Belfast Noir Read online

“Mark? Can you come up here?”

  A moment later, Kearney appeared at the top of the stairs, wiping his hands on a cloth, as if he were a mechanic completing a job.

  “Yes?”

  “Officers Hume and Fisher would like a word.” Healy widened his eyes meaningfully in a way he hoped Kearney would understand, though the message of which he was himself not entirely sure.

  “What?”

  “Martin Logue? The deceased remains which just arrived here. It was your father who arranged their transport, is that right?”

  Kearney raised his chin defiantly. “What of it?”

  Hume smiled. “So that’s a yes,” he said. “What’s your father’s interest?”

  “Martin was my uncle,” Kearney replied. “Whatever the fuck it’s got to do with you. Dad wanted him brought home. Offered to handle the wake and burial.”

  Healy tried not to look at Kearney lest his respect for the alacrity with which the boy was lying was apparent. Instead he nodded, his hands clasped in front of him, head lightly bowed. From below, he heard the thud of the metal shutters closing and wondered whether Hume and Fisher had been a distraction upstairs so that a second PSNI team could enter the workroom unseen below and search the coffin without their knowledge.

  However, Hume had clearly heard it too, for he looked beyond Healy to the staircase with concern. “Where is Logue at the moment?” he asked.

  “Where I left him. Downstairs,” Healy said, glancing at Kearney who nodded.

  “We’d like to see the coffin.” Hume opened the fold up top of the reception desk and stepped behind it to where Healy and Kearney stood.

  “You’ll need a warrant,” Kearney said. “That’s my uncle’s coffin you’re desecrating.”

  This time Healy couldn’t stop himself staring at Kearney, both for his unexpected audacity and his vocabulary. Thankfully, whether he realised it or not, he was taking responsibility for the coffin. Whatever they found in there, Kearney and his father would have to answer for it, not Healy.

  “Lucky we have one, then,” Hume said, handing a copy of the document to Healy, still the man nominally in charge of the place, and passing on out through the doorway that led to the staircase.

  Healy followed, handing the sheet to Mark Kearney, assuming he’d have a better working knowledge of what it should contain. He felt sick again, felt the ground lurch to one side as he walked. The stairs seemed to shift under him, so much so that he needed to hold the rail with both hands to keep himself steady.

  Hume and Fisher were already standing at the coffin when he reached the ground floor, twisting the locking screws, one by one, to open it. Healy stopped at the foot of the stairs, wondering if he’d have time to make a run for it once they opened the lid. If he allowed some distance between them, he’d at least have a head start.

  They removed the last of the screws and hefted up the lid, raising it in such an angle that the contents were hidden from Healy. He could, however, see the look of revulsion on both their faces as they surveyed the contents. Intrigued, he felt himself moving forward, compelled toward the box against his own better judgement. As he approached, he saw, for the first time clearly, the view that had elicited such a reaction from the two policemen. The man in the coffin, dressed in a suit, had no face. It took him less than a second to recognise the ring he wore on his finger and realise that the corpse was not Martin Logue at all, but his old mentor, Jack Hamill.

  Healy took the lid from Fisher. “Happy now?” he asked, quickly checking the nameplate on top. It did say, Martin Logue. Kearney, the sneaky little bastard, must have switched the lids of Logue and Hamill’s in anticipation of just this scenario.

  Sure enough, the insouciance of Mark’s swagger as he came down the stairs confirmed as much.

  “Jesus, I hope it’s a closed wake,” Fisher commented, glancing again at the dead man. “You’ve not done a great job of the reconstruction.”

  “We’ve not started yet,” Healy said. “On account of dealing with you.”

  “Do you still want to search him?” Kearney asked.

  Hume, leaning into the coffin, yet turning his head slightly away from it, patted the corpse quickly, feeling in around the few spaces between the sides of the box and the body.

  “I’m sorry for your trouble,” Hume offered when he was done. “We’ll leave you to it, men.”

  * * *

  Healy had to stop himself from hugging Kearney as they watched the silver Vauxhall drive away from the front street. Dealing with the police had momentarily distracted him from his other concerns.

  But only momentarily.

  “Right, we’ll give it half an hour to make sure they’re gone and we’ll get Martin Logue across to the pub and out of my fucking business,” Healy said. He glanced at Kearney, hoping that something in the young man’s expression would reveal what exactly the contents of the coffin marked Martin Logue had been. “And thanks for that.”

  Kearney accepted the words with a nod.

  Laura appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Owens is done now. She looks good, if I do say so myself. Better than she did when she was alive, anyway. Being dead suits her.”

  Healy nodded. “You’re a star, Lar. Thanks.”

  “I know,” she beamed. “Tony was in already too. He said the traffic’s bad so he wanted to start on his way to Roselawn for the two o’clock.”

  “What?” Healy managed, sweat popping on his forehead. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was two fifteen.

  “The two o’clock. He took the old guy who blew his face off. Hamill? Tony took him on over to Roselawn for the cremation.”

  * * *

  Healy sat in his office, staring at the phone. By the time someone in Roselawn had answered his call, the cremation had already begun. There was nothing left to do, no way to prevent it or turn it back. There was also no way he could show up at Kearney’s pub with Hamill’s corpse. And now Hamill would have to be buried in some way. And Big John Kearney would have to be told. And Roselawn would no doubt be in touch whenever whatever was in that coffin started to burn. He guessed that it wasn’t explosives the moment someone answered the phone. The heat, he figured, would already have set them off if that had been what was inside the box.

  * * *

  Brogan met him outside City Hall. A small group of flag protestors were gathered, holding aloft Union Jacks of their own to compensate for the absence of one fluttering over the council building.

  “So, how the fuck did this happen? Just so I can tell Big John.”

  “His son swapped the lids when the cops arrived. They came down to search the coffin and opened the one they thought I’d brought up, but it was actually Jack Hamill.”

  “That was a good move. And I thought that young fella was thick.”

  Healy nodded. “The cops had him and me upstairs, answering questions. For ages,” he said, exaggerating in spite of the fact that Mark Kearney would undoubtedly be asked for his own version of events by his father too. “Tony, my driver, landed and lifted the coffin marked Jack Hamill, which actually contained . . .” He looked to Brogan, hoping he’d finished the sentence for him.

  “Shit. So Mark kind of caused it?”

  “Kind of,” Healy said quickly, spotting a get-out. “He thought he was helping.”

  “He did,” Brogan admitted. “At least the cops didn’t get the stuff and link it to Big John.”

  “Look, speaking of the stuff? If it’s explosives in there, Roselawn will know. When they explode, like.”

  Brogan shook his head. “That’s not going to be a problem.”

  “Or drugs? Every bird in Greater Belfast will be flying around stoned if they’re burning a coffin full of dope. They’ll find out.”

  Brogan smiled. “Jesus, calm yourself, Healy. It’s guns! Don’t worry.”

  “Guns?” Healy’s stomach lurched. “The bullets will be firing everywhere.”

  Brogan shook his head, laughing. “It’s all right. Just pistols.”

&n
bsp; “All right? Crematoriums use fucking magnets to pull out the metal bits of the body that aren’t burned,” Healy explained. “When the burning finishes, they’ll find a load of guns stuck to the magnet. They’ll come back to me about it.”

  Brogan grimaced, laid a hand on Healy’s shoulder. “Just say nothing. You know nothing. Someone in Dundalk arranged it; you don’t know their names or where they live. That’s your story and you stick to it. But you can’t name Big John, or me obviously. Or we’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll go to jail,” Healy said, the weight of the hand seeming to put him off balance.

  “Then we’ll do that girl of yours instead.”

  “I can’t go to jail,” Healy responded, aware that his eyes were filling.

  “You’ll not get long if you say you knew nothing about it. You could be out in less than a year. And we’ll see you right. You’ll be looked after.”

  “It’s not fucking fair!” Healy snapped, loud enough for a blonde woman in a Union Jack hat-and-scarf set to look across at them.

  “Them’s the breaks, Healy. Remember, you can’t name us. Whatever happens, Big John will see you’re looked after. And you’ll not owe any more favours. We’re all square now. I’ll even get that halfwit of a son of his out of your hair.”

  Healy felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, recognised the number as Roselawn. “That’s them now,” he said, dread running like lead through his veins, settling in the nest of nerves that seemed to be twisting around his stomach.

  “Good luck, buddy,” Brogan offered, patting his shoulder and walking off, nodding to the blonde woman. “You’re a stand-up guy too.”

  * * *

  There was no sign of the police car at Roselawn when Healy arrived. The woman who had called simply said that he was required over an issue regarding the cremation of Jack Hamill. He attempted, for a moment, to feign surprise, but didn’t see the point. “I’m on my way,” he’d said, resignedly.

  He recognised Lorcan Kirk, one of the staff, when he went in. Kirk was speaking with a young couple about the various services that they could supply for the young woman’s father. Healy stood in the waiting room, unable to sit and flick through the Ulster Tatler, refusing the offer of tea from the receptionist, feeling fairly sure that he’d not be able to keep it down.

  “Mr. Healy,” Kirk said when he finally entered the room, “thanks for coming in. Mr. Hamill’s cremation is finished and, well, it was a little odd. There was a lot of ash, but no bone. And we found some unusual things on the magnet when we were done.”

  Healy nodded. “I know.”

  “Was Mr. Hamill the Bionic Man?” Kirk asked, handing Healy a small brown cardboard box.

  “What?”

  “You expect the odd metal plate. Implants and that. But I don’t think we’ve ever seen quite so many on one body. One of the staff thought we’d cremated RoboCop.” He chuckled softly, as if aware that too raucous a laugh would be inappropriate under the circumstances.

  Healy opened the lid of the box. It was three-quarters full of black pieces of metal of various shapes and sizes, including springs and pins. But there was nothing traditionally gun-shaped.

  “So, what are they?”

  Healy swallowed dryly. “Surgical implants,” he said. “Mr. Hamill was a base jumper in his spare time. A lot of broken bones and joints, apparently.”

  “So broken there were none left after the cremation?”

  Healy shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you.”

  Kirk nodded. “I see. He mustn’t have been very good.”

  “What?”

  “As a base jumper. His ashes are here, if you want to take those too. Though the urn is only half full.”

  Healy peered down at the scraps of metal. He couldn’t understand how the guns had ended up in pieces, the confusion countered by the relief he felt that they could no longer be used for their original purpose.

  Kirk came into the room with a small plastic box of ashes that, absurdly, reminded Healy of the Tupperware container Laura had used for his lunch.

  “Thanks,” Healy said, heading for the door.

  “I didn’t know they did surgical implants,” Kirk said, as he passed.

  “Who?” Healy turned, stared at him, desperate to get away.

  “Glock. The company that make the plastic pistols.”

  “Apparently so,” Healy replied, his mouth dry.

  “It’s the strangest cremation we’ve done in some time, I have to tell you,” Kirk said, openly irritated now at Healy’s circumspection.

  “I wouldn’t think of it as a cremation so much as a . . . decommissioning . . . And an undertaking remarkably well done at that,” Healy added, then pushed out through the door into the weakening winter sun.

  POISON

  BY LUCY CALDWELL

  Dundonald

  I saw him last night. He was with a girl half his age, more than half, a third his age. It was in the bar of the Merchant Hotel on Skipper Street. They were together on the crushed-velvet raspberry banquette. Her arm was flung around his shoulder, and he had an arm around her too, an easy hand on her waist. She was laughing, her face turned right up to his, enthralled, delighted. They kept clinking glasses: practically every time they took a sip of their cocktails they clinked glasses. I was alone, on a stool at the bar, waiting for my friends—friends I hadn’t seen in years, but who, even years ago, were always late. I’d ordered a glass of white wine while I waited; I picked it up with shaking hands. It was him. There was no doubt about it. His face had got pouchy, and his hair, though still black—dyed, surely—was limp and thinning. When he stood up, he was shorter than I remembered.

  But it was him.

  I hadn’t seen him in years. I scrambled to work out the numbers in my head. Sixteen—seventeen—almost eighteen. All those years later and there he was, entwined with a girl a fraction of his age. He must be nearly sixty now.

  I bent my head over the cocktail list as he walked toward me, letting my hair fall partly over my face, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His eyes slid over the women he passed, thin, fake-tanned bare backs and sequinned dresses, stripper shoes. He didn’t look once at me. I’d lived away too long, and I’d forgotten how dressed-up people got on a Saturday night: I was in skinny jeans and a blazer, and not enough makeup. I watched him walk along the striped carpet and out toward the toilets, and then I turned to look at his companion. She had her head bowed over her phone and she was jiggling one leg and rapidly texting. She suddenly looked very young indeed. I’d put her in her midtwenties but it was less than that. I felt a strange tightness in my chest. She put her phone away and uncrossed her legs, recrossed them, tugged at the hem of her little black dress. She picked up her empty glass and tilted her head right back and drained the dregs, coughed a little, set the glass back down, and slung her hair over the other shoulder. She had too much makeup on: huge swipes of blusher, exaggerated cat eyes. She glanced around the bar, then took out her phone again, flicked and tapped at it. She wasn’t used to being alone in a bar like this. It was an older crowd and she felt self-conscious, you could tell. The men in the chairs opposite her were in their forties at least, heavy-jowled, sweating in their suits, tipping back their whiskey sours. I watched the relief on her face when he appeared again, how she wriggled into him and kissed him on the cheek. As they studied the menu together, giggling, their heads bent confidentially together, I suddenly realised she wasn’t his lover.

  She was his daughter.

  She was Melissa. Seventeen years. She’d be eighteen now. Perhaps they were out tonight celebrating her eighteenth birthday.

  With a surge of nausea I realised, then, that what I’d been feeling wasn’t outrage that she was too young for him, or contempt, or disgust. It was simpler, and much more complicated than that.

  * * *

  I don’t remember whose idea it was to go to Mr. Knox’s house. One minute we were giggling over him, nudging elbows and sugar-breath and damp heads bent together, and the
next minute someone was saying they knew where he lived, something about a neighbour and church and his wife, and suddenly, almost without the decision being made at all, it was decided that we were going there.

  Was it Tanya?

  There were four of us: Donna, Tanya, Lisa, and me. We were fourteen, and bored. It was a Baker day, which meant no school, and we had nothing else to do. It was April, and chilly; rain coming in gusty, intermittent bursts. The Easter holidays had only just ended, and none of us had any pocket money left. We’d met in Cairnburn Park just after nine, but at that time on a wet Monday morning it was deserted. We’d wandered down to the kiddie playground but the swings were soaking and after a half-hearted couple of turns on the roundabout we’d given up. The four of us had trailed down Sydenham Avenue and past our school—it was strange to see the lights on in the main building, and the teachers’ cars all lined up as usual. Then, more out of habit than anything else, we crossed the road to the mini-market. We pooled our spare change to buy packets of strawberry bonbons and bags of Midget Gems and Donna nicked a handful of fizzy cola bottles. We ate them as we trudged on down toward Ballyhackamore. The rain was getting heavier and none of us had umbrellas, so we’d ended up in KFC, huddled over the melamine table, slurping a shared Pepsi. We were the only ones in there. The sugar and the rain and the boredom made us restless, and snide. We’d started telling stories, in deliberately too-loud voices, about people we knew who’d ordered plain chicken burgers and complained when they came with mayo. There’s no mayo in it, the person behind the counter would say. Oh yes there is. Oh no there isn’t. And it would turn out that the mayo was actually a burst sac of pus from a cyst growing on the chicken breast. The girl behind the counter was giving us increasingly dirty looks and we realised that if she chucked us out we really had nowhere to go; so we changed tack then and started slagging each other, boys we’d fancied, boys we’d “seen,” or wanted to “see,” as the expression went.

  And then the conversation, almost inevitably, turned to Mr. Knox.

  We all fancied Mr. Knox. No one even bothered to deny it. The whole school fancied him. He was the French and Spanish teacher, and he was part French himself, or so the rumours went. He was part-something, anyway, he had to be: he was so different from the other teachers. He had dark hair that he wore long and floppy over one eye, and permanent morning-after stubble, and he smoked Camel cigarettes. Teachers couldn’t smoke anywhere in the school grounds, not even in the staffroom, but he smoked anyway, in the staff toilets in the art block or in the caretaker’s shed, girls said, and if you had him immediately after break or lunch you smelled it off him. He drove an Alfa Romeo, bright red, and where the other male teachers were rumpled in browns and greys he wore coloured silk shirts and loafers. On “Own Clothes Day” at the end of term he’d wear tapered jeans and polo necks and Chelsea boots and, even in winter, mirrored aviator sunglasses, like an off-duty film star. He had posters on his classroom walls of Emmanuelle Béart and a young Catherine Deneuve and Soledad Miranda, and he lent his sixth-formers videos of Pedro Almodóvar films.