Something Beautiful

Something Beautiful is the regretful memory of a pivotal year in Rob Spence’s life. A disgraced former RUC Special Branch officer, Rob decides to revisit this world after hearing about the death of his most notorious informer on the 6 o’clock news. It’s a world that not many people in Northern Ireland want to revisit, least of all him. But he owes it to her. Aoife Duffy’s name wouldn’t be such a dirty word if she had never met Rob Spence.

One:

It had been a long time since the 6 o’clock news pointed its accusatory finger in my face. Here’s a fun fact: It’s nearly impossible not to choke on your ready-meal dinner when the biggest regret of your life is broadcast over national television. I sat there, my fork frozen mid-way between plate and mouth as the newsreader calmly announced that she was dead.

The BBC had no qualms letting everyone know that she was a full blown alkie and was found after two weeks spent melting into her mattress. Someone in her block of flats complained about the smell. The report showed exterior shots of a towering mass of shithole urban concrete on the outskirts of some post-industrial city in England. Cue the soundbites from shocked neighbors who all said she was very polite but private, and that they “nevah imagined she was involved in nufink like dat.” Of course, the archive footage of riots came next. Then the grainy stock images of IRA patrols. Before coming back to the studio, they showed a piece of graffiti on a wall that said, “AOIFE DUFFY – RUC WHORE”.

I tried to picture her… older and in pain, walking through the foreign, cold estate on winter nights. How she would come home to an electric heater, a small TV and the promise of the bottle inside the carrier bag. I pictured her going to bed alone. I tried not to, but my mind drew images of her decaying, bloated figure. I smelt the smell that I’ve been hit with too many times. Part of me wanted to stop picturing it… her pain and her tiny, pathetic life. But then, I thought I owed it to her. If she hadn’t met me, she wouldn’t have died alone in an English council flat at the age of 49. She would have had a funeral attended by more than the gravediggers.

And it would have been in Derry.

Two:

It’s kind of ridiculous how well I remember the first time we met. Especially when you consider the things I’ve forgotten.

It was New Year’s Day 1990. I was pissed off that I had to go into work. As some sort of defiant measure, I had been determined to celebrate New Year’s Eve like everyone else and got absolutely rat-arsed. Everything had been great in the pub and life felt half-full of promise. It always does when you’re 7 pints deep. Not so much when you get home. In the morning, I really just wanted to be left alone to sleep for a few years. But that wasn’t going to happen. Before I knew it, I was driving on icy roads, trying not to let the spinning world influence the direction of my car.

By the time I got to Strand Road, I felt the all too usual mixture of nervous tension and potential hangover vomit churning in my belly. Getting in past the first set of gates brought the dread of small talk with Geoff McAleer in the hut at the second set.

“Ha! You were some fuckin’ boy last night Rob,” he said, laughing through his moustache. “Speeky says you were climbing up the walls.”

I did my best to flash a smile in his direction and just about managed to raise my badge above the window. Talking to him was out of the question. I drove past the Land Rovers and unmarked cars, before crawling to a defeated stop at my usual parking space. I remember just sitting there for ages, closing my eyes and occasionally daring to look at my watch. It felt like the next time I opened my eyes I was in the office. I had floated through the rest of the procedure on auto pilot, avoiding as many people in the station as I could. Thankfully there were only ever a few of us in our office anyway, which wasn’t so bad. My boss Mike was sitting in his own glass-surrounded office on the phone, tucked away at the far corner of the room. It wasn’t tucked away far enough for me to not get the waft of his eternally lit Benson and Hedges, but it was better than the usual, which was having it being blown in your face.

After pretending to shuffle through the various reports and complaints on my desk for a while, my phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Rob,” Mike said, evidently not arsed to leave his swivel chair. “Front desk has been on. Guess who was brought in this morning?”

“I don’t know Mike. Who?” I replied, dreading where this was going.

“Duffy’s wee sister.”

“Oh?” I said, trying to feign more interest than my hangover would allow. After an unfilled silence, and against my better judgement, I felt forced to ask, “What’s she in for then? I’ve never heard tell of her being into anything.”

“She was coming back into town in a car full of space cadets at about 7 o’clock this morning and they got stopped at a checkpoint. Nice wee bag of something that looks like ecstasy in the driver’s pocket.”

“And you know what that looks like, do you?” I said, knowing full well he probably just heard of ecstasy an hour before.

“Fuck off Spence. Do you want it or not? Actually, it’s not even your choice. Go down there and find out what you can about Duffy, saying as how I’ve managed to get the Drug Squad to leave her alone and go pick their holes for half an hour, or whatever it is they do in their ample spare time.”

“Alright boss.”

“And get me some fags on your way back.”