It was, by any standards, a remarkable half-hour: two groups of visitors, two threats of legal action and two of physical violence. And they had all come from the supposedly right side of the law – the police, a solicitor and a security guard. Clearly I was doing something right. It was intriguing on so many levels that I felt compelled to adjourn to the Bob Shaw to think about it.
Lenny was behind the bar. She looked surprised, and then somewhat cool. She had said she absolutely believed my explanation for having a one-legged teenager in my bathroom, but now I wasn’t so sure. She had read the graffiti on my car, and then jumped to a conclusion. It stood testament to the power of advertising. She kept herself busy and away from me. On the few occasions she did pass within range and I attempted small talk, her response was smaller.
I didn’t let it bother me, much. I had bigger fish to fry. I sat in the corner with a Harp. It used to be the drink of choice in Belfast because it had virtually no competitors, but the city has opened up since what passes for peace was declared, and now the auld Harp is under siege. I take seriously my responsibility to support it, sometimes above and beyond the call of duty.
I sipped and pondered. As threats went, these latest ones were genuine, but mild. Of the two, Springer and Hood’s had to be taken more seriously, because they had the power to do more than just repeat the word desist at regular intervals. If the PSNI was trying to twist my arm, then it didn’t take a huge imagination to, uhm, imagine what the Miller brothers might do if they got wind of my role in protecting Bobby. It was a small city, and people talked. I’d a former Shankill Butcher downstairs from my office and a possible spy in my local café. If either the cops or the Millers were serious about finding Bobby, then they wouldn’t have to employ a rocket scientist to track him down to either my apartment or what Patricia fondly imagines is her house.
Bobby having a conviction for arson was somewhat worrying. I was pretty sure Springer had only mentioned it to try to get me to open up, but still, I’d handed the boy over to Trish to get me out of a hole without really thinking about how it might impact on her. She had a heart of gold and tended to think the best of people. If someone literally bumped into her on the street, it was always Trish who said sorry. Bobby could be standing over the smoking embers of her house, with a can of petrol in one hand and a box of matches in the other, and she still wouldn’t quite be convinced of his guilt. I, on the other hand, trusted few people, always suspected a dark side, and I was pretty sure that there was more to Bobby’s fallout with the Millers than the fact that he owed them a few quid.
I phoned Trish.
I kept my voice low so that Lenny wouldn’t hear, particularly the ‘Hello, how’s the love of my life?’ bit.
‘Fine,’ she said.
Fine to me is a grand summer’s morning, or the first pint on a stag night. Fine coming from a woman translates as appalling.
‘How’s the boy wonder?’
‘Fine.’
‘Is he holding you hostage and restricting you to one word?’
‘No,’ she said. Then she sighed. ‘No, really. It’s okay. I suppose. He’s bored. I’m bored. You’ve lumbered me with this. He knows he can’t go out, but there’s nothing here for him to do. I can’t entertain him. So, I was wondering . . . he was wondering . . .’
‘Mmm-hmmm?’
‘Well, he was asking if I could run him up to his house, just so that he can go in and get his Xbox. It’s in his bedroom, sitting there doing nothing.’
‘No.’
‘He’d be in and out in two minutes.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Dan, he’s a teenager, they’re miserable at the best of times. With everything he has going on, he needs something to take his mind off it, and I’m afraid daytime television doesn’t cut it.’
‘Rent him a movie. Download something.’
‘Dan, he wants the Xbox. Look, his mum is gone, he can’t talk to his friends. Just let—’
‘Trish – no. He goes near the Shankill, they’ll have him in an instant.’
‘Then I’ll take a run up and—’
‘No.’
‘Are you telling me no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you do it for him. Dan. Please. I’m harbouring a fugitive, the least you can do is—’
‘Okay. All right. Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘So you’ll do it?’
‘I said to leave it with me.’
‘Dan, just say you’ll do it.’
‘Okay! Christ. I’ll do it. Satisfied?’
‘Thank you. Was that so hard?’
‘Trish. Jesus.’ Calm. Deep breath. ‘Right. Okay.’ I drummed my fingers on the table. ‘What’re you going to do about your work?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re going to take some time off?’
‘Dan, I happen to be off today. But I’m going in tomorrow.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘It’s my job, Dan. It’s not a case of it being wise or not.’
‘I mean, you’re just going to leave him at home by himself? Couldn’t you take a couple of days off, just till I get this sorted?’
‘No. I don’t have them to take.’
‘Okay. It’s up to you. I’m sure it’ll be okay. We are insured, aren’t we?’
‘Dan, don’t.’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Tell you what, why don’t you come round and babysit him? It’s not like you have a job.’
‘Nice one, Trish.’
‘You asked for it.’
We were quiet for a bit. Lenny came past and lifted my empty glass. She didn’t ask if I wanted another.
I said, ‘I appreciate your candour, Inspector,’ for her benefit.
‘You what?’ Trish asked.
‘Nothing. Sorry.’ I sighed. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes. It’s just . . . strange, having him around.’
‘I know.’
‘Because I keep thinking . . .’
‘I know.’
‘Do you ever think . . .?’
‘Trish . . .’
‘What he would have been like? He’d have been fourteen by now.’
‘Yes, he would. I know that. A little ginger teenager.’
‘He wasn’t ginger.’
‘He was one gene from it.’
‘But not your gene, Dan.’
Dagger between the ribs.
‘No. That’s true.’
‘I’m sorry, Dan, I didn’t mean that.’
‘I know that. Anyway, gotta go . . .’
‘Dan, don’t be like that.’
‘Dan.’ I didn’t say anything. After a bit she said: ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, and cut the line.
The house on Dewey Street had been boarded up after the fire, but its defences had long since been breached. Scorched furniture lay in the garden: a sofa with the stuffing spilling out, a blackened sideboard, various battered kitchen appliances. Crime-scene tape flapped in the breeze. It was a Housing Executive dwelling, and they would soon be round to clear it out and make it ready for the next young couple on the list desperate enough for their own home that they wouldn’t care that someone had recently been murdered in it.
The front door was lying open. I stepped into the hall, and on into the living room. It smelt of burning rubber. Shards of broken glass and smashed ceramics littered the floor. The fire hadn’t made it upstairs, but the smoke had, and it still clung to everything. Jean’s bedroom had been thoroughly ransacked: drawers emptied and clothes ripped apart; someone had taken a dump on her bed. There were cider bottles lying around, stubs of cigarettes and bags with residue of glue. She’d not been dead for more than a few hours and her home had already been colonised by vermin. Bobby’s bedroom was similarly trashed. Posters on the wall had been torn to shreds and his clothes appeared to have been pissed on. There was a portable TV that wasn’t considered valuable enough to steal, so its screen had been smashed in. There was no sign of an Xbox.
I went back downstairs and outside. I turned to my left and knocked on the next front door. Nobody answered. I went right, and a small man in his sixties answered; white T-shirt, fleshy neck.
‘All right, mate,’ I said. ‘I’m from the Housing Executive, we’re going to be starting work on next door.’
‘Yeah? We’re puttin’ in for compensation, been coughin’ our guts up ever since.’
‘That’s not really—’
‘I worked in the shipyard, thirty years, me lungs aren’t good, I can’t be having that.’
I nodded sympathetically. I said, ‘It was a tragedy, what happened.’
‘Aye,’ he said.
‘Have any of her relatives been to the house, clearing out? The upstairs wasn’t too badly damaged.’
‘There was a few here, but they were too late. Minute the peelers and the firemen left, the scavengers were in, stole everything worth stealing. I couldn’t do anything about it. Fucking vultures, so they were.’ He nodded beyond me, across the road. ‘No respect, these young ’uns. My day they would have got a boot in the arse; these days they just boot you right back. Wee skitters.’
I looked where he had looked. ‘In there? Number four?’
‘Aye. Little shits.’
I thanked him. That’s why reporters knock on doors. Sometimes you get a break. It might mean nothing, or it could lead to a little tiny something that sends you in the right direction.
I crossed the road and knocked on number 4. A small man in his sixties answered; white T-shirt, fleshy neck. It seemed to be the style of the moment. I said I was a detective investigating thefts from the burned-out house. He asked if his brother had sent me. He glared across the road, at his brother, glaring back.
‘What’s it to do with me?’ he barked.
‘I’m afraid, sir, it has to do with your sons. We have CCTV footage that shows them entering the house.’
‘You’ve fuckin’ what?’
‘Security camera footage. They were in the house. Are they here?’
‘Aye. They’re upstairs.’
‘If you could send them down? The relatives want some of the family possessions back. If they get them, that’ll be the end of it; if they don’t, I’m afraid I’ll have to take them in. Sir?’
He was too busy glaring across the road to pay much attention to me. He gave his brother the fingers.
‘Howl on,’ he growled, and turned to the stairs behind him. ‘Nathan! Clint! Get your arses down here now!’ There was a chorus of whats and whys. ‘Just get fuckin’ down here!’
Nathan and Clint arrived. They looked neither sheepish nor worried. They looked at me without apparent recognition and grunted.
‘He’s a peeler,’ said the dad, pointing at me. ‘Were yousuns in Jean Murray’s house?’
‘Wasn’t us!’ both of them cried together.
‘Not the fire,’ I said, ‘after. You stole stuff.’
Nathan shrugged. Or maybe it was Clint.
‘Youse came back here with a clatter of stuff,’ said the dad.
‘House was fuckin’ lyin’ open,’ said Nathan or Clint.
‘Everyone else was fuckin’ doin’ it,’ said Clint or Nathan.
The dad slapped their heads, one after the other. ‘Don’t fuckin’ curse, show a bit of respect. Now whatever you took, go and get it.’
‘Can’t,’ said Nathan or Clint. ‘We sold it. It was shite stuff anyway, only got a couple of quid for it.’
‘Who’d you sell it to?’ the dad asked.
Nathan and Clint shrugged.
I said, on a hunch, ‘You didn’t sell the Xbox.’
Nathan and Clint looked surprised.
‘How the fuck do you—’
Nathan or Clint started. Nathan or Clint shoved Nathan or Clint. ‘Shut the—’
The dad slapped them both again. ‘You have the Hexbox?’ They both avoided his eyes. ‘Right. Go and fuckin’ get it.’ They looked at each other. The dad barked: ‘Now!’
Nathan and Clint bolted up the stairs.
I stood for a long minute with the dad. Eventually I said, ‘Terrible thing,’ and nodded across at Jean Murray’s house.
The dad grunted. ‘Never knew when to shut her bake.’
I nodded. ‘Still.’
‘You know, I worked in the shipyard for thirty years.’
‘Really?’
‘Got laid off. He didn’t.’ He nodded across the road. ‘Not for another three years.’
His brother was in his front room, staring across.
‘Close, are you?’
Before he could respond, the boys arrived back downstairs. Nathan or Clint had the Xbox in his arms. He thrust it into my hands. ‘Here,’ he barked. ‘Satisfied?’
The Xbox was squat and black and scratched; the twin ventilation strips were smudged and clogged with dust. The other boy pushed two controllers against my chest. They both turned and stomped back up the stairs.
‘You’re lucky he doesn’t haul your arses down the station!’ the dad yelled after them.
I thanked him for his cooperation and said it was unlikely that we would be taking any further action, but he should consider my visit an official warning. He grunted. He closed the door. I was halfway back to my car when I heard a shout:
‘Hey, pedo!’
Clint and Nathan were at an open window, upstairs.
‘He knows his name!’ said Clint or Nathan, and they both cackled.
I turned back to the car.
‘Enjoy the Xbox,’ shouted Clint or Nathan. ‘It doesn’t work anyway, you sad fucking wanker!’
I put the Xbox in the back seat and climbed in. I drove away to a chorus of Clint and Nathan singing: ‘FUCK THE POLICE! FUCK THE POLICE!’