A Day in the Life of Louis Bloom

by Paul Charles

  McCusker didn’t really begrudge her, her drastic, and final, approach. His logic was that the reality of their situation was their property portfolio existed solely through her efforts and his Patten handshake (minus the gold watch) was his, and all’s fair in the absence of love. O’Carroll had frequently argued that he was entitled to at least 50 per cent of the net results of the property sell-off. He had noticed that her arguments had become more frequent and fierce since he’d met Grace.

  Apart from all the predictable problems Anna Stringer’s departure had caused, and there were many, there were two that particularly troubled the detective. The Patten pay-off, generous though it was, was by itself certainly not sufficient to finance the remainder of McCusker’s days. The downside was that once you took the early retirement package, you could never join the ranks of the PSNI again. McCusker thought long and hard about what other work he could do and came to the inevitable conclusion that the only thing he was capable of doing, the only thing he wanted to do, was to solve crimes. So he’d visited his former boss, Superintendent Thomas Davies, in Portrush. Davies had put him in touch with a good friend of his, Superintendent Niall Larkin, who was stationed at the Customs House in Belfast. Larkin came up with a solution for McCusker, and it was based on the strength of Superintendent Thomas Davies’ unreserved recommendation. If McCusker would register with the Grafton Agency in Belfast, then Larkin would be able to hire him in on a freelance basis, as what was affectionately known as a “Yellow Pack”, Yellow Packs being an reference to the inferior in-house supermarket brands.

  That is how McCusker moved down to Belfast and found himself partnered up with DI Lily O’Carroll.

  Now just when he’d settled into enjoying his Belfast life, Anna Stringer was back in Ulster and he was on his way to the Fitzwilliam Hotel, to see her for the first time in two years. He’d discussed the invitation with Grace, who had encouraged him to go and see her. Even Lily, who was never backward about coming forward, had said, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, McCusker – she’s your wife, you know, and I’m just saying,’ as she directed McCusker’s eyes to her sister, ‘maybe it would be a good idea if she wasn’t your wife anymore. I’m just saying.’

  That was of course if DI O’Carroll ever just said anything.

  As he made his way up to the suite that some of the hotel staff had nick-named the Frank Lampard Suite, he wondered about the sense of visiting Anna Stringer in her rooms. He also wondered why she wanted to see him. As he knocked on the door in the dark corridor he found himself quietly whispering one of his mother’s many famous phrases. “Wonder in one hand and wee in the other, and see which one fills first.”

  * * *

  Forty-seven minutes later he made the journey back along the shadowy corridor, into the lift and down into the lobby of the Fitzwilliam, where the very first person he spotted was DI Lily O’Carroll, non-nonchalantly reading a local daily newspaper.

  She was visibly shaking when McCusker sat down beside her by the lobby’s faux fireside.

  ‘Your Tele is upside down,’ McCusker offered in jest.

  For a split second he had her, and she quickly squinted back at the page. She was still shaking as she untidily folded the day’s early edition of The Belfast Telegraph.

  ‘Does my sister have anything to worry about, McCusker?’

  ‘Only that one of her sister’s blind dates is going to get her whole family in trouble someday soon.’

  ‘McCusker!’

  ‘Lily,’ he said, and he rarely called her Lily, ‘I love you dearly for caring about your sister so much, but can I just say that Grace and I are both totally okay with each other. In fact, she had me at “Hello”, and I haven’t looked back since. She knows that there is nothing Anna Stringer could say or do today, or ever, that is going to change what is between your sister and I.’

  ‘So what did she want?’

  ‘She wanted to tell me that her sister in America died eighteen months ago, shortly after she went over to America, in fact. She also told me that she and her sister’s husband are going to get married and she’s going to settle in America permanently. She wants a divorce.’

  ‘And that was it?’ O’Carroll asked, snapping back into her usual upbeat spirit. ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yeah, I think that was all. Let’s think, was there anything else? McCusker hammed, playfully, ‘oh yes, I knew there was something else. She brought me a cheque for my half of the sale of our properties.’

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God!’ she involuntarily said, with a loud gasp.

  ‘She apologised – she wanted to make her peace with me. She and her husband-to-be want everything settled so they can get on with their new life without having to look over their shoulders. I told her about Grace and she seemed genuinely happy for me.’

  ‘Can I just say,’ O’Carroll said, as she sidled up to him as they departed the Fitzwilliam ten minutes later, ‘don’t ever used the word “cheque” in public again, particularly in somewhere as public as a hotel. People, cool people, don’t do cheques any more. That’s just so old-fashioned, McCusker. Financial transactions are concluded by swift or electronic transfers these days.’

  ‘Oh okay,’ he said, appearing to take his chastisement on the chin. ‘In that case, I won’t be “uncool” and show you how much my cheque is worth.’

  Neither gave way to the other as they scrunched tightly together through the swinging doors. She playfully elbowed him in the ribs.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Day Four: Sunday

  The morning after his meeting with Anna Stringer, McCusker woke up alone, feeling like he was back in his childhood house up in Portrush once more. He could hear all of the familiar sounds and voices outside his bedroom window, just like it was yesterday. The Booths were fighting; the Morrows were bawling; Mary Rose Porter was leaning on her gate gossiping with a shop boy; the Smiths were mowing the lawn; Papa Hepburn was chasing the daughter and the McCuskers (no relation) were washing and shining their fleet of cars.

  McCusker hadn’t seen Grace O’Carroll on the Saturday night because he’d gone to relieve DI Jarvis Cage for a late shift. DS Barr had done his shift the previous night, but Cage liked to be considered as the point-officer on the stake-out, and be there the majority of time.

  Miles Bloom hadn’t received any visitors, no personal callers at all. The only movement was his wife frequently coming and going, just like a wee red-robin busy nipping in and out of her nest, in case she’d miss some food for the family or another twig to feather the nest. But there was absolutely no sign whatsoever of a denim-clad Miles.

  McCusker got to his bed at 5.00 a.m. and was awakened by the neighbours – the sounds he mistook for his childhood neighbours – at 10.30. He felt like lying on, but that would only serve to give him a sluggish, wasted day. So he jumped out of bed, ran straight into the shower, and seventeen minutes later he was sitting in his comfortable easy chair (which he’d brought from Portrush) with a fresh cup of coffee and two croissants stuffed with hot scrambled eggs. Crumbs dispensed with, because that was all that remained, he topped up his coffee and took out the journal of Louis Bloom.

  The professor had written in very neat, rectangular or square boxes, or blocks of lettering. It appeared that he’d always used tidy, printed letters – never joined-up writing – in his journal. McCusker read it all twice to see if he could pick up any secrets that weren’t being covered elsewhere.

  Bloom had used yellow post-it notes to earmark several notes, diary entries, blogs, doodles, springboards for his book, ideas for lectures – call them what you will, but they all appeared to be notes that said something to him. Maybe he even felt there was some relevance deep within. McCusker had, in the end, to admit – if only to himself – that the journal was disappointing in providing clues, but otherwise it did contain some interesting ideas and thoughts. Having felt that, he knew he needed to read it another time, particularly the following extracts, to check if they made some connection with hi
m when he was of a different frame of mind.

  Extract I. The thing about Marilyn Monroe is that in some of her photographs (not all) but the ones where she is staring directly at the camera lens (i.e. you, the viewer) she has the look of someone who would have shared her soul with you – it’s like it is far beyond the fact that she was willing to make a physical connection with you.

  McCusker wondered if Louis had really been referring to Murcia Woyda, or Mrs Noah, as Mariana had referred to her, in this first extract.

  Extract II. Sometimes I go through my day thinking about all the things that I do as I am doing them, knowing that this might just be the last time I do these things. Mundane tasks gain so much more significance when they are known to be the final actions of a man or woman. I wonder: what if you knew it was the last time you cleaned your teeth? What would you do differently that day as you cleaned your teeth? Would you think, feck it, it doesn’t matter anymore, it’ll be over soon? Would you think, with what’s about to happen, no amount of showering and deodorant was going to keep the death smell away from me? Or do you have the full spoon of sugar in your tea and an extra Kit Kat, because being good in order to protect your end-game (the last lap as it were) is no longer a concern? Would this revelation be a relief or a great concern? Then I think that just because I’ve had the thought, i.e. that this could be the last time, it means that it won’t. And then I wonder if there is a subconscious trigger that activates the initial thought, just so I could bask in the relief of the second thought, i.e. just because you’ve thought it, means it’s definitely not going to happen. Finally, to balance this out, sometimes I think it would be great if say, for instance, I was offered a deanship (or honour) out of the blue. Then I accept that just because I’ve had that thought, it’s never going to happen. Then I wonder why, grammatically, “finally” rarely means “finally”. I wonder what will people talk about afterwards.

  McCusker wondered if this one suggested Louis feared for his life, or, to put it another way, was preparing himself for his expected demise?

  Extract III. You’ve drunk too much and you need to be sick. You want to stand up, you want to sit, you want to lie down, but you can do none of the above. You want a cold towel on your brow, you want to be warmed by a comforting blanket, hot water bottle or body, but you know that deep down all you are really going to do is to be sick. And then you break out in a cold sweat, next a shiver descends and then you are sick, and then it calms down and goes away and in the relief period you try to fall asleep and then you wake up again. This time the process happens much more quickly but you always hope the relief after being sick is going to last this time.

  Extract IV. John loves Mary, does anyone love John?

  McCusker wondered was there a John and Mary. Could Louis be John, and if so who was Mary? Alternatively, he accepted that these seven words together just might be the saddest story he had ever read.

  Extract V. Really it seems to me that we’re paid to sit around and have these great thoughts. But the sad reality just might be that the majority of us here have had no greater thought than this one.

  Extract VI. Death, this thing called death is a bit like an alligator lying deep in the swamp, slowly, lazily sloughing around, waiting for prey to come to him. Suddenly from out of nowhere the alligator scents a helpless victim passing close by. The alligator will shed its bored, lethargic, listless air and will dart, as fast as a F1 racing car; as agile as Usain Bolt; as vicious as a lion, and as deadly as any assassin, in the hunt of his prey.

  Extract VII. I always find that when I’m praying I can never keep my mind on the prayer. My attention always wanders off on other, sometimes several, tangents. No matter how much I focus on the prayer it’s always the same. Sometimes one of the tangents may be how much I’m focusing on trying to have a single-thought prayer. One ruse I’ve managed to come up with is to rest a fist on my head and point my forefinger to Heaven. More often than not, I start to think of my fist, my head, my forefinger, but, strangely enough, never, ever of Heaven.

  Extract VIII. The Drug of Love. Recently while watching a docudrama, The Secret, on the infamous Coleraine Case, where two lovers were found guilty of planning and executing their own respective wife and husband in order to be together, I glimpsed a real sense of the drug of love. I know it was an actress, Genevieve O’Reilly, and she was acting the part, brilliantly it has to be said, but the look of sheer ecstasy on her face as her partner entered her was so powerful, so revealing. She really looked like a junkie who was totally blissed out as her particular drug flowed into her bloodstream. I felt guilty, as though I was eavesdropping on a scene so physically intimate. This was without the camera revealing anything to you other than the look on the actress’s face. I felt that a woman who reacts so might, just might do anything – including murder the father of her children – yes, anything at all, just as long as she was allowed to continue to get a fix of her own personal drug: physical love.

  Extract IX. What is it about humans’ make-up that has us programmed to need to keep repeating our pleasures? It’s accepted that the first time is usually the best, and surely it would be even better in our memory if we knew it was going to be our only time. Okay, okay, maybe there is an excuse to indulge yourself and your partner twice, or even thrice before the cock crows. But do I hear calls for more? Of course I do. Okay, I’ll agree to seven, but only on the condition that we all know our ration runs out on the seventh heaven. Please just remember the pleasure of the joy and freedom you used to feel at the start of a school holiday – it never goes away, but it’s equally important that we acknowledge that it is but a memory, and that we can never reclaim the original feeling!

  Extract X. They say school prepares you for university and university prepares you for life. But on reflection, perhaps that should be: school prepares you for university; university prepares you in the noble art of avoiding life. Only life prepares you for life.

  Extract XI. Sometimes I really wonder if dying might feel like committing suicide. Not that I have any wish to. No, it’s never been a thought I’ve entertained. But I wonder where my comparison between dying and suicide comes from. Surely with dying you have no control over the process and it is so much more painful? Having said that, I keep remembering that when you cut your hand, or finger, with a knife by accident, the initial feeling is so deceptively painless and so eye-openingly enlightening, as in a feel-good kind of way, that it totally stimulates you. That’s of course until you realise it’s just too late, you’ve cut yourself and you’re actually bleeding. Maybe it’s just a way of fearing death less.

  Extract XII. Days are a bit like pages, so it’s vitally important you don’t flick through one just to get to the next one.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Day Five: Monday

  McCusker walked from his apartment in University Square Mews, up to the leafy end of Botanic Avenue, stopped at the French Village – his favourite bakers in Botanic Avenue – picked up four Paris buns and walked back through Botanic Gardens, out of the gate that led into Colenso Parade, past Louis Bloom’s house on the corner of Landseer Street, on past Elaine Street, then Pretoria Street, before turning right into Stranmillis Gardens, passing all four streets with their neat, tidy, matching, red-bricked houses, and knocked on the green door he remembered as belonging to Mr G Divito.

  Once again the door was opened with a bit of grumbling and groaning from within.

  ‘Mr Divito’, McCusker announced, ‘do you remember me?’

  ‘I do,’ Wee George said, as he looked past McCusker, ‘where’s that clever young partner of yours?’

  ‘He’s not with me today, but I brought you something else,’ McCusker said, offering his warm bag. ‘I seem to remember we ate you out of house and home last time.’

  Wee George accepted the bag, and as he opened it, a very large grin spread across his face.

  ‘Come on in, man, sure you can help me with them?’ George said. ‘I thought you’d be back. You look like
a man who is as good as his word.’

  They chatted away through to the thin end of half an hour and between the two of them made short work of the Paris buns.

  ‘I’m always here,’ George said, when they were back on the doorstep again, ‘you’re welcome any time, particularly when you’re prepared to share your stash.’

  Wee George Divito was just about to close the door when he appeared to have a second thought about doing so and opened it fully again.

  ‘Oh goodness, I almost forgot,’ he started up, ‘last night, when I was out for my evening constitutional, as I walked back to the Botanic end of Landseer, I notice this woman behaving suspiciously near the Bloom’s house. The closer I got to her the more I realised she was crying. I figured she must be a student of Louis Bloom’s. I went over to her and asked if I could help. She was wearing a dark duffle coat, with her hood up.’

  ‘Did she look like Marilyn Monroe?’ McCusker asked.