We took Jack’s Jag. ‘Child seat,’ he explained. It was this year’s model. We drove to the Royal Victoria Hospital.
‘Do you know something?’ Jack asked, nodding ahead towards the huge, sprawling jumble of hospital buildings that dominated the skyline. ‘The RVH was the first building in the world to install air-conditioning.’
‘Really,’ I said.
‘Oh yes. Nineteen oh six. The engineers at the Sirocco Works, just down the road there, pioneered it. Doing this show, I learn a lot of useless shite.’
With its setting in the heart of Republican west Belfast, it could be argued that some of the locals had themselves spent years since installing air-conditioning for free all over the city.
I have always found the RVH a dark and depressing place. The only thing bright about it today was the sight of Leontia Law standing waiting patiently for us by the front gates. She was wearing a knee-length leather skirt and brown boots that met it halfway. Her hair was short and she wore no make-up. She had on a doctor’s white coat.
As Jack drew up, I got out of the passenger seat and opened the back door for her. She slipped her coat off, folded it over her arm and slid in. I went with her.
Jack glanced back and said, ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘You sit up front with me. Or she does. If you both sit in the back, I’ll look like your chauffeur.’
‘Jack, who cares? And by the way, could you put your cap on?’
He didn’t smile. I got out and rejoined him. He nosed the Jag into traffic while I made the introductions. He started telling her about the air-conditioning, but she said she knew.
‘Worked there long?’ he asked.
‘Two years,’ she said. ‘I’m actually in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children; it’s kind of tacked on to the other side.’
Jack nodded in the mirror. ‘I don’t want you upsetting my boy.’
‘Of course not,’ said Dr Law.
‘But the truth will out,’ I said.
Jack’s eyes flitted across.
The Cabbage Patch Nursery was based in a large Edwardian house festooned with security cameras, just off the Malone Road. Malone was money. Malone was class. Probably no child in the entire nursery had ever been near a real live cabbage patch.
‘You’ve moved up in the world,’ I said.
Jack said, ‘Perhaps it’s you who’s moved down.’
Unlike at Cityscape, there was an elaborate security system to negotiate. So we waited in the car while Jack went for Jimmy.
Dr Leontia said, ‘Are you sure this is wise?’
‘Of course it is,’ I said.
‘You’re a frickin’ chancer,’ she said.
‘It has been known.’
Jimmy came back on Dad’s shoulders. Cherub-faced, full of chat. Jack introduced us as his old friends Dan and Lenny. Jimmy wasn’t the slightest bit interested. He wiggled a plastic dinosaur in his dad’s face as he was strapped into his chair and said, ‘Dino wants ice cream.’
It seemed like a plan.
On the drive to McDonald’s, Leontia made small talk with him. They seemed to hit it off. He lent her Dino for all of five seconds.
As we waited at lights, Jack said, ‘You never have kids, Dan?’
‘Kids? No.’
‘Then you won’t know what they mean to you. I don’t care about the hair on my head. But if anyone harms a single hair on his . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’ll be fine.’
I was thinking mostly about the hair on Jack’s head. We’d worked together for years, and I’d a fairly clear recollection that his mane had been rapidly receding. Now it grew luxurious and thick. Weave was the way, these days.
Jimmy demanded the drive-thru, but Lenny wanted the chance to talk one on one with him, so she quelled his protests with a promise of the largest ice cream he could eat, unstrapped him and walked him in, though not before he’d shaken his head and said that Daddy had said he wasn’t allowed to go off with strangers. Daddy reassured him that it was okay this time because she was Daddy’s friend. Satisfied, he toddled off, hand in hand with her.
Kids are such fricking suckers.
Jack and I stayed in the car. He shook his head at the packed restaurant before us. ‘Fuck me, it’s half twelve on a Tuesday; where do all these fucking kids come from?’ When I didn’t respond, he said, ‘Do you think he’ll be all right with her?’
‘Relax. She’s a specialist.’
‘She looks young to be a specialist.’
‘Cops and doctors both, Jack.’
‘Christ, I know. It would sicken you.’ He drummed his fingers on the wheel. Then he rubbed at his brow. ‘Do you know what haunts me, Dan? Do you remember where I trained as a reporter?’
‘Down in Bangor, wasn’t it?’
‘Aye. Family-owned paper. Not many of those around now. But the owner’s wife, this nice old dear, she got to write a column every week. Kind of about nature, and literature and poetry. She lived out in the country, and she found this baby badger . . .’
‘A cub.’
‘I know what it is, Dan. Anyway, she found this baby cub badger, abandoned, or I think maybe dogs killed its mum, and she raised it herself. From a wee tiny thing to a bouncin’ big badger, and she wrote about it every week, and published photos, and it was like house-trained and one of the family and it was so sweet, it was like a fucking Disney picture. People loved it. Kids came to visit.’
He fell silent. After a bit, I said, ‘Your point?’
‘My point, one morning she came down to let it in, ’cos like it still went out foraging or whatever the fuck badgers do at night, but it always came home for breakfast and a snooze. But you know what one of her loyal and lovely readers had done? Battered it to a pulp and left it lying dead in her porch. And do you know why?’
‘No.’
‘Because that’s what people are like. Evil.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah, I probably knew that.’
‘And that’s what worries me, that they’ll do something to Jimmy just because they can. Children, they’re your fucking weak spot.’
‘What does Tracey think about it?’ Jack drummed his fingers again. He studied the passing traffic. ‘You haven’t told her, have you?’
‘I told her about the note, but not how serious I thought it was. Didn’t want to worry her. I mean, what if it’s just one of the local kids having a laugh? Feel pretty bloody stupid then, won’t I? You’ll get to the bottom of it, though, Dan, won’t you? You were always the best at sniffing shit out.’
For all the good it did me.
Ahead, Dr Leontia and Jimmy were just emerging. He had ice cream plastered across his face. So did Lenny. They were giggling.
‘There’s nothing you want to tell me, Jack, some reason someone’s after you that you haven’t mentioned? Better I know now.’
‘Swear to God. How can I shut the fuck up if I don’t know what to shut the fuck up about? I talk all day on national radio. It’s what I do. I can’t just zip it, you know, unilaterally.’ He swivelled as the back door opened and his mood lifted instantly. ‘Look at you!’ Leontia lifted Jimmy into his chair. ‘Ice cream everywhere!’
He reached back with a handy wipe and proceeded to rub.
‘Well,’ I said, giving Lenny a wink, ‘what did you manage to wring out of the wee bugger?’
‘Starkey.’
‘Sorry, Jack.’
‘That he was taken into a car and driven around.’
‘The bastard!’ shouted Jack.
‘Make and model, licence plate?’
‘Yeah, right. It was silver.’
‘Description of suspect?’
‘If I find him,’ Jack snapped, ‘I’ll fuckin’ kill him.’
‘Wasn’t a he,’ said Dr Leontia.
From McDonald’s, it was quicker to drop us back at my car and for me to take Lenny on. She apologised for finding out so little, but Jack was over the moon.
‘I got bugger-all squared out of him, so this is a result. Isn’t it, Dan?’
‘Certainly is. Narrows it down to half the world’s population and its most favourite car colour. Case more or less closed.’
But it was something, and something is always better than nothing. I drove Lenny back to her work. I slipped her a twenty. She slipped it back.
‘Just doing a friend a favour.’
‘Nice touch with the doctor’s coat,’ I said.
‘I feel a bit bad,’ she said.
‘Balls,’ I said. ‘You have four kids, you know as much about child psychology as anyone.’
‘Well, if you insist. Will you be in later?’
‘Never know your luck.’
I winked, and Leontia shut the door and hurried in to start her shift in the Bob Shaw.