Divorcing Jack (15 page)

Walking into the Dolphin was entering the hornet's nest. One thing was on my side: it was the last place they'd be looking for me. On the other hand Magee's informer, who hung out with either set of gangsters depending on where the money was, was able to show him a print of the original photograph of me used in the masthead of my
Evening News
column, which he said was being widely circulated by both sides. Somebody had stolen the negative from the
Evening News
he said, which gave the terror boys a clear advantage over the police and army who were still apparently making do with the old grainy likeness which had disgraced the front of the
Telegraph
the day before.

A bouncer on the door refused at first to let me in because the Dolphin observed a no denims rule. He was a big voluntarily bald-headed guy and serious about his job. I hung around outside for half an hour, trying to make small talk with him and look miserable - it wasn't a great effort -until he finally took pity on me and allowed me in as long as I left my denim jacket behind the bar. He also suggested I did something with my hair, but it was beyond rescue. Once inside I realized my re-evaluation was more to do with the fact that the lounge bar was half empty than the bouncer's good nature.

I sat at the bar with a pint and a trio of chattering women. I'd a good view of the stage, a small, circular, makeshift effort on which a vocalist and his backing track were performing a range of country-and-western classics. He had a broad Belfast accent which his singing failed to mask and which rendered the songs into unintentional comedy. I was the only one laughing, possibly because I was the only one listening. Around ten the place began to fill up: confident-looking gents used to having their own way crowded in with their obliging wives. As they drank, the men took their jackets off and rolled up their sleeves, displaying fleshy tattoos as if they were entered in an art competition. Some did look as if they'd been laboured over, complex multicoloured interpretations of the defence of Ulster, but most looked like they'd been hastily pricked in a drunken stupor by the artistic equivalent of the backstreet abortionist. Their women drank Cointreau and brown and cackled at each other for no apparent reason.

The singer and his machine finished to desultory applause. I ordered another drink and as I paid for it I saw a familiar face coming towards me in the bar-length mirror. The characteristic swoop of black hair sweatily layered across his forehead, the full-moon eyes, the smiling leer. Billy 'Dainty' McCoubrey. He'd been a leading member of the Shankill Tartan during the early seventies. The Tartan gangs, so named because they originally wore tartan scarves in memory of three young soldiers in the Royal Highland Fusiliers shot dead in Belfast, specialized in intimidating and beating up Catholics for no reason other than the fact that they enjoyed it. It seemed funny that barely a couple of years later wearing a tartan scarf would signify you were a follower of the teeny pop group, the Bay City Rollers, rather than a mindless thug. The Tartan gangs may have had a life span as long as most teeny pop groups, but McCoubrey himself had long since carved out - often literally - a solo career for himself. Most of the protection money along the Shankill Road ended up in his pocket eventually. I'd interviewed him a couple of times for the paper. He was one of those large men who come automatically muscled, a man who'd never taken a day's exercise in his life yet could still crush bouncers for breakfast. He was wearing a leather sports jacket and an open-necked, blue-striped shirt. He nodded at me as he set his money down on the bar.

'How're ya doin'?' He asked.

'Fine, thanks. How's you?'

'Doin' rightly.'

I turned and walked the length of the bar with my pint and found an empty table in the shadows to the right of the stage. When I looked up again McCoubrey was chatting with a group of three or four other similarly attired but much smaller men at the bar. He caught my eye, held my gaze for a moment and then returned it to his friends. He recognized the face, but couldn't place it.

I sat so that I could half watch him and half watch the stage. As I sipped nervously at my drink the lights dimmed and I was relieved to find myself at an even gloomier station. A ripple of applause ran round the room as a thin, medium-built man in a crumpled white suit took to the stage. Jack, aka Giblet O'Gibber. He'd a strange face: one that looked as if according to the blueprints it should have turned out to be absolutely beautiful but somewhere along the way it had been inadvertently stretched; his chin was long and pointy, leading away from a wide mouth that displayed too many teeth. A comedian's face.

He tapped the microphone and gave the audience a toothy grin, or he might have just been opening his mouth.

'Evening,' he said and the audience burst out laughing; a brightness sparked in his eyes as he realized he wouldn't have to work too hard. 'Evening,' he said again and the laughter continued.

He put his hand to his brow and peered mockingly out into the crowd. He shook his head. 'Aren't the bouncers bastards in here? Eh? No denims allowed? Eh? Where the fuck do they think this is, the fuckin' Savoy Hotel? I was coming in tonight and they weren't going to let me in 'cause

I was wearing fucking Denim aftershave! And my mate Dennis had to argue with them for half an hour before they would let him in!' The crowd was in hysterics already; big molten guffaws exploded from the back at the bar and travelled towards the stage, picking up lighter, higher-pitched giggles on the way. McCoubrey was enjoying himself. Giblet milked the laughter for nearly thirty seconds then added: 'Fuckin' bouncers,' and set them off again.

Giblet hushed them after a little with a raised hand. 'Any gangsters in tonight?'

Laughter again, but slightly hesitant.

'Well?'

'Too right, mate!' McCoubrey's booming voice, joined immediately by throaty chuckles from his companions.

'Too fuckin' right!' That time from the Republican tables over to the left.

Everyone was laughing again.

'Sorry to hear that three IRA men died earlier today. Their car left the road and hit a tree. The UVF said they planted it.' Laughter, strongest from the Republican side, joined by the Loyalists as soon as they'd worked out that it wasn't an insult.

Sharp. Quickfire. Giblet was better than I'd expected. He was obviously getting off on the adrenaline of performing before such an unorthodox crowd, people who would have him blown away for a word against their organization when they were on duty. After half an hour he called a halt and he left the stage to rapturous applause. The lights went up. Last orders were being called at the bar. McCoubrey was still standing there with his friends. I stood up and followed Giblet out of a small side door.

I followed him at twenty paces up a badly lit corridor; he pushed open a fire door and emerged into the open air behind the hotel. He walked along the back of the building until he came to a fire escape and climbed up to the first floor where he opened another fire door and disappeared. I nipped up behind him and caught a glimpse of him at the end of a corridor, entering a bedroom. He closed the door behind him without looking round. I knocked on the door. He took a minute to answer. He'd stripped down to a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. His suit, damp with sweat, was in a heap on the floor. He had a drink in his hand.

He said: 'What?'

'Nice show.'

He screwed his face up into a snarl. 'Fuck off.'

He went to slam the door, but I put my foot in it and as he opened his mouth to protest I stuck my fist into it. He fell to the ground. I stood there in the doorway for a second, half in shock that he'd fallen over so easily - in my sporting days I wouldn't have been picked for the pixieweight boxing squad - and half in surprise at my own violence. Then I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.

His gum was split and he was already dripping blood onto his white T-shirt. He pushed himself up onto one elbow. He'd held onto his alcohol like a professional.

'What the fuck was that for?'

'Shut up. Jack.'

'Go on then. Hit me again.'

'What?'

'Hit me again. While I'm down. You're not going to shut me up till you kill me.'

'What are you talkin' about. Jack?'

‘I tell whatever jokes I want.'

'I'm not worried about your jokes. Jack.'

'Well, what the fuck do you want coming in here and whacking me for then, you big bastard?'

‘I knelt beside him. He cowered back. I suppose I did look a bit threatening.

'I just want to ask you a couple of questions.'

What, like Trivial Pursuit?'

'You're not being paid to be funny now. Jack.'

He snarled again, the blood around his exposed teeth making him look like a Rottweiler at a children's party.

'Why did you kill Margaret McGarry?'

I thought the direct approach was best. His eyes widened, face blanched, white on red.

'What the fuck are you talkin' about?'

'I'm just askin'. Jack. Why kill her?'

'You're mad, mate. I don't know what you're on, but I wouldn't mind some of it.'

I hit him again, on the side of the nose. His head rocketed back and banged off the carpet with a spark of static. Unconscious.

I got a cup of water and threw it over him, then another. I got a towel from the bathroom and wiped the blood from his face. There wasn't much I could do about the red T-shirt. He came round slowly. I lifted him under his arms until he was resting against the foot of the bed and kneeled beside him again.

'When's the last time you saw Margaret, Jack?'

He spat up a mouthful of blood onto the floor then wiped a thin, freckled arm across his mouth, wincing as he caught the split gum.

'I haven't seen her for weeks.'

'When's the last time you spoke to her?'

'Couple of days before she ... you know.'

He was compliant now, the stage confidence and alcohol knocked out of him.

'Anything wrong with her then?'

'Seemed happy enough. New man in her life. That bastard Starkey. I see him, I'll kill him.'

I grabbed him by the hair and slapped him across the face. 'Listen, you stupid bastard, I am Starkey. The last thing she said in this life was about you and I want to know why.'

His punch came out of the blue, a cool right that struck the top of my nose and threw me back onto the carpet. He was on top of me in an instant, raining down blows with angry abandon. I jerked my head left and right, my arms above me. In his frenzy he wasn't taking time to place his shots and the half of them ended up pounding the carpet. I worked a knee free and brought it up forcefully between his legs. He let out a high-pitched whelp and toppled off me. In a second I had him pinned to the floor.

'You murdering bastard,' he squeezed out between gritted teeth.

I placed the palm of my hand against his face and pressed his head into the floor. 'Are you going to answer my question or am I going to have to kill you as well?'

His body went limp beneath me. He nodded his head. I removed my hand.

'Why'd you have to kill her, man? She never did anyone any harm. Kill someone, kill her dad. What'd she ever do?'

‘I didn't kill her. Jack.'

He looked unconvinced. He sniffed up a mixture of blood and snot and tears. 'What did she say, at the end?' He asked quietly.

' "Divorce Jack."'

' "Divorce Jack"? Divorce? What a thing to say. We were never married. We never even kissed. We were friends.'

'So what did she mean?'

He shook his head. 'How do I know? "Divorce Jack"? I don't know. If you hadn't've killed her you might've found out.'

I lifted my hand to dab a spot of blood from my own nose and I could feel him tensing again for a blow.

'I've already been through this once, you bastard. You can't beat out of me what I don't know, okay? You want me to make something up? Okay, just ask’

'Been through it with who?'

He smiled sarcastically. 'If I knew where it was I'd tell you, okay? It doesn't mean a fuckin' thing to me.'

There was a sudden woodpecker rapping at the door. I replaced my hand over Jack's mouth.

The voice was unmistakable.

'Come on, Gib, open up, let's go through it again. This time no comfy chair.'

Billy Dainty McCoubrey was making a backstage visit.

As McCoubrey entered, I left. Giblet O'Gibber clamped himself to my left foot as I pulled up the bedroom window and screamed at the door as it opened.

McCoubrey's bulk was almost bigger than the doorway. He stood for a moment, transfixed by the scene inside the room, and then came lumbering towards us. I stuck my right foot in Giblet's face and he fell away. I launched myself out the window into the darkness, my eyes closed and my arms wrapped round my head for protection.

It was only a couple of seconds, but it was a long couple of seconds, stretched like elastic in my mind, waiting for the snap. I expected tarmac and pain; I got a soft metal bounce off the top of a Lada and a second, softer landing in a flowerbed recently piled high with fresh-smelling compost. I lay in stunned repose amongst the scarlet geraniums, looking up at McCoubrey staring down at me, framed in the window, his size somehow reduced as if he was on television. He was shouting something but my ears were ringing from the impact. Then he was gone, replaced briefly by Giblet, who shouted something as well. Then there was only the window and the bedroom light, repelling the human insects instead of attracting them.

I pulled myself up into a sitting position. I thought of McCoubrey and his friends and where their guns might be: the car park, and where I was: the car park. I raised myself cautiously. I'd landed both times on my left hip. It didn't feel broken, but it wasn't very receptive to having weight put on it. I hobbled along the edge of the flowerbeds which lined the car park and then along the side of the hotel towards the exit. Most of the cars were gone now, the evening's entertainment over. There were maybe only a dozen residents' vehicles left, haphazardly spread through fifty parking spaces. Useless as cover.