Nine Inches

by Colin Bateman

  Patricia loomed over me. ‘Who’s Lenny?’

  ‘What . . . who?’

  ‘Lenny, there’s a number you’ve been calling repeat—’

  ‘Trish, I need some painkillers, my head . . .’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ said Joe.

  ‘About twenty calls . . .’

  ‘Trish . . . this isn’t . . .’

  ‘I met Lenny,’ said Bobby. He was back standing beside her, looking down, unreadable. ‘He came to your apartment. You were working on some case, you wouldn’t tell me about it.’

  I nodded. It hurt. ‘Just a case, Trish, just a case . . .’

  I pretended to drift away.

  Joe came back in with pills. He poured six into my hand.

  ‘Six?’ said Trish.

  ‘More,’ I said.

  I got up on one elbow, wincing, and swallowed them down, two at a time. I lay back down.

  Trish said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘What always happens?’

  ‘You said something stupid and you got beaten up.’ I nodded. It hurt. ‘When are you ever going to wise up?’

  It was a rhetorical question.

  ‘Malone Security,’ said Joe. ‘Roared up, tossed you out, sped away. If it wasn’t for their nice cars and pretty uniforms, you’d almost think we were back to the bad old days.’

  ‘Have you come across them before?’ Trish asked.

  ‘Sure I have. They call round once in a while trying to interest me in their services. They’re quite insistent. Then I show them my very large collection of butcher’s knives and they reconsider.’

  ‘Insistent in a Jehovah’s Witness kind of a way?’ Trish asked.

  ‘No,’ said Joe. He shook his head at me. ‘I’ve only known you a few days, yet I’ve seen you with your eye closed over, your hand up like a bap, and now this. You can annoy some of the people some of the time and get away with it, but you seem to be annoying all of the people all of the time, and clearly not getting away with it.’ He turned to Trish. ‘How do you put up with him?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said.

  He looked from her to me, and me to her. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m sure you two have things to talk about. Hey, Bobby?’ Bobby grunted. ‘Have you ever plunged a knife into a dead body?’

  Bobby looked puzzled. ‘Wuh . . . why?’

  ‘It’s not a trick question,’ said Joe. ‘Come on, I’ll show you how it’s done.’

  He shepherded Bobby towards the door. Bobby went, but not before glancing at Trish and giving her a helpless kind of a shrug.

  When they were gone, I said, ‘I think you’re bonding with him.’

  Trish said, ‘Shut up, you stupid bastard.’

  Then she kissed me on my sore lips.

  It’s funny how sympathy and concern can turn to sarcasm and misunderstanding in the laboured blink of a swollen eye. She wanted to take me home and nurse me back to health, and I said no, I’d be better off in my own place; I didn’t know what kind of a hornets’ nest I’d stirred up, and why take the chance of attracting more trouble to her place, particularly when she was supposed to be sheltering Bobby from harm. I was trying to do the right thing, but she took it as a personal slight. We got to bickering, and then some yelling, which only stopped when Joe came back in with Bobby.

  Joe said, ‘Guess what? This young man has agreed to come in and work as my apprentice. I think he’s a natural. Give it to him.’ Bobby stepped forward. He handed me a large and bloody steak. ‘Perfectly carved. Though if he cuts them that size for my customers, I’ll be out of business in a week.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ added Trish.

  ‘It’ll mean an early start,’ said Joe.

  ‘I can drop him off on the way to work.’ She grinned at Bobby. She was halfway to ruffling his hair; he took a step back; she hesitated, and then the moment was gone.

  Joe looked at our faces and said, ‘So what did you two lovebirds decide?’

  ‘I want to take him to my place,’ said Trish.

  ‘I’d rather go home,’ I said. ‘Safer.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be alone,’ said Trish. ‘But he never listens to anyone but himself.’

  ‘Then he can stay here,’ said Joe. ‘I can keep an eye on him.’

  ‘No, really,’ I began, ‘I’ll be fine . . . Anyway, you only have the one . . .’

  ‘I’m not suggesting we share a bed, you halfwit. There’s another room behind this, perfectly good bed in there. Believe me, you don’t want to be moving around for a while. Besides, I’ve this treatment will help with the bruises, my mum used to swear by it. One part cayenne pepper, five parts Vaseline. I’ll light a few candles, get you relaxed, I can rub it on you later.’ He left it for fully five seconds before saying: ‘You should see your face.’

  Patricia burst into laughter. Bobby too.

  ‘Youse are so funny,’ I said.

  When they were gone, Joe came back in and saw that I had Bobby’s steak up against my eye. He asked me what I was doing. I said it helped with the swelling. He said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s an old wives’ tail. If you press anything cold against the eye, it might do some good, but that steak was until fairly recently part of a live cow. It’s still warm.’

  ‘Oh.’ I held it out to him. ‘You learn something new every day. Do you want to fry it or something?’

  ‘Nope. As it happens, I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘But you’re a butcher.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Well . . . don’t vegetarians become vegetarians because . . . you know . . . they don’t like animals being killed for their meat?’

  ‘Some do. I prefer it because I think it’s healthier, and when you’ve been up to your oxters in blood all day, the last thing you want is more meat.’

  ‘Hitler was a vegetarian,’ I said.

  ‘Hitler,’ said Joe, ‘was a dick.’

  I had no idea if I could trust him. The facts were the facts: from the Shankill, been to prison, and a vegetarian. Any one of those could tilt you down the wrong path in life. Now he had Patricia’s phone number and from there he or whoever he passed it on to would be able to find out where she lived, and where Bobby was. But sometimes you have to take a chance, go with your instinct.

  Joe moved to the bed. He sat on the end of it. He said, ‘Dan Starkey, you’re in trouble. I’m going to make you lentil soup. Then I will crack open a bottle of whiskey, and we will discuss your troubles. Okay?’

  34

  Four whiskeys in and I was starting to feel not too Craigavad. I had slept some more. It was now dark. The only light came from an ancient TV screen. The sound was turned down. There was music from an old analogue radio. It was a sixties show and the DJ was playing vinyl, so there were two different kinds of hiss coming from the speakers; three if you included the speakers themselves, which were big and heavy and lush. If I’d had a girl there, say Patricia, or Lenny, or anyone this side of human, it would have been nice and romantic. Unfortunately, I did not. I had a Shankill Butcher. It seemed to me that whatever he did, whether it was sitting where he was on a slightly ripped comfy chair, his feet up on a stained coffee table, or footering with the radio to tune the station back in, or up getting us a drink, or ice, he made sure that he was never more than an arm’s length away from some kind of cleaver. There were huge big ones that could take an ox’s head off with one blow, or little tiny almost ornamental ones, which might not much trouble a vole, but they were there all the same, dotted about the place, and I suspected there was a reason for them beyond simple butchery, something in his history that might come out with the whiskey, or something in his psyche, like him being violently insane. That said, it was not unpleasant, and I was not unrelaxed.

  ‘That was a good thing you did, with the boy,’ I said. I was sitting up in the bed, propped against two pillows.

  He was in his chair, holding the whiskey up under his chin, staring at the radio. ‘I need the help,’ he said.


  ‘Do you not have anyone else?’

  ‘No. Did. Had to let them go.’

  ‘Times are hard.’

  ‘Times are harder when you catch them with their hand in the till.’

  ‘Did you – cut off that hand?’

  He laughed. ‘Should have. Someone who’d worked for me for fifteen years. Getting so that you can’t trust anyone.’ I hmmm-hmmmd. ‘This boy, I won’t go easy on him; he messes me around, he’s out.’

  ‘That’s fair enough.’

  The Rolling Stones came on. ‘Under My Thumb’. We tapped.

  I said, ‘Do you want to know about him?’

  ‘Expect he’ll tell me in his own time.’

  ‘Not even about his leg, or lack thereof?’

  ‘Horse’s mouth, always best.’

  I sipped. It was Black Bush. It had medicinal value.

  ‘What about you? How come you’re here? Living in the shop, I mean.’

  ‘Just protecting what’s mine.’

  ‘Does it need protecting?’

  ‘Probably not. A habit I got into in prison.’

  ‘Prison,’ I said.

  ‘Prison,’ he said.

  I sipped again. Mick Jagger had become a little red rooster.

  ‘Expect you’ll tell me in your own time,’ I said.

  He smiled over the top of his glass. ‘Ask away.’

  ‘How long have you been out?’

  ‘Is that not a bit arse-about-face?’

  ‘I didn’t want to just jump in with what you did. Or didn’t do.’

  ‘Oh, I did it.’

  ‘It.’

  ‘I shot a man. Just to watch him die.’

  ‘Where was this, Reno?’

  Joe let out a low rumble of a laugh. ‘Very good.’ He gave it an American drawl: ‘The Outlaw Johnny Cash. Well I tell you something, he never came to sing in our bloody prison.’ He nodded to himself for a bit, maybe imagining it. Then he said: ‘I did shoot a man. I was given his name and where he worked and a photocopy of a photo. Those days the police used to pass mug shots to us, point out someone and say he’s a bad ’un, topped one of our lads, see what you can do boys. And we did. He was my first one, Padraig Cree, twenty-five, lived in the Ardoyne. Caught him coming out of his work, the Ormo bakery, two shots to the back of the head. There was a motorbike waiting for me. He was told to keep it running, but it kept cutting out. I jumped on the back and we just sat there, going nowhere, and then the police just happened to be passing by and saw the commotion. It’s a good job they did, I think the bakers of Ormo would have lynched us. Eighteen years old, and I got twenty-five. The kicker being that it wasn’t Padraig Cree I shot, it was Frederick Clarke, a good Protestant boy, whose main crime against Ulster was looking a little bit like Padraig Cree.’

  For a while there was only the soft beat of an era and the TV news in a low-definition mime. The floor was of dark wood, but against it hundreds, maybe thousands of little flecks of sawdust.

  I said, ‘That’s a bugger.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘How long did you serve?’

  ‘Eighteen. Soon as I went in, I told my fellow defenders of Ulster – no more, I’m out. The other side – they just wanted some revenge. So every day, and every night, watching my back. You learn who your friends are by not having any friends. Old Johnny had it right, get tough or die he said, get tough or die.’

  ‘“A Boy Named Sue”.’

  ‘Killed a man at eighteen, and the smell of blood in my nostrils ever since.’

  ‘You have family?’

  ‘Nope. Not now. Was married for a while shortly after I got out. Didn’t work out. She was my probation officer. She thought I was institutionalised.’

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘I thought she talked too much.’

  He got up and fixed us another drink. He handed me my glass and sat again, taking a moment to get into his ideal position. He took a sip, and with the glass still at his lips said: ‘So what’s troubling you, son? Or what’s troubling others that they want to beat on you so much?’

  I took a sip. I swirled it in the glass. I said, ‘I’m not sure I’ve worked it out enough in my head to tell you what’s going on.’

  ‘Or you don’t quite trust me.’

  ‘I . . . Well, I’m in your bed, I must trust you a little bit.’

  ‘I hope you feel the same way in the morning.’

  He gave me a long, hard look and then we both laughed at the same time. Mine sounded a little more nervous.

  Joe drained his glass and stood up. ‘I’m for bed,’ he said. ‘Early start. You need anything, give me a shout.’

  I said, ‘Thanks, Joe, I appreciate . . . this. When I’ve something to tell you that makes sense, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘None of my business,’ he said. He moved to the door, and then paused with it half open. ‘The boy, Bobby, I know who he is.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Hard not to know,’ he said. I nodded warily. ‘What you’re doing, that’s a good thing. There’s not many would.’

  ‘It’s mostly Trish,’ I said.

  ‘It’s both of you. But your wife . . .?’

  ‘Yes, Joe?’

  ‘She’s a fine-looking woman.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Be a fool to let her go.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said.

  35

  I sat up in bed at exactly three thirty-three a.m. and repeated these words: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck damn fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck bollocks fuck. I punched the mattress and the headboard, with my good hand, and cursed some more and threw a plastic bottle of Diet Coke across the room. I buried my head in my hands and rocked back and forth.

  The door opened and Joe, in T-shirt and boxers, said, ‘You okay?’

  ‘Nightmare,’ I said.

  ‘Get you anything?’

  I could have said yes, you could get me the huge wad of cash, the bag of drugs and the revolver I’d just realised I’d left in the boot of my now flattened car. But I didn’t. I said no and thanked him. He went back to bed. I went back to swearing.

  Sleep was not an option. I was such a loser. I had been trying to keep Bobby safe, but had only managed to dig his grave a little deeper. I lay still, with the covers thrown back, and tried to calm my breathing. I had to try and forget about what was gone, and think everything else through. It was hard. My head was full of wee sweetie mice. Every time I managed to string two ideas together, they nibbled through the strands.

  Concentrate.

  Settle.

  Okay. I had gotten into this to find out who had kidnapped little Jimmy and why Jack was being warned off. Losing the Xbox stash didn’t change that. Nanny the nanny had confessed to being involved in a half-arsed plan hatched by her partner Betty. She had thought she’d got away with it until I started pestering her. While Betty’s overreaction had helped to keep me interested, it was still Jack’s sudden volte-face that most intrigued me. However hard I thought about it, I couldn’t see any connection between Nanny’s confession and Jack’s sudden buoyancy.

  If Jack knew she was involved, she should have been sacked instantly, even if he preferred not to take it to the police. So his sudden good mood on the night of his party, his firing me and then attempting to shut me up through legal and physical threats, all suggested there was something else he thought I might uncover if I kept poking around. But why was that any of my concern? Why couldn’t I just let it go?

  Patricia said, ‘You never let anything go.’

  ‘Including you.’

  ‘We’ll pass swiftly over that one,’ she said. ‘You love a good grudge, so you do.’

  ‘I like knowing the truth.’

  ‘Maybe you should apply your passion for the truth to your personal life.’

  ‘We’ll pass swiftly over that one as well,’ I said.

  ‘Convenient. Keep your high moral standards strictly for your day job.’

  I hadn’t
called her because of Joe, although he had something to do with it. I had called her because I always did. She was part of me, and always would be. She was in bed, apparently by herself. Bobby was in the next room, wired up to his Xbox. She could hear him shouting in triumph every time he splashed a wall with zombie brain. It was gone four in the morning.

  ‘Have you banged on the wall and reminded him he’s starting his apprenticeship in the morning?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did it work?’ It was a rhetorical question. I said, ‘I’ll have him out of there as soon as I can, Trish.’

  ‘Promises.’

  ‘Soon as I straighten it with the Millers.’

  ‘You think that’s likely?’

  ‘I can only try my best.’

  ‘Well you have their drugs, their money and their gun. That must count for something.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘What was the street value of the cocaine Mrs Murray flushed down the bog?’

  ‘Unknown, but informed opinion has it about forty grand.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Trish.

  Joe was up at dawn to accept a delivery. There was an awful lot of clanking from a huge refrigerated truck, and then lashings of ribald banter with the driver. Eventually it quietened down, and I managed a brief doze until Patricia and Bobby arrived. When I asked how easy it had been to get him up, she just rolled her eyes. He was sullen when I spoke to him, but brightened considerably when Joe strolled in. It was either Joe’s sunny disposition or the fine array of knives he brought with him. Bobby was led away without a word of farewell or thanks.

  Trish stood over my bed.

  ‘How are you this morning?’

  ‘Stiff,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing new there, then.’

  She brushed her lips against mine and said, ‘I’m away to work. Will you drop him home later or will I pick him up?’

  ‘Could you pick him up? I’ve work to do.’

  ‘You should sleep.’

  ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’

  She looked down at me and nodded. ‘Do you have any idea how much of a wanker you sound like sometimes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.