by Ken Bruen
The actual day of the fire, it seemed to be proceeding to plan, and as soon as he saw the first signs of the flames, he rushed to the door, bolted it, and whispered,
“Good-bye my love, good-bye.”
If he had waited for a moment, he might have heard Connie scream.
Might have heard her scream,
“One of the children is missing.”
Benjamin J. was seriously pissed. How could Connie have missed out on one child? A survivor was very bad news. If Connie were still alive, he’d have flayed her, shouted,
“You dumb bitch.”
Where was the child now? Had she seen him?
He was at home. Home was what he termed a rather splendid mansion off Threadneedle Road. The name of the road amused him in foolish ways. Three stories high, with huge bay windows, a small courtyard leading to the main door—and what a door, made of reenforced steel, covered in timber, it proclaimed,
“Here lives a person of note.”
The furniture was Scandinavian, all clean lines. His pride of joy were framed paintings of historical fires. He could stare at them, lost for hours in their splendor. In a separate glass case was a collection of matches from different decades in history.
He paced back and forth in his massive living room, raging at the debacle of the recent fire. When he was thwarted in any of his endeavors, his usual solution was to burn something. But caution urged he stay under the radar for a time, see what developed.
He thought about Connie and a warm feeling ran through him. It had been a total rush to fuck with her head. Her sidekick had been too feeble a creature to afford him any real joy. He wished he could have seen Connie’s face when she realized he had set her up.
“Ah . . .”
He thought.
“The joy of betrayal.”
In an effort to calm his mind, he worked on the latest set of accounts he’d been commissioned to fix for a major firm. A cursory glance told him how easy it would be to settle the books to satisfy the most diligent of audits. He would of course delay his findings until the last moment, let them sweat, then swoop in, save the day.
For a hefty fee.
Benjamin J. studied his face in the mirror. What he saw was a face of refinery and breeding. A very carefully constructed facade, years in the making.
On most humans it worked, lulled them into the artifice. See the gig with the late Connie, for example. He’d studied the tomes of
Psychology.
Pathology.
Origins of evil.
People of the lie.
Even amused himself with the psychopath test and, yes, he was off the chart on that baby. Years of immersion in the realms of malignity were hugely beneficial to his means of not only surviving in the world but flourishing. He discovered early that arson was his fuel, so to speak.
Fire.
How he worshipped it.
It vaguely amused him that the classic early signs of a killer/psychopath didn’t apply to him. He hadn’t set fires in his youth, tortured animals, been a loner, endured abuse as a child. All of this supplied his answer.
He was simply other.
Hate.
Hate suffused him, lit him up, and, even better, he could present as what the masses termed a people person.
This term was among his absolute favorites.
He studied arson with the zeal of a devotee. How to set the perfect infernos that, to date, were labeled accidental. A tribute to his years of research.
He had perfected timers that, after they ignited, self-destructed.
Took years to get that utterly undetectable; his flames devoured everything.
Until now.
A witness.
Sent a shudder of an unexpected feeling.
Fear.
But he shook it off. He was the arsonist. He’d successfully set a series of fires and not one visit from the Guards. How magnificent was that!
Now it was time to recruit a patsy. Connie had been a blast, dare one hazard, that for a short time had lit his fire but onward and fireward. Nothing finer than to groom some dumb schmuck, set them up, let them believe they actually mattered, then lower the boom. Plus, they were useful for errands. I mean, was he expected to, like, collect his own dry cleaning?
Get real.
Too, at a certain stage, he did enjoy the fawning, the admiration.
And, let’s face it, if you wanted a fuck-up in waiting, an actual dope, then Galway was a sea of infinite choices.
The Unit.
The psychiatric wing of the general hospital, all sorts of mental blitzkrieg to choose from, be it
Anorexics.
Junkies.
Depressives.
Alcoholics.
Oh, Lord, a panorama of twenty-first-century casualties and growing every day.
Benjamin J. belonged to a group of prominent businessmen, professionals who devoted time and especially funds to help patients on their release. It worked nicely, too, as a tax write-off.
Benjamin had already selected his candidate.
James Powell, twenty-six years old, victim of serial abuse, addicted to solvents, and due for release on a heavy dosage of meds. Benjamin had already visited with the poor lad and was well en route to gaining his trust.
James would suit his plans perfectly.
“The Tecate is ice cold and a storm is rolling across the desert. The rain’s musky fragrance rides the blast-furnace wind as a jukebox grinds on in a cantina’s corner.”
(Freddy Fender crooning “Across the Borderline”)
A thousand footprints in the sand . . . reveal the secret no one can define.
(Craig McDonald)
Keefer suggested that Sara hide out at his farm until we dealt with Benjamin J. He looked kind of bashful as he added,
“I, um, have somebody there at the moment.”
This was news. I pushed,
“Yeah, you didn’t think to mention that? Who is it?”
He didn’t meet my eyes, said,
“Ceola. She came to attend to the horses, and, um, then turned out she’s a massive Stones fan.”
He trailed off.
God forgive me but I was getting a kick out of baiting him, accused,
“Remember the rules you laid down for me, no stories, no anecdotes about the Stones. Different deal if it’s a woman. That’s almost gender bias there, pal.”
He was packing a small holdall for Sara, said,
“Good for Ramona to have a woman around.”
Watching his face, I thought,
“Oh, hello!”
Asked,
“What age are she and Ceola? Never heard that name.”
Sensing a mild diversion, he followed,
“Ceola. It’s Gaelic for music, or melody, so you know, with my life with music, it seemed meant to be, you think?”
Undeterred, I asked,
“Age?”
Again, he was uncomfortable, tried,
“Age. Too much is made of age. I mean, if two people like each other . . . ?”
I was having a high old time, guessed,
“So, young?”
“Youngish.”
Now I laughed, said,
“Great Stones legacy, eh? Young chicks for old farts.”
He looked hurt, which was rare. I’d seen him beaten by thugs, saddened by death, but this particular hurt, no. He said,
“Even for you, Jack, that’s a low blow.”
And it was.
Not for the first time, I wondered, The fuck was wrong with me? People who were close to me, had been close to me, sooner or later, I drove them from me. I tried,
“Come on, buddy, I’m just fucking with you.”
He asked,
“Are ther
e not enough shitheels out in the world for you to vent on, you have to bring it home?”
I was saved from answering, Sara appearing with her rucksack packed. She asked,
“Are you fighting?”
I was ready with a platitude but Keefer got there first, said,
“Our friend here, he can be a real nasty piece of work sometimes.”
Sara allowed herself a small smile, said,
“I know.”
After they left, I felt a mix of grief, regret, guilt.
Grief for the little girl Sara, seemingly tossed on the waves of a world that could care less.
Regret for the nasty words I’d laid on Keefer.
Guilt, for every damn thing.
The day before, I’d gone to an ATM, taken out a few hundred euros to help with the goods Sara would need but, in the bad vibe of them leaving, I forgot.
Went to get my wallet, maybe I could catch them up, took my jacket from the bedroom. The wallet.
Empty.
Not a fucking note left.
Worse, a gold miraculous medal that had belonged to my daughter that was folded in a small secure pocket of the wallet, it was gone too.
Sara.
The thief.
The thief who knew Aramaic.
Thing is, I had a sort of sneaking admiration for her.
How fucked is that?
I should have phoned later, maybe told Keefer, but I wasn’t sure he would react too well to me calling a young girl a thief, especially after I’d flat out insulted him already.
So I didn’t.
Didn’t call.
One lethal error of judgment that would inform all that was to come.
Later in the day, I watched as Theresa May finally resigned, after three years of fuckhawking with Europe. It was now the time of true idiocy as Farage seemed likely to ascend to power. Another fool, the dangerous braggart Boris Johnson, vied for leadership of the Tories.
Johnson, like his eerie twin Trump, was born in New York.
Odd thing, if you looked at the initials of the deadly three, it was almost uncanny.
Donald Trump. D.T. Delirium Tremens.
Boris Johnson. B.J. Which was pretty much self-explanatory.
Nigel Farage. F.T. The National Front.
The country was in the grip of claim fever.
The slightest of what were once simple accidents in the course of life were now cause for legal recourse and payouts. Reached a crescendo when a member of the government claimed a fall from a swing in a fashionable hotel was grounds for a major claim. That she managed to run a 10 km race two weeks after the fall didn’t help her creditability. The media had a riot of coverage, and celebrities of every hue were photographed on swings without injury.
Amid a storm of outrage she withdrew her claim but her image was forever linked to that swing.
A former Rose of Tralee, who was the first gay Rose, decided to run for a seat in Europe despite having no political experience. Someone, someday, would look back and ask reasonably,
“What the fuck happened to Ireland?”
I was catching up on the local papers, reading Kernan Andrews in the Galway Advertiser. He was reporting on the suicide/drowning of a local man. Something nagged at me. I read further. The man had recently lost his wife and son and, at one stage, had been a person of interest in the deaths of his family.
Fuck, wait a minute.
Keefer had stressed we had three cases.
The miracle children.
The troll case.
And.
The one he took over, the guy who might have thrown his wife through a window, the woman who had come to me begging for help against her husband. The guy had an alibi but Keefer was convinced he had killed his wife and their child. Keefer had met with him, told me,
“The scumbag is guilty as hell.”
I had said that there was little we could do if he was alibied. Now I remember Keefer saying,
“Well, nothing legal can be done.”
I’d shrugged it away.
I muttered to myself,
“He wouldn’t, no, no way. He wouldn’t go off on his own bat, take action, and not tell me?”
I called him, laid out what I’d read in the papers. He was silent, then,
“I heard when he was pulled from the water he was wearing a T-shirt.”
What? So what?
Keefer gave what sounded like a nasty chuckle, said,
“It’s what they say the logo on the T-shirt was.”
I was afraid to ask, as I had a bad feeling it wasn’t going to ease my dread. I asked,
“Yeah, what was that?”
A pause.
Then,
“Life.”
Took me a minute, then,
“Oh my God, that’s the name of Keith Richards’s memoir.”
I could hear him chuckle. He said,
“I’m impressed. You have learned your Stones lore very well.”
There was silence, the implication writ large, then I asked,
“That would suggest you might have had some involvement in his demise.”
He laughed outright, said,
“You sound like a frigging lawyer. Spit it out, pilgrim. The bad cunt was murdered.”
I said nothing. I was dumbfounded, so he added,
“Aren’t you the hardass who said the law was for courts, justice was in the alley?”
I managed,
“But murder?”
Now his tone changed. He said,
“What would you do, carve his initials in his desk?”
That landed.
How he knew that was how I’d dealt with the troll was a whole other question.
At a loss, I said,
“I need to think about this.”
He said,
“See it this way. The Keith Richards reference: You might say I was writing my own story.”
I said,
“I better go.”
Heard a sharp intake of breath, then he snarled,
“You’re not going to ask?”
“What?”
I near shouted.
He said,
“One would have thought you might ask after the girl, or even the falcon.”
Then he clicked off.
My mind was seriously fucked. I poured a Jameson, swallowed it fast, wished I had some Xanax, wished I had some other life. Then the doorbell went. I tried to think of anyone I’d be glad to see. Nope, not a one.
Opened the door to Malachy.
He looked like my mind felt.
Wretched.
When he’d been bishop-elect, he’d cleaned up good, stopped smoking, had a haircut, wore crisp new attire, but that was all in the clerical wind. He stormed in, muttered,
“I need a drink.”
I stared at him: a rumpled suit, the white collar of the priesthood askew, his hair like a small jungle and dandruff on his shoulders, his eyes bloodshot, his face a riot of blotches.
I poured him a Jay. He looked at the measure, snapped,
“Are you rationing it?”
I added more. Did he say “thank you”?
Right.
He gulped the drink, burped, seemed like he might throw up but the drink took him another direction, into some realm of almost calm, artificial as it was.
He lit a cigarette, blew billows of smoke, said,
“I’d have been a great bishop.”
He was the essence of despair. I tried,
“They’ll probably give you something to compensate.”
I didn’t believe that for a moment. He snarled,
“They will like fuck.”
I asked,
“Don’t suppose
you could sue?”
Enraged him. He spat,
“Sue the Church. See how far the child abuse victims got with that.”
True.
Then he straightened up, like a plan was evolving. That usually involved me doing something for him that I really didn’t want to. He said,
“There’s talk one of the miracle children survived the fire.”
Aw, fuck. I knew where this was headed. I said,
“No.”
He attempted to form his face into an expression of pleading but it didn’t quite take. It was more a grimace. He whined,
“If I were to deliver that child, they might reconsider me for bishop.”
I was split between outrage and incredulity, asked,
“Deliver?”
I had to choke down rising bile, continued,
“Deliver from what, deliver us from evil? You’d give her to the Church and they have such a record of virtue with children.”
He was on his feet, frustrated, said,
“I’d be a good bishop.”
I laughed, said,
“Good and bishop just don’t fit in the same sentence, and you’d be a shite bishop.”
He reached out a hand. I thought he was going to grab me but he clocked my face, let his hand fall back, and pleaded,
“You owe me, Taylor.”
This was too ridiculous even to argue. I said,
“I’ll make a deal with you. If you care about this child, tell me her name.”
Confounded him but he rallied, said,
“That’s madness, of course I know her name.”
I said,
“So tell me.”
He raised his eyes to heaven but I don’t think he found any solace there. He said,
“Theresa?”
In the mid-nineteenth century
Pyromania was considered to be
A morbid propensity to incendiarism
Where the mind,
Though otherwise sound,
Is borne on by an invisible power
To the commission of this crime
That is now recognized
As a distinct form of insanity
(Chloe Hooper, The Arsonist)
Time to go shake up the arsonist. Google Maps showed his house just off Threadneedle Road; this was an area that never could decide if it was
A. Part of the elite of Taylor’s Hill
Or
B. The shady environs of Salthill.