital that that world sees that we are all now getting on well together. This isn't just window-dressing, Mr Starkey, it has been shown to have a staggering impact on outside investment in our economy and on tourism.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'all right.'

  'Good. So why the crack about Mother Teresa?'

  'The what?'

  'Complainant reports that at 11.15 a.m. on this date you made a joke about Mother Teresa being, and I quote, "dog ugly, like most Fenians".'