I Predict a Riot Read online

  I PREDICT A

  RIOT

  bateman

  For Andrea and Matthew.

  For Austin Hunter and everyone at the Ulster News Letter

  without whom this would not exist.

  For my Christian name, gone but not forgotten.

  Table of Contents

  Start

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

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  10

  11

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  125

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  127

  128

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  130

  131

  132

  133

  134

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The Mariner of the Seas, huge and white and beautiful, is the largest cruise ship to sail into the port of Belfast since the Titanic sailed out. While its 1200 crew is drawn from 65 different countries, its 3000 passengers are almost entirely American. Their plan - at least for those who intend to get off - is to see the city, and the rest of the country, in a few hours and still be back in time to eat. Eating is important. In the past week on board they have consumed 69,000 steaks.

  The main problem for those planning the on-shore itineraries is a chronic lack of capacity. Belfast has an efficient tourist infrastructure, but it mostly caters for small parties interested in the thrill of poking around a former war zone; it is not set up for thousands of American tourists descending all at once. For example, the open-top tours run by Belfast Big Red Bus (or BBRB - it’s a city famous for its acronyms, and it’s useful to recognise as many as possible to avoid confusion, and death) - normally runs only one bus, on a four-times-a-day basis in the summer season. But here it was being asked to provide fifteen buses. It normally employs one, sometimes two, out-of-work actors to act as guides. Now it has been forced to employ the entire cast of Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme from the Lyric Theatre to perform an only marginally less gloomy travelogue to the largely bored tourists. Bored because they’ve spent the past week doing Europe and can really do without much more local history. What they’re really here for is the Terror Tour.

  Take bus number 5, driven by a moonlighting Ulster Bus driver and with a guide in the slightly rotund shape of Martin McBurney, who plays a bitter old man called Kenneth Pyper in Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, which to some of his colleagues almost constitutes typecasting. Martin gruffly begins to work his way through the script as the BBRB swings away from the harbour; he has a microphone, but can still barely be heard above the busily chatting tourists. They’re not paying a blind bit of notice, at least until they get to the good stuff. He tells them that the name Belfast derives from beal feirste, which more or less means ‘mouth of the sandpit’. He informs them that the settlement originated from a castle built in the twelfth century by John de Courcy, but didn’t start to develop until the early years of the seventeenth century, when Sir Arthur Chichester began to plant the land with settlers from Devon and Scotland, thus sowing the seeds of all the trouble that was to follow.

  Digital video cameras are duly brought out to record the massive cranes at the Harland & Wolff shipyard and there are many oohs and aahhhs when it’s pointed out that this is where the Titanic was built, although it’s hardly much of an advert for quality shipbuilding. Beyond the shipyard, there is precious little with which to impress the Americans; it is, like any other previously industrial city, in terminal decline. No ships are built now. The great linen mills and ropeworks are long closed. It would be the most boring of all their tours if it wasn’t for The Troubles, and this is where their interest really picks up. The BBRB turns onto the Falls Road, and Martin gets to act a bit, detailing the terror and killing and insanity that enveloped these dark streets for thirty years. Now of course it’s all over, he tells them, though he knows this is not exactly true.

  ‘We’re going to stop here,’ he says, ‘and you can have your photos taken beside the war murals. Look - there’s one commemorating the death of Bobby Sands. He starved himself to death, you know, on hunger strike,’ and the tourists trundle out and shake their heads at the tragedy and smile for their photos, and Martin helps them out by taking their pictures for them. The very mention of hunger strike has reminded them that they’re missing their daily buffet on the ship, and they become restless. Luckily, a stop at a traditional Belfast bakery is built into the tour, and they rush off the bus and are talked through soda farls, potato farls, wheaten bread and Veda by an old lady with flour on her face. But the terror is not yet over, because Belfast is a city where everything has to be balanced - if you see the Republican murals on the Falls, you must see the Loyalist murals on the Shankill.

  Except today, with a driver unused to the regular stopping points, they turn onto the Shankill and miss the local guide waiting to explain the history of Loyalism, and stop instead half a mile further up beside some of the more garish and offensive murals. (None of them, strictly speaking, are politically correct, but some are more so than others.)

  ‘This is the Shankill Road,’ Martin begins, ‘and the murals here depict the local working-class population’s appreciation of their ties with the British Empire. They commemorate soldiers who died in the First and Second World Wars, soccer heroes and soldiers who have fought to retain the local culture and protect religious—’

  Martin stops suddenly
, as a stone strikes the window behind him. Then there’s a second stone. The tourists peer out of their windows, and see that a crowd has gathered.

  One kid, who can hardly be more than twelve, screams: ‘Why don’t youse all just f**k off!’

  A hail of stones strikes the bus. Luckily, it is a new bus, and the windows are built to withstand attack. Martin, although shaken, comes from a school of acting where improvisation is encouraged, so he manfully tries to cover up. ‘No need to be alarmed,’ he says. ‘This is just the interactive part of our tour, as local boys strive to re-create some of the rioting which took place here in the seventies and eighties.’ Lowering the microphone for a moment, he hisses at the driver, ‘Get us the f**k out of here!’

  The driver, who, being experienced in these kinds of things, has kept the engine running, doesn’t need a second invitation. Unfortunately he immediately finds his way blocked by a twisting snake of purloined Tesco’s shopping trolleys. Kids begin to hammer on the bus doors. The tourists press their video cameras to the glass, then duck down as another fusillade of stone and brick rocks their vehicle. They let out little whoops of excitement and clap their hands. The crowd outside has grown in strength to around fifty. Many are wearing football scarves tied up around their faces, and some appear to be carrying bottles half-filled with transparent liquid. The doors of the bus are now forced open, and two of the bigger kids, one brandishing a hatchet, and the other a baseball bat, climb up the steps and shout, ‘Everyone off the f**king bus!’

  The tourists dutifully stand and begin to make their way down the aisle. One of them says to Martin, ‘Should we leave our coats and bags?’

  Martin says, ‘No, I’d bring them with you, it might rain.’

  The boy with the baseball bat ushers the last of the tourists off, then hauls the driver out from behind his wheel and pushes him down the steps. Then he strikes him hard with the baseball bat. The driver sinks to his knees, bleeding from the forehead. The boy with the hatchet takes a bottle and sets fire to the tea towel tied around the top of it; then he hurls it halfway down the bus. It explodes, the force of it blowing out half the windows and spraying liquid flames around the interior. In moments, the bus is a blazing inferno. A cheer goes up from the crowd, and after a few moments the tourists, lined up on the pavement, break into a spontaneous round of applause.

  Now that’s what I call interactive,’ says one.

  Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Superintendent James ‘Marsh’ Mallow, drives hopelessly around, his wife in the glove compartment. More of this later.

  1

  Let’s Be Mates

  It wasn’t a blind date, exactly, because they’d examined each other’s pictures and profiles on the website for Let’s Be Mates, a Belfast dating agency. He knew her height and weight, what she did for a living, what her interests and hobbies were, her personality, the kind of man she was hoping to meet.

  Walter presumed that she’d made most of it up. He certainly had. It was, after all, only a bit of fun. Exaggeration. Distortion. Half-truths. He was sure everyone else did it as well.

  They’d even exchanged a few emails. She seemed bright and interesting. And keen. If she really was nice, and they hit it off, he would confess all. He had described himself as a property developer. In fact, he was a Civil Servant in the Department of Education in Bangor. But he had ambitions.

  Margaret Gilmore had described herself as a fashion designer. Walter wondered what she really was. Perhaps the closest she got to fashion designing was sitting at home, lonely, with a ball of wool, knitting. He couldn’t imagine that a successful fashion designer would have to resort to an internet dating agency to meet men.

  In fact, Margaret Gilmore worked as a security guard in Primark on Royal Avenue. But she too had ambitions.

  Margaret had endured another miserable morning in work. She caught a Millie with two shoes stuffed inside her fake Burberry raincoat. Two left shoes, as it turned out. The girl isn’t ever going to be recruited to Ocean’s 11. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. She’d screamed about being ‘connected’, lamped Margaret, then charged out of the store cursing her head off and leaving Margaret with a rapidly swelling left eye. It was all she needed, going on her big date lain. She’d booked an appointment at Toni & Guy for the afternoon - she normally wouldn’t dream of spending that much on her hair, but it was a special occasion. She quite liked the look of this Walter McCoy. Perhaps he was the real McCoy. She promised herself not to crack that one. He’d probably heard it a million times.

  In fact, he hadn’t, as McCoy wasn’t his real name.

  It was a typical May evening in Belfast: raining heavily, and cold with it. Walter got out of work early, and caught the 11am back to Botanic. He’d worn his best - and only - suit to work so that he wouldn’t have to go home before the big date, but now he had a couple of hours to kill. He ducked into Lavery’s bar. He was feeling nervous, a pint would calm him down. He could buy some Polos later. He hoped she’d be nice. He prayed that he wouldn’t say something stupid. He usually did. Nerves.

  It was still bucketing when Margaret eventually emerged from the hairdressers looking as well as she possibly could, under the circumstances. The cut was such that it swept down over her by-now half-closed left eye, so with luck, Walter mightn’t even notice. She’d also camouflaged the bruising with heavy make-up. She checked her watch: it was only half an hour until she was due to meet him outside the Grand Opera House. She tried calling a cab, but with the bad weather and the rush hour there was nothing available for at least twenty minutes. She didn’t want to take the chance of being late for her big date, so she decided to walk.

  It wasn’t her brightest idea.

  Before she’d gone 100 yards, a sudden gust blew her umbrella inside out, then she got drenched as she fought a losing battle to get it back into shape. By the time she threw its remains angrily into a bin, her elaborate new hairstyle had collapsed around her face, in the process smearing her carefully applied eye make-up across her cheek.

  Margaret hurried on, but by the time she was halfway down Great Victoria Street, she was soaked right through, and the colour from her turquoise blouse had begun to seep into her beige jacket.

  She glanced at her watch. She still had time. She could nip into the Europa toilets and attempt emergency repairs. Everything could still turn out all right. But then she stepped off the pavement and her right shoe immediately lodged itself in a grating. In freeing it, she bent the heel to one side. When she tried walking on it, it made her look slightly disabled.

  So it was with some trepidation that Margaret Gilmore limped towards Walter McCoy on a rain-swept Belfast night outside the Grand Opera House. She wasn’t hoping for true love. At the beginning of the day she would have settled for a free show, a nice meal and perhaps a bit of a snog afterwards. But with her hair hanging round her, her eye almost completely closed, her jacket dyed a weird two-tone colour and limping like an idiot, she realised she didn’t look so much like a woman going on a special date, but one who’d recently escaped from a high security hospital.

  ‘It’s Walter, is it?’

  Walter turned. It seemed to Margaret that his face fell. That he was truly horrified. In fact, he was just stifling a yawn.

  It seemed to Margaret that, as well as being horrified, he looked desperately disappointed. But the fact was, he was half- cut. And he wasn’t wearing his glasses. She might have looked like the Elephant Woman and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘I’m … Margaret.’

  Walter put out his hand. ‘Yes indeedy,’ he said, grinning widely.

  Margaret limped forward and clasped it. ‘I got caught in the rain,’ she said.

  ‘Have a Polo,’ said Walter.

  2

  Kangaroo

  Walter began to snore midway through the first act, his mouth hanging open, his head occasionally lolling from side to side. Once in a while he mumbled something that sounded like, ‘Maradonna,’ but Margaret couldn’t
be sure.

  As a first date, it left something to be desired.

  But then she thought, as a first date, I leave something to be desired. Sitting here soaked from the rain, hair plastered to my face, my eye closed over after getting thumped by that Millie, my shoe pointing north, its heel pointing west. He’s probably not asleep at all. He’s just pretending; he’s so horrified at being here with me he’s trying to scare me off.

  She was tempted to go. To just quietly shuffle out and disappear back into the stormy night. She lifted her handbag. But then set it down again.

  I may look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, she thought fiercely, but if I go now he’ll always have that image of me. I know I’m better than this. You have to hang in there, girl, let him find the real you.

  Except she’d no idea who the real Margaret Gilmore was. Was she a security guard at Primark? Yes, she was. Was she a fashion designer? Yes, she was. Had she ever actually had any of her designs professionally produced? No, she hadn’t. But one day, she would. She was sure of that. Or she was quite sure of that … No, she wasn’t sure at all. Sometimes she was sure, sometimes she wasn’t. She just needed a break.

  She glanced across at Walter. Now he was mumbling. ‘Best … Best to Law …’

  Football.

  Luckily the show, which was a musical based on the life of a 1980s pop group called Kajagoogoo, was fairly loud and raucous, and nobody seemed to mind that Walter was snoring his head off.

  It was the kind of behaviour she might have expected on a last date. A splitting-up date. Or after twenty years of marriage when you just didn’t care what your other half thought.

  That’s why he’s single, she decided. That’s why he uses a dating agency - because he can’t meet women any other way. Oh, God, how desperate am I?

  She lifted her handbag again. She was in an end-of-aisle seat. She could be away and out the door in a few seconds.

  Margaret started to rise. Then sat down again. How could she just give up so easily?

  Walter might be drunk and asleep, but he’d been quite charming on the way in. He’d made her laugh when he said he’d been to see The Isley Brothers at some bar in town last year and wasn’t convinced that they were even distant cousins. And Walter was handsome enough, even if he looked nothing like his photo on the Let’s Be Mates website. She didn’t either, did she? Maybe he was a bit heavier than she usually liked. But the love of a good woman would soon sort that out.