Michael Caldwell had gone to Rathcoole Primary, and although his parents had done well for themselves and moved down the coast, the fifteen-year-old’s heart had remained in the housing estate. He kept in touch with his old muckers. Good lad, Michael, we’ll miss you. Carl, Alan, Bix. It wasn’t difficult to track them down. They said on the night he disappeared he was supposed to meet them in the city centre, but he never showed up. He got the train from Bangor all right, and they’d CCTV footage of him getting off alone at the Botanic halt rather than at Central Station, probably to avoid walking past the Nationalist Markets area. No trace of him after that. They’d intended going to a club, the boys said. They’d fake ID, and when pressed they admitted they’d bought speed and blow. But Michael hadn’t shown, so what did it matter?
Well, it mattered because Michael Caldwell’s blood tests showed he was drugged up to the point of OD on the night of his death, and he got it from somewhere, and probably took it with someone, on his way to someplace.
Marsh watched their interviews through the glass, and he read their statements. His crack team said, ‘We let them go now, boss?’ and he just handed back the paperwork and said, ‘Try again.’
The kids, they were cocky, but shocked as well. The Ceasefire had been around long enough for them not to have experienced the worst of it, but there was hardly a week went by without someone getting shot or pulverised on the estate. There was always a feud going on between the UVF and the UDA or the LVF or the UFF, usually about drugs. When one group was doing particularly well, the other would launch a campaign to ‘free our streets of these anti-social delinquents’ and there would be a spate of knee-cappings, beatings and occasionally murders. Power would shift for a while, and then another campaign to free the streets would be launched. Marsh was constantly surprised that with so much dealing/vigilantism going on, the Protestant paramilitaries had any time left at all with which to defend Ulster from Republicans.
Another six hours went past while the butterfly boys were pinned again. Marsh spent time at his computer. He found the Let’s Be Mates website oddly addictive, which was frustrating, because there was no way he was going to access it at work. Nothing was secret in the PSNI, and if it got out that he was dallying with a dating service he’d be hauled up before the bigwigs and accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act. That’s what it was like. Always looking over your shoulder.
He had laughed - to himself, obviously, because looking at his face you’d think he was reading the Death Notices in the local paper - at the filmic notion of either Michael Caldwell or Pink Harrison being his ‘last case’, the one he had to solve before he hung up his badge. Because the truth was that there never could be a last case. There would always be one more. He couldn’t imagine retiring. To do what - the garden? To work as a f***ing security guard? No. He would die in the saddle. He knew that. And although he had done his best to pass some of it on, most of his knowledge would die with him. How he had led the battle against anarchy. How he had defied politicians and paramilitaries and parasites alike. He had helped to keep this country alive. It was all in there, in his head, how it was done, the harsh lessons learned, the sacrifices made, the glorious triumphs. Yet there was a reluctance to come to him, to ask for the benefits of his experience. He was from a different era. Times have changed, old man. No one would say that to his face, of course. But he sensed it. They were just waiting for him to go. He was the police equivalent of a salesman laboriously hauling every single f***ing volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from door to door, only to find that not only was it out of date, but that every single person he spoke to was already wired for sound, just needed to Ask Jeeves or type it into some other f***ing search engine. They didn’t want what he was peddling. And were blissfully unaware of how quickly it could all slip back to the way it was. And then where would they be? Lost, that’s where.
There was still a third woman to try on the website. The first he had stood up, the second had been a gunman’s widow, like vengeance for the first. The third would be fine. She had to be.
The door opened and Gary McBride came in. ‘Your fella Bix gave up the name of their dealer - works out of one of the amusement arcades down Castle Street. Benny Caproni.’
‘I know Benny, don’t I?’
The Capronis had immigrated to Belfast a hundred years before to sell ice cream and had made a fortune. Benny was an adopted son, gone bad and disowned.
Gary nodded. ‘Drugs, sure, but he runs hookers and some boys as well.’
‘Bix?’
‘Swears to God he never turned a trick in his life. But then he would.’
In the paramilitary handbook, sodomy was right next to Republicanism. Which made it particularly brave of Pink Harrison to play camp. Pink, up to a point, could protect himself, but there wasn’t much a fifteen-year-old could do if word got out.
‘What’s he say about our boy?’
‘Says Michael didn’t either, but who knows.’
‘Let’s talk to Caproni then.’
Gary turned for the door, then hesitated. ‘Let them go?’
‘You think there’s anything else?’
‘Hard to tell.’
Marsh thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Let them go. But let it be known we’ve spoken to them - see what that flushes out.’
Gary nodded.
When he’d gone. Marsh took out the photographs Michael Caldwell’s mum had given him, then spread them out facedown on his desk. He turned them over, one by one, saying, ‘Talk to me, Michael. Talk to me.’
You wouldn’t get that on Ask Jeeves.
69
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Redmond, in keeping with a man who had recently escaped from prison, defied death and finagled many thousands of dollars out of the British Government, probably drank a few more pints of Guinness than was strictly wise. He sat in the corner, talking to no one but watching the endless stream of humanity flowing past outside. It was, literally, the first day of the rest of his life. It was as if he had not previously existed. He was nobody. Or Swedish, which often amounted to one and the same. He was Viggo.
I am Viggo.
I am Viggo Mortensen.
He practised saying it. He tried it with his own accent, then with an American accent, and then with his approximation of a Swedish accent. He ordered another pint in this accent, and although in truth it sounded a little bit like a Muppet ordering Guinness, the message got through to the French barman. He tried it again half an hour later, but this time being more adventurous. He ordered chilli and rice from the menu. When he handed over his crisp new dollars, the barman said, ‘Merci, Father.’
Redmond blinked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then returned to his seat. As he ate his meal, he became aware that several of the customers were glancing across at him. Then, when he went to the toilet, and another customer was just coming out and he held the door for him, the customer nodded and said, Thank you, Father,’ in English but with a Spanish twist.
When this customer got up to leave half an hour later, he nodded again at Redmond, then tapped the newspaper sitting at his table and shook his head sympathetically. Redmond nodded back. Then he scurried across to retrieve the paper. It was the main local daily. And there, on the front page, was his photograph. Or what would have looked like his photograph to anyone who wasn’t family. It was his brother, Damian, Father Damian, standing with that useless Sinn Fein bitch Siobhan, outside the British Embassy, obviously giving off s**t about their treatment of Redmond O’Boyle.
Redmond took a long drink. He was nobody, with no history and a potentially wonderful future. But he was also a brother, and that brother was in this very city.
He and Damian had always chosen very different paths. There were many in Belfast who considered the Catholic Church to be little more than the religious wing of the Provisional IRA, but Redmond knew that wasn’t strictly true. They were just accommodating. Christian people were supposed to be. Even Hitler had nev
er been excommunicated, though he had received several written warnings. But Damian had always been against violence of any hue. They had fought about it, literally, when they were younger, and then talked about it, as adults, never agreeing, often shouting and pointing, but never, ever falling out to such an extent that they stopped talking or going out for a drink. Now Damian was in this very city. Probably heartbroken, as Redmond himself would be if anything ever happened to Damian. He was a priest, the pride of their family. Every Catholic mother wants a priest for a son, although also one who can provide for them in their retirement, which neither of these brothers was likely to manage. The best Redmond could hope for now was to make his fortune under his new identity and then wire his mother anonymous cash from Stockholm.
Redmond scanned down the article, looking for some clue as to where his brother might be now, whether or not he had already left the country. But finding none, he racked his brain to try and recall where Siobhan had been staying. He remembered her complaining about the hotel, and then saying she’d moved to somewhere much more luxurious, and there couldn’t be many of those in Bogotá. The Hilton, the Marriott perhaps?
Redmond drained his pint, left a healthy tip, then reconsidered and reclaimed it. There was no telling how long the dollars were going to have to last him. Outside, in the sticky swirl of downtown Bogotá, he hailed a taxi. A moment after he had climbed in and was driven off, a second taxi was hailed down outside the same bar.
The man climbing in said, ‘Follow that cab,’ although in Spanish, which didn’t sound half as impressive. He had two hundred dollars in his left pocket, and a gun in his right. In his back pocket he had a photograph of Redmond O’Boyle. In his heart he had nothing but the desire for indoor plumbing.
Father Damian was a good man, and had a way with people. But he was neither decisive nor commanding, and was well suited to his small country parish in a remote part of Tyrone which The Troubles had scarcely troubled. He believed in God and the Pope and Ireland, and was occasionally known to drink and wax lyrical about the God-given powers of George Best. Though he had grown up amidst the turmoil of West Belfast in the 1970s, he was not really a city boy. Belfast, even now, made him nervous. How much more nervous then was he in Bogotá, the kidnap capital of the world (still, despite Baghdad), with his brother cremated and his only company the cloying, whining bag of wind that was Sinn Fein Siobhan? The words of anger and frustration he had spoken on the steps of the British Embassy had been delivered in little more than a tremulous whisper; what had made them sound strident was their translation, yelled with furious abandon, like gunshots over a martyr’s coffin, by the gregarious Carlos, earning $30 an hour, and who apparently performed in this manner on every occasion, be it a political polemic or reading the latest weather reports on Voice of America.
There were not many television channels in Colombia, and the death of Redmond O’Boyle and his rapid cremation had caused a stir. Everywhere he went, police warned Father Damian to stay indoors because people hated FARC; yet each time he ventured outside, people clapped their hands, smiled and crossed themselves. It made him think that perhaps revolution was in the air. Even now, sitting in the bar of the Bogotá Hilton, everyone was all smiles and waves. Siobhan, thanks be to God, was lounging by the pool outside. Father Damian sipped at his Guinness and thought of poor departed Redmond, the black sheep of the family, but still of the family. He became aware of the barman waving at him, so he waved back. But no, more than a wave, a phone was being held out to him. Father Damian looked behind him, in case it was for someone else, then pointed at himself; the barman nodded extravagantly. Father Damian wiped his lips on the back of his hand and hurried across. He was sick of talking to the press, but too polite to refuse.
He said a tired, ‘Yes, Father Damian O’Boyle,’ into the receiver.
‘How’re you doin’, you old bollox?’
Father Damian said, ‘Excuse me?’
‘Excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking to, you old b***ard.’
Father Damian glanced about him; his face had reddened considerably. ‘Well, I’m really not sure.’
‘Do you not recognise the voice?’
‘It’s certainly familiar, but…’ It was a voice from home, that’s all he could say with any certainty.
‘I know things about you, Father.’
Father Damian cleared his throat. ‘I, ah, don’t really know what to say to that.’
‘You’ve a scar on the back of your head where Seanie Morrow hit you with a brick when you were seven, and you only ever told one other living soul how you got it.’
‘Why, yes I have. And I did. Who is this?’
‘Have you no idea at all?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s been a confusing few days.’
‘When you were eleven you stole a Slade album out of Woolies and gave it to your ma for her birthday.’
‘My goodness - yes, I did. But I never told anyone.’
‘Anyone?’
‘Well, no one apart from …’ he began. Then he stopped. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve really no idea.’
‘And you’ve a large brown freckle on your left bollock - now who the hell else is going to know that but your sainted mother who’d never mention it in a million years, and the brother you shared a bath with?’
For several moments there was only the slight hiss of a prewar Colombian telephone exchange. And then Father Damian whispered with quiet disbelief, ‘Is it Father Benedict?’
‘No, you friggin’ idiot, it’s your brother Redmond.’
Father Damian caught his breath. ‘That’s not possible . .. This isn’t funny, this isn’t funny at all.’ He had gone deathly white.
‘Damian, for Jesus sake, it’s me! Do you not recognise my voice at all?’
‘But you’re … you’re ...’
‘I’m upstairs.’
‘Holy Mother of God.’ There was a bottle of beer sitting on the bar before him, awaiting delivery to another table, but Father Damian grabbed hold of it and took a long swig. Then he spoke slowly and deliberately into the receiver. ‘And ... they … have … telephones … up there … do they?’
‘What the hell are you talking about? For Jesus sake, Darners, will you put the phone down and get up here now. I can’t get your friggin’ minibar open without your key.’
The line went dead. Father Damian held onto the bar for support while the world spun out of control around him.
70
Jumping the Gun
Walter was surprised to see Mark sitting at his desk when he arrived in work the next morning. ‘I thought you were moving to Office Twelve?’
‘I am,’ Mark said sullenly.
‘Then why the long face, as the barman said to the horse.’
‘No reason. Why should there be a reason? I haven’t a long face.’
Walter switched on his computer. ‘So, how did it go last night, then?’
‘Fine.’
‘Pounding the streets, were you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘What was it like, meeting the people, hearing their problems, seeing democracy at work? Did Pink show his face?’
‘That’s Councillor Harrison to you.’
‘Well, did he?’
‘No.’
‘But it went all right?’
‘Yeah. I suppose.’
‘And when are you doing it again?’
‘Tonight.’
Mark looked glumly down at his screen. Walter looked glumly down at his desk, where the gravy rings traditionally sat.
‘You know,’ Walter said, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. Some politicians have the common touch, but then they’re crap at everything else, and some just can’t handle people at all, and they change the world.’
‘You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘I know that. I’m only trying to help.’
Mark sat back. Folded his arms.
‘So
what about Office Twelve? When are you moving?’
Mark shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe later. There’s paperwork to be sorted.’
‘You know - you don’t have to go.’
Mark nodded slowly. ‘I know that.’ But he did have to go. He definitely knew that. He was in now, he was part of it, and he didn’t like it one bit.
The estate agent Linda Wray called Walter on his mobile in the early afternoon. ‘Your offer has been accepted,’ she said.
‘What offer?’ asked Walter.
‘For the apartment - the penthouse apartment at Towerview. You were most insistent. Well, it’s been accepted.’
‘Oh,’ said Walter. Truth be told, he’d entirely forgotten about the apartment and his grand plan; even Bertha had fallen by the wayside. His pizza with Margaret had been wonderful. Not the pizza, which had been hard as a discus, but sitting with her chatting, as if none of what had happened to them previously had happened at all. He had driven her home afterwards and they had kissed in the front seat of the car, like teenagers. There was even romantic music on the radio. He hadn’t tried to go in, and she hadn’t encouraged him. It was just nice the way it was. They had arranged a second date. Everything was going to work out fine.
‘You’ve changed your mind?’ Linda asked, slightly panicked because she was depending on the commission.
‘No, no, not at all. Sorry, my mind was elsewhere. That’s great, that’s fantastic.’
‘Oh, that’s good. I was worried you would be put off by that - you know ...’
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