by Paul Charles
‘Oh yes,’ she conceded. ‘In fairness to Louis, we could easily have afforded a cleaner, but he just hated strangers around the house, around his space.’
‘Have you ever been in Louis’ study?’ McCusker asked, feeling like it was a game of table tennis where the PSNI team had the advantage of an extra player.
‘Well,’ Elizabeth replied, slowly drawing the word out, ‘it’s not that it’s officially out of bounds but I can tell you that the only times I’ve ever been in there, Louis has always been present.’
‘So would it be fair to assume that the study is the place that Louis would do his research and keep his diary, for instance?’ McCusker asked, again playing the part of the dentist.
‘And things like that,’ Mrs Bloom eventually agreed.
When PSNI didn’t return the ball, Mrs Bloom continued with, ‘Look, you don’t think the silly bugger has gone off and gotten himself into trouble do you?’
‘Oh, we don’t even know if he’s missing yet, let alone in trouble,’ McCusker offered, trying to reassure Mrs Bloom while not appearing to succeed.
‘Do you have any children you’d like to come and stay with you, that you’d like us to contact on your behalf?’ O’Carroll asked.
To McCusker, O’Carroll sounded like she felt they had nearly progressed as far as it was possible to go for now.
‘No… just me and Louis.’
‘Okay…’
‘We both agreed on it and planned it that way,’ Mrs Bloom stated, before O’Carroll could continue. ‘There’s just too much heartbreak involved. Either they break your heart or you break your own heart over them.’
‘Friends?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘Yes, lots of friends.’
‘No, sorry I meant are there any friends who could come over and stay with you?’ O’Carroll suggested.
Mrs Elizabeth Bloom thought for a good few seconds. However, she looked not so much that she was thinking which friend she should or could invite over. No, she looked more like she was deciding if she would admit to the name of the first person that had sprung into her mind. Eventually she said, ‘Yes, I’ll give Al a shout.’
‘Okay good,’ McCusker said, feeling that they were making some progress at last, in that at the very least they would be able to leave Mrs Bloom and start their investigation. ‘Is Al a friend of yourself and Louis?’
‘No, no, not at all!’ she countered. ‘He’s Al Armstrong — I met him at Surrey University and we’ve been good friends since.’
‘Right,’ McCusker offered, hoping he wasn’t sending out any judgmental signals, when in fact he wasn’t meaning to. ‘Can we ring him for you?’
‘Oh that’s alright, I’ve already rung him,’ she admitted, a bit sheepishly. ‘He’s on his way over.’
Chapter Three
The very same Al Armstrong rang the doorbell about ten minutes later, just as the third hour of the day was about to complete its circuit of the clock. During the intervening time, neither McCusker nor O’Carroll learned anything interesting or even valuable. In fact all they learned was what had happened in yesterday’s evening’s episode of The Fall, which Mrs Bloom had already admitted she’d enjoyed in her husband’s absence. McCusker felt this too might have been part of the upbeat facade Mrs Bloom was trying to project
Al Armstrong was a tall, slim man, who even at 3.00 a.m. was dressed most dapper in his tan slacks, brown leather slip-on shoes, brownish tweed jacket, country-style checked shirt, red V-neck woollen pullover or sleeveless jumper (McCusker couldn’t really tell until such time Armstrong removed his jacket) and a blue and gold cravat. His stubbled face was flushed, and his green eyes were slightly bloodshot. To McCusker he looked like someone who had just been on the pull at an old fashioned dinner-dance. Armstrong had a very strong Belfast accent with a raspy voice that sounded permanently hoarse.
‘Gosh Elizabeth, are you okay love, you poor dear, what’s he gone and done this time?’ was Armstrong’s opening line, as he walked through the front door.
Al clocked the two police officers and seemed to put the brakes on, both physically and mentally. McCusker got the impression that if they hadn’t been there, Al and Elizabeth would have run straight into each other’s arms. But that was just a hunch, one he didn’t even share with O’Carroll.
‘Mr Armstrong,’ O’Carroll started, taking Mrs Bloom by the hand and guiding her towards the kitchen, ‘could my colleague here have a quick word with you while Mrs Bloom and myself go and make a fresh pot of tea and prepare some more toast.’
O’Carroll’s tone made it clear it wasn’t a question.
‘Gosh, yes, of course,’ Al croaked, as Lily and Mrs Bloom positively glided out of the room.
McCusker started straight in with: ‘You’ve known Mrs Bloom a long time?’
‘Oh gosh, yes, we met in Guildford, at Surrey University, back in the late seventies, maybe more like 1976. I’d started the year before – I was taking engineering and she medicine. When she arrived we just hit it off immediately. She was local, I was an exile, so that was our bond I suppose.’
McCusker wondered if they had been boyfriend and girlfriend back then.
‘Did youse start dating then?’ McCusker heard a voice he recognised as his own ask. He hadn’t intended to ask; the question had just popped out of his mouth, as personal questions had a habit of doing with him.
‘Ha!’ Armstrong offered with a nervous laugh, which, with his voice, sounded like a death rattle. ‘Well, if I’m to be honest with you, we kinda did.’
‘Kinda did?’ McCusker repeated.
‘Yes, you know, we hung out, we dated, and we went to the flicks. She’s a girl, I’m a boy, so we occasionally kissed a bit, but that was the sum total of our romantic fumbling.’
McCusker couldn’t be 100 per cent sure but he guessed from O’Carroll’s tell-tale, over-rattling of the china that she was departing the kitchen shortly, which also meant that he wasn’t going to have Armstrong exclusively to himself for much longer. This troubled McCusker because it compromised his questioning of Mrs Bloom’s male friend of long-standing.
‘You know,’ McCusker started, ‘I wonder if you could do me a great favour and accompany me on a quick dander around the Botanic Gardens, just to double-check nothing obvious happened to Louis Bloom. DI O’Carroll and I meant to do it, but we wanted someone to be with Mrs Bloom. I’m sure you’re more familiar with the layout.’
Armstrong surprisingly agreed immediately. ‘You’re not from Belfast then?’ he asked the detective.
‘Ah no, I’m from Portrush,’ McCusker admitted.
‘Gosh, I see they’ve just been listed in the Sunday Times Best Places to Live in the UK, 2018,’ Armstrong croaked, in clear envy, ‘how’d you end up down here then?’
‘It’s really a long story, excuse me a second,’ McCusker replied, before turning and walking into the kitchen. He immediately noticed a tell-tale box of Xanax, the top discarded and with a few of the light blue pills spilt carelessly on the work top. Close by was a glass with just a few drops of water remaining. He managed to wink at O’Carroll behind Mrs Bloom’s back, ‘Mr Armstrong has kindly agreed to accompany me on a quick dander around the Botanic Gardens to see what we can see.’
‘Okay, good idea,’ O’Carroll replied, while Mrs Bloom totally ignored him.
‘Keep the tea and toast warm for us,’ McCusker said, as he stepped into the hall via the living room.
‘Take him in by the Sports Centre entrance, Al, all the other gates will be locked,’ Mrs Bloom called after them, proving she did know what was going on behind her back.
A few minutes later he and Armstrong were out of the front door and taking a right at the front gate and down Colenso Parade, a left into the entrance to the Queen Sports Centre, and then a very quick left through the small entrance to Belfast’s famous Botanic Gardens, or the Royal Botanic Gardens, as the 28 acres were known when they opened in 1828 (although they hadn’t actually opened to the public until 1895).
&nb
sp; It was a breezy, moonlit night, making it possible to see almost everything most of the time, although occasionally the clouds would block out the Moon and the resultant light to such a degree that it would fall almost pitch dark.
‘So you would see Mr Bloom a bit socially?’ McCusker asked, resuming his questioning and consciously omitting as to how he’d landed up in Belfast.
‘No, not really,’ Armstrong admitted. ‘Mostly I’d see Elizabeth just by herself. Louis would be secure in his wee room, enjoying his great thoughts. Elizabeth, on the other hand, loved to go to lots of events, flicks, just like in the early days, and shows at the Opera House, and I’d always be her preferred plus one.’
‘Oh right,’ McCusker replied in an “I see” kind of tone. ‘But you saw Louis sometimes?’
‘Some of the time, but not all of the time,’ Armstrong conceded.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Gosh, oh let’s see now,’ Armstrong posed, as they walked on.
McCusker noted that as Armstrong walked, he folded his arms in front of himself in a very lady-like manner.
‘I was here two nights ago… but ehm… no, Louis wasn’t here then, so probably it would have been at Sunday lunch. Yeah, that was it – I was here for Sunday lunch. Sunday past – that would have been the last time I saw him.’
By which point they’d reached the bin that Mrs Bloom had reported as being the very same that her husband used to deposit all his nocturnal, nostril-offending deposits.
The bin in question was a heavy-duty, black plastic wheelie bin, which was strapped to one of the Garden’s many archaic, circular black bins, which had (from top to bottom, and painted all in silver) “LITTER” in capitals, two hoops that stretched around the bin, an inch apart, Belfast’s official logo (a seahorse, a reference to the city’s maritime history), and “BOTANIC GARDENS”, again in all caps. The bin itself looked to be fixed securely into the earth.
McCusker took a photo of the bin as it currently was. The detective gloved up and dipped his hand into the three-quarters full bin, removing the plastic bags one by one and taking a photograph of the remainder after each removal.
‘The camera’s a better version of a notebook,’ Armstrong observed. McCusker didn’t reply so Armstrong continued. ‘I’m a songwriter and I used to use only a notebook on my walks, but now I seem to get as much information from photos as I do from my notebook.’
‘This one seems to be like the bag Mrs Bloom described… it’s the only light blue bag in the bin.’
‘Oh gosh, yes, that’s definitely one of Elizabeth’s blue bags,’ Armstrong croaked.
‘I’d like to leave these three and the one beneath back at Mrs Bloom’s before we continue our walk, if you don’t mind?’
‘Totally fine with me,’ Armstrong replied, ‘but why would you want to bring four bags back and not just Elizabeth’s?’
‘Well, whoever dumped the top two bags, one black and one grey, obviously did so after Mr Bloom, and the yellow one at the bottom was deposited just before Mr Bloom. Now that we know the sequence of the bags, the Scene of Crime team can go through the bags’ contents and hopefully discover the owners.’
‘Gosh, okay,’ Al chuckled, ‘that’s both very clever and very simple at the same time.’
‘So you write songs?’ McCusker asked, as the deposited the rubbish bags in the Bloom’s front garden behind the hedge.
‘Yes I do.’
‘Do you write under your own name, Al Armstrong?’
‘Gosh yes, it’s much too much like hard work to give credit to someone else, even though they might even be a non de plume.’
‘And would I know any of your songs?’
‘Yes, well, at least I hope so,’ Armstrong replied, through another nervous throaty laugh.
‘Oh, I don’t know, I wouldn’t be a good example of “the man on the street”. Now, DI O’Carroll – she’d be a much better bet for you. She and her sister Grace are both very big on their music,’ McCusker replied, wondering exactly why he’d (again completely unconsciously) included Grace O’Carroll in his conversation. He just had a habit of opening his mouth and not knowing what was going to come out.
‘What about ‘Causeway Cruising’?’ Armstrong offered, with a lot of confidence.
‘Why, yes of course, everyone knows ‘Causeway Cruising’. I mean, as I said, I’m from the Port and that was the big song two summers ago. But you didn’t record that under your own name, I would have recognised it. It was a band name. What was the name of the band now, don’t tell me… yeah that’s it, Zounds!’
‘Gosh, yes, that’s the name, well remembered,’ Armstrong replied, positively beaming.
‘So you’re a member of Zounds?’ McCusker asked, while thinking Mrs Bloom’s best friend looked too old to be in a pop group.
‘No, no, the record wasn’t by me. I gave up recording years ago. Yes, I wrote the song, but it was recorded by Zounds, and they’d a huge hit with it.’
‘Goodness, that is a great song,’ McCusker started, ‘it sounds a wee bit like the Beach Boys.’
McCusker had meant it as a compliment but the creased lines of Armstrong’s forehead gave the impression that the detective had just shot the songwriter through his heart.
Although McCusker was impressed to meet a real-life songwriter, he was trying desperately hard to get the questioning back on course. ‘On a different matter, why do you think you and the husband of your best friend don’t get on better?’
‘I think in the early days Louis had thought there was more going on between Elizabeth and I, than there actually was,’ Al replied instantly.
Two things struck McCusker: one, if ever there was an answer that should have started off with Armstrong’s trademark “Gosh” right there, that surely should have been it; two, it seemed to the Ulster detective that the answer had come from the “here’s one I prepared earlier” production line.
‘Do you really mean to tell me that you don’t have a good friend, a very good friend who’s female?’ Armstrong offered, when it appeared that McCusker wasn’t buying into his reply, sounding like he still hadn’t forgiven the detective for the Beach Boy remark.
‘But of course,’ McCusker replied, picking his words very carefully. ‘Equally I’d be very surprised if their partner wasn’t also a good acquaintance of mine as well. It seems to me that the simple fact is that both you and Louis Bloom were giving each other a wide berth.’
‘Are giving each other…’
‘Sorry?’
‘You know, you said “were giving each other”, as in past tense. As in you think he’s dead, when, in fact, surely he’s just a missing person or, in PSNI speak, a Misper?’
‘Sorry, of course – you’re 100 per cent correct.’
‘But going back to your last statement; the fact is that Elizabeth never seemed to be bothered about it,’ Armstrong continued, ‘and maybe if she had been, I’d have made more of an effort in trying to be a better friend to Louis.’
‘And there’s definitely no “baggage” between you and Elizabeth that prevented you and Louis becoming better friends?’
‘“Baggage” between us, is it? You’re such a romantic, Inspector,’ Armstrong croak-chuckled.
‘Just McCusker will do,’ the detective added, barely resisting sighing through having, once again, to follow PSNI procedure and make it clear to all members of the public that he – an agency cop with the Grafton Agency – came into contact with while on duty that he was not, in fact, an official member of the PSNI and as such did not have a rank. ‘So, Mr Armstrong, did you and Mrs Bloom ever share any romantic moments at University or even afterwards would have prevented you and Mr Bloom becoming better friends?’
Al Armstrong grimaced for a bit as if considering that very thought. They walked on in silence towards the original rubbish bin they’d examined. Armstrong still had his arms folded in front of him. Eventually, under the cloak of darkness offered by another cloud blocking out the
moonlight, he admitted: ‘Well, if I’m being 100 per cent honest, I suppose I’d be pissed at someone who spent as much time with my wife as Elizabeth does with me.’
Some kind of progress at last, McCusker thought. ‘What does your wife think of your relationship with Mrs Bloom?’
‘Sorry, that was a hypothetical answer I just gave you. I’m not married.’
‘Currently or never?’
‘Never ever.’
‘Gosh,’ McCusker replied involuntarily. The response seemed to bite a bit at Armstrong.
‘The big thing about Louis though,’ Armstrong began, sounding like he was very keen to change the subject, ‘is that all his students positively love him. All that adulation, and he’s only a lecturer for heaven’s sake.’
‘But Al, you surely went through all of that in your pop star days?’ McCusker offered trying to make amends for his earlier backhanded compliment via the Beach Boys.
‘Oh Gosh, now there’s a thought,’ Armstrong replied, clearly still deep in his state of envy, ‘me and every pop star who ever graced the airwaves of Radio Ulster can only but dream of the commitment of Louis’ fanatics. But yet…’
‘But yet?’ McCusker prompted picking up the pace of their walk if only to generate some body heat.
‘And yet he seemed so unaffected by it all,’ Armstrong concluded wistfully.
Just then another thought came into the detective’s mind. ‘Tell me this, Mr Armstrong: if I wanted to get out of the park from here without going back again past the Bloom’s house, what would be my best way to go?’
‘Oh, that’s easy, we’d cut down there, bearing left between the back of the Ulster Museum, on our left, and the Conservatory to the right, which would take us out just above the Whitla Hall, you know, diagonally opposite the Students’ Union building. At this time of the night the main gate will be closed but I know a way at the back of the Whitla Hall that we can get out on to the main road by.’
‘O-kay,’ McCusker said, as he quickened his pace somewhat, ‘let’s walk that way.’
The only action on University Road was the changing colours of the traffic lights, which, without their usual queue of vehicles, made them appear quite eerie. The streets were sodden from an earlier shower, and empty.
