I Predict a Riot

by Bateman, Colin

  ‘L-look,’ Marsh stammered, ‘it was an accident. I just didn’t know you were …’ He turned to his jacket on the couch, pulled out his wallet. Then he cursed. The cash he’d thought he’d had was mostly Euros left over from a trip to Dublin, and the few sterling notes had been used up on the meal. He had barely enough for a taxi.

  ‘Listen, let me …’ He reached out to her, but she pulled away.

  He hurried upstairs, then reappeared with his cheque book. He wrote her a cheque for £300. She looked at it for a moment, then crushed it into her handbag.

  There was a taxi on the way. She sat at the bottom of the stairs, sniffing and dabbing. He stood in the doorway. It seemed to take about four hours for the car to arrive, but it was only a few minutes. It pumped its horn outside. He opened the front door for her.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said again.

  She shook her head and went to leave. Then she stopped and said, ‘I know it was an accident. That’s all right. But a word of advice. Cut the crap about your dead wife, it’s not much of a turn-on. And another thing. I’ve never met a man so desperately in need of a shag. You should get out more.’

  With that she hurried out and down the drive.

  Marsh closed the front door and leaned against it. When he went into the lounge and picked up his drink, he noticed that his hands were shaking. The Stones were singing ‘Under My Thumb’.

  73

  O Brother, There You Are

  Father Damian was on his knees giving thanks, while Redmond busied himself at his mini-bar.

  ‘You sure you won’t have one?’ Redmond asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Father Damian, then added, ‘or just a small one.’ He moved from the floor to the bed and looked at his twin brother in disbelief. ‘This is just so amazing.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m James Bond in You Only Live Twice.’

  ‘It’s fantastic.’

  ‘These last few days have been like a bad dream.’

  ‘Tell me all about it.’

  So, nursing their drinks, Redmond told Damian about his time in Colombia. His training of the FARC guerrillas, his arrest, his incarceration in La Picota, being drugged by FARC agents and smuggled out, only to have his body seized by the British and rushed off to be cremated. ‘If I hadn’t woken up when I did, I’d be ashes to ashes by now.’

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ said Father Damian.

  ‘Thank the Lord indeed. Damian, I’ve seen the error of my ways.’

  ‘Thank the Lord.’

  ‘People, you just can’t trust them. FARC or Sinn Fein or the British or even your wife.’

  ‘Poor Maeve.’

  ‘Poor Maeve nothing, she’s the one gave the go-ahead to have me cremated.’

  ‘It was a difficult decision for her, Redmond. I understand fully why she did it. And why Sinn Fein hate her for it. And the people here are repressed, at least some of them are.’

  ‘Your problem, brother, is that you can see every side of the story.’

  ‘Why should that be a problem?’

  ‘Well exactly. But it is. That’s the way of the world.’

  Father Damian picked up Redmond’s new passport and flicked through it. ‘This won’t do, you know, Redmond, travelling the world as Viggo Mortensen. You’re not Swedish.’

  ‘He has dual citizenship. I can do American all right.’

  ‘It’s still not right. Look at it, there’s no entry stamp. If you’re stopped at the airport or—’

  ‘I can’t go back to the way it was. I’ll be thrown in prison, or shot, or both.’

  Father Damian nodded gravely. He closed the passport and flicked it between his fingers, thinking. ‘Redmond,’ he said eventually, ‘the Catholic Church is universal. In any country in the world I can call upon it to help me. The Archbishop of Bogotá himself telephoned to offer support when I arrived here. Let me go to him. Let me sort something out.’

  ‘I’m not going back to prison.’

  ‘I know that. At the very least we can get you out of the country, take you to somewhere remote. You may have to stay there for a very long time.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘Without contacting anyone.’

  ‘I understand that. And it’s fine. I’m starting a new life.’

  Father Damian nodded. ‘I will take this. I can probably secure the necessary visas through the Archbishop.’ He slipped it into his inside pocket.

  Redmond lay back on the bed and sipped at his whiskey. ‘Damian, how are Manchester United doing these days?’

  ‘They’re doing fine.’

  ‘And what about Celtic?’

  ‘Good. They have a new manager.’

  ‘It’s getting on for summer at home. Remember those day trips to Bangor?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘Thieving all round us.’

  ‘You more than me.’

  ‘But they were great days. Carrickfergus Castle with the school.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And that year we went camping in the Mournes’

  The priest nodded sadly. ‘Redmond - you can’t go home.’

  ‘One day.’

  ‘No, not ever. They’ll send you straight back, or disappear you. You stand for too much now. You’re a martyr. You have to start a new life, wherever we send you.’

  Redmond nodded. ‘But you’ll keep in touch?’

  ‘If I can.’ Damian sighed. ‘Redmond - you chose this path.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You have killed people.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Are you sorry now? Will you seek forgiveness?’

  ‘This is me you’re talking to, Damian. I’m not sorry. What’s done is done. If I had it all to do over again, maybe I’d do something different, but I can’t, so it’s not worth talking about, and if I seek forgiveness from anyone it’ll be me and Big Fella, not you with your one freckled bollock, all right?’

  Damian sipped his drink. He nodded.

  Father Damian’s appointment with the Archbishop of Bogotá was set for 7 p.m. To avoid attracting press attention - Damian had received eighteen requests for interviews alone since Redmond had appeared in his bedroom - it was agreed that the Archbishop’s driver would not pick him up from hotel reception, but from a street at the rear of the building. It was also thought wiser for him not to wear his priest’s habit. Damian left Redmond lying on the bed, watching south American football on the TV and eating a hamburger. His brother had ordered it on room service, then hidden in the bathroom while it was delivered.

  The priest took the staff lift downstairs, then walked out past the swimming pool to a small gate. A security guard was perched on a stool beside it. He said something in Spanish, then waved the priest away with his gun. Father Damian produced ten US dollars, and he was allowed out with an it’s your funeral shrug. There was a battered-looking Sedan waiting on the other side of a dusty track, its engine running and a nervous-looking driver peering out of a half-wound-down tinted window.

  Damian hurried across.

  ‘Father?’ asked the driver.

  Damian nodded and climbed into the back. As the car pulled out, Miguel del Sanchez, the man with a picture of Redmond O’Boyle on his lap, a gun in his pocket and indoor plumbing in his heart, leaned forward and said, ‘Follow that car,’ to his taxi driver.

  Redmond was by now drunk as a skunk; he was trying to concentrate on the football, but the phone kept ringing. His brother had been most insistent that he ignore it, and he did for the first hour, but then he got thirsty and wanted a Guinness so he phoned room service and had a broken-English conversation, the upshot of which was they weren’t sure if there was Guinness in the bar, but they promised to phone him back or deliver it. So when the phone did ring the next time he supposed it was room service with bad news, but it wasn’t, it was Phillip Grey from the Daily Mirror in London.

  ‘Honestly, Father O’Boyle, I know you’re upset, but if you could just spare me five minutes
of your time.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to say,’ said Redmond.

  ‘I understand your reticence, it’s just that I try to be fair in everything I write. It’s important to have balance, and the things people are saying about your brother, it’s only right that you have some comeback.’

  ‘What things?’ Redmond snapped.

  ‘That he was a callous murderer and he deserved to die. That he wasn’t interested in peace or democracy or even freeing Ireland, he just liked blowing things up because he was a psychopath.’

  ‘I’m not a—’ Redmond began, before suddenly catching himself on. ‘I’m not at all happy with that. It’s a disgrace to talk about my brother like that.’

  ‘I quite agree.’

  ‘He had very strong beliefs, and he feels … felt betrayed by those who sent him here in the first place. They left him here to die, and they didn’t try to get him out because they knew that he knew all their dirty little secrets. He knew where the bodies were - do you know what I’m saying?’

  ‘Absolutely. Father Damian, is there any chance I could come up for a chat?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Or would you care to join me? They have some excellent Irish whiskey down here.’

  ‘Give me five minutes,’ said Redmond.

  74

  The Anger of the Righteous

  Jimmy Marsh Mallow hardly slept a wink, even with the amount of booze he put away after the hooker left. He tossed and turned, all the time the anger steadily growing in him. Of course he had been tempted by her, what man wouldn’t be? She was stunningly attractive, but he had stood firm, done nothing wrong and yet, through no fault of his own, it had almost ended in tragedy. What if her fall down the stairs had ended with a broken neck, and not merely a few cuts and bruises? It would have been the end of him, his career down the Swanee because of an innocent desire for female companionship. How many other lonely men had she exploited? And how the hell did Let’s Be Mates let her get away with it?

  He got up at the first hint of dawn, shaved, showered, made breakfast, tried to forget about it, dismiss it as a close call, but he couldn’t; it ground away at him. He had been put in a desperate situation through no fault of his own, and something had to be done about it. He had nothing in particular against the girl; she was doing a job, and he supposed it was safer than hanging out behind the BBC with the rest of Belfast’s streetwalkers, but she was perpetrating a fraud, with or without the connivance of Let’s Be Mates. He had been strong and rejected her, but how many other men were going to fall into her penis fly trap?

  He wasn’t due in work until later, but he phoned anyway. There wasn’t any movement on the Caldwell case. Michael’s three friends had been released from custody, and his men were looking for Benny Caproni, the Castle Street dealer and occasional rent-boy supplier.

  Jimmy Marsh Mallow spent forty minutes on an exercise bike, listening to some early Clapton, then showered again. Downstairs he settled himself at the kitchen table with the phone beside him and a notebook and pen. He checked his watch: five past nine. He called Let’s Be Mates. A woman answered and he told her his name, at least the one Lauren had used when subscribing to the service, and asked to be put through to the manager or supervisor. A few moments later the same voice returned.

  ‘This is the manager.’

  ‘I just spoke to you.’

  ‘No. This is the manager.’

  ‘Your name is?’

  ‘Patricia. Patricia Craig.’

  ‘You’re the manager?’

  ‘Yes, I am. What can I do for you, Mr Michael?’

  ‘This is what you can do for me. You can refund whatever money my daughter paid you to join this agency, and then you can go through your files and chuck out every single whore you’ve got working for you, ’cause if you don’t I’ll have the police down on you like a ton of bricks.’

  Patricia did not immediately respond.

  ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you, Mr Michael. And I must reassure you that every site we run is maintained to the highest standard and all of the entries are vetted for—’

  ‘Then explain to me how come some hoor demanded two hundred quid off me for sex last night?’

  ‘I - I’m very sorry if that has happened, Mr Michael. We’ve had no previous complaints.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t strike me like it was the first time she’d done it. If you’re running an escort agency down there, then you should be upfront about it.’

  ‘I can assure you, we most certainly are not.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Certainly we will have to investigate further. The woman’s name?’ He told her, and then she asked him to wait for a moment while she looked it up on her screen. ‘Right. I see. Well, I can assure you we’ve had no previous complaints about this lady.’

  ‘If it got out that I was consorting with prostitutes, my career could be ruined. If my daughter found out, how would she feel? If I contracted some kind of disease … do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’ll have to speak to the boss.’

  ‘I thought you were the boss.’

  ‘I’m the manager. I have a boss.’

  ‘Do you want me to speak to him? I want a full refund or I’m reporting this.’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, Mr Michael, and your complaint will be investigated thoroughly. Just leave it with me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I possibly can.’

  He wasn’t about to give his work number over. He gave her his mobile. As he left the house half an hour later, Jimmy Marsh Mallow paused to wipe a set of bloody fingerprints off the doorframe.

  Across town, Patricia Craig had spent thirty minutes trying to track her boss down, but he was as elusive as ever. He had half a dozen mobile phone numbers, none of which were accepting even voicemail. He ran many other businesses in the city but when she tried them he had either just left or was expected at any moment. When she called back he had invariably failed to arrive, or changed his plans. She didn’t like speaking to him at the best of times and normally would have handled this herself, but the client was threatening to bring in the police and she had instructions always to refer those ones back.

  Eventually, shortly before lunch, he answered one of his mobiles.

  ‘Councillor Harrison,’ said Pink.

  ‘Mr Harrison, it’s Patricia.’

  ‘Oh hi, Pat, what’s cookin’?’

  She told him.

  He said, ‘Jesus Christ. Who is it?’

  ‘Julie.’

  ‘Might have guessed. She had a warning already, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Harrison.’

  ‘How much did he say she was charging?’

  ‘Two hundred.’

  ‘So she’s pocketing a hundred for herself, cheeky bitch.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Harrison.’

  ‘All right. Thanks, Pat, leave it with me. I’ll get someone to have a word with her.’

  ‘Will I take her page down?’

  ‘Aye, do that.’ He was about to cut the line.

  ‘Mr Harrison?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘What will I do about the client?’

  Pink Harrison sighed. ‘What’s he say?’

  ‘He’s talking about a refund or the cops.’

  ‘Is he a regular?’

  ‘Not really. We’ve had one complaint about him failing to show for a date, but that’s it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Pink hesitated. He didn’t usually allow refunds of any description, but he was too busy to really think about it, and besides, he had enough cops in his life without inviting some more in. ‘Sure, why not,’ said Pink. ‘Refund it - there’s plenty more fish in the sea.’ He cut the line.

  Patricia gave a little shiver. She didn’t like or trust Pink Harrison. He had come to her when Let’s Be Mates hit a cash crisis, coming on lik
e a blessed angel, but his benevolence came with a price. Before she knew it, he was not only calling the shots, but also running escort girls out of her website.

  He was right about one thing, though; there were plenty more fish in the sea. It was just a matter of being able to tell the sharks like Pink from the minnows like James Michael.

  75

  Room at the Top

  Linda Wray, wearing a less businesslike outfit than last time, and a little more perfume, gave Walter another tour of the penthouse apartment at Towerview. She looked a little flushed and nervous when he entered the kitchen because she’d slipped a bottle of Asti Spumante into the fridge, but he went past it twice without opening the door. He had his head practically in the oven when she said, ‘And the fridge is especially spacious.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Walter, ‘and what about the immersion heater?’

  She showed him where the switch was located in the kitchen, and then said, ‘You did note that it’s an ice-making fridge - it’ll always be on tap?’

  ‘Really?’ Walter opened the top, freezer door, then nodded. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. Then, thankfully, he opened the main door and said, ‘Oh look - what’s this?’

  ‘Well, I thought we should toast the sale,’ said Linda, blushing again.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Walter, quickly tearing at the foil top. ‘Although,’ he hesitated, then gave her a hard look. ‘I suppose I’m actually paying for this. It’ll be included in your fee somewhere.’

  ‘No, really, I—’

  ‘In fact, you’ll probably mark it down as a bottle of expensive champagne, or you’ll have worked some deal with Winemark to—’ He saw that she was looking horrified, and stopped, smiled. ‘I’m only raking, Linda.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s a nice touch.’ He twisted the wire around, but didn’t pop the cork.

  ‘You’re really not paying for it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The company doesn’t even pay for it either. I just thought it would be nice.’