Fletch (1985)

 

Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake (Mysterious Press 1990)

 

Dortmunder said, “How long were you in, Tom, all in all?”

“All in all?” Tom made that sound again. “All my life, all in all. Twenty-three years, this last time. It was supposed to be for good, you know. I’m habitual.”

“I remember that about you,” Dortmunder said.

“Well, the answer is,” Tom said, “while I been eating regular meals and getting regular exercise and a good night’s sleep all these years on the inside, the world’s managed to get worse without me. Maybe I’m not the one they should of been protecting society from all along.”

“How do you mean, Tom?”

“The reason I’m out,” Tom said. “Inflation, plus budget cuts, plus the rising inmate population. All on its own, Al, without any help from yours truly, society has raised up a generation of inmates. Sloppy ones, too, Al, fourth-rates you and me wouldn’t use to hold the door open.”

“There is a lot of that around,” Dortmunder agreed.

“These are people,” Tom went on, “that don’t know a blueprint from a candy wrapper. And to pull a job with a plan? When these bozos take a step forward with the right foot, they have no really clear idea what they figure to do with the left.”

“They’re out there, all right,” Dortmunder said, nodding. “I see them sometimes, asleep on fire escapes, with their head on a television set. They do kinda muddy the water for the rest of us.”

“They take all the fun outta prison, I can tell you that,” Tom said. “And the worst of it is, their motivation’s no damn good. Now, Al, you and me know, if a man goes into a bank with a gun in his hand and says gimme the money and a five-minute start, there’s only two good reasons for it. Either his family’s poor and sick and needs an operation and shoes and schoolbooks and meat for dinner more than once a week, or the fella wants to take a lady friend to Miami and party. One or the other. Am I right?”

“That’s the usual way,” Dortmunder agreed. “Except it’s mostly Las Vegas now.”

“Well, these clowns can’t even get that much right,” Tom said. “The fact is, what they steal for is to feed their veins, and they go right on feeding their veins inside, they buy it off guards and trusties and visitors and each other and probly even the chaplain, but if you ask them why they ignored the career counselor and took up this life of crime for which they are so shit-poor fitted, they’ll tell you it’s political. They’ll tell you they’re the victims.”

Dortmunder nodded. “I’ve heard that one,” he said. “It’s useful in the sentencing sometimes, I think. And in the parole.”

“It’s a crock, Al,” Tom insisted.

Gently, Dortmunder said, “Tom, you and I’ve told the authorities a couple fibs in our time, too.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Granted. Anyway, the result is, inflation makes it cost more to feed and house a fella in the pen in the manner to which we’ve all become accustomed, and budget cuts—Did you know, Al,” he interrupted himself, “that health-wise, long-term cons are the healthiest people in America?”

“I didn’t know that,” Dortmunder admitted.

“Well, it’s the truth,” Tom said. “It’s the regularity of the life, the lack of stress, the sameness of the food intake, the handiness of the free medical care, and the organized exercise program. Your lifers are the longest-lived people in the society. Any insurance company will tell you so.”

“Well,” Dortmunder said; “that must be some kind of consolation, I guess.”

No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (Collins Crime Club 1926)

 

Figures in the Fog

Fog had London by the throat. It blinded its eyes and muffled its ears. Such traffic as was not at a standstill groped its way with scarcely a sound through the jaundiced streets, and to cross a road was no longer a casual matter, but an adventure into the unknown. For this reason, the timid stayed indoors, while the more daring, and those who had no choice, groped gingerly along the pavements. The pickpockets were busy.

But it is not in the heart of London that our story commences. The fog had stretched its fingers far and wide, and a man who was approaching along one of the arteries that led Londonwards from the north-east paused for a few moments to rub his eyes, and then his stubby chin.

‘Gawd ’elp us!’ he muttered, staring into the great, gloomy smudge ahead of him. ‘If that ain’t the Yeller Peril, wot is?’

He had trudged out of a land of sunshine into a land of white mist, and now the white mist was becoming opaque orange. The prospect was so thoroughly unappetising that he even considered the idea of turning back. Had he known what awaited him in that gloomy smudge he would have acted very promptly on the idea, but the future itself is as impenetrable as a fog, and he decided to go on.

‘Arter all,’ he argued to himself, ‘one plice is as good as another, when you ain’t got nowhere helse!’

So he lit his best cigarette—barely more than half of it had been smoked by its previous owner—and resumed his way.

Confess, Fletch (2022)

 

The Prisoner of Brenda by Colin Bateman (Headline 2012)

 

JMJ’s hands moved to her hips; it was the naval equivalent of taking battle formation.

‘Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?’

‘It’s a distinct possibility,’ I said.

‘You do know that there can only be one winner here?’

‘It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’

‘What?’

‘A bird in the hand is—’

‘Enough! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I’ve had you down as a troublemaker from the moment you were carried in here, and now it’s right out in the open for everyone to see! Well, you listen to me, mister, we live by harmony here, not anarchy! These pizzas have been brought in from outside at not inconsiderable expense, as a special treat, but they’ll bloody well go in the bin if you continue with this outright . . . defiance – yes, that’s exactly what it is – defiance! Do you think I’m going to go without dinner tonight? No, but these poor souls, they certainly will if you do not see the error of your ways and apologise for your attitude and your behaviour. Immediately.’

Her stare was intense.

Michael slipped off his earphones. ‘Apologise, man, you’re not going to win.’

Joe said, ‘Do it, I’m starving.’

Malachy pointed a finger at me. ‘Say “you’re sorry. We get pizza once a month if we’re lucky. Don’t fuck it up.’

Andy stared at the pizzas.

JMJ raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’

Yes, her eyes were good, but she was no Nurse Brenda – or Alison, for that matter – and I knew my plan was good, and for every moment I held my silence I knew that it was drawing closer to fruition.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘have it your—’

I spoke. Muttered.

‘What was that?’ JMJ snapped. ‘If you’re going to apologise, speak up, let everyone hear you.’

I said, a little louder, ‘Food fight.’

She screwed up her eyes and leaned a little closer. ‘What was that?’

‘I said . . . FOOD FIGHT!’

I reached down and picked up one of the pizzas. It was cold and as firm as a discus. “The orderly looked from the pizza to me to JMJ and back, utterly confused and seeking direction.

JMJ began to say, ‘Put that d—’ but then had to duck as I Frisbeed it across the dining room towards her. It smeared off her left shoulder and hit the wall behind her, leaving a snail trail of cheese as it slipped to the floor.

‘C’mon!’ I yelled, urging the others to join in, ‘Food fight!’ I lunged at another pizza just as the orderly jumped at me, knocking me forwards and across the table. ‘Food fight!’ I screeched. He had me by the neck, pressing down. I screwed my head to one side and spat out: ‘C’mon, you half-wits! Food fight! This is your chance! C’mon!’

But they sat there, looking blankly at me. I managed to grab another pizza but a second orderly came rushing in and caught my hand and bent my fingers back until I let go and then they pulled me up and back and JMJ came round the table and put her face in mine and raised her hand and grabbed my cheek and pinched it between her fingers and twisted it and snarled, ‘Anything you want to say now?’

‘Yes . . . yes!’

‘Well?’

‘You don’t eat pizza with forks, you fucking witch!’

‘Pathetic!’ And she twisted my cheek even harder and it brought tears to my eyes and she smiled and said, ‘Take him to his room and lock him in, and I don’t want to see him until breakfast. You can have a long hard think about your behaviour and I expect a full and sincere apology or I swear to God . . . !'

Mr Inbetween (2021)

 

Dr. Yes by Colin Bateman (Headline 2010)

 

I have never in my whole life actually physically pursued a case, because any kind of activity requiring increased motor function is something I have to be wary of, but I could hardly help myself. Of course I didn't know it was a case then. Then it was just a man walking past my window - but what a man! You see, in my field of crime fiction, Augustine Wogan was an enigma, a myth wrapped up in a legend, a barely published novelist and screenwriter who was known to so few that they didn't even qualify as a cult following, it was more like stalking. He was, nevertheless, Belfast's sole contribution to the immortals of the crime-writing genre. His reputation rested on three novels self-published in the late 1970s, novels so tough, so real, so heartbreaking that they blew every other book that tried to deal with what was going on over here right out of the water. Until then, novels about the Troubles had invariably been written by visiting mainland journalists, who perhaps got most of their facts right, but never quite captured the atmosphere or the sarcasm. Augustine Wogan's novels were so on the ball that he was picked up by the RUC and questioned because they thought he had inside information about their shoot-to-kill policy; shot at by the IRA because they believed he had wrung secrets out of a drunken quartermaster; and beaten up by the UVF because they  had nothing better to do. He had been forced to flee the country, and although he had returned since, he had never, at least as far as I was aware, settled here again. I occasionally picked up snippets of information about him from other crime- writing aficionados, the latest being that he had been employed to write the screenplay for the next James Bond movie, Titter of Wit, but had been fired for drunkenness. There was always a rumour of a new novel, of him being signed up by a big publisher or enthusiastic agent, but nothing ever appeared in print. The books that made up the Barbed-Wire Love trilogy were never republished. They are rarer than hen's teeth. I regarded the box of them I kept upstairs as my retirement fund. In those few moments when I saw him pass the shop, I knew that if I could just persuade him to sign them, their value would be instantly quadrupled. They say money is at the root of all evil, but I have to be pragmatic. I am devoted to crime fiction, but I am also devoted to eating, and Augustine Wogan was just the meal ticket I was looking for.

Mystery Man by Colin Bateman (Headline 2009)

'Bookselling is hard, ladies and gentlemen. It's relentless. The books just keep coming. Beans don't change, peas are peas are peas, but books are always evolving. There's bugger-all profit, the hours are extraordinary and the shoplifters are stupid, because you can just borrow the bloody things from the library. You can't borrow beans.'

I studied them. They studied me.

I nodded. 'No, sir,' I said, 'you can't borrow beans.'

Several guests, unfamiliar with my ways, glanced to the door, as if realising that they'd been hooked by a free sausage roll into attending a three-hour time-share sales pitch. Others, on more familiar territory, waited for me to get to the point. The Mayerovas never took their eyes off me.

'We do it because it's a labour of love,' I continued, 'we do it because we think it's important. And here, we do it because we like to champion the underdog, the bastard outcast of literature we like to call mystery fiction. I often say, give me a young man uncorrupted by the critics, and I will make him a crime aficionado for life.'

Alison cleared her throat. Feet shuffled. DI Robinson rose and fell.

I was not to be deterred. This was my time.

'I have made a lifelong study of crime fiction. I have read all of the great works, and most of the middling ones, and many of the minor ones, and a lot of trash besides. There is virtually nothing about the solving of fictional crimes that I do not know, and what are fictional crimes but factual crimes with hats on? It seemed only natural to me when, a few short months ago, I was asked to help solve a real-life mystery that I should combine what I have learned about crime as a reader, and human nature as a bookseller, in pursuit of a solution to a fiendishly difficult case. Since that first triumph I have investigated many mysteries that previously had confounded the forces of law and order, and there is not one that I have not solved. But my most testing case, my most harrowing, and without doubt my most dangerous, walked through these very doors just a matter of days ago and it concerned the man whom, together of course with our esteemed senile author, we have come here tonight to pay tribute to: Daniel Trevor.'

I pressed the miniature PowerPoint button in my hand, and a picture of Daniel Trevor appeared on the wall behind me. There were a few hushed oooohs from my captive audience. And they were captive. 

One of DI Robinson's undercover comrades had locked the front doors.

'Daniel Trevor . . . murdered last week.

Mr Inbetween (2019)

 

Mr Inbetween (2018)

 

Nine Inches by Colin Bateman (Headline 2011)

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Shankill Road, even though it’s hard as nails. One and a half miles of arterial road through a twenty-five-thousand-strong Unionist working-class ghetto. It’s one of the few places you can still buy a pasty, rather than a panini or a panacotta without them looking at you like you’re a fucking space cadet. The Shankill bore the brunt of, and equally was responsible for, some of the worst violence of the Troubles. Paramilitaries ruled it, and they still do, only they’ve transmogrified from Loyalist freedom fighters financing their struggle through robbery, drugs, protection and murder into gangsters who finance their lifestyles through robbery, drugs, protection and murder. They justify their continued existence in the face of widespread peace by occasionally rolling out their flags and yelling about their loyalty to the Queen and the imminent danger of a Republican uprising. Republicans usually oblige by shooting someone. It is the gangster equivalent of fixing the market. It works equally well for both sides.

Belfast Confidential by Colin Bateman (CB Creative Books 2005)

 

It used to be that I was the well-known one – I had a column in the local paper, I stirred up all kinds of shit – but just as terrorists eventually hang up their guns and enter politics, I had long since resigned myself to the security and boredom of the post-Troubles newsroom. Belfast is like any city that has suffered war or pestilence or disaster – hugely relieved to no longer be the focus of world attention, but also slightly aggrieved that it isn't. In the old days you could say, 'I'm from Belfast,' anywhere in the world and it was like shorthand: a thousand images of explosions and soldiers and barbed wire and rioting and foam-mouthed politicians were thrown up by that simple statement. You were automatically hard, even if you were a freckle-armed accountant in National Health specs; you earned the sympathy of slack-jawed women for surviving so long, and you habitually buffed up your life story like you'd just crawled out of the Warsaw ghetto. You joked about the Troubles, but in such a way that you made it seem like you were covering something up. Perhaps you said you were once in a lift with that Gerry Adams and you thought he bore a remarkable resemblance to Rolf Harris, and you pointed out that you never saw the two of them in the same place at the same time, and your audience laughed and said, 'Right enough,' but at the same time you knew what they were thinking, that you were making light of it because actually you'd suffered horribly at the hands of masked terrorists or your mother had been blown through a window at Omagh or your father was shot down on the Bogside for demanding basic human rights. To say you were from Belfast was to say you were a Jew in Berlin, or a soldier of the Somme. But no longer. And as the Troubles had waned, so had the world's interest, and so had my star.

Driving Big Davie by Colin Bateman (CB Creative Books 2004)

Everyone worth knowing knows exactly where they were when they heard Joe Strummer was dead. I know exactly where I was. I was sitting in a private room in a private hospital, trying to wank into a cup.

This probably needs some explaining.

Not everyone knows who Joe Strummer is. Or was. Joe was rock'n'roll.

He was The Clash.

For my generation, he was the man.

He sang 'White Riot' and 'Garageland' and 'London  Calling' and 'Know Your Rights'. He ran the tightest, wildest, most exciting beat combo in history.

He made music important. He changed lives in a way that Spandau Ballet or The Hollies never could. 

He was my Elvis, my Beatles, and he never got fat, or bland, or shot.

The world is indeed cruel. I know that more than most people. And I take refuge from that cruelty in the music of my youth.

The Horse with My Name by Colin Bateman (Headline 2002)

It was cold and dark outside. I went up the plank. It wasn’t a plank, of course. It was like boarding an aircraft. I did a quick tour. I bought a McDonald’s strawberry milkshake and then went to the newsagent and asked for a packet of Opal Fruits. The girl looked at me and I groaned and said, ‘Starburst.’ She nodded and lifted them off the shelf. ‘They used to be called Opal Fruits,’ I said. ‘They changed the name because the Americans call their Opal Fruits “Starburst”.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘And do you know why they call them Starburst?’

‘No.’

‘Because the astronauts took them into space. Existed on them. They’re packed with fruit juice. There’s a dozen square meals in this packet, and all for just thirty-two pence.’

‘Thirty-five.’

I handed her the money. ‘You’re okay. You’re young. You don’t remember. The glory days of Marathons and Pacers and Toblerones.’

‘We still have Toblerones.’

‘Yes, but they’re the size of fuck all. Used to be you’d break your teeth on them. Like Wagon Wheels.”

'You couldn’t break your teeth on a Wagon Wheel. They’re soft.’

Behind me a man in a blue tracksuit said, ‘No, I know what he means, Wagon Wheels used to be huge.’

I looked from him to the shop assistant and sighed. ‘Maybe they still are. Maybe we just got bigger.’

We all nodded sagely for several moments .  .  .

The 39 Steps (1935)

 

Mr Inbetween (2018-2021)

 

Silver Streak (1976)