Mystery Man 04 - The Prisoner of Brenda

by Bateman

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I promise that I won’t tell anyone that I’m going undercover into a secure mental ward, Nurse Brenda.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Nurse Brenda. ‘You always were a very good boy.’

  And with that the die was cast.

  16

  It was cold and damp, and that was just in the shop. The weather outside had taken another turn for the worse, and I had a cold which was a sniffle short of pneumonia and a body temperature that was a degree north of hypothermia. Jeff was standing there in his T-shirt. ‘It’s boiling in here,’ he said, and went to open a window. I prevented him by telling him he would be sacked if he did. I was quite serious. ‘It’s barely autumn,’ he said. ‘You get like this every year. It’s balmy out there. In here, it’s like the black hole of Kolkata.’

  ‘Of where?’

  ‘Kolkata.’

  ‘Of where?’

  ‘Kolkata.’

  ‘Of where?’

  Jeff sighed. Brendan Coyle also sighed. He was in the shop with us; he had removed his sports jacket and was standing in a short-sleeved shirt. And trousers and shoes and socks, but they are hardly relevant. Brendan Coyle is a literary novelist who sometimes moonlights as a crime writer. He also teaches a creative writing class in No Alibis on a Saturday morning. I despise most humans, but I reserve a special despiction for Brendan, because he is a know-all, and a snob, and a hypocrite, and successful. The audience he attracts to his class is responsible for one third of my weekly book sales. This does not amount to a huge number of books, but it can mean the difference between profit and loss, so I could not afford to poison him, bludgeon him, have him iced by my gangland connections or otherwise piss him off because I wanted to keep my baby in Pampers.

  As if it needed saying, I said: ‘Calcutta.’

  ‘The name has changed,’ said Jeff.

  ‘But the expression has not. Now let me concentrate.’

  I was hunched over the computer, examining the photographs Jeff had taken at Francis Delaney’s funeral. Thus far, the only face I recognised was that of DI Robinson.

  ‘Did he see you?’ I asked.

  ‘I am a master of disguise. I move like a shadow. As stealthy as a midnight cat, as—’

  ‘He saw you then.’

  ‘Yes. He said, “Hello, Jeff, what’re you doing here?” I said I was a friend of the deceased’s sister.’

  ‘Did he believe you?’

  ‘He made no comment.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no, then. Well attended, I see.’

  ‘The church was packed. I wasn’t really able to take pictures – it would have been . . .’ He struggled for the right word.

  ‘Indelicate,’ said Brendan.

  ‘Too much trouble,’ I suggested.

  ‘Indelicate,’ Jeff agreed. ‘But most of them continued on to the graveside, and it was a bit easier there. I pretended I had a phone call and wore my apologetic face.’ He made it. It did not look very apologetic to me.

  Brendan Coyle leaned over me and examined the photo I had up. ‘This is the case you’re working on, eh?’

  ‘Clearly,’ I said. He smelled of pipe tobacco. He did not actually smoke a pipe. There was a spray on the market which gave the same effect. It was called Pipe Delight. It cost a lot of money. Brendan was not literally an idiot, but he had idiot tendencies. I pointed at a small group of burly men bunched together. ‘These guys look like the weightlifters from the gym, but I can’t be sure with their clothes on. Beyond that . . .’ I flicked onto the next photo, another wide shot taken at the cemetery. ‘Who did you get speaking to?’

  ‘Well, no one at the church, or the cemetery for that matter. It was all very quiet and respectful. But they all went back to the Stormont Inn afterwards. People were more forthcoming once the drink got flowing. That said, they were very complimentary about the deceased.’

  ‘Did they talk about the hospital, why he was in there?’

  ‘No. I tried asking, but it was kind of ignored – as if being murdered wasn’t the dreadful thing, but being in the mental hospital was.’

  ‘That’s the way of it,’ I said. ‘Was there talk of Gabriel, or Fat Sam?’

  ‘Just that Gideon was the c word, and Fat Sam was a good employer.’

  ‘Was there a connection made between Fat Sam and Francis’s murder?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘No knowing nods or winks or looks?’

  ‘Not that I was aware of, though my vision is impaired because of what your mother did to me, so I’m not the best person to ask.’

  Chortle isn’t a word that is used very often these days, but it is the right one to describe the sound coming from Brendan Coyle.

  ‘You sent a partially-sighted man to be your eyes at a funeral?’

  ‘His eyesight is better than mine, Brendan, even though he has one closed over.’

  ‘But clearly not good enough to recognise these gentlemen.’ Brendan reached out and tapped the screen. ‘The Brothers Karamazov.’

  He was indicating two men, in middle age, in better suits than most of those around them. One was bald, and one, if I wasn’t mistaken, had gone the way of wig.

  ‘The . . .?’

  ‘Forgive me – it’s how they’re often referred to in the circles in which I move, that is to say, the cultured circles. It’s a little bit of an in-joke.’

  ‘Clearly I don’t move in such circles,’ I said, ‘otherwise I would get it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jeff.

  Brendan waved a hand loosely around the shop. ‘Crime fiction, my dear boys. Much better to be on the outside, looking in.’ He moved a little closer to the screen. ‘Yes, indeed, that is certainly two of them. They’re actually from Donegal originally; the name of their firm is O’Dromodery Construction. You’ve heard of them, surely? They’ve built half of Belfast these past few years.’

  I had, but vaguely. ‘I don’t get the Karamazov.’

  ‘There was a bit of a stink about them a few years ago because they were just about the first to bring in cheap Eastern European labour. It didn’t go down awfully well with the local chaps, but the O’Dromoderys made their fortune from it. And they seem to quite enjoy throwing some of it at the arts. They believe, and rightly, that people of influence, people who matter, often move in artistic circles, and so they have attempted to curry favour by way of sponsorship – but everyone knows they are total philistines. As the story goes, they thought The Brothers Karamazov was a rival construction firm. The story may be apocryphal, but it has rather stuck. They are not supposed to be the most pleasant people in the world, but show me a rich businessman who is. They haven’t been around town much this last year, but I suppose that’s understandable, after what happened to the brother.’

  He nodded to himself, and he waited.

  Finally, Jeff said, ‘The brother?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Poor Fergus. I met him a few times, and he was – how shall I say? – less coarse than the other two. Actually, he was quite nice and decent and sensitive – over-sensitive, as it turns out. Some deal or other went wrong, and he threw himself off the company building. Poor bugger.’

  ‘And what would the O’Dromodery Brothers be doing at the funeral of Francis Delaney?’ I asked.

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ said Brendan.

  I have a certain sympathy for anyone who is desperate enough to throw themselves off a tall building. It was never an option for me, being afraid of heights, but then, given my brittle bones, height was never a requirement. I could have achieved the same result by throwing myself off a modestly constructed Lego house. But I understood the process, and the desire, and the only reason I hadn’t killed myself was my certain knowledge that the world would be a poorer place without me, and that murderers would remain free, and that Belfast would be left without a guide to the greats of mystery fiction, and that Page would be deprived of a father, and that Alison would be left without a
lover, at least for a few days, and that Mother . . . well, she would probably only notice when I wasn’t around to empty her ashtray and give her luxurious massages in the bath.

  Although it could not possibly last, I had a purpose, and for the moment that purpose was The Case of the Man in the White Suit, which had now led me to the death of one of the Karamazov Brothers. I was as intrigued by this as I was by the brothers’ presence at Francis Delaney’s funeral, and then by Francis Delaney’s presence in Purdysburn Hospital, and his ultimate death, presumably at the hands of Gabriel. By their very physical presence in each other’s lives and deaths, I could plot them on a Venn diagram, and would – yet their connection was as knotted and confusing as a tangled ball of Christmas-tree lights. But I love the process of unravelling. Also, I was intending to do everything in my power to solve The Case of the Man in the White Suit before I had to do my sleepover in the mental hospital, the dread of which was already well lodged in my gut.

  After a very long while, during which he made many cruel and cutting remarks about crime fiction, Brendan Coyle finally departed, and a little after that Jeff went off into the stormy night as well. I locked up the shop and turned off the lights and sat as I like to do, in the darkness, before my computer, with a Twix in one hand, and the heating switched off to save the pennies, and I began to search for the key that would unlock The Case of the Man in the White Suit.

  Ninety minutes later, I was arrested for criminal damage to a hydrangea bush.

  17

  Sometimes, when I have accumulated a lot of information, I need time to let it marinate. On these occasions I like to walk, even in my condition. I love the cover of darkness, though my night vision is poor and I am scared of cats. I always take my Nail for the Scratching of Cars with Personalised Numberplates with me in case I get lucky. On this night my walk deliberately took me past a Pound Shop, where I purchased a small trowel and a set of surgical gloves. I placed them in the pocket of my parka. I was already thinking of the implement as the Trowel of Hope. The gloves were to protect my hands from soil, mud, dirt, bugs and plants. I was also wearing a black woollen hat which could fold down into a balaclava if required. If by some chance I was spotted before I could do what I intended to do, the worst the police could charge me with was going equipped for gardening. I knew I would have to be quick, not just to avoid being spotted, but also to avoid the extreme reaction I suffer when I’m exposed to rubber gloves for more than five minutes.

  I walked through the rain, fingering the Trowel of Hope and occasionally scratching cars, until I came to the Holywood Road. To get there I had to pass the All Star Health Club, which I now knew had been built three years earlier by the Brothers Karamazov who, following the suicide of Fergus, now comprised of Bernard and Sean O’Dromodery. My research told me that they had once been regarded as one of the richest families in Ireland, but that they had only just hung on by their fingernails during the recent property crash. Instead of dozens of building projects employing thousands of builders, they now appeared to be concentrating on just one, a major new shopping centre build on surplus land they had purchased from St Mary’s High School for Girls on the Falls Road in West Belfast, which they hoped would restore their fortune.

  The O’Dromodery Brothers’ headquarters were a quarter of a mile away from the health club, set back from the main road and overlooking sports grounds opposite, with the twin cranes of the Harland & Wolff shipyard only visible beyond because of their sporting red lights to stop planes crashing into them at night. There was a tarmac forecourt set out in parking spaces, and between them and the main building were four concrete boxes. These were now filled with soil and plants, and would originally have been used to prevent terrorists from parking car bombs too close. The building itself was four storeys high, and not much of an advert for innovative design. It was just a bigger concrete box.

  There were three vehicles in the car park, a light in reception but nobody behind the desk, and there were lights on the top floor, but no one was visible at the windows. I sheltered under a tree overhanging the pavement across the road for nine minutes, checking for signs of movement. When I saw none I lowered the balaclava and crossed the road. I pulled on the surgical gloves. I then exposed the Trowel of Hope and approached the first of the concrete flower boxes and began to dig.

  I had a theory. I often do.

  The hydrangeas were not in flower. The soil was moist thanks to the rain and easy to penetrate. It was with considerable relief that I discovered that the concrete boxes were mostly solid, with only about two feet of earth to sift through. I dug around the roots of the plant and widened my search in an expanding circle until I hit the edges of the first box without finding what I was looking for. I moved onto the second box. This hydrangea seemed to be younger – its roots were shallower and less tangled. It was easier to actually remove the plant with its roots intact so that I could work more swiftly through the soil. I had just completed this action when my face, and the scene in general, was illuminated by the beam of a flashlight.

  ‘And what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ a gruff voice demanded. I turned towards it and could just about make out a rotund figure in some kind of a uniform. ‘Put down your weapon.’

  ‘It’s not a weapon,’ I said. ‘It’s a trowel.’

  ‘Drop it!’

  He did not himself appear to be armed. He was just a security guard. If I’d been a better man I would have taken him down. I had read ten thousand crime novels and knew as many ways to kill a man. But I lacked the physical strength, and a backbone, so I dropped the trowel and blinked at him.

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ I said by way of explanation.

  ‘Yes, you are – you’re stealing our flowers.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, ‘and it’s a shrub.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you’re coming with me.’

  He had the confidence of bulk, but he would have no speed. I could have attempted to run away, but I knew that my arthritic knees and calcified joints would let me down. It would be a fat bloke chasing a cripple, and the result would be too close to call. Besides, I was keen to see the inside of the O’Dromodery building, so I did as he indicated and walked ahead of him towards the reception. As I set off he stooped to retrieve the trowel. He held it carefully so as not to smudge any fingerprints. He had clearly been watching too many cop shows. I smiled to myself. This was probably the highlight of his month. With his other hand he reached down and lifted the hydrangea. When we got to the front door, I had to open it for him.

  We entered the reception. He told me to take a seat. He moved behind the desk and set the plant down on top. He opened a drawer and took out a bag containing elastic bands. He emptied these out and slipped the trowel into it instead. He took a Post-it note, wrote something on it and then stuck it to the bag and slipped it back into the drawer. I believe he was trying to intimidate me with efficiency. But he had no idea who he was dealing with. I ate the likes of him for breakfast. Once, literally.

  He said, ‘Things are bad when you steal the very flowers.’

  ‘Shrubs,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll be needing some ID.’ I took out my business card and slipped it across. It was the one that said Murder is Our Business, amongst other things. I had nothing to hide. He studied it intently. His eyes flitted up. ‘Odd name,’ he said.

  I shrugged.

  He said, ‘You can take off the gloves.’ I took off the gloves and handed them to him. He bagged them.

  He said, ‘What do you want to tell me about the . . . shrub?’

  ‘It’s a hydrangea.’

  ‘Right. What do you want to tell me about the hydrangea.’

  ‘The hydrangea macrophylla.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s deciduous.’ He blinked at me. ‘That means it sheds its leaves.’

  ‘I know what deciduous is. Don’t be smart. You were caught red-handed.’

  ‘I was just doing a litt
le pruning. It’s essential.’

  ‘We have people who do that.’

  ‘Well, clearly they’re not doing it.’

  ‘You were stealing our hydrangea. It was on the ground.’

  ‘Only until I could clear out debris from its bedding. It has been used as an ash-tray. That’s not good for it.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’m a Midnight Gardener,’ I said, and then we both sat silently for quite a while, as we both tried to work out what I meant. Finally it came to me. ‘We are urban guerrillas,’ I said. ‘We protect the rights of potted plants and shrubbery. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?’

  ‘Are you on some kind of drugs?’

  ‘I’m high on life,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to phone the police now.’ He reached for the phone.

  ‘They know all about the Midnight Gardeners. They have a special unit that deals with us. Ask for Special Branch.’

  He hesitated. His swollen cheeks were reddening. ‘You’re fucking with me, right?’

  I smiled. I reached out and plucked a leaf off the shrub. I held it up to my nose and breathed in. ‘Do you know there are over six hundred variations of hydrangea? I could probably name you two hundred of them.’ I rolled the leaf into a ball and held it up. ‘And do you see this?’ He nodded warily. ‘Every part of the hydrangea plant contains cyanogenic glycosides, or as you might know it – cyanide.’

  ‘Cy . . .?’

  ‘How would you handle a death in custody, on your watch? I can tie you up in paperwork for the rest of your life. I’ll become a cause celeb and a conspiracy theory.’ I popped the leaf into my mouth and began to chew. ‘Long live the Midnight Gardeners,’ I said. ‘Let me go or I’ll swallow and then you’ll have the blood of a dead man on your hands, amongst other excretions.’

  I grinned at him. I really was fucking with him. There was sweat on his brow, a rapid, engorged pulse at the side of his head and his eyes were blinking like a punch-drunk boxer’s. I had introduced a virus of doubt and panic into his system: and he was just about self-aware enough to know that he was out of his depth.