Priest (15 page)

He emitted a short laugh, more like a bark, a rabid one, then,

‘In situations of major development – and make no mistake, Taylor, this town is going to be the cultural capital of Europe – if I may be excused a tiny pun, heads are going to roll.'

He paused, in love with the flow of his rhetoric, the images of major importance coming down the pike, and then he injected granite into his voice, asked,

‘You think a half-arsed investigator, a sodden dick, a private fecking eye, for heaven's sake, a shamus – Good God Almighty, you think a nothing like you is going to impede the flow? And you've already had one warning, if I'm not mistaken.'

The so-called mugging outside the Furbo Suite and the Guards shoes, it was all making sinister sense.

I was as enraged as I've ever been. Not even by the insults – and they were noted, by Jesus they were – but that he really thought he could just roll over anything and everybody. That truly had me spitting iron. You spit iron, you are one beat from coronary aggravation. I muttered,

‘You bastard, you think I'm so easy to intimidate?'

And yeah, I know, lame.

His phone shrilled, least that's how it sounded to me, and he said,

‘You're dismissed. Be a good boy and bury yourself in a bottle, it's what you do best.'

As he picked up the receiver, he reached in his jacket, pulled out his wallet and took a twenty, threw it across the desk, said,

‘Here, I'll get you started.'

I was that close to making him eat it.

I stood shakily, as if I'd just thrown back a large Jameson, and walked out of there so riled my eyes were actually emitting water.

I got outside and had to draw heavy deep breaths to try and bring my anger down. I think ten minutes may have passed before I got some semblance of sanity, then for some reason I looked back at the building.

He stood inside the glass window, another Behan work, ‘Ellis Island', behind him, and stared out, his eyes as lifeless as the glass dividing us. Then he turned on his heel and was gone.

‘All men naturally hate each other'

Pascal,
Pensées,
451

 

 

 

I went to Eyre Square with the slim hope of maybe finding Jeff. Perhaps he'd rejoined the drinking school. The sun was in that Irish mode, playing with us, one minute in full sight and you took off your jacket, thinking,

‘Ah, thank Christ.'

Then as soon as it saw commitment from you, it vanished and you were frozen in a force-five wind that sprang from sheer badness. A tinker had said to me once,

‘'Tis not that people kill themselves in Ireland, Jack, that's no mystery, with the fierce weather. The mystery is that more don't.'

Argue that.

Renovations were in full swing. The trees were gone, like civility, and workmen were already digging up the park, driving jackhammers into the green fresh soil. There's some deep metaphor there but it's too sad to draw. I managed to grab one of the few remaining benches and watched the drinking school, huddled in what looked like a scrum. If Jeff was among them, I couldn't see him. A woman approached and something in the tilt of her head was
familiar. She was average height with mousy brown hair, a hesitancy in her walk, like a person who has been mugged and has never recovered. Her face – oh God, I knew that face.

Cathy.

 

What a history we had. She'd been a punk rocker who washed up in Galway with a hell of a singing voice and an even more hellish heroin habit. She'd kicked the drug, I had her help me on a case and then introduced her to Jeff.

They'd married, had Serena May, and I'd fucked that to all damnation.

I hadn't seen her since the child was buried, and thankfully, couldn't remember what, if anything, she'd said to me.

My impulse was to run and as fast as I could, but my legs went weak. She stood before me, boring into my eyes. Whatever light blazed there – and something dark was definitely burning – it wasn't forgiveness. She said,

‘Jack Taylor.'

She was in her early thirties, I reckon, but she looked a bad fifty, deep lines under her eyes and around her mouth. Whoever said grief ennobles has never lost a child. I stood up and she sneered,

‘Manners? Or are you running?'

If only I could.

I tried,

‘Cathy . . .'

And not another word would come to me. All the books I'd read, not worth a toss. My beloved Merton was sure
to have a piece on this awesome sorrow but he wasn't providing it that day.

She squared up to me, there is no other term for it, right in my face.

‘How have you been, Jack? Getting the drinks in, are you?'

No point in saying I wasn't drinking, no point in any words, but finally I managed,

‘I am so sorry, you have no idea, I . . .'

I wanted to tell her that I'd been locked up in the asylum for months, that I carried the cross of her child every living moment, that I couldn't bear to look at any children without my very soul being seared.

I didn't.

I may have sighed. I certainly wanted to, I wanted to weep till the rivers ran dry.

Her body language was, to put it mildly, combative, and she was dressed for the event. Black leather waistcoat, black track bottoms, black trainers and black to blackest expression. She asked,

‘Cat got your tongue? No pithy quote for me, none of your philosophical meanderings from all those oh so important books, like the one you were reading when you were supposed to be minding my little girl?'

Christ.

Her accent.

When I first met her, she'd a London one, all hard edges, attitude leaking from every syllable and I liked it, it was different, it was, well . . . it was her. She was one of the few genuine outlaws I'd met. The pose was real, if that's
not too much of an Irish contradiction. She'd recently kicked heroin and was a bundle of raw exposed nerves. And that singing voice, like a dark bewitched angel, not so much fallen from grace as plunged.

Then she married Jeff and went native. Became more Irish than us. Didn't quite take to wearing shawls but was pretty close. Adopted a brogue that was unsettling in the extreme, a hybrid thing that was neither UK or Eire but some bastardized stage Irish gig.

That was gone.

Her London edge was back with a vengeance, rough cadence with a spread of bitterness that kicked you in the teeth.

In my despair, I asked just about the worst thing. Even now, I marvel at the depth of my crassness. I asked,

‘How have you been?'

I cringe at the words.

She emitted a harsh laugh, fuelled with rage and savagery. Echoed me.

‘How have I been?'

Let it hang there, let me savour the sheer awfulness of the query. Then,

‘Well, lemme see, since I buried my daughter and lost my husband, I've been . . . fucking hunky dory. Went back to London, the shithole, went back to heroin, the beauty, and was dying as fast as I could manage it, but hey, guess what?'

She waited, like I had a notion, a single idea of what she could possibly mean, then she added,

‘I had that light-bulb moment, you know the one Oprah talks about. I could see you in Galway, tossing back the
pints, reading your books, and it galvanized me. I got clean and got me a mission – to find my husband. Or rather, to get you to find my husband. And here's a kicker – I learned how to shoot. Took my mind off shooting up. You find things, right, Jack? It's what you do. So find my husband. I, meanwhile, will be trying to find a rifle. I do have a slight problem – I can't seem to get my aim up. When I want a head shot, it keeps hitting low. You know about that Jack, don't you? Hitting low.'

The tone of her voice was ice, dripping with a coldness that would raise goosebumps on a corpse. Of all the freaking things, I was thinking of Elvis Costello,
My Aim Is True.

Now she added,

‘And you know what? You don't find him, alive of course, I'm going to kill you. As you Irish are fond of saying,
‘Tis a pity.
Well, it's a real pity you don't have a child, Jack. We could even the score real easy. You took my daughter, so . . .'

Let that awful threat hang a moment in all its stark evil, then in a very chatty tone, very matter of fact, added,

‘You always had a flair for drama. Well, dramatize this. Look up at the skyline, see the rooftops – I'll be on one, and aiming at what passes for your stone miserable fucking heart. I should have corrected my tendency to go low by then. You have a good day now, ta ra.'

The note of cheerfulness she injected into that
ta ra
may be the most chilling thing I've ever heard.

‘The echoes drawn the pain through years.'

Bewitched,
KB

 

 

 

Christina Aguilera, as a nun, at an awards ceremony, strips off, wowing the audience.

Christ.

The afternoon, I went to a man named Curtin, in his seventies, part of a dying breed. He made hurleys. Located in Prospect Hill, he had a small shop with no sign – he didn't need to advertise. I greeted him and he took a moment to adjust his vision, asked,

‘Young Taylor?'

God bless him.

He honed the hurleys from the ash, took weeks to get one exactly right. I gave him the specifications, the vital element being what the Irish call the
give,
the way the stick bends, what gives it that swoosh. You have to be able to hear it, else forget it. He listened, then,

‘I'll have it in a month.'

I hated to fuck with an artist, but . . .

‘I need one now.'

He was appalled, snapped,

‘Go to a sports shop.'

Finally, he gave me what he considered inferior stock. Got him to further compromise his craft by putting iron bands on the end. When I paid him, he gave me a look of true disappointment, said,

‘Young Taylor, you could have been a fine hurler.'

Only fine? I went,

‘Not great?'

He turned away, said,

‘There's very few Kerrs.'

Arguably the greatest player of our time.

Before meeting Cody, I rang Father Malachy, said,

‘The case is closed.'

‘What? You're giving up?'

I grimaced, said,

‘I found the killer.'

I'd called him on my mobile. I was standing outside Griffin's Bakery, the smell of fresh bread enticing though I had no appetite. The Black Eyed Peas were playing in a nearby clothes shop. Hell, they were everywhere, had been Number One in the charts for ages. The song, ‘Where Is The Love?'

Like I'd ever know.

Only much later did I learn the song was about 9/11. The band had been together since 1998, proving endurance sometimes pays dividends. A lesson I needed to apply. Father Malachy asked,

‘Who is he?'

‘Meet me, I'll tell you then.'

We fixed noon the next day. He ended with,

‘I can't believe you found the fucker.'

From a priest!

He pronounced it in the Roscommon fashion . . .
Fooker.
Gives the word an added dimension and leaves you in no doubt as to the intent.

People round me were discussing the latest outrage in Limerick. That town had exploded in tribal/gang warfare. A man barely out of his teens, accused of murder, had been sensationally released. Due to ‘witness intimidation', according to popular belief, the case against him had collapsed. The youth, emerging from the courthouse, gave the two-fingered salute to the media.

Almost of equal interest was Ireland losing to Australia in the quarter finals in rugby. Keith Woods, the captain, in tears, announcing his retirement.

Tough days.

And they were about to get a whole lot tougher.

 

Back at my apartment, I showered, had a double-spooned coffee, dressed for a beating. I put the hurley in a holdall, wore a black T-shirt that bore the faded logo

Knicks kiss ass.

Not exactly appropriate to Galway, but what had logic to do with this deal? Black cords, black boots. For nostalgia, for reassurance, item 8234, the Garda coat. A woman had thrown it on a fire and it still carried a hint of flame. Now that seemed appropriate.

Evening was coming in. I checked myself in the mirror, saw a grim face, rage in the eyes, the way I wanted it.

Cody was nervous when we hooked up. He was wearing a tracksuit, trainers and a suede jacket. His eyes were wary. He said,

‘Good to see you, Jack.'

‘Yeah, whatever.'

I looked at him, asked,

‘How did you find him?'

He was excited, delighted at his ingenuity, said,

‘Mary, the landlady's daughter, and I . . .'

He actually seemed embarrassed, but continued,

‘We were, you know, fooling around in her bedroom, and out of the corner of my eye I saw this guy, hanging around outside your friend's house.'

I was amazed. At his age, if I was
fooling around
with a girl, I wouldn't have seen a damn thing out of my eye, I'd have had eyes for her, nothing else. He continued,

‘I stood up and Mary wasn't pleased, I had to shush her. Mad, isn't it? As if the guy could have heard me.'

He looked at me for some praise, but I said nothing so he went on,

‘I watched him cruise her house twice, and something in the tilt of his head, I knew this wasn't a casual stroll. Then he looked around in a furtive way and I knew, knew it was him, and I actually shouted that. Mary was asking . . .
Who?'

He had to pause for a breath, he was reliving the chase, said,

‘I pulled me jeans on and told her I had to go. She was annoyed but I said I'd make it up to her. I tracked him for two days, followed him into pubs, betting shops, and of
course three times to your friend's house. He even tried the door and I got to see his face, his expression. I swear, Jack, it was full of . . . hate and . . . lust. I knew it was him.'