The Day of the Jack Russell (Mystery Man) (25 page)

‘Say this, say this: I got the Jack.’

‘I got the Jack.’

‘You got the Jack.’

‘I got the Jack.’

‘You haven’t got the Jack.’

‘I got the Jack.’

‘You prove you got the Jack.’

‘You prove you got the girl.’

‘Mother . . .’

‘The fuckin’ girl is sitting here.’

‘That proves nothing.’

‘What?

‘Mother!’

‘You let her go, we talk this through.’

‘Well that would stop me saying, give me the Jack or the girl gets it. That would stop me having the upper hand. I don’t know what fucking negotiating school you went to, but you suck at it.’

‘Say: So we are negotiating.’

‘So. We are negotiating, slaphead.’

‘You think because you’re an old bitch I won’t smack you around?’

‘You could try.’

‘Mother . . .’

‘I want the Jack.’

‘I want the girl.’

As they stared each other down, something else caught my attention. A security guard in black puffa jacket and earpiece and cap was approaching. He stopped by Mother’s vehicle.

‘Madam, I’m afraid your car is blocking access to the other tables. And to be here, you do actually have to purchase something. Company policy.’

‘Young man . . .’

‘Mother . . .’

‘Madam, if you don’t move the vehicle, you will be towed.’

‘Mother, keep control, this is important. Be nice.’

‘There’s no need for that attitude.’ It was Smally. ‘She’s not doing any harm.’

‘Sir, with all due respect, this isn’t the first time. Company policy dictates that—’

‘Screw company policy.’

‘Sir, to be frank, this is none of your business. We’re very particular about making this a pleasant shopping experience for everyone; that means keeping all access routes free and clear, and it also requires a certain standard of behaviour from our customers, and that they show respect for all of the staff, which means watching your language.’

‘Fuck that.’

‘Do you know who he is?’ one of the skinheads asked.

‘That’s not really my concern. I’m just asking that you refrain—’

‘You get yourself out of here before I break your fucking legs, you fucking little Hitler.’

‘Okay, sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’ The security guard raised a walkie-talkie. ‘Can I have back-up to the food court, please. Sir, if you would just take your belongings, sir, and please exit the premises.’

‘You’re a fucking dead man.’

And he would be a dead man, I was sure, but for the moment there was probably a very good reason why Smally and his guys weren’t putting up more of a fight. They didn’t want to have to explain why they had Alison, or why they were armed, as I was sure they were.

Smally got up, the skinheads with him.

Alison sat where she was.

She had not spoken since Mother’s arrival.

Smally loomed over her. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I think I’ll stay for a while.’

‘That’s not an option.’

‘No, actually, I believe it is.’

Alison nodded around the food court. Smally followed her direction, and saw what I saw, other security guards approaching from three different directions.

‘You come with me now, you little cu—’

‘Sir . . .?’ The security guard turned slightly to his left and made a hand gesture indicating the closest set of exit doors. But in seeing him side on for the first time, rather than from behind, my heart stopped suddenly – which it is prone to do, given the leaky state of my aortic artery – as I realised that the security guard whose intervention I had been internally hailing as wonderfully fortunate was not in fact a security guard as God intended at all, but Greg, the rogue secret agent, and that the security guards he had himself summoned were just as likely to expose him as a fraud as escort Smally and his mates from the centre, and then Alison might be right back in danger again.

I had seconds to decide what to do.

The pattern on the floor tiles attracted my attention. A number had clearly been replaced at some stage, but the original pattern must no longer have been available; they were close, but not exact, and it was annoying. I’ve always been fascinated by floor tiles. The word is derived from the French word
tuile
, which is in turn from the Latin
tegula
. I keep abreast of the developments. Modern printing techniques and digital manipulation of art and photography have converged in custom tile printing. Dye sublimation and the application of ceramic-based toners now permits printing on a variety of tile types, yielding photographic-quality reproduction. High-temperature kilns are used to transfer images to the tile substrate.

‘Hey, you.’

I looked up. Alison was standing by my table.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ she said.

I know all about sore eyes.

Behind her, Smally and his two pals were hurrying off to the right. Greg was being surrounded by five security guards.

I stood. Alison threw her arms around me, and held me tight, which was unfortunate, given the state of my bones.

Moments later, Mother’s Shopmobility vehicle crashed into the back of us. We would have been bound for casualty if it hadn’t been equipped with bumpers to stop the mentally and physically disabled causing carnage.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘Fucking watch where you’re going,’ I snapped.

‘Don’t speak to your mother like that,’ said Alison.

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Mother.

It was only when Mother was safely bolted into the rear of the Mystery Machine that Alison turned on me.

‘I was expecting my hero on a white charger.’

‘I’m allergic to hors—’

‘Instead your mother arrives in an electric cripple car.’

‘Don’t say cripple . . .’

‘Don’t start on me!’

‘I thought you were glad to see me.’

‘I was! But Jesus! Are there any lengths that you won’t go to, to avoid confrontation?’

‘Confrontation? That wasn’t confrontation! Do you know who that was?’

‘Some baldy bastard who wanted—’

‘Smally Biggs!’

‘I know who it was. I’m not stupid.’

‘He didn’t hurt you?’

‘He pinched my arm.’

‘If I’d known that . . .’

‘What?’

‘That’s not the point. What did he say?’

‘He wanted the dog; they all want the dog.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know! It’s like we’re playing pass the parcel without the parcel.’

‘Can we just get out of here?’

‘Yes.
Okay
. I
suppose
you did come. But I don’t understand, how did you organise your mum? And Greg? And where’s Jeff ? And are we still going to the funeral? And what did you find out? Is the cop a crook? Did Jimbo and Co. take Patch? Why are you just staring at me?’

But I wasn’t staring at her. Some people think I’m staring at them because of my myopia and the slight cross in my eyes, but actually I was looking directly behind her, at Greg, hurrying towards us. He had lost the puffa and was now pulling on his familiar grey suit jacket.

There wasn’t time to jump in the van. He was there, right in front of us, and looking concerned.

‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked Alison.

‘Like you care.’

She put two joined fingers and a sticky-up thumb to her head, and raised her eyebrows.

‘I do, and you don’t want to be messing with him, and didn’t I do my best to get you out of it?’

‘Because you want the Jack Russell,’ I said.

‘No. Yes. Look, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot . . .’

‘Because you threatened us and kidnapped Jeff.’

‘I made a mistake. Things were very confused. You were interfering in something very delicate, and for your own safety I had to try and scare you off. But you’re in it now, and it’s my duty to try and protect you, try and negotiate a way through this for you that won’t end up with you being killed.’

‘So you’re not just covering your own back?’

‘Yes, some of that too. Look, can we get out of here? Smally is probably still cruising about, and he won’t feel so restrained out in the open. We’ll go somewhere, talk it through, sort it out.’

‘We can’t,’ said Alison. ‘We have an appointment with death.’

‘Please. A full and frank exchange of information.’

‘We’re on our way to Jimbo’s funeral,’ I clarified.

‘So am I.’

‘There isn’t time.’

‘It’s important to talk before the funeral.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’ll all be there. Everyone. We need to know where we stand.
It makes sense
. And there’s a Starbucks on the way.’

He had played his joker.

Alison thought my agreeing to meet Greg in the Starbucks on Boucher Crescent was just my way of getting rid of him. He’d go one way, we’d go the other. But no, I made it clear to her that an exchange of information might be no bad thing.

‘He’s going to stitch us up.’

‘He might turn out to be okay; it might be mutually beneficial.’

‘In what way?’

I reached forward and turned the radio right up. Alison turned it back down. I repeated the action and gave her the eye. The penny dropped.

‘You really . . .?’ she mouthed.

I nodded. How else would he have known about my obsession, or this one of them? Only through clandestine listening or observation. How had he known to arrive at Connswater? Because he was keyed in to my phone and reading my texts. For all I knew, he was already aware of my predilection for scratching cars with personalised number plates or my aversion to grapefruit. I needed him to stop delving. There were things I wanted nobody to know. Not Mother or Alison and certainly not MI5. It was vital that the holy bloodline was protected.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘even the smell of that food court is bringing me out in hives. I feel the need for . . .’

‘You always feed the need.’

‘It’s why you love me.’

‘It’s fairly low down the list.’

‘There’s a list?’

‘Of good
and
bad.’

‘And?’

‘The jury’s still out.’

From the back, Mother yelled: ‘I need a Jimmy Riddle.’

‘Hold on, we’re nearly there.’

‘Too late.’

Alison pushed Mother into the toilets at the Boucher Starbucks, promising to sort her out. I wasn’t sure if that meant give her a hiding or tidy her up. In my day you had your nose rubbed in it and you learned not to do it again. As they disappeared and I took my corner seat, the front door opened and Greg came in. It was a small Starbucks, with a narrow column of tables running the length of the coffee bar, and then only slightly wider at the back. He couldn’t have missed me. He nodded and went to the till. He ordered an Ethiopian Sidamo and brought it across. He sat down opposite me. He didn’t ask where Alison or Mother had gone. I already had a Café Verona before me. He sat and said, ‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘Tell me what you’ve been up to.’

‘Tell me what
you’ve
been up to.’

He sighed. ‘You know who I work for?’

‘I know who you are employed by.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I know what your employers do, I’m not convinced that what you’ve been doing toes the party line.’

Greg nodded. Looking at him, up close, I could see now that he was younger than I’d previously calculated. I had thought he was probably thirty-eight, or thirty-nine, or forty, or thirty-five, or thirty-six, or thirty-seven, that the thickness of his jawline was to do with advancing years and lack of fitness. But I decided that he was actually younger, maybe twenty-eight, or twenty-nine, or thirty, or thirty-one, or thirty-two. The extra weight was lingering puppy fat; the older appearance was worry and stress.

‘Okay, yes, I am employed by MI5. We deal in national security.’

‘Some of you do.’

‘Look, I’m going to be absolutely truthful with you, on the understanding that none of it goes any further. If it comes to it, I’ll deny it, and you’ll just look ridiculous.’

‘I’m a bookseller; looking ridiculous goes with the territory.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Look. There’s two parts to this. The first part is, I’ll admit, entirely our fault. And when I say our fault, I mean my fault. I take full responsibility.’

‘I got the impression you were trying to avoid taking responsibility.’

‘No, I held my hand up, and they said, right, go and fix it without involving us.’

‘So you’re not a rogue spy; you’re doing this with tacit approval.’

‘Yes. No. I’m not really a spy at all . . .’

‘But you work out of the big building where they keep the spies. Are you a chef ?’

‘No. Why?’

‘No reason. Are you a gardener?’

‘No. Right. Okay. I get your drift. I’m in the spying business, espionage, and I was in that business, hands on, right enough, but I’m no longer active. I’m a teacher. I teach spies.’

‘Spyteacher.’

‘That’s it. You know we have a spanking-new tower block outside Holywood? It’s real state-of-the-art. If something big goes down in London, Belfast takes control, okay? There’s four hundred of us working there now, every discipline you’d care to think of.’

‘Including chefs and gardeners.’

He stirred his coffee. I sipped and savoured. Alison and Mother were taking a long time. I glanced towards the toilets; so did Greg.

‘What I’m saying is we’re not just a branch office. We’re the reserve hub if London gets hit.’

‘Okay. I believe you.’

‘But you don’t just open your doors one morning and say you’re recruiting spies. Actually, I take that back, that’s exactly what we do; we do a milk round just like any other big company. We take on a bagful of graduates every year, but they have to be trained. Spies don’t just grow on trees.’

‘That would be Special Branch.’

‘I heard your mouth gets you into trouble.’

‘It’s not me, it’s the Tourette’s.’

‘It’s not in your file.’

We locked eyes.

Kept it going as he raised his coffee and sipped.

But then he remembered we were in a rush, and glanced at his watch, and turned and looked towards the front door, then finally back to me.

‘Problem is, this day and age, eighty, ninety per cent of them are whizz-kids, but everything they know they learned in front of a computer screen; they’ve no practical experience at all. They were in front of their Nintendos in the years when they should have been perfecting hide and seek. That’s where I come in.’