I Predict a Riot

by Bateman, Colin

  ‘But I don’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘But you know me, you’re family, Damian, and I think Redmond would approve.’

  He f***ing wouldn’t, you know.

  He almost said it out loud, and would have if the Registrar of Marriages hadn’t come hurrying up asking for the witnesses’ names. When Maeve introduced Damian, the Registrar gave him a cool look and said, ‘There can be no religious contributions to civil marriages. I’m sorry, but it’s the law. If you want to act as a witness, you’ll have to lose the collar.’

  Redmond duly removed the collar and unbuttoned his shirt.

  ‘Thank you, Damian,’ said Maeve.

  The Registrar said, ‘Five minutes - we’ve a busy schedule. I’ll start the pan pipes.’

  As he turned away, Maeve gave a little gasp of excitement, then quickly pulled Redmond to one side. ‘Here he comes now! Look at him! Oh Damian, I’m so happy! I have to get offside now, bad luck to see him before the ceremony, but sure I hardly saw him. Go on, you, and introduce yourself. I’ll see you in a mo.’ She reached up then and kissed him on the cheek, and he hoped against hope that such close proximity, flesh to flesh, might spark in her some belated recognition that this was truly her husband, returned from the grave, but there was nothing, nothing at all, and she was gone in a flash.

  Redmond put out his hand. ‘I’m Damian, Redmond’s twin brother. Maeve asked me to be your witness.’

  Jack grasped it tightly. ‘It’s very good of you.’

  ‘No problem. It’s strange though. I don’t know you at all.’

  Jack nodded. He looked nervously along the corridor and through the open doors of the Register Office. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Aye, she’s hiding round the corner.’

  ‘Thank God. I wasn’t sure. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind.’

  ‘Yes, it has. And you’re absolutely certain?’

  Jack eyes drifted back to him. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The whirlwind. You’ve only known her a few weeks, and she’s only recently widowed.’

  ‘I’ve never been more certain of anything, Damian.’

  ‘But her poor dead husband …’

  ‘Her poor dead husband treated her like sh*t for twenty years. She deserves a better life.’

  The Registrar appeared in the doorway, and tapped his watch in Jack’s direction. Jack took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Margaret said, ‘She looks beautiful.’

  ‘And her outfit’s a cracker,’ said Walter.

  ‘Oh shush, you.’

  They were holding hands.

  ‘Do you think one day …’ Walter whispered.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,’ Margaret whispered back.

  ‘The chicken or the egg,’ whispered Walter. ‘Which came first?’

  ‘You did,’ said Margaret.

  ‘It’s lack of practice,’ said Walter.

  ‘We can remedy that,’ said Margaret.

  Maeve and Jack faced each other, standing on the blue and yellow carpet, with the Registrar between them.

  Jack repeated, ‘I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, Jack Patrick Finucane, may not be joined in matrimony to Maeve Delores O’Boyle.’

  The Registrar nodded, then smiled at Maeve. ‘Now, Maeve, if you’ll repeat after me …’

  Maeve’s voice wavered. ‘I do solemnly declare that I know not of any …’

  There was a sudden fit of coughing from behind, and they both glanced around. Mr Kawolski was looking purple in the face, and holding up an apologetic hand. The Registrar shot him an evil look, then prompted Maeve to continue. ‘… lawful impediment, why I …’

  Redmond, no longer prohibited by his brother’s collar, had almost, almost cried out. But he stopped himself. Because it came to him, standing there and observing how happy she was, that while he had indeed been a s**t to her for twenty years and this wedding would seem to signal the definite end of their relationship, what with him being dead and all, that in fact it wasn’t over, and that time itself was relative. By taking the road less travelled, by imbibing the positive ambience of his new parish and the wonders of the natural world he had encountered in Colombia, he had grown to appreciate the value of life and the purpose of time. Also, that the words he was hearing now were only words and that in the coming days, weeks or months, Maeve might realise the folly of her rapid plunge into marriage. She hardly knew this Jack Finucane, so anything could happen. He might treat her every bit as badly as he himself had done, and if he did - when he did - he, Redmond O’Boyle, would be there, ready and willing to cast off his priestly garments, lure Jack Finucane down a dark alley and beat him to a pulp, before reclaiming his beloved Maeve.

  Epilogue

  There were two purposes to the trip. First off, James Mallow drove to Bangor West and the family home of Michael Caldwell. The mother was in by herself, and still looking red-eyed. She hesitated before letting him in, and he saw the reason why, sitting on the coffee table in the lounge: a copy of Belfast Confidential. He nodded down at it. ‘I haven’t read it yet, but I’m presuming you’re thinking I’m a bit of a s**t.’

  ‘It looks that way,’ said Mrs Caldwell.

  ‘Not much I can say.’

  ‘You could say if it’s true.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  She shrugged. ‘I heard that Pink Harrison was arrested, but you never called to tell me, so I thought maybe it wasn’t certain. Then he was released and you took early retirement and you still didn’t call, so I presumed it was over, and we’d never find out, and your promise to find him was just rubbish.’

  ‘We did find him, Mrs Caldwell.’

  ‘Then why did you let him go?’

  ‘At the time there wasn’t enough evidence to keep him. Then there was. He got killed before we had the chance to pick him up. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I wanted the chance to look him in the eye, in a courtroom. I wanted to ask him why. Michael was only fifteen.

  I’m working part-time as an estate agent, you know, but I always make sure I’m home at this time, because this is the time Michael gets home from school.’

  Marsh said nothing. She went to make tea. He sat in the lounge and looked at the family photos. When she came back in with a tray she said, ‘Is this why you’ve taken early retirement?’ She nodded down at the magazine.

  ‘Mostly, yes. And, it was time.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What about your wife? Is she pleased you’re finished?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s in the car.’

  Mrs Caldwell stood and peered out. ‘Why didn’t you say? Bring her in.’

  He had parked away from the front window, so she couldn’t see.

  ‘No, I really can’t stay. I just wanted to … I don’t know, I was going to say put your mind at rest, but it sounds wrong. In case it never came out, I wanted you to know that we got him in the end.’

  She nodded. ‘It doesn’t bring Michael back. But at least I won’t be walking through Belfast thinking, Was it him? Was it him? Was it him? At least I have that.’

  ‘It’s something,’ said Marsh.

  He didn’t feel any better afterwards, driving down to the beach at Ballyholme. Linda had predicted that he would wake in the morning and appreciate the view from Kilimanjaro, but he hadn’t, not yet anyway. There was no great lifting of weight from his shoulders in meeting with Mrs Caldwell, in finally closing the file on his last case. In a better world they would have shared a moment of epiphany and healing. In a better world Dan Starkey would have phoned to say they’d chosen not to run the beating-a-hooker story because of Marsh’s long record of good service. And in a better world the Chief Constable would have personally begged him to come back to lead the CID. But it wasn’t a better world, it was just the world, and he would have to live with it.

  Marsh parked by the green banks leading down
to the beach, and lifted his wife out of the glove compartment.

  He would scatter her here on the sand, with the wind blowing fresh off Belfast Lough, taking care to stand upwind. They had walked here when they were courting. He was a cop even then, and cops had always come to Bangor because it was safe. Or safer.

  As he began, there were couples walking their dogs. The women looked at him curiously, and then moist-eyed. The men were harder to read. There were tears in his own eyes, but it was mostly the wind, and the sand, blowing up.

  Linda phoned as he was driving back to town.

  She said cheerily, ‘Whatcha doing?’

  ‘Just finishing some stuff. Did you ever see that barn on the way out of Bangor?’

  ‘The one with the big writing?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m just passing it.’

  It was on his right, a huge old barn with enormous letters on its side. They’d been there for as long as he could remember.

  Linda said, ‘What is it - For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘I used to think it said forgotten instead of begotten.’

  Marsh smiled. ‘That would change the meaning a bit.’

  ‘So, what about it? You’re not joining the God Squad on me, are you?’

  ‘Nah. Just thinking.’

  ‘Well, if you’re in a thinking mood, why don’t you think about stopping somewhere along the line and picking up some candles.’

  ‘It’s going to be one of those nights, is it?’

  ‘It’s going to be one of those nights.’

  The barn dropped away behind him. The clouds that had gathered earlier had shifted, the sun was out, bathing the city ahead of him in a warm summer glow. It was a city he knew perhaps too well. It was a cold, hard, unforgiving place. He had kept it at a distance for all these years, treating it with a surliness born of fear and contempt. But now, driving towards it, with the twin giant cranes of the shipyard and the soft curve of the Cave Hill dominating his view, he briefly allowed himself to imagine it as a gentler, more forgiving place. Yes, the sun would go down soon and the darkness would return, but the light would never fully be extinguished, even if it was just a solitary candle, burning either for a lost soul or redemptive love, depending on your point of view.

  Thinking this, he had veered slightly out of his lane. The car beside him honked, and he glanced across. A kid gave him the fingers. James Marsh Mallow gave them right back.