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 . . . !'

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.

The Day of the Jack Russell by Colin Bateman (Headline 2009)

 

'Shaking the tree.’

Alison was aghast. ‘You . . . at a funeral . . . you . . . caused that . . . You’re supposed to be our Chief Constable, you’re supposed to be . . .’

‘. . . a lot of things. Listen to me. I’m sure you’re perfectly decent people, in your little bookshop, and your nice lives. Yes, you dabble in your private investigations, so maybe you’ve seen a few things, but you don’t understand what’s really going on, you don’t see the bigger picture. People think the Troubles are all over, but they’re not, they’re just different Troubles, some of it historic, some of it imported, most of it we just won’t know about till it comes up and bites us on the arse. But it’s my job to keep watch, and it doesn’t help when people are constantly trying to undermine me. So I have to flush them out, because keeping an eye on the likes of MI5 there’s a genuine danger that the forces of evil will slip through. I, we, cannot afford that, so sometimes I have to do something that shows them who’s boss. Do you understand me?’

I nodded. It was the first time I’d ever heard someone say forces of evil outside of a comic book.

Alison said, ‘You blew up a funeral.’

‘For the greater good.’

Alison shook her head at him. And then at me.

‘I should send the both of you round to apologise. This isn’t a bloody game.’

She was right, it wasn’t.

Games have more rules.

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.

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.

Dr. Yes by (Colin) Bateman (Headline 2010)

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.

Spring was in the air, which was depressing enough, what with pollen, and bees, and bats, but my on/off girlfriend was also making my life miserable because of her pregnancy, which she continued to accuse me of being responsible for, despite repeatedly failing to produce DNA evidence. She whined and she moaned and she criticised. It was all part of a bizarre attempt to make me a better man. Meanwhile she seemed content to pile on the beef. She now had a small double chin, which she blamed on her conditions and I blamed on Maltesers. There was clearly no future for us. In other news, the great reading public of Belfast continued to embrace the internet for their purchases rather than No Alibis, this city's finest mystery bookshop, while my part-time criminal investigations, which might have been relied upon to provide a little light relief, had recently taken a sordid turn, leaving a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth, although some of that may have been Pot Noodle.

Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman (Arcade Publishing 1995)

"I don't think it would be a good idea to call the police."

"Why?" He stared into my face. "We've just been shot at. We could be dead." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "You think they were the police?"

I shook my head. "They were Protestant paramilitaries."

"Protestant? How can you tell?"

"Two ways, really. One: they fucked up. Proddies have a habit of fucking up operations like this. They outnumber the IRA ten to one but couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. Correction. They usually do organize a piss-up in a brewery before they try anything and that's why they fuck up."

"And two?"

The skinhead who shot at us. He had FTP written on his head."

"FTP. Tattooed? What's it mean?"

"No, just written. Like with a felt pen. It stands for Fuck the Pope. It's a dead giveaway. Actually, they're improving. Usually they can't spell FTP."

The Day of the Jack Russell by Bateman (Headline 2009)

It was the Tuesday before Christmas Day when The Case if the Cock-Headed Man walked into No Alibis, the finest mystery bookstore in all of, um, Belfast.

In some ways he was lucky to get me, because with business being so quiet I had resorted to letting my mother woman the till for that short part of the day when she could manage to keep off the booze, i.e. between the hours of nine and eleven twenty-nine in the morning. If he had walked in ten minutes earlier he would have walked straight out again, because while still undoubtedly sober, Mother is not one for suffering fools or anyone gladly and she's gotten ten times worse since her stroke. She has always been ugly and mean, but she used to restrict her glares and tempers and violence and sarcasm to members of her immediate family, but since the stroke she has expanded her circle of viciousness to include distant cousins, vague acquaintances, most other members of the human race and several dogs. Mother is wired differently to you or me. A stroke usually affects just one side of the body, but she has lost the power in her right leg and left arm, making her appear lopsided from whatever angle you care to look at her, although most people don't, and stagger from side to side like the drunk she is when she tries to walk. It is funny to watch her. When she's drinking she now only has to consume half as much as before to get legless. And half of that again usually drools out of her mouth on to her blouse, because another side effect of the stroke is the loss of all feeling in her lower lip.

Mystery Man by Bateman (Headline 2009)

This is all quite new to me, so I am not above seeking wiser counsel. When that isn't available I occasionally consult my assistant Jeff. I would say that he works for me Tuesdays and Thursdays, but it would be more accurate to state that he appears in the store twice a week and manages to spend most of that time on the phone calling disinterested parties on behalf of the local chapter of Amnesty International. Jeff has been rather subdued since the death of General Pinochet. Human rights violations under his regime had been Jeff's area of expertise, but now that the General was gone, the spotlight had shifted on to more recent abuses in the Middle East, leaving him marginalised. He had committed the cardinal sin of failing to move with the bleeding-heart-liberal times, he was yesterday's man clinging to the vain hope that someone even more despotic would come to power in Santiago and rescue him from his do-gooding isolation. I thought drawing him into helping me with the case might rescue him from his doldrums in a way that my humming of 'Don't Cry for Mr, Chile' every time I passed him hadn't.