Divorcing Jack (17 page)

When I looked up she was standing in the doorway. That same wicked smile was on her lips and her eyes were bright and challenging. She said: 'Divorce Jack.'

It was like a punch to the stomach. Eyes wide, scared, I peered into the darkened shadows of the hallway behind her to see if the vastness of her garb was hiding the enemy. She was alone.

I had not gone into much detail about the death of Margaret. I had certainly not told her Margaret's dying words. I raised myself slowly to my feet; my legs felt weak, but not from injury, from fear. As I looked at her, as I got closer, her smile faded. Expressions of puzzlement then apprehension chased each other across her face. When I was so close that I could see my face reflected in her eyes I knew what she was thinking. She was harbouring a killer.

I grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing them tightly.

Then pulled her towards me and past me and tossed her onto the bed. She let out a little yelp of pain, like a dog unjustly sent to its basket, and kicked in the process.

She landed on her stomach but immediately rolled onto her back, drawing her knees up as a man would to defend his groin. I pivoted to the left on my good leg and her knees followed my movement, then I sharply dived to her right, pinning her down before she could move them back; I let out my own little yelp as I felt the stitches in my leg rip.

I grabbed her wrists and put my full weight on her habit.

'Who're you working for, Lee?'

My voice sounded hollow.

She shook her head in confusion, furrows on her brow bunched like pasta strips.

I pressed her harder into the bed, but the fear in her eyes stopped me from hitting her. Why taunt me, then act scared? I pressed down harder.

She screeched: 'Will you fuck off me?'

She pulled to left, to right, but couldn't move me.

'Who're you working for?'

'I'm working for the fucking health service, who do you think? I'm a nurse.' She pulled again. 'What's got into you, Dan? Please. Please get off me.' There were tears in her eyes. They began rolling down her face. I tightened my grip. 'Please don't hurt me.'

'Why did you say that?'

'I am a nurse, Dan. That's who I work for. Please, Dan ... just leave . . . I've helped you all I.. .'

'Not that. What you said before?'

'When?'

'Just there. In the doorway.'

'I didn't say anything. I didn't mean anything. I just said about the radio . . .'

'What about it?'

'There was a tune on the radio you said was crap. I'd been trying to remember who it was and it just came to me in the toilet. . .'

'What are you talking about, Lee?'

'The radio. You turned it off. I was trying to remember who the composer was and it just came to me. They used it on that bread advert on TV.'

The tears had stopped now. I relaxed my grip slightly. Her body remained taut.

'You said "Divorce Jack", Lee. The last words Margaret ever said to me. That's what you said.'

Another rush of tears. She freed her hands effortlessly and clasped them, small and cool, in mine.

'Dan, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't say that. I said "Dvorak". The composer. The composer, Dan. Dvorak. I just wanted to say who wrote that music, that he wasn't crap.'

And it was like coming back to life, or reaching heaven and discovering the meaning of everything. Suddenly all became clear.

Dvorak. Pronounced by a slurring dying woman as 'Divorce Jack'. The tape she had haphazardly tossed to me as an unwanted gift, a tape from her father the politician. And that was what they were after: not me, not Margaret, the tape. Whatever it contained was worth killing for. In fact, whatever was on the tape was very important, because you didn't need a reason to kill people, not here.

The tape I had sold to a second-hand shop just as thoughtlessly as Margaret had given it away to me.

I collapsed on top of Lee, felt her arms go round my neck.

'I'm so sorry,' I cried, my face in her neck.

I felt the tautness leave her body, warmth coursing through her just as I had been sparked back to life by her revelation. We lay there until her legs went numb and I'd no more tears to shed.

* * *

It was getting dark by the time we set out. A fine summer's evening. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Swallows curved past us, twittering at the moon, as we walked to the Mini. I felt calm, relaxed, as sure of myself as I had been since the whole bloody mess had evolved from a stolen kiss. The world was still after me, Patricia was still missing, I was still a killer on the run, and I had a disturbing tendency to burst into tears, but I wasn't going to let little things like that get me down. In a second-hand bookstall in Bangor there was a cassette tape which, for whatever reason, was extremely important to a lot of people. In the morning I would get it and for the first time I would have at least some say in my own destiny. And then they would probably kill me, but at least I'd have had my say.

Lee had missed her first appointment but had two others to fulfil, one on the outskirts of Holywood, which was handy enough for my rendezvous with Parker at Ricci's Parlour in Sydenham.

We drove in silence, skipping the hardline Loyalist stronghold of the lower Holywood Road by cruising along the dual carriageway towards Bangor and then doubling back at the Sydenham bypass. Less chance of a police or army checkpoint.

Ricci's was barely a hundred yards from the Chinese restaurant where I'd met with Neville Maxwell. A neon swan sign dominated the window. Lee stopped the car, but I cautioned her against turning the engine off; it wasn't an area you were ever likely to see many nuns; the locals were more likely to throw boulders first and ask questions later. 'I wasn't born yesterday,' she said. 'I'm sorry. I keep thinking of you as a nun. Sheltered and virginal.'

'You'd be surprised.'

'I would?'

'That's as much as you hear.'

'Och, go on . . .'

'Fuck off.'

Which said it all really. We sat in silence. I could feel the throb in my leg again. The tear in the stitches hadn't been too bad; I'd lost some more blood, but not enough to keep me in bed.

She said: 'Do you want me to come back later and pick you up?'

'Are you serious?'

'Yeah.'

'Do you not think you've done enough? Jesus, Lee, you could be put away for this.'

'So?'

'You do have the innocence of a nun. You don't have to invite all this shit upon yourself. There's no point. You've done everything I could possibly have asked of you.'

'I'm just trying to be polite, Dan, I don't really mean it.'

Poker face, then a little blushing smirk as she realized she hadn't fully pulled it off.

'Nuns can't lie, Lee. When they do they explode. It's a fact.'

'No, I mean it. I mean, I've looked after you this far, so I'm already guilty. A few extra days aren't going to make things any worse for me, are they?'

I brushed at the seat between my legs. Crumbs of dried blood.

She shrugged. 'I will if you want me to. I'd like to help.'

'I know you do. Listen, if I need help, I'll call you. I know where you are.'

'Don't call us, we'll call you.'

'I'm sorry if it sounds thankless, but it's better that way. I'm responsible for enough people being in the shit without getting anyone else involved. I mean, look at Giblet O'Gibber. I punched his lights in for nothing. Jesus, I nearly gave you a beating, Lee.'

'You've the world on your shoulders, Dan. I'm just offering you a shoulder pad, y'know, to lean on?'

I put my hand on her shoulder. I leant over and kissed her lightly on the lips.

When we parted there were two elderly ladies staring at us and nodding their heads in unison.

We burst into giggles.

'I think you've just reinforced a few old wives' tales about nuns.' Lee laughed. 'Another time, another place, we could have taken it a bit further. Really given them something to talk about.'

'Who knows?'

She placed her hand on my leg. 'Look after yourself, Dan. Look after that leg. Find your wife.'

I squeezed her hand and got out of the car. I closed the door and tapped the roof and she ground it into first gear and drove off.

The two women were still standing watching. One, a bag of chips in her hand, said: 'You're disgusting.'

'Fuck off,' I said and crossed the road to Ricci's.

'Fuck off yourself, cuntface,' she replied. It was a nice area.

Parker was sitting alone at a table for four at the back of the restaurant. He had a half-finished glass of lager before him and he was studying a large menu the front cover of which was a reproduction of an American dollar bill, albeit with George Washington biting into a pizza. He closed the menu and set it to one side as I sat down opposite him. 'Well?' I said.

'As well as can be expected under the circumstances.' His face was sullen, charcoal grey as if his pigment was fading without the benefit of strong sunlight, his voice dull.

'Well, you're full of the joys of spring, Mr Parker. Cheer up, sunshine, things are starting to look up.'

'Are they?'

He didn't look convinced. A figure appeared at my elbow. Without looking up I said: 'A pint of Harp and a vodka chaser, mate, please.'

The figure pulled the seat beside me back and sat down. His hair was cropped short and prematurely grey. Piercing blue eyes and a strong square chin. He put out a hand towards me and I took it after a moment's hesitation.

'You'll be Starkey then?'

He shook my hand warmly. I glanced at Parker, who pursed his lips apologetically. At the table opposite, two men turned to watch us; one pulled the side of his black Harrington jacket back to reveal the butt of a pistol.

He was still shaking my hand. He looked familiar.

'The name's Coogan, Pat Coogan. Perhaps you've heard of me.'

'Cow Pat Coogan?' He nodded.

I looked across at Parker. He said: 'I'm sorry, Starkey. I'd no choice.'

Coogan said: 'Shall we order?' I nodded.

He said: 'I understand you killed my girlfriend.'

'I'm not very hungry,' I said.

A waiter in a white jacket and crimson bow tie handed out two extra menus. He was tall and emaciated with thin silver hair. One eye was wide and glassy, as if it was propped open by an invisible monocle, the other narrowed and speculative. His voice was Belfast, with maybe three weeks in Florida and a couple of months in London.

'Gentlemen, we offer a wide-ranging menu of international cuisine. Tonight I would particularly recommend a breaded escalope of turbot, which is prepared in a mixture of white bread and brioche crumbs, and served with a sorrel cream.'

He stood expectantly for a moment and then moved across to the table opposite and repeated the spiel.

I set my menu down and said to Coogan: 'I thought you were in prison.'

‘I was. I've been released, for good behaviour.'

'Does this constitute good behaviour?'

'What, eating dinner?'

'You know what I mean.' I nodded across to his companions.

'With a reputation like mine, you don't think I need some protection?'

‘I thought you usually offered protection.'

'Me? Never. Not my line. I wouldn't harm a fly.'

'You two know each other?' Parker asked.

'I know of Mr Starkey from what he writes in the paper. You read everything there is in prison.'

'And I know Mr Coogan from writing about him in the paper.'

Parker, his visage more composed now, clasped his hands before him, elbows on table. 'Which leaves me the only person not knowing exactly who you are. This afternoon was illuminating, but in a different way.'

Coogan nodded, raised an eye to one of the men at the other table, and accepted a sheet of white paper from him. He handed it across to Parker.

'This is my CV. I had it prepared when I left prison. It saves a lot of time explaining how nasty I am.'

Parker ran his eye down the sheet.

'That's novel,' I said.

'That's poetry, mate,' Coogan corrected.

'The poetry of crime?'

Coogan shrugged. 'To each his own. If I could produce a newspaper maybe I would. As it was I didn't get much past potato printing.'

'You still IRA?'

Coogan glanced across to his friends. They smirked back. His face remained serious.

'Still? You think the 'IRA wear suits like this?'

He had a prison pallor, a jawline heavy with stubble. So different from the youthful picture I'd seen of him in Margaret's bedroom, taken before he'd turned to crime and carved out a niche for himself as Cow Pat Coogan, before he'd made Margaret pregnant and split up with her over an abortion. Had he loved her at all, or too much or not enough? Had the split with Margaret pushed him round the corner into crime, or had he already been shaped by Belfast's bitter streets? I'd known once, I'd written about him, but the details escaped me now. Life stories pondered over in courts merged in repetition after a while until you could look back and identify only one common denominator, a gelled identity of misshapen lives, depraved by politics, gunfire, bigotry, repression and poverty, with God in a supervisory capacity.

The waiter reappeared at our table.

'May I take your order, gentlemen?'

Coogan looked up at him, silently contemplating. The waiter gazed back, odd eyes holding Coogan's for an extended moment before looking away. It unsettled him, not being able to outstare a customer.

Coogan said: 'I'd like a jam sandwich, please.'

'I'm sorry?'

'A jam sandwich. Raspberry if possible.'

'I'm afraid that's not on the menu, sir.' He reached down and opened Coogan's menu for him, adding haughtily: 'You are unlikely to find that on any menu in any restaurant in this city, sir.'

'You have bread?'

'Of course.'

'You have butter?'

‘I see what you're getting at, sir, but.. .'

'You have jam?'

'For certain desserts, perhaps, sir, but my point is . ..'

A gun at his earhole shut him up. One of Coogan's companions, the one who'd earlier flashed a pistol at me, stood up and offered the waiter some advice.