'Bobby Murray,' said Maxi, 'deserves everything he gets. And then some. He should consider himself lucky he only lost the one leg.'

'Ah well,' I said, 'he's somebody's son.'

Maxi rolled his eyes. 'Jesus, don't get me started on that old bag! Thirty years of shite I've put up with, and she's the one driving me to retirement. Never out of the shop, complaining about this, that and everything to do with her wee fucking sunbeam.'

Bobby Murray himself wasn't that important. He was fourteen, mixed up in the usual kid things, but with a Shankill twist. He hung out with his gang, he drank, took drugs, he dealt a little, he fell out with his supplier, his supplier was in the UVF, he got threatened, he was told to leave the area, he refused, he got beaten up and told to leave again, he stayed, so they kneecapped him. Blood poisoning set in, he lost a leg. It's a common enough story. The Shankill Limp is a familiar sight all over the city.

There are a hundred Bobbys on the Shankill, but they don't all have a mother like Jean Murray. He wasn't quite the apple of her eye, but he wasn't entirely rotten either. She wanted to know why in this supposed peacetime the members of the UVF whom 'everyone' knew were responsible for her son's shooting hadn't been picked up by the police, why they were still allowed to walk the streets. When she didn't get satisfactory answers, she decided her only course of action was publicity, and there was no better conduit than that self-proclaimed people's champion, Jack Caramac.

Most of the things Jack talks about usually enjoy a two- or three-day run, but this one seemed to prick the public's imagination, and his own. He interviewed her on the phone, he brought her into the studio, he kept it going, and going, and going, for months, switching between lambasting the police for doing nothing and the UVF for exercising gun law over the poor downtrodden people. After a while it seemed that Jean had become the Shankill correspondent of the Jack Caramac show; and maybe she grew to like it a little too much.

'Tell you what,' Maxi said, 'I wish Jack Caramac would shut the fuck up. He hasn't a clue what he's talking about. He calls us all the names of the day, so he does, and we have to sit here and take it. Dan, you can't just fly in and round up the usual suspects these days; you need evidence, you need multiple witnesses, you need the weapon, the DNA. These guys, if they do something, they're power-hosed, bleached and lawyered up before you can even type search warrant. And yes, she may know exactly who did it, but do you think her wee Bobby's gonna stand up in court and point them out? You honestly think he'd live that long? Besides, with his record for dishonesty, he wouldn't have a fucking leg to stand on. So to speak.'

'And the thing that pisses us off,' said Hood, pointing half a biscuit at me for emphasis, 'is that Jack Caramac knows all this damn well. He's just stirring the pot for badness.'

We talked on for another twenty minutes, but pretty quickly it got back to Maxi reminiscing about the good old bad old days. I'd heard it all before, and so, clearly, had Hood. He began checking the text messages on his phone. When I eventually steered Maxi back round to the matter at hand, he gave me a couple of names of people I should talk to and then we left Hood to settle the bill which he didn't look too enamoured with and dandered back towards my car.

'How's the missus, Dan?' Maxi asked.

'Fine and dandy,' I said.

'That bad?'

I gave him my shrug and said: 'Can't imagine you retired. What're you going to do with yourself?'

'I'm going to sit on my arse and do bugger-all.' He laughed. 'The wife's picked out a wee place up the coast; we'll be up there by the weekend. Always been a city boy, but it's all changed round here. Maybe get myself a fishing rod. Or maybe get my hands on some Semtex, catch them in half the time.'

I hadn't actually heard anyone say Semtex in years.

'Go for it,' I said. 'What about yer man?' I thumbed back towards the cafe. 'Child protege?'

'Ah, he's not a bad kid, Dan. When he joined, he was as straight as a Methodist hymn book and I got about as much joy out of him. But he's learning, and I think he'll be okay. I'll text you his mobile number. Keep him in the picture, and you never know.' Maxi thrust his hands into his pockets and gave a slight shake of his head. 'I didn't think you had much time for Jack Caramac.'

'I don't. But it's a job, and there's the kid involved. Hate that.'

'Aye. Fair enough. I remember your wee one.'

I nodded.

We arrived at my car. It was a Range Rover, black, and had once been pretty sleek. It was another smuggled-away reward from Belfast Confidential's glory days. Maxi's eyes roved over the empty tax disc holder. He kicked lightly at a tyre. I'm sure he noticed the lack of tread. He smiled back at me.

'Dan word of advice. I know you've been out of it for a while, but don't be fooled into thinking this peace shite means anything up here. Our pals in the balaclavas, maybe they were fighting for something once, but they're doing it for themselves now, and they're not even that bothered about the balaclavas any more. They always were a bunch of fucking animals, but in the old days they wouldn't have dared touch a journalist; now they'll fucking torch you as soon as look at you. So if you start asking questions, prepare for the worst.'

'Bear it in mind,' I said.

8.

Dewey Street is just a few twists and turns away from Comanche Station. Jean Murray's Housing Executive semi featured brand-new double glazing, with wire-mesh security grilles and scorch marks up the brickwork. There was one security camera facing down above the front door, and another covering the tiny garden. There were probably others around the back. As I parked outside, I saw a couple of kids sitting on a wall opposite. Teenagers. One skateboard between them. Cropped hair, neck chains, trackies, trainers, sullen looks. I nodded over and they nodded back. When I walked up to the front door and rang the bell, one of them shouted, 'Whaddya want with that cunt?'

I said, 'A cunt's a useful thing.'

They were still thinking about that when a man's gruff and tobacco-thick voice said over the intercom, 'What?'

I said, 'Hi, ahm, my name's Dan Starkey . . . I'm working for the Jack Caramac show. Would it be possible to talk to Jean Murray?'

'You're talking to her.'

'Oh.' I'd heard her on the radio and knew her voice was deep, but this was much further down the scale. 'Sorry, the speaker . . . Anyway, could I have a word?'

'What about?'

'I'd really prefer to do it without the neighbours listening in.'

After a moment she said, 'How do I know you're not sent from them to shut me up?'

'Ahm, you don't.'

'You have ID from the station?'

'Sorry, don't have any. Jack's employing me privately.'

'So how do I know?'

'You don't. Don't I look trustworthy?'

I beamed up at the camera. Something that was halfway between a snort and a laugh came out of the box, and thirty seconds later I heard a single bolt being drawn back and the front door opened. Jean Murray was standing there, cropped red hair, freckled, housecoat, slippers, fag hanging out of her mouth.

'Sorry, I've a stupid cold, my voice has gone.'

I said, 'Shouldn't you have better, bigger deadbolts than that?'

'Aye, you would think that, but they tell me if a petrol bomb comes through the windies, you're not going to want to spend ten minutes trying to get out of the house. It's half a dozen of one, about four of the other. Come on in.' She stood to one side, and I moved past her. She stepped back into the doorway and glowered at the kids across the road. 'Why don't youse go and play outside your own house?' she yelled.

'Fuck off, tout!' one shouted back.

'Fuck off yourselves!' Jean yelled and slammed the door shut.

Jean showed me into a front room. Although it was still early afternoon, she had three lamps on to counteract the filtering effect of the security grilles. There was a large TV with an untidy pile of DVDs beside it. A leather sofa and chair with what looked like cigarette burns and dotted with used tissues. A hearth with a lit gas fire, and above it half a dozen framed photos of a boy, taking him from a rotund baby on to primary school, cherub-faced and smiling, and then one for each year of secondary school. These later ones showed the biggest changes from slightly chubby in a neat uniform with a tidy hairstyle to beanpole, ragged tie, greasy hair and acne. You could see it in his eyes, too: from innocence to defiance.

'This Bobby?' I asked.

'Robert. Yes.'

'Where is he now?'

'Shooting people.' She thumbed above her. 'On the Xbox upstairs. You'd think he'd have had enough of guns, but he's at it all day. Zombies, mostly.'

'Not at school?'

'Well his attendance was random at the best of times, but he hasn't been back since . . . all this shite started.'

'I understand you're a single parent, but was there a Mr Murray?'

'Not that it's any of your business, but Mr Murray skedaddled years ago. Do you want a cup of tea?'

'No. No. Thank you.'

She sat on the single chair. She lit another cigarette. 'Suppose you've come to break the news; Jack's throwing the towel in as well? Fucking typical.'

'No. Jack's as . . . committed as ever. It's more a private thing. Jack's being threatened; it may well be over this. He's asked me to look into it.'

'Threatened? Fuck, he should try living here, I get it every day. Scared to leave the house, so I am. Thank Christ for internet Tesco or we'd starve to death. Threatened how?'

I told her about Jimmy, about him being kidnapped for an hour and the jammy note.

'The fuckers,' she spat.

'So what I'm really trying to do is find out who might be doing this, so maybe if I can get them for threatening Jack, that'll take some of the heat off you and your boy as well?'

'You really think?'

'Well it might help to-'

'Ah, you're pissin up the wrong tree there, mate. I'm sorry if they're hassling yer man because of my boy, but you know, at least he can do something about it. He has the money for people like you. He can move house if he has to. He can look after himself. What am I gonna do? I'm on my own here. You know how many times the house has been attacked? 'Cos I don't. Lost track. They've burned my wheelie bins, my car, tried to burn me out, smashed the windies I don't know how many times. And they're going to keep doing it till they get him, get him dead. That's all they want. Dead or out of the country, that's what they want.'

'You wouldn't consider moving?'

'Where the fuck to? England?' She cackled. She stubbed out her fag and lit another. Her fingers were as yellow as her teeth. 'You think I have the money for that? Anyway, this is our home. Why should we be chased out by a pack a hellions? Nah, fuck 'em, we're here to stay. If we go anywhere, it'll be out in a fuckin' bax, so it will.'

I said, 'What about Bobby? How's he coping with it? Can't be easy losing a leg like-'

'Never mind the fuckin' leg, it's his fuckin' attitude is driving me up the wall. And he had that before they shot him. Teenagers should be locked up until they get some sense into their fucking heads. You tell them one thing, they do the other. One minute they're your best friend, the next they're screaming their head off at you. Caught him taking money from my purse the other day and scalped the fucking hide off him. Wouldn't even make ye a fuckin' cup of tea.'

I nodded. 'So can I have a word with him?'

'What for?'

'It's just useful to get stuff straight from the horse's mouth.'

'No point, he says nuthin' about nuthin'. Anyways, we all know who's behind it. Those Miller boys are bad fuckin' news, so they are.'

There was no arguing with that.

When I'd been covering the Troubles, the Millers would still have been in short trousers, but they were all grown up now, and had risen through the ranks of the UVF to the point where they now ran 1st Battalion, which covers the whole Shankill area. Thomas 'Windy' Miller and his brother Rab still had a boss, a brigadier general, who was supposed to keep them in line. They were supposed to sit down regularly and agree common policies with him and the six other battalion commanders, the so-called brigade staff, but they were still pretty much a law unto themselves. The perceived wisdom was that it was better to keep them within the organisation and try and exert some measure of control over them, rather than force them out and give them a reason to form their own paramilitary group where they would answer to no one. Through thirty years of the Troubles, Loyalist paramilitaries had killed twice as many of their own men through internecine strife than they had their Republican enemies. Nobody wanted to see that kind of open civil war on the Shankill again. That was the real reason the high command left them alone, and why the police themselves never came down too hard on them. In the larger scheme of things, Bobby Murray's missing leg meant nothing.

'They're, ugh, not really the sort of guys you should be messing with,' I said.

'So everyone keeps telling me, but why the fuck not? Who are they to tell me and my boy to get out? Who are they to fuckin' cut my boy's leg off? They're too big for their fuckin' boots, that's what I say. You know something? I saw that fucking Windy Miller in the fruit shop down the road, and I went right up to him and said what the fuck do you think you're doing pickin' on my wee lad, he's only fucking fourteen, and do you know what he did? He got out of there as quick as he fuckin' could, he ran away, so he did. Big man issuing commands to hammer my wee lad, but couldn't even stand up to me in a frickin' fruit shop. Big man. Big fucking man.'

She extinguished her half-smoked cigarette and tried to light another one, but her hand was shaking too much. She had a tear in her eye. She stood and went to the bottom of the stairs that opened directly into her living room.

'Bobby!' she guldered. When there was no response, she amped it up. 'BOBBY!'

'What?'

'There's a man here to see you!'

'What about?'

'He's trying to help. Will you come down and talk to him.'

'NO!'

'Bobby! He's come special to see you.'

'No! Tell him to fuck off!'

Jean raised her eyebrows at me, and came back into the room. 'See what I mean? Apparently you're to fuck off. The language of him! Sorry, he's just at that age.'

'Not a problem,' I said. I stood up. 'Listen, thanks for seeing me. It can't be easy.'

'I don't think it's supposed to be easy. Not for the likes of us.'

There was nothing I could really say to that. I reached into my jacket and took out one of my business cards. I flicked it between my fingers for a moment and then handed it to her. She studied it.

'It just says Starkey. What exactly do you do?'

'Mostly I interfere in difficult situations and set off a chain of events completely beyond my control.'

Jean managed a smile. 'You sound like a fuckin' laxative.'

'Got me in one,' I said.

It was scary how close to the truth she was.

I said, 'Give us a bell if you think of anything that might help, or there's anything else I can do.'

I moved past her out into the hall and reached for the door lock.

'Dan, is it?'