Divorcing Jack (26 page)

He let out an exasperated sigh. He stood up and walked slowly to the fireplace. He put his hands on it and looked up into Margaret's face. 'You recognize this?'

I nodded. He couldn't see me.

'Salvaged it from her house. Captures her well, don't you think?'

'I'm sure your wife appreciates it.'

'As a work of art, yes. I can't say she's aware of its significance. I'm sure it wouldn't worry her, mind. She's an open-minded woman.'

'I'm sure she is.'

'Of course, she doesn't know about the abortion. Margaret told you about that, didn't she? Silly thing to break us up, really, but it seemed so important then. Her faith allowed that sort of thing, mine didn't. But it's a nice painting. She was a talented girl.'

She was a talented girl. 'It brings back unpleasant memories.'

'Not pleasant ones as well?'

'They're kind of tied up with the unpleasant ones. Murder does that, Coogan.'

‘I suppose that one could argue that she was herself a killer, killing my baby.'

'Somebody like you could, from the crackpot school of philosophy.'

He opened his hands to me. 'There you go, back to cockiness again. Y'know, if I didn't have a special use for you, you'd be under ground as well. Like everyone else, Starkey, you know too much. I imagine your wife knows too much as well. And as for that fucking nun, I don't know how much she knows but we'll have her for supper.'

'It's a pity you don't enjoy killing.'

'Business is business.' His chin jutted forward, a movement childlike in its innocence. 'I have a simple rule. Anyone who can complicate my life to such an extent that my freedom of movement is curtailed has to be dealt with. The extent of that dealing varies. For example, the British Army can interfere with my movement, but not as much as they like to think, and, besides, I can't very well eliminate them all - something the IRA doesn't appreciate yet - so they're not a target. On the other hand, those individuals who can be dealt with are. For example, those who have detailed knowledge of this tape, and could use it to upset my plans, and therefore my freedom, well, they can die. Simple, no?'

Simple, if deranged. A primary school battle plan. 'So Father Flynn is next?'

'Flynn?' The innocence evaporated. His eyes narrowed. I'd all but forgotten about him. Yes. Flynn. Something will have to be done about him as well. Such a pity really, he's been through so much.'

I looked out of the window at the fading blue and thought about who else I could implicate by mistake. 'Fuck Flynn, Coogan. Tell me about this special purpose you have for me. I'm dying to know.'

He wasn't deflected. 'Flynn, with that tape all that time, what did he do with it, I wonder, before he gave it to you?'

'He did nothing with it. Didn't even listen to it. Leave him alone.'

Coogan turned from the fireplace and prowled along the carpet before me. He was wearing a pair of grey jeans and a white cap-sleeve T-shirt, altogether more unfashionable than the flash suit I'd first met him in, but much more natural for his surroundings. They fitted a lot better as well. He still didn't look like he'd been out in the sun much. His eyes were dark. Searching. Then they brightened.

'The list just keeps getting bigger, doesn't it, Starkey? Your wife, the nun, yourself, now Flynn. And you say you won't help me out with all those lives resting on you.'

'You're talking in riddles, Coogan. You've already told me you're going to kill everyone involved with the tape. That's not much of an incentive to be helpful.'

He clapped his hands together with a sharp crack that caused Seanie and Burns to peer through the front window. 'But that's the beauty of it, man. Your being helpful gives all those friends of yours longer on this earth. Longer for something to go wrong with my plans! It's a small possibility, but it's better than nothing, wouldn't you say?'

'I'd say it falls short of being generous.'

'Do you want me to get a phone and you can call the lot of them and tell them they're going to die some time today because you don't feel my offer is generous enough? I mean, be my guest. Tell your wife. Tell the nun.' He stood before me, hands on hips, stared into me. 'Tell Flynn. I haven't the heart to.' It was a good pun, for a nut, but neither of us smiled. Perhaps he hadn't meant it.

Coogan walked me to the front door. Night had fallen. The cul-de-sac was brightly lit, but the estate falling away below was illuminated only by the pale glimmer of a crescent moon and the occasional unvandalized streetlight. Seanie started the hire car. Burns stood with one hand on the roof and one thrust into his trouser pocket.

'You could just drive off into the night,' Coogan suggested. 'It might, just, save your life. It wouldn't do any of the others much good.'

He stood in the doorway. To anyone else we might have looked like neighbours saying goodnight. It was an unsettling thought. 'What would you do,' I asked, 'in my situation?'

'Oh, I don't know, Starkey, it's not really my problem.'

'But hypothetically.'

'You haven't met my wife.'

'Nor slept with her.'

'Not much chance of that. No, I really think you should make your own mind up. Now, on your way, I'll expect to hear from you at some point during the night. Obviously the earlier the better. Good luck.'

Seanie got out of the car, flicking on the lights as he did so. He held the door open for me. As I climbed in behind the wheel he said, 'Drive carefully.'

I wound the window down and shouted across to Coogan. 'What if I get stopped on the way. By the police or army, or anyone?'

'You won't,' he said.

'Why don't you just fuckin' phone him?' I asked.

'Because. Now get the fuck out of here.'

I put the car into drive and moved slowly down the cul-de-sac. Then I stopped it and reversed back. Burns and Seanie stopped halfway up the drive and stood protectively in the garden as I approached. The man himself took a moment to reappear, but was in place by the time I'd found park and wound the window down again.

'You never gave me your number, Coogan,' I called.

Coogan shook his head and turned back into the house. Seanie walked down the path and leant into the car. I moved back instinctively.

'It's in the book, Starkey,' he hissed, 'under C. For Cunt.'

The first chance I had, when I was sure there was no one following, I stopped the car and phoned Lee's house. Directory Enquiries gave me the number. A man answered. I said: 'Is that the taxi place?'

There was a slight pause and then he said gruffly: 'Starkey?'

'Excuse me?'

'Is that you, Starkey?'

'I'm looking for a taxi, mate, I...'

'If that's you, Starkey, Cow Pat has a message for ya. Get on with the fuckin' job and stop fuckin' around.'

'I'm just. ..'

'And if it's not, just fuck away off.'

He rang off. I walked back to the car. I leant on the roof and looked up the road along the main thoroughfare of a village. It was about twenty miles from Crossmaheart. I missed its name. Bar-room beery chatter added body to the light breeze blowing in my face, vinegar and battered fish a slight odour. Teenagers lazed on corners. A summer's night. The election was in two days. Posters hung on every lamppost. Brinn's face. Mr Popularity. If Coogan had my balls in his pocket, he had Brinn's in his mouth.

I drove on. I switched on the radio but it was too late for much in the way of news. For the first time in my life the idea of listening to rock music repelled me. I found a classical station. It wasn't exactly soothing. The music was slow and haunting, dark music suited to a night lit only by the moon and the occasional flash of a passing car. The commentator credited it to the Berlin Philharmonic and Dvorak.

* * *

A mile outside Bangor I came upon a police checkpoint. I thought, what a ridiculous time to be caught by the cops. I was upon it before I had a chance to even think about trying to get away. I dimmed the lights and waited to be arrested. When the tap on the window came I was calm and collected. I didn't have the energy to say you'll never take me alive, copper, never mind fulfil it. I smiled pleasantly and waited for the cuffs.

'Good evening, sir, can you tell me where you're going tonight?'

'Bangor.'

'And could I take a look at your driving licence?'

I handed him the licence I had stolen from the guesthouse in Belfast. He shone a torch on it, then on me, then round the interior of the car.

'Where are you going in Bangor, sir?'

'To see Mr Brinn. Of the Alliance.'

He let that sink in for a moment. 'Yes, sir, and I'm the godfather of soul.'

He leant in the window. He had a thick black moustache and stubble-darkened skin. He stared into my face.

'Seriously,' I said, quietly and with a slight nod of my head.

He gave me a little sarcastic smile. 'We'll see,' he said and stepped back from the car. He walked over to a grey police Land-Rover and reached inside. He stood back with a small radio microphone in his hand and started talking. Another policeman waved forward the traffic which had started to build up behind me. As I looked out my side window the lights of a car passing on the other side of the road picked out the bright eyes of a soldier lying crouched in undergrowth. His rifle was pointed at me.

The policeman returned. He handed me the licence. 'Very good, sir, that will be all.'

I said thanks and started the car. I moved off slowly. He stepped back and said quietly, 'Have a nice night now, Mr Morrison,' as I passed. The name was said with obvious sarcasm. Rumbled but free. How far did Coogan's arm stretch? And if it stretched that far, why did he have to bother messing around with little people like me?

The gates to Red Hall were closed. Floodlights illuminated the driveway. On my last visit, a little old woman in a wheelchair could have breached the security. Now two guards, armed, young, and alert, stood warily to each side of the stone pillars, staring out through the metal gates. I drove slowly up and flashed the lights, then stopped the car.

The gates swung inward. I moved forward with them and stopped the car again.

'You Starkey?'

I nodded.

'Any ID?'

I shook my head.

The one doing the talking was tall and lithe and looked like a policeman. His uniform was black to the RUC's bottle-green, but otherwise there was little difference. His comrade was more rotund, like a prison officer, and somehow more threatening. Both had pistols, bolstered.

'Right car though,' the prison officer observed. 'Right numberplates.'

'But no ID.' The police officer rubbed his finger along the side of the passenger door, examined it, then wiped it on the door again. 'You should always carry ID, Mr Starkey.'

‘I have ID. But not mine.'

‘I suppose fugitives like yourself would have access to fake ID.'

'It's not fake. It just isn't mine.'

'Ah. You don't look like the kind of fella could give everyone the run-around for so long.'

I shrugged. 'Or a murderer,' I suggested.

'Oh, you look like a killer okay. You don't need brains to be that. No, I can recognize a killer when I see one okay. I was just thinking that you don't look like the kind of fella would have the wherewithal to keep one step ahead of everyone all this time.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't mention it.'

I started the engine again. 'Okay if I go through?'

'If he wants to meet a killer, he wants to meet a killer, be my guest.'

'You're not worried about letting a killer through?' I asked, revving the engine slightly.

'Worried? A bit. But Mr Brinn knows what he's doing, I'm sure. See, that's what I like about the man, he's up front about everything. He gets on the phone to me and says, "Bill, that reporter, Starkey, wanted for the McGarry murders, is coming to see me in the next hour or so. Let him through, would you?" And that's good enough for me. He didn't try to be mysterious or anything. Didn't try to pass you off as something else, y'know? Because I would have recognized you. He knows that. Clear?'

'Right on.'

It was late, but a dozen or more cars were parked outside the hall. A rattle of masts emanated from the marina a few hundred yards beyond the garden wall.

The door opened before me. Alfie Stewart looked me up and down. Alfie had always been okay. 'Times are bad when the party's security spokesman mans the door,' I said.

'Don't be stupid, Starkey,' he snapped and waved me in. He led me up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He was puffing slightly as he reached the top. I lagged behind, but still puffed. A sympathy puff.

'A lot of cars here this late,' I said. 'Crisis meeting?'

'The election's two days away, Starkey,' he wheezed. 'Of course we're meeting.'

As I reached the top I stopped him as he gestured me forward towards the room where Parker and I had first met Brinn. Ah, Parker. If only he'd known then what was to befall him. And then I thought, Parker, CIA? Nah. No way. 'You know what this is all about, Alfie?'

'Kinda.'

'Kinda how much?'

'You should discuss it with Brinn.'

'You know I didn't kill Margaret McGarry.'

‘I don't know that. I know you're here from Cow Pat Coogan, and that yous might have something on Brinn to make him want to deal. I know it all sounds pretty shoddy to me.' He thrust his face into mine. 'You've fallen an awful long way, Starkey. An awful long way. You're down beneath the bottom of the barrel, son.' Alfie blew out his cheeks, turned on his heels and led me down the corridor to Brinn's almost familiar study. He told me to take a seat. 'And try not to destroy anything,' he warned. I smiled at him and he turned to leave.

'Hey, Alfie?' I said. 'You knew about Brinn, didn't you? His past. You knew all about him.'

He waved an admonishing finger at me. 'It'll take a better shit than you or Cow Pat bloody Coogan to bring Brinn down, Starkey. He's a better man, a better politician than any of those fuckin' hellions out there, better by far.'

'Yeah,' I said to the door as he slammed it, 'kinda.'