Sanctuary (4 page)

Only much later did I realize how similar to The Stones' opening line of ‘Sympathy For The Devil' this sounded.

‘I'm Anthony Bradford-Hemple. No doubt you are familiar with the name?'

I'd like to say he uttered this with smugness or conceit, but no, it was simply a matter of fact. The whole world knew him; his name was a given.

I did know it.

Anglo-Irish landowners, they owned large tracts of land outside Oranmore and were famous for their stables, but like many of these families, the sheer upkeep of their large estates, the cost of heating their old houses, had made them tighten their belts. An Irish irony: as the ordinary people got wealthy from our new prosperity, these old relics of affluent history were feeling, as they'd term it themselves,
the pinch
.

I hadn't actually heard a dicky bird about them in a long time as they'd gone off the radar. And OK, I didn't exactly move in circles where their names came up much.

You're an ex-guard with a limp, a hearing aid and a drink problem, the goings-on of the rich and famous aren't your top priority. I wasn't likely to be applying for a subscription to
Hello!
magazine, but was I going to admit to knowing him?

Was I fuck.

I said, ‘That name doesn't mean dick to me, fellah.'

A slight intake of breath as he digested the insult,
then, ‘Well, Mr Taylor, they did warn me that you had a caustic tongue, but regardless, I'd like to engage your services.'

I let him hear me sigh, went, ‘Let's hear it.'

He cleared his throat and I wondered if he wore a cravat – they nearly always did. He said, ‘My only daughter Jennifer was sixteen a few weeks back and, naturally, I got her a pony.'

Naturally
.

His voice shook. ‘The pony was stolen and I received its tail in the mail, with a note saying that if I didn't pay fifty thousand euros, Jennifer would be next.'

Jesus.

I've had swans, dogs feature in my battered history, and now ponies. What was I? The alky version of Ace Ventura?

He added, ‘The police claim they are working on it, but so far, nothing, You have a reputation for getting results when the official channels fail. Will you help me? Please, Mr Taylor, I'll reward you handsomely. My wife died some years ago and Jennifer is all I have.'

Then I had a thought. I wanted to get Ridge back on track and I knew she loved horses, so I said, ‘Give me your address and I'll have my associate contact you.'

He wasn't wild about that, but I assured him she'd
only be taking notes and I'd be handling the case personally.

He ended with, ‘You won't regret this, Mr Taylor.'

I already did.

 

 

 

 

I readied myself for Ridge, not sure how she was going to receive my proposal that she join my
firm
. Yeah, I know how that sounds – my one and only
employee
had been my surrogate son, Cody, and as the Americans say, ‘he took a bullet for me' . . . literally, and he was now where just about everyone who had contact with me was.

Buried.

I was still reeling from the revelation that I wasn't responsible for Serena May's death. It had been the focal point of my whole existence these past years. The guilt, the nightmares – and wallop, I didn't do it.

I could now finally think about that gorgeous
child, the button nose, the cherubic face, and not be devastated. Christ, I loved her more than mere alcohol would allow, and worse, she loved me too. I made her laugh and she had such a wondrous heart-warming one, you could believe in angels. And even as I thought this, the church bell from the Claddagh began to toll. The old people say, ‘When you hear a bell ring, it's an angel getting her wings.' Mind you, the old folk believe all kinds of weird shite. Still, I kind of liked the notion, though I knew fuck all about angels. Demons and devils were my crew.

Another pishog, that's Irish for a story that is not only untrue but superstitious too, is that if you find a white feather, an angel is close by.

Bollocks . . . right?

And how it goes, the line from Kristofferson's song came unbidden, about a bell in loneliness being rung.

I turned on the radio as I dressed, and the nurses were on strike, the swans were dying from some mysterious virus, and the water, always the water these days. Dentists were advertising that they only used bottled water when you rinsed and the priests were using bottled water in the fonts. I don't know about holy water but it sure was expensive. The poor and the needy were being given free bottled water with their state hand-out. The council, as we headed into Lent, were now saying that it would be September
before the water could be declared safe. And we were going to believe them then?

The pubs were swearing that their ice was made from bottled water. The supermarkets were panicbuying all of the supplies of bottled water. A little girl had asked, if you go swimming, will the sea be boiled first?

Most important of all, for the ones who ruled the city, was the fear of tourists staying away, and already counties like Donegal were trading on our misfortune, advertising
COME TO WHERE THE WATER IS SAFE
.

I had boiled up a stash of water and put it in plastic bottles.

A new traffic superintendent, who'd been lecturing us for the whole month about the evils of drink-driving and how he'd bring the wrath of God on anyone caught, was arrested by a young rookie, so drunk he could hardly get into his car. Did he get the wrath of God? He got a golden handshake of nigh on a quarter of a million and his pension of forty thousand euro was untouchable.

Some wrath, eh?

And to cap it all, as the elections approached, the prime minister was being accused by his former driver of bringing money in plastic bags to Manchester. He seemed highly indignant – more about the plastic bags than the money.

I drained the last of my coffee and was about to go
when Philip Fogarty and Anna Lardi came on with the haunting ‘Lullaby For The Nameless'. It is as gut-wrenching as the title suggests. I felt a jolt in my heart and an aching for a very large Jameson. The booze had inched a degree nearer.

I was wearing a sweatshirt that had a faded but legible logo that proclaimed:
SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
. Perfect for a PI in disguise.

Fogarty had another killer with ‘Inhumane', but that was too close to the bone for me. I got the hell out of there. I adjusted my hearing aid to low, and in my newish 501s felt my limp wasn't too noticeable.

The weather had been unseasonably sunny and I turned my face up to the sun, felt the early-morning heat. I turned right by the fire station and headed out towards the tech college. A business school was situated next to the park there and a cluster of students were outside, smoking. Since the smoking ban had come into effect, more young people than ever had taken up the habit and as I passed, I heard them chatter. Not one of them was Irish. One tenth of the population was now non-national and the number was increasing. If they were happy to be in our shiny new rich country, they were hiding it well. They scowled at me as I passed, but maybe it was because I seemed . . . admit it . . . old. As I turned into Grattan Road, I could see the beach, the ocean, and I let it soothe me as it always did.

A man was sitting on a bench. He had a collie on a leash, straining to get free and run on the beach. He was wearing a heavy black-leather jacket. He looked up and smiled, revealing huge gaps in his teeth. ‘Jack Taylor, I heard you were in the madhouse.'

Nice greeting.

I could have said the country was one open-air asylum, but went with ‘How've you been?'

This is the Irish version of ‘I've no idea what your name is.'

And I didn't.

He drew up a huge amount of phlegm from his heaving chest then spat to the side and said, ‘I'm well fucked. They say I have a tumour on me lungs and need treatment.'

He needed some lessons in manners too, but I kept that to meself, asked, ‘When do you begin?'

He reined in the dog, pulling harshly on the lead and cutting off the poor thing's air, looked at me as if I was stupid, went, ‘Begin what?'

I wanted to get the hell away from him, sighed. ‘The treatment.'

He gave a very nasty laugh. ‘Don't be fucking dense, Taylor. You let them butchers at you, you're already buried.'

Before I could venture an opinion, he pointed to the beach. ‘See that family, down near the water?'

A black family, their laughter and joy carrying on
the Galway breeze. They looked happy and it eased the darkness this guy was breathing.

He said, ‘Niggers, stealing our country right from under us. Try getting a white doctor in the hospital.' He let out a sneering laugh which caused another upshot of spit. ‘. . . Good fucking luck. All the white doctors have legged it to Dublin, and you know, if I let Brandy here loose to run on the beach like she loves, them bastards would think, dinner.'

Disgusted, I turned to go. I muttered, ‘Take care.'

He patted his jacket. ‘I'm carrying a hatchet, that's all the care I need.'

You could ask what made him so nuts, so full of hatred. All I can say is: ‘the new Ireland'.

No matter how hostile Ridge was going to be, she'd be a ray of sunshine compared to him. There's a song titled ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is'.

I thanked Christ I couldn't remember the words.

 

 

 

 

I looked round. Not a feather in sight, not even a black one.

As I turned into Grattan Park, I knew I was only about five minutes from Ridge's house and I slowed my pace, reluctant to face the scene I expected, to see her fucked and bedraggled from booze. And saw an off-licence beckoning. It was a new one, but then, in my years of dryness God only knew how many had opened up. The water might be poisoned, but by Jesus, we weren't letting the virus affect our drinking habits.

Sure enough, a sign in the window proclaimed, ‘Our ice cubes are made by Alto.'

So, a company had sprung up to meet the need for
purified ice? When I was a child, ice was something you might see on Christmas Eve.

I went in, saw the bottles of tequila on display – another trend I'd missed. Shots of tequila being de rigueur for the young, wealthy kids who hit the clubs . . . ‘De rigueur' – took me years to find a way to use that, never mind figure out what the hell it meant.

On the wall was a poster advertising Philip Fogarty and Anna Lardi in concert. I clocked the rows of cigarettes and had a pang for another addiction denied. I grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose, because it came with a free T-shirt and I figured Ridge hadn't been doing a whole lot of laundry.

The kid at the register was non-national. Rang up my bottle and said, ‘That be twenty-eight euro.'

Me thinking,
That be fucking exorbitant
.

He put the bottle and the T-shirt in a bag that screamed,
off-licence
.

I paid him. He never said ‘thank you' or anything related to it and I was about to say something when I heard, ‘Taylor, back on the drink?'

Turned to see Father Malachy, my nemesis, an adversary for so many years and, worse, a friend of my late mother.

We might actually have become, if not friends, allies of an uneasy kind when he enlisted my help for a case. A priest had been murdered and Malachy, desperate, had turned to me for help. I did conclude
it and, albeit a terrible conclusion, the case had been solved. Not my finest hour. He didn't know the full details, only that I'd helped him. Thus you'd expect, if not gratitude, at least a certain appreciation.

But no, it made us more combative than ever.

He reeked of nicotine, his black priest's jacket was littered with dandruff and ash, his teeth brown from his addiction.

I said, ‘Good to see you, Father.'

It wasn't.

He eyed my purchase, said, ‘You couldn't stay off it, could you?'

The temptation to kick the living shite out of him was as compelling as ever. Instead, I thought of the letter I'd received and asked, ‘What do you know about benediction?'

He was taken aback, silent for a moment.

‘Why? What do you want to know?'

I had him intrigued and pushed, ‘I got a letter, a threatening one, with the signature “Benedictus”.'

He shrugged. ‘Benediction is a blessing, but in your case can only be a curse.' And he moved past me, heading for the cartons of cut-price cigarettes.

I resisted the temptation to kick him in the arse.

It took some doing.

I said, ‘See you soon.'

Without even turning round, he spat, ‘Not if God is good.' Nice ecclesiastical parting remark.

I got outside, rage rampant in my head, and in an effort to calm down recalled an incident a few weeks back with Stewart.

I'd been in some state, with Ridge in the hospital, the booze calling and regrets about my aborted getaway to America swirling in my head, and I'd run into Stewart. He'd taken one look at my face and suggested we go back to his place and, like, chill.

Chill!
The way these young Irish talk.

But I'd gone. He'd given me a Xanax and whoa . . . jig time, I was enveloped in if not the cloud of unknowing, certainly the mellow shroud of laid-back ease.

I'd said, ‘Jesus, that is one fucking great pill.'

He'd smiled, said, ‘Read John Straley, see how long it lasts.'

Who? I didn't care.

Then Stewart did an odd thing. OK, everything the guy did was odd, but he came to where I was stretched out on the sofa and presented me with a long leather case.

I asked, not caring, ‘And this is?'

He gestured for me to open it.

Inside were seven beautiful knives, exquisitely made, like the Gurkhas use.