Of course, it ended in tears, and she fled my apartment leaving only a flurry of curses and a bra in her wake. I was alone once more, a porn-again single man.
I spent the rest of the night quietly sipping in the Bob Shaw. It was only around the corner from my new home. The pub was artsy enough to be interesting, and with an old enough clientele that you didn’t feel like a child molester if you glanced appreciatively at someone. It was in the heart of what had recently been christened the Cathedral Quarter, which was kind of Belfast’s Left Bank without being particularly left, or featuring a bank. There were gay bars, galleries, coffee shops and bijou theatres. All in all a much greater variety of upmarket establishments from which to request protection money. The city was transformed, but it always had two fingers in the past.
I was home for eleven thirty, inebriated. The apartment was on the second floor of a new complex at St Anne’s Square. It had started out neat and I did my best to keep it that way. Patricia had been impressed both by the decor and furnishings and the fact that I could afford it. I told her I’d got a good deal on the rent and when it came to the fixtures my latent good taste had flourished since our separation. Neither was quite true. In the dog days of Belfast Confidential, I’d squirrelled away a certain amount of cash rather than waste it paying bills, and that had served as a down payment on this show apartment, which came interior-designed and furnished to the hilt by someone who actually did have taste. I was two months behind on the mortgage.
The square was designed around a piazza, with chic cafés where you could sit outside during any one of our three days of summer. On one corner there was a Ramada Hotel, on the other the MAC, a flourishing new arts centre. Most nights the area was pleasantly busy. I like to sit in my duffel coat on my veranda, sip a whiskey and listen to the chat drift up from below. I’ve never liked silence, and hearing drunk people talk shite has always been quite comforting. Belfast is so much more relaxing now than in the old days, when the city centre, encased in a ring of steel, was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop – usually having fallen out of a shoddy Libyan hand grenade.
I refilled my glass, and took my laptop outside. I plugged in earphones and began to download podcasts of the past two weeks’ worth of Jack Caramac. I was guessing that whatever had annoyed someone enough to want to kidnap his four-year-old must have happened in the very recent past. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was listening for. It was just a case of letting it all soak in. Jack’s show was a mixture of the serious and the trivial: one minute teenage suicide, the next an earnest debate about the correct thickness of pancakes. People spoke passionately. Jack was good. Cheeky like your best mate, as sympathetic as a bereaved relative, and an attack dog when riled. I wasn’t just looking for the major topics that attracted hundreds of calls, but the little ones too, the insignificant items that failed to ignite the holy grail of audience participation and were very quickly cut off. I’d been a journalist for long enough to know that very often it was the odd throwaway line rather than some major accusation that most annoyed people. You could quite happily libel someone as a nut job, but if you said he supported Glentoran rather than Linfield, he’d start screaming blue murder.
I woke shivering at just after three a.m. I’d the beginnings of a headache. While I slept, someone had thrown a pizza crust at me. It was resting on my shoulder. It did not taste unpleasant. When I was done, I took the glass and the laptop inside. I took the time and trouble to wash the glass. I dried it and put it away. I went into my bedroom. The sheets still smelt of Patricia. I lay on top, and sighed.
Cityscape FM operates out of an industrial park on the Boucher Road. It’s a single-storey building with lots of post-Ceasefire glass. I parked and entered without having to be buzzed in. Considering that Jack Caramac had so recently been threatened, security was kind of lax. There was a good-looking blonde girl on the front desk. She wore a badge that said her name was Cameron Coyle. She smiled pleasantly and asked how she could help me. She appeared not to notice the twinkle in my eye as I replied, or else dismissed it as a cataract. I was getting to that age. I told her I was here to see Jack, and she took my name and told me to take a seat, he was still on air. It was being piped in, so I knew that. He was talking about dementia, but soon segued smoothly into poo bags for dogs.
I said, ‘David or Diaz?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Are you named after Cameron Diaz or David Cameron?’
‘Who’s David Cameron?’
‘Fair point.’
She answered a call. She was pleasant but firm.
When she hung up, I pointed at the speaker and said, ‘What’s he like to work for?’
‘Jack? Jack’s the best.’
‘I mean, really.’
She smiled. I smiled. I was interested in how loyal his people were, or how pussy-whipped. I put that thought out of my head straight away and said, ‘We’re old muckers, I know what he’s like.’
‘He’s been very good to me.’
She smiled and nodded and answered some more calls. Ten minutes later, another attractive blonde came through swing doors and asked if I was Dan and told me to follow her. I did so willingly. She led me into a surprisingly small studio. Jack had his feet up on the desk, half a sausage roll in his mouth and the other half in crumbs down his shirt. He gave me the thumbs-up and indicated for me to sit down. He had a pair of earphones around his neck, and through the glass I could see someone in the next studio reading the news, which was coming through loud and clear.
Jack wiped his mouth and said, ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s going fine.’
‘Get anywhere?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘With the case.’
‘Jack, I’ve hardly fucking started. Give me a chance.’ He started to say something, but then held up a finger and slipped his headphones back on. He turned to the next studio, where a new presenter had come in. They had a couple of minutes of on-air banter, and then Jack said his goodbyes. A green light above him switched to red.
‘So what are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘I’m thinking I need your call records for the past two weeks. I presume they’re all logged.’
‘Yes, of course. But there’s thousands of them. Tens of.’
‘I appreciate that. I’d like them all, though. It’s not just about the people you expose or humiliate on air, though they’re important. It’s just as likely to be someone who has a grudge because they didn’t make it.’
‘There are data-protection issues, Dan. We can’t just release—’
‘Am I working for you or the station? Who’ll be writing the cheque?’
‘Cheque! You’re so old-fashioned, buddy. The station, obviously.’
‘Then as an employee, I’m entitled to look at the call records.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘fair enough. I’ll organise it.’
‘Good. And I’m also thinking I’ll need to talk to the witness.’
‘Witness? You mean Jimmy?’
‘The boy, aye.’
‘Dan, fucksake. He’s only a tot, he can hardly talk.’
‘Maybe he could draw me a picture.’
‘He’s four.’
‘Four-year-olds can draw.’
‘Yes, Dan, but he’s not some kind of fucking autistic savant. It will involve crayons and scrawling. Is this your master plan?’
‘You asked me to do a job, Jack, let me do it. Did I mention I know a child psychologist who’d be willing to talk to him?’
Jack blinked at me. ‘Talk how? What would he do?’
‘She. She’d beat him around the head with a space hopper. What do you think she’d do, Jack? Let her have a word, eh? See what she can tease out. If you’re serious about this, then you need to help me.’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s just, I’m not sure Tracey would approve.’ Tracey. Wife of twenty years. Formidable. ‘She doesn’t believe in that kind of thing. Thinks it’ll go on his record, all that, you know?’
‘Don’t tell her, then.’ He made a face. ‘Jack. Help me here. Is your boy in school?’
‘Pre-school.’
‘Who picks him up?’
‘I do. In about half an hour.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘This is my boy. I love him. I was careless and someone nabbed him. I thank God every day that I got him back. This is serious stuff, Dan, and I need to be able to trust you. Don’t let me down.’
‘Me?’
‘You.’ He heaved himself up out of his comfy chair. ‘Okay. Let’s do this. But you had better not be yanking my fucking chain.’
‘Perish the thought,’ I said.