Nine Inches

by Colin Bateman

  ‘What boy? Oh . . . the wee fella in . . . Yeah. Sure. Just my nephew. Mitching from school, that was about the height of it, but all sorted now.’

  I nodded and turned away.

  He said: ‘Hold on.’

  Under normal circumstances I would have found it hard to take seriously someone dressed in a red and white striped apron and wearing a similarly coloured hat that was something between a straw boater and a panama, but I did. Joe was from the Shankill. He’d been in prison. He had a meat cleaver in his hand. He might have betrayed Bobby already.

  ‘Yup?’

  ‘I was thinking some more about him.’

  ‘Uhuh.’

  He came right up until we were almost face to face. I wanted to take a step back, but resisted. He smelled of blood and sawdust. If there had been even the remote possibility of late-afternoon sun, it might have glinted off his cleaver. He lowered his voice. He said, ‘I don’t want to be too nosy, like, but it looked to me like it was more than just playing hooky.’

  ‘Nah, nah, just teenager stuff, y’know . . .’

  ‘I was thinking I might be able to help you out.’

  ‘Help? Me?’

  ‘Sure. You. Him. When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a handful myself, and the last couple of years I was hardly at school at all. Tell you what sorted me out . . .’ He thumbed behind him. ‘Dessie Martin. He had a butcher’s on the Shankill. Me ma took me in there, said if you’re not learning nothing in school, you can learn something here. He took me on, fourteen, an apprentice. Best thing ever happened to me. You’ve a trade behind you, you’ve always something to fall back on. Was thinking maybe the kid there, if he’s getting into mischief, and he’s no stomach for school, well maybe I could use him in the shop.’

  It was not what I had expected at all.

  ‘That’s, uhm, really kind of you to offer. I’ll certainly mention it to him.’

  ‘Well if you don’t mind me saying, that’s your first mistake right there. Don’t mention it to him. Tell him.’

  ‘Okay. Right. Getcha. And would you be, you know, paying him?’

  ‘As little as I can get away with, but yeah, sure. I had a young fella there for a while, but he didn’t know his arse from his elbow, which is unfortunate when you’re slicing up a pig. I pay minimum wage and as much as you can carry in sausages.’

  I was wondering how long it would take Bobby to pay off half a bag of cocaine on minimum wage.

  I thanked Joe again, and said I’d have a word with the boss. There was no need to explain.

  I drove to Malone and parked across from Jack’s house. I hadn’t quite made my mind up about Tracey – whether she’d been caught looking for evidence and ordered to stop communicating with me, or if she’d been playing me the whole time. It wouldn’t be the first or last time I’d been played by a woman. I called her phone; it said number not recognised.

  As I sat there pondering, Jack drove in. Ten minutes later, the nanny formerly known as Nanny the nanny came walking down the drive. As she exited the gates, she lit up her fag and fixed in her earphones. Instead of stopping by the building site next door to wait for her lift, she kept on walking. She reached the end of the property and turned into a narrow lane running up the side of it. Any time Betty wasn’t around to stub cigarettes out on me seemed like a good time to approach Marija. I got out of the car, but had to wait for a minute until the traffic allowed me to cross. By the time I got to the lane entrance she was about thirty metres ahead of me, moving up a slight incline. I called her name, but she couldn’t hear me with the music. I set off after her. To my right, the building site merged into what remained of the garden of the house immediately behind Jack’s, which was just visible through gaps in a high hedge. It appeared older, darker, larger. When I emerged from the lane on to Marlborough Park, Marija was just passing a red Porsche parked sideways in a driveway belonging to the same house. I called her name again, and this time she turned. Her brow furrowed, she made the connection, she shook her head and hurried up to the front door and rang the bell. She glanced back as I drew closer and waved me away. The door opened and a toddler came tottering out, and she scooped him up and disappeared inside. The door closed.

  I loitered.

  It’s not easy, loitering. You can sit in a car and nobody much pays you any attention, but if you stand in a street or sit on a wall or hide in the branches of a tree, people tend to think the worst, particularly in this kind of upmarket neighbourhood. So I made a note of the Porsche’s licence plate on my phone, and then went back down the lane. Having nothing better to do with my time, my master plan now amounted to driving round and parking within sight of the house, waiting for an opportunity to talk to Marija. It wouldn’t necessarily be less suspicious, given that I was still advertising myself as a pedo. However, I was prepared to take the chance, and would have, if my car had been where I left it.

  I’d been gone five minutes and it had vanished. There was a Range Rover there, in its place, but it was a different colour, and year, and it had an altogether more respectable Malone Security etched on the side.

  As I approached, the doors opened. Paddy Barr got out the driver’s side, and from the other, someone fully twice his size. They were wearing black jackets with Malone Security printed across them, one word on each side of the zip, and baseball caps, also emblazoned with Malone Security.

  ‘Youse aren’t by any chance from Malone Security, are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Look who it is, it’s the funny fella,’ said Paddy Barr. ‘This is the guy I was telling you about. Laugh riot, aren’t ya, mate?’

  ‘If you say so,’ I said, and smiled, although without conviction. I nodded at the other guy. He was not only twice the size of Paddy Barr, his body appeared to be straining to get out of his uniform. He had giant hands. There was some evidence of scarring around the eyes.

  ‘Heavyweight?’ I asked.

  ‘Cruiser,’ he said.

  His voice was a little high-pitched. His eyes were too small for his face. He might once have fought at cruiser-weight, but he had bulked out well past it. He wasn’t just muscled, he was misshapen. Steroids will do that to you. He was chewing gum; his white teeth were perfect, but false. They had probably been knocked out.

  ‘Bantam and a cruiser, little and large.’ I nodded some. ‘I don’t know if youse were useful in the ring, but you’re pretty useless at security.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Paddy Barr, ‘crack one.’

  ‘I’m just saying, no offence like, but my car was just here a few minutes ago, and now it’s gone, stolen, and you appear to have missed it completely.’

  ‘Really?’ asked the cruiser. ‘What make was it?’

  ‘Range Rover, the vehicle of warriors, just like yours. Or that may be worriers.’

  ‘Range Rover?’ Paddy Barr asked. ‘That’s a coincidence, we were past here a couple of minutes ago too and there was a Range Rover just like ours sitting right here. Oh no . . . wait, I know what happened.’ He clicked his fingers, as if it was just coming back to him. ‘That’s right, that’s right . . . this is an upmarket area, man, the neighbours round here were concerned, particularly a car with something disgusting written on the side. Know what I mean? Demanded we have it removed, and you know, the customer is always right. That wasn’t yours, was it? Gee whiz, have we made a mistake?’

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ said the cruiser, ‘we were just doing our job. We had it towed off to Titanic Scrap, you know them? It’s company policy to have all abandoned vehicles scrapped straight away. In fact flattened; stops the scavengers stripping them for parts, important that nobody profits from it. But it was yours? That’s a shame. Still, listen, maybe if you start walking now, you might get there before they start.’

  ‘Not laughing now, are you, laughin’ boy?’ Paddy Barr was grinning from ear to cauliflowered ear.

  I shook my head, though not in answer to him, more in a disappointed manner. He probably wasn’t smart enough to tell the difference. But he was
smart enough to be concerned when I took out a small notebook and pen and began to write. The cruiser, too.

  ‘What, uh, what’re you doing there, pal?’ he asked.

  ‘Like you say, pal, this is a pretty upmarket area, but it attracts a lot of dubious characters, so when I park my car, if I can I always make sure it’s covered by security cameras.’ I pointed with my pen to first one camera, above the gates of the house opposite, and then a second, high on a wall covering the approach to the house behind where we were standing. ‘I’m pretty sure both of those were filming my car. They’ll show me parking, walking away, and within a couple of minutes they’ll show you pair showing up with a tow truck and yanking my car away. No warning, no ticket, no anything, straight down to the scrapyard. Flattened, you say?’

  The cruiser nodded warily.

  I smirked. That could be annoying. I only did it because I knew what was coming.

  ‘Papers are going to love this.’

  ‘Balls,’ said Paddy.

  ‘Balls yourself. The car doesn’t worry me in the slightest; your company will have to replace it. It’s fully comp anyway. You two, though? Good luck with your next job.’

  I tore the page from my notebook. I folded it in half. I then walked forward, passing between them, and counting each step I took out loud. When I got to twenty-three I stopped, peered over the garden wall beside me and then reached over to pick up a stone. I took the folded paper and placed it on the flat top of the wall, and set the stone on it to stop it blowing away. Then I retraced twenty-one of the twenty-three steps until I was standing back with Paddy Barr and the cruiser. I nodded with satisfaction.

  Paddy Barr said, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  The cruiser said, ‘What’s on the paper?’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Are you fuckin’ mental or something?’ Paddy Barr asked.

  ‘What did you write?’ the cruiser demanded. ‘And why did you put it on the wall?’

  ‘I could tell you,’ I said. ‘But then I’d have to tickle you.’

  ‘You fucking what?’ asked Paddy Barr.

  ‘Tick . . . I mean, kill you. I’d have to kill you.’

  I glanced at my watch.

  ‘What’re you playing at?’ the cruiser asked. His eyes darted from me to the stone and back. ‘Do you want us to brain you?’

  ‘If you brain me,’ I said calmly, ‘then the note will self-destruct and you’ll never know. Believe me, it will really annoy you.’

  His brow furrowed. He looked at Paddy Barr for support. Paddy Barr was looking at the cruiser, likewise. Then he blurted out:

  ‘Fuck it, you keep an eye on him, I’ll read the note.’

  Before he could move, the cruiser said, ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why me what?’

  ‘Why do I have to stand with him while you read the note?’

  ‘Because I say so.’

  ‘You’re not the boss of me,’ said the cruiser.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be divisive,’ I said.

  ‘You shut the fuck up,’ snapped Paddy Barr. ‘It’s just a piece of paper. I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing giving it the time of day.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said.

  The cruiser shook his head. ‘I’ll read the note, you stay with him.’

  He took a step towards the stone.

  Paddy Barr took one too.

  They looked at each other for guidance. None was forthcoming. They kept moving closer to it, while taking turns to glance back at me.

  The cruiser got to it first. He crouched down and reached out; Paddy Barr knelt beside him. The cruiser’s hand hovered over the stone; Paddy Barr tried to peer beneath it. They had watched as I wrote on the paper, folded the paper, walked with the paper, and then set the paper on the wall with the stone on top of it. But they were behaving like bomb disposal experts.

  There was a lull of about five seconds before Paddy Barr finally knocked the stone off and grabbed the folded paper. He turned it over in his hand, unsure. Then he quickly pressed it into the cruiser’s massive paws and said: ‘Open it!’

  The cruiser hesitated before carefully pushing up the corners. His cheeks were tight and his eyes narrowed and his shoulders hunched. He flattened the sheet out. He studied it. He checked the other side of it. He looked up at me, and then at Paddy Barr. ‘What the . . .?’

  Paddy Barr grabbed it. He too looked on both sides. He spun towards me and held it up. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘It’s a swastika,’ I said.

  ‘I can see that! But what’s it . . .?’

  ‘It’s an ancient symbol. It has many meanings, but more recently it was hijacked by the Nazis and will for ever more be associated with unspeakable evil.’

  ‘But . . . but . . . but . . . why did you . . .?’

  ‘It’s a device.’

  ‘A what?’

  He held it even further away.

  ‘If I had the talent, I could just as easily have drawn a duck. But the swastika is about my limit. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The point is not the swastika; the point is the twenty-three steps.’

  The cruiser said: ‘What the fuck is he on about?’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ Paddy Barr began.

  ‘Where you’re now standing is exactly twenty-three paces away from where I’m standing.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Well, I guessed that both of you would be curious enough to want to find out what I was writing. Therefore I calculated, roughly, I have to say, that if I placed what I wrote under a stone at twenty-three paces from where I’m standing, that would probably give me time to do this . . .’

  I spun on my heel and darted the few metres to their Range Rover. I jumped in, slammed and locked the driver’s door and then reached across and pulled the passenger’s door shut as well and locked it. The keys, as I had correctly guessed, were sitting nicely in the ignition.

  I started the engine.

  I was prepared for the cruiser to batter his big fists into the side window, smash it and try to drag me out through it. I was expecting Paddy Barr to throw himself across the bonnet and cling on for dear life as I sped away.

  But as it happened, they just stood there, stunned.

  I even drew up beside them, and moved the window down a fraction.

  ‘Who’s laughing now?’ I asked Paddy Barr.

  ‘You . . . you . . .’

  ‘No one ever tell you not to leave the keys in the ignition? For a security company, I would have thought that was basic.’

  His pointy bantam face had turned purple with rage.

  ‘You, you, you are going to regret this . . . I will find you . . . I will find you and I will fucking kill you, Starkey . . .’

  ‘I seriously doubt that.’

  I began to roll it along. He walked with me.

  ‘Get out of the car . . . get out of the car now!’ he cried with increasing desperation.

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Starkey . . . this is your last chance . . .’

  ‘No, mate,’ I said, ‘this is your last chance. If you start walking now, you might just get to the scrapyard in time to save my car. If you manage to do that, then give me a call and I’ll see what I can do about swapping keys at a mutually convenient time. All righty?’

  I gave him a theatrical wink.

  There was a tap on the opposite window. The cruiser, big eyes and wobbly lip. ‘I have three children to support,’ he said.

  ‘Tough,’ I said, and pressed down on the accelerator.

  I was smiling.

  And then laughing.

  It’s not often that things work out.

  31

  If you get out of a van that says Plumber on the side, it’s reasonable for people to assume that you’re a plumber. I applied this logic to the Malone Security van I was now driving as I pulled into the driveway of the house in Marlborough Park. For additional effect I slipped on a Malone Security baseball cap I found lying on the floor. To
completely bamboozle the woman who answered the door, I said, ‘Hello, I’m from Malone Security.’

  To be fair, she gave me a healthy portion of bamboo-zlement in return. She had dyed raven hair, matching dark eyes with plenty of eyeliner, plumped lips, gleaming teeth and cleavage like the main waterslide at Seapark. And it was all very familiar. In fact it wasn’t that long since I’d had my hands on her chest. That was, in the form of a photograph, part of a session she and her husband had agreed to do for Belfast Confidential. Everyone in the office had also agreed that she had a wonderful chest. It stood out. It was a chest worthy of comment and appreciation. It was a Carry On chest in a PC society. But she was more than just a chest. She was Abagail Pike. She was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Her husband was Professor Peter Pike, or 3P, or Threepike, as the tabloids sometimes called him. He was the Minister for Finance and Personnel at Stormont. He came from the Protestant heartland of Portadown, and brought with him a religious conservatism that fell just short of charismatic. He had a lot of support in that heartland. Very straight and narrow support. The fact that he still had that support was little short of a miracle, seeing as how he had once sworn never to even share the same building as ‘former’ terrorists, but now routinely broke bread with them. It was testament to his powers of persuasion, his rhetoric and bluster that he could perform such a volte-face and actually increase his majority at the next election. He was an austere man for austere times, and was looked upon by those who knew as a near-genius when it came to economics. Everyone expected that he would be First Minister one day. He was not a barrel of laughs. Most people thought that he would indeed sort out our finances, and that it was a good thing, but that there was a fair chance that if he came to power he might try and ban enjoyable things, like skipping, which was not. Peter Pike was a big, big man, with a booming voice. He had gone hiking once and been mistaken for the long-missing sixth Mourne Mountain. He was over eight hundred metres tall and had snow on top. When he smiled at you, you immediately changed your vote. Peter and Abagail were the glamorous power couple of Northern Irish politics. That said, they didn’t have a lot of competition.