Stewart was more a reluctant ally than a friend. A former yuppie dope-dealer, he’d been sent to jail for six years, hard full sentence. I’d solved the murder of his sister; he’d felt an enduring debt since. From his release, he’d reinvented himself as a Zen-spouting entrepreneur. And seemed to make shitloads of cash. Even in the depths of the current bleak economy. We’d been thrown together on numerous cases and he’d developed a strong friendship with my other ally.

Ridge.

Sergeant Ní Iomaire.

A gay Guard, married to a bollix. She was currently out of the marriage but moving up the ranks, slowly in the all-male hierarchy of the police. They seemed to believe I was redeemable.

Not yet.

Stewart was sitting in the lobby of the Meryck Hotel. It fed his posh aspirations and served herbal tea. A crime in any venue. Wearing an Armani suit, he sat at ease, like a cat with breeding. I was drinking black coffee, bitter as my heart. I showed him the note, article, photo I’d received. He gave his full focus. Said,

‘Let me check on this photo. It looks familiar.’

Then he read aloud the message, which was

Your turn, Jack.

Looked at me, asked,

‘What do you figure?’

I told the truth.

‘No idea.’

He pushed.

‘And?’

‘And … nothing. I don’t care.’

He let out a small sigh, stole a glance at my mutilated hand. I wore a glove, gave the appearance of having all the fingers. He pushed his tea aside, made a gesture with his head.

Annoyance?

Asked,

‘Why are you showing it to me, then?’

‘You see, Stewart, you have the tendency to want to know the answer to … Jesus, everything. I thought this might keep you off the streets.’

He didn’t rise to the bait, asked,

‘If I work it out, am I to tell you, to report back?’

I said,

‘Tell Ridge. She might give a fuck.’

He scanned the note again, asked,

‘C33?’

And before I could take a shot, he said,

‘Right, you don’t give a toss.’

I was moving away fast, despite my limp – acting up less these days – when Stewart shouted,

‘What about that dude Reardon?’

Let him shout.

Bí cúramach!

Indeed.

The Reardon Riddle?

Talk of the town. One of the rarities, a dotcom billionaire who’d survived the current global meltdown, had come to Galway, set up headquarters and, according to rumour, was going to save the city. Not yet forty, the guy was allegedly a blend of Steve Jobs, Gandhi and Putin. Didn’t hurt that he looked more like a roadie than a star, gave that edge vibe.

When priests had to disguise their clerical collars due to public ire, it helped that this whizz kid didn’t look like the other loathed species, bankers.

His trademark jeans and trainers were more Armani than Penney’s, but hey, who was judging?

Was he too good to be true?

We were about to find out. But the buzz was all good thus far. I mean, fuck, he’d even said he’d like to save Galway United. On the smart board, this was cute twice over.

When I was a child, the nearest family we had to royalty were the Hunters. They made prams – I shit thee not – but had the Anglo-Irish gig down. Owned a large – get this – white mansion, at the rear of Galway. They were steady employers, reputed to be decent folk, i.e., they’d actually greet a person, if sparingly.

Like our economy, belief, decency, they were in the wind.

Reardon had bought their old home and extensive renovations were underway.

See, employment right there.

I’d watched a rare interview he’d given. Long, tangled, ‘Dude, just got out of the shower’ hair.

The aforementioned jeans and a sweatshirt that was just faded enough to read,

Pogues Rule.

This guy had his shit down.

He’d given one of those rambling monologues, ablaze with sound bites, signifying nothing. But he had a way of doling out this crap, you could believe it made some sense. His accent was a hybrid of surfer dude, Michael Flatley-style Irish brogue, geek.

Somewhere in this mess, he’d been asked about his single status.

He winked … fucking winked, went coy about hoping to meet an Irish girl. That’s when I threw up.

Ridge phoned me as I was reading about the former hangman, Pierrepoint. The State had released papers previously sealed from the public and all sorts of weird, startling data were flooding the news. Pierrepoint had offered to hang two people with the deal,

‘Ten pound for the first and I’ll do the nephew for half price.’

Jesus.

The forerunner of all those offers,

Buy one, get one free.

Ridge asked,

‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘Tales of the hangman.’

A pause.

The question hovered,

‘Are you drinking?’

But it passed and she asked,

‘Will you help me out?’

Uh-oh.

As they say in literary novels,

No good would come of it.

Ridge had married Anthony Hemple, an upper-class Anglo-Irish bollix. He wanted a mother for his daughter, she wanted juice for promotion to sergeant. They were now separated. I said,

‘Well, sergeant, spit it out.’

‘I’ve been invited to a party. I want to go, but I need a partner.’

I let her stew, then,

‘How come you didn’t ask Stewart?’

‘He’s already going with a young lady.’

‘What’s the occasion?’

‘The Reardon party.’

The party.

Reardon had altered the Hunter house to accommodate his reputation, down to a helipad on the extended roof. The setting remained spectacular, not one other property nearby and the golf links spreading out to reveal the whole of Galway Bay. It made even the bloody rain look attractive. I was dressed in my one suit, the funeral job. Black and from a charity shop. I was suffering a panic attack, no Jay, no X, no cigs, thinking,

‘Am I out of me fooking mind?’

I was loath to attend public events as just recently a newspaper, in lieu of anything new or out of sheer bollock laziness, re-hashed the story of, as they headlined it,

The Tragedy of Serena May.

Replayed all those terrible events. My closest friends, Jeff and Cathy, had a daughter with Down’s Syndrome. The light of their lives and mine. I adored that child, spent many hours as the bedraggled excuse for a babysitter. Until, Jesus, a terrible accident and the child was killed. Years later I was exonerated of blame, but the mud stuck. The thinking was,

‘Taylor was there.’

And true, as the Americans say, it happened on my watch.

The article didn’t scream,

‘Taylor did it.’

But published a furtive photo of me and you thought,

‘The fucker did something.’

All it took.

Suggestion.

Ridge asked,

‘You all right, Jack?’

Given that I’d never, in me whole bedraggled, befuddled existence, been all right, I had to bite down on the sarcasm, always bubbling under, then,

‘Yeah, not using anything, it’s a trip. Like Richard Ferrara. I’ve been down so long, maybe it will seem like up.’

Being Ridge, she asked the wrong question.

‘And Richard Ferrara, how did he fare?’

I could have been tactful, lied, but I don’t do nice, not ever, said,

‘O.D.’

Shut that baby right down.

The Hunter place was ablaze with light, like a beacon of false hope to the city. As we got out of the car, Ridge handing over the keys to a parking guy, she said,

‘’Tis rumoured the Saw Doctors might show, play their number-one hit, with Petula Clark’s “Downtown”.’

Now that would seem like up.

The best and the brightest were not at the party.

They’d emigrated.

What we had were the shoddy and the smiles. The Galway celebrities, who’d yet to make it to The Late Late Show but claimed they’d got the call. Waiters in livery, I kid you not, were dispensing champagne. Ridge took a glass and the waiter, familiar in a bad way, said to me,

‘It’s free, Taylor.’

I said,

‘It’s a lot of things, but free ain’t one of them.’

I heard him mutter,

‘Kent.’

And no, he didn’t think I was from the county.

Stewart approached, a dark girl in tow, looking like Beyoncé in her younger days. He had, as the Brits say, an impeccable evening suit and what appeared to be a maroon cummerbund.

Jesus wept.

He introduced her as

‘Tiffany.’

Of course, no chance we’d be running into too many named Mary. Out of absolute zero interest, I asked,

‘And do you work … um …?’

Couldn’t quite bring myself to utter the name. She gave a champagne giggle, said,

‘How droll.’

I’ve been called every variety of bollix, but this was a first. She countered,

‘And you, John, do you?’

Great.

‘It’s Jack. I insult people.’

She was game, went with it.

‘And does it keep you?’

‘Off the streets, at least.’

Stewart whisked her away, fast. Ridge glared at me, but a man was coming up on her right, dressed in ratty jeans, battered Converse and a sweatshirt with the logo

I’m a gas.

Yeah. Reardon.

He hugged Ridge, said,

‘Sergeant Ní Iomaire, great to see you.’

Then turned to me.

Ridge said,

‘Jack Taylor.’

He didn’t take my extended hand and it hung there, like a government promise, sad and empty. His eyes were dark brown, close to black, with a curious light at the corner, as if he’d had them highlighted. The guy had presence, no denying that, but a pity he was the one most impressed by its glow. He asked,

‘You the guy who got the handicapped kid killed?’

Tim Rourke was born nasty, got worse. He’d been in trouble all his life, liked trouble. Liked to hurt people. He should have just been lost in a lost system, but the social workers discovered him. The workers with

awareness.

The ones who cared, in italics.

Julie Nesbit, in particular. All of twenty-six years of age, with accreditation from London. And determined to make her mark. Rourke charmed her. A serial rapist with a dirty soul, he’d managed to con her into the belief that if only someone would believe in him, ah, he’d be gold.

Like that.

She had that rare ability, given mostly to judges and priests, to completely ignore all the evidence. They didn’t think outside the box, they were fucking buried in it. A measure of Rourke’s psycho charm, borne out by Nesbit’s description of this spawn of Satan as

‘a cheeky monkey’.

Her impassioned plea before the judge, in what the Guards had believed was a slam dunk, turned the verdict. Rourke walked – rather strutted – free.

Was he grateful?

Yeah.

Nesbit, rushing to him on the courtroom steps, expecting a wave of gratitude, got,

‘Fuck off, cunt.’

4

‘She can be delicately morbid.’

Alice Blanchard, The Breathtaker

‘Purgatory is seen as hell light.’

KB