by Ken Bruen
Ten!
So elderly folks, along with the other poor bastards, had to walk ten miles just to reach the venue. They might just get there to hear Nathan Carter sing.
More contention:
The most popular priest in the whole country was Father Ray Kelly, whose impromptu singing of “Hallelujah” at a wedding, to the delight and amazement of the congregation and a swooning bride, went viral, over two million hits on YouTube. He appeared on England’s Got Talent with a version of “Everybody Hurts.”
That shook you to your very hurt soul.
He was doing nigh the impossible—restoring people’s faith in a priest.
Would they let him sing for the pope?
Like fuck.
Let’s have the mediocre Carter,
Who mainly tortured “Proud Mary.”
*
A PR flunkey hired by the Church told the pilgrims to
Train
Plan
Get fit,
As if to climb Croagh Patrick.
It’s our mini-Everest, with religious bonus points, spiritual air miles in a fashion.
Forty or so million for the dignitaries but no buses for the faithful.
Maeve’s apartment was Zen, clean, fresh, and warm, and she produced a bottle of Jack Daniel’s—my fault, as I’d introduced her to Jameson.
So she got the wrong stuff; sue me.
She poured two walloping measures into Galway crystal glasses and then looked oh, so sad, said,
“My father gave me these. He said they would be a great start when I met the right man and got married.”
Fuck, a tiny tear escaped, rolled slowly down one wind-tanned cheek. I rushed,
“But you did.”
Her head snapped up.
“Who?”
I said, as seriously as possible (this was vital),
“The man Himself, Our Lord.”
Good heavens, I sounded like Johnny Cash.
Went with the bourbon, I guess.
She loved that.
“And I got you a gift.”
She handed over a package, a very large bag. I opened it and pulled out what appeared to be a wax jacket.
She purred,
“It’s Barbour. The convent was given a shipment that the stores couldn’t sell.”
A whole other branch of regifting?
The devil was in me, so I said,
“But I have my Garda coat.”
Thick as fuck, right?
She looked crushed, said.
“But that ould coat is falling apart.”
Like my own self.
Others grow old with their husbands/wives.
Me, with a Guard’s coat.
She asked,
“Will you try it?”
I said,
“To tell the truth (always a precursor to a lie) I kind of associate wax jackets with the royal family and toffs massacring pheasants.”
She began to laugh, said,
“You’re a holy terror.”
I wore the damn jacket, black it was, as my heart, but it did have a lot of pockets so there’s that.
She stood back to admire it, said,
“You look like the gentry.”
I said,
“I’m elected.”
She then opened the gift I brought her, made a breath of admiration when she saw the cover, then opened it and read in bewilderment
. . . to
My
Favorite
Actress
Oh, fuck.
I tried, said,
“I mean you act like, um, life is simple.”
She put the book aside with a sigh and, shortly afterward, I left in my new coat.
*
Outside, on the small wall, sat,
Jericho,
Who sneered,
“Fucking a nun.”
I said,
“The bloody wall of Jericho.”
We stared at each other for a long Galway minute, hostility dancing on the very air.
She asked,
“How much do I remind you of Emerald?”
I told the whole truth.
“You’re a piss-poor copycat, you have no style, no wit, and you’re almost English, killing a defenseless old woman. That’s who you are.”
And for the very first and only time in my life I spat.
Literally.
Continued,
“That’s what I think of you.”
It landed on her much-scuffed Doc Martens boot. She was dressed in faux combat gear, all too big for her, and she resembled a petulant child in her dad’s clothes.
Her face went through a range of emotions.
Part shock
Rage
A hint of fear
And then the defiance.
She snarled,
“Surely you admired the street theater of the old bitch’s death. Come on, Jack, it was impressive.”
I asked,
“Who was the other scum helping you?”
A smile of malevolence. She said,
“An apprentice, an intern, if you will.”
I felt tired and said,
“Tell her she’s facing early retirement.”
She clapped her hands, said,
“Oh, goody gumdrops. You’re coming after us.”
I began to walk away, she yelled,
“The jacket makes you look like a ponce.”
I gave her the finger without breaking stride and she hollered,
“I thought you loved Galway girls.”
I snapped back,
“Only the Steve Earle version, and maybe Mundy’s.”
*
Jericho remembered the day she killed her father.
She’d come home unexpectedly, bearing a bottle of Hennessy brandy,
His favorite.
He’d received her coldly,
Asked,
“What do you want?”
She purred,
“To make peace.”
Before he could answer, she headed for the drinks cabinet, poured two glasses of the brandy, said,
“Drink first, and then I have some amazing news.”
He drank,
She didn’t.
Took maybe two minutes before he began to clutch his chest, gulp furiously.
She said,
“No hurry, it will take a few agonizing minutes before it actually kills you.”
He was on his knees, she knelt, said,
“I pushed Gina into the traffic.”
Then she said,
“Oh, my God, I almost forgot to tell you my news.”
Hit her head with an open palm in mock reprimand, then,
“It’s amazing that I didn’t kill you years ago.”
His body jerked in spasms, then he was still.
Jericho stared at him for a moment, then said,
“Bye-bye, Daddy.”
30
This killing grip is an old deep pattern in her brain.
Stimulus: people.
Response: kill.
At half past six, a small, unhappy wail
Came from a baby.
Straightaway, the hawk
Drove her talons into my glove,
Ratcheting up the pressure
In savage, stabbing spasms.
Kill, the baby cries.
Kill
Kill
Kill.
Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk
Galway lost the All Ireland by one point.
One damn point, which, in hurling, is like nothing.
We didn’t begrudge Limerick the win so much as they’d waited forty-five years for the title and the Liam Cup still crossed the Shannon.
*
In Galway, Jericho pulled herself from a deep, untroubled sleep, stretched like the feline she was, then began to roll a spliff. Her lover stirred slowly, purred,
“Come back to bed, babe.”
Jericho lit the spliff with the Zippo she’d
stolen from Jack Taylor’s apartment. She truly got off on breaking in there, leaving weird things behind—this time, a small statue of Shiva, thought,
“The dumb bollix probably thought it was a Marvel figurine.”
But,
She had to admit he was showing a resilience that surprised her, knew she would have to kill him soon, but it was such a rush to mind-fuck him.
Her lover sat up, reached for the spliff as her other hand traced the tattoo etched on Jericho’s back; it was of the Archangel Azrael.
“The Angel of Destruction, known as a sibling of Lucifer.”
She moved in front of Jericho, her naked body as a lure.
Jericho had been fingering a chain around her neck, the tiny gold pendant with two letters,
GG.
The second G was almost emerald.
She slipped it off, put it round the neck of her lover, who purred, guessed,
“GG, is that good grief?”
Jericho was very quiet, then said,
“Galway girl.”
Her lover knew not to push,
Asked,
“What’s the plan today?”
Jericho smiled with utter malevolence, asked,
“How’d you like to kill a nun?”
*
After they had arranged a batch of very sharp knives, Jericho paused, asked,
“Is there one with a serrated blade?”
Her lover laughed, asked,
“What does it matter?”
Jericho said,
“The serrated edge makes the pain sharper.”
Her lover was puzzled, so Jericho said,
“Nuns, they practice exquisite pain, it’s part of their gig.”
Her lover asked,
“But what’s the point?”
Jericho gave a full smile, laden with witchery, said,
“Bonus points: more pain, more glory.”
Her lover said,
“Sounds nuts.”
Jericho sneered,
“They’re nuns, they married God, and you want them to be sane as well.”
31
The most beautiful, fastest, lethal, brutal
Killer
On the planet
Is the falcon.
What do I know about hockey?
Sweet fuck all.
But the guys in the pub were weighing the merits of the women’s hockey team being in the World Cup final against Holland.
One said,
“’Tis marvelous. First time Ireland has been in a World Cup.”
Silence.
Then the second fellah said,
“But women?”
A third said,
“The Dutch do nothing else but play hockey and the team is professional, our crowd are part-timers.”
A fourth asked,
“What’s the difference between hockey and camogie?”
Good question, I thought.
A woman said,
“Camogie is for ladies.”
Echoing Queen Victoria, who said ladies are not lesbian.
Utter silence.
Then the bar guy said,
“Camogie is hurling for chicks.”
Where this would have gone is beyond me, but then Owen Daglish came up to the counter, ordered a large Jay.
I joked,
“Bad day on the beat?”
He said,
“It is for you.”
Took the glass and motioned me to a quiet corner, asked,
“How do you know a nun, Sister Maeve?”
Jesus.
I said,
“Why?”
My heart in my mouth.
He took a slug from the Jay, gulped, said,
“She was stabbed.”
He had to stop, take a deep breath, then added in horror,
“Forty-eight times.”
I barely managed to ask,
“Why come to me?”
He drained the glass, said,
“A book was shredded over her.”
Reached for his notebook, checked, said,
“Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. A page near saturated in blood had a dedication on it.”
Again the notebook.
“To my favorite actress.”
Signed, he said,
“Jack Taylor.”
And scrawled on it, in black marker, was,
“Act dead, bitch.”
On the walls, in blood,
“Lucifer’s sister”
Was scrawled.
I was outside the pub, puking my guts out. Owen asked,
“You all right, mate?”
Like, hello.
I asked,
“Any witnesses?”
He considered how much he could disclose, then,
“A few people saw two young women in Arts Festival T-shirts.”
I thought,
“Same duo as killed Jess.”
I nearly said,
“That’s what happens when you cut the arts funding.”
I managed to say,
“. . . sometimes with the heart,
Seldom with the soul,
Scarcer once with flight,
Few . . . love at all.”
He went,
“Wot?”
It was a poem on the wall of her home. I didn’t even know I knew it, said,
“Nothing, just drink rambling.”
*
I told the Guards everything about Jericho but, with the logistics of
The papal visit,
A huge influx of tourists,
There was not a whole lot they could do.
They figured the nun’s death was by some deranged junkie.
I went to see the Mother Superior of Maeve’s order.
She was stoic but I could see the deep distress etched on her face.
She said with trepidation,
“We don’t assign blame, accepting God’s will in all things.”
But
“We do feel that your friendship with her was . . .”
Long tense silence, then,
“Culpable.”
Sounded like assigning blame to me.
I asked,
“May I attend her burial?”
No fucking way.
She didn’t, of course, put it that way but same song, did say,
“That would not be our wish.”
Crushed, I turned to go when she relented a tad, handed me a small red rosary, said,
“To remember Our Sister with.”
I knew it, had been blessed by Padre Pio as a tag on the end said, so
You don’t get much holier links.
I said,
“That would not be our wish.”
And got the fuck out of there, my heart in flitters.
I went to the Protestant church of St. Nicholas, my second visit there.
Dated back to 1320. Despite being not exactly a church where Catholics flock, it is held in great affection by Galwegians. Maeve once confessed to loving the calm of its medieval churchyard.
She had said to me,
“I’m still shocked by what happened all those years ago.”
She meant hundreds of years ago, when Cromwell’s army defaced it, desecrated it, and stabled their horses there.
Of all the characteristics I loved about Maeve, it was that pure naive innocence that she never lost.
Her delight in chocolate.
The wicked joy in sipping Jameson.
Her childlike delight in receiving presents.
I sat in a pew, tears coursed down my face.
I thought of desecration, her terror, her cherished rosary beads that they had strangled her with, in addition to the forty-eight stab wounds.
I could see it
Hear it
Smell the blood
I howled.
Howled like a beaten dog that cannot be consoled.
I said to myself, I will wreak havoc on Jericho.
32
When you buy a bouquet of flowers for
A dead nun,
A Galway girl,
You leave them on the altar
In
A Protestant church.
Why?
Because you are half mad with grief.
You buy Black Bush instead of Jameson
As it’s the Protestant choice.
You burn the only photo
You ever had of the beloved nun,
Then you pour the fine whiskey
Off the end of Nemo’s Pier.
The pope came, and although he didn’t outright admit liability for the pedophiles he did say they were filth.
I had one aim: find Sean Garret, the guy who destroyed the life of
Alice Bennet, the young woman who came to me and asked,
“Will you find me?”
I’d sure as fuck find him.
I did.
He was the son of wealthy parents (aren’t they always), a star rugby player, had the looks of a young Sean Penn, which might account for the mean streak.
I did as they do in contemporary crime fiction: I hacked his social media outlets.
Okay, I paid a young student to do it.
Garret was very active in/on
Twitter
Instagram
Snapshot
And a date app called
Gogetim.
Cute.
I followed him for a week. He did desultory attendance at the construction firm part owned by his father but played a lot of rugby and clubbed—a lot.
I finally cornered him alone one Friday evening as he strolled from his car, Ray-Bans perched on his head, white sweater tied loosely round his shoulders, a cut-rate Gatsby.
I swung my hurley and took out his right knee; there went the rugby career. He crumpled, agony on his face, screeched,
“Why?”
I was raising the hurley to smash his nose when he pleaded,
“Tell me what I did?”
I was ablaze with rage, snarled,
“Alice, remember her?”
His face changed from total agony to incredulity. He gasped,
“My ex?”
Then he stared at me, said,
“You have to be Taylor. She said she’d get you to come after me.”
WTF.
A terrible comprehension was dawning in his eyes. I could see it. He held up his hand to shield himself from the hurley, said,
“I can’t believe she did it. It’s that fucking lesbian who put her up to it.”
An insane crystallization was pulling at the edge of my mind. I took out my flask, took a wallop, offered it to him. He drank and winced.
I leaned against his car, took out cigs, lit us up.
He said,