Ken Bruen: The Guards

“Course, you being in the bank business, you’re not going to piss on the Swiss.”

She stood up, said,

“I must get back to the party.”

“They’re £700 a pop. I don’t suppose the lottery will spring for them.”

She was at the bedroom door, said,

“Come on, Jack.”

“No, I’m going to sit here and think of weapons.”

She was gone.

I didn’t think I could move into the Skeff with Sutton. Maybe it was time to make that move to London. A knock on the door. I said,

“Yeah.”

Ann came in, asked,

“What are you doing, Jack?”

“Talking to pink teddy bears.”

“A bad sign.”

“Oh yes, but for who... me or the teds?”

“Linda looked very serious when she came back to the party. What happened?”

“We were discussing guns.”

“Guns.”

Back at my flat, Ann said,

“I feel a bit tipsy.”

“Want to prolong it?”

“Good heavens, no.”

There was an awkward silence. I didn’t know what to do. She said,

“Will you kiss me?”

I did, if badly. She said,

“That’s a poor effort, try again.”

I got better.

Then we were in bed and it was wonderful. Slow, strange, exciting. After, she said,

“It’s been so long.”

“Me too.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah.”

Then her voice wavered, she said,

“I haven’t mentioned Sarah all evening.”

“You don’t have to, she’s there in your eyes all the time.”

She hugged me close, said,

“What a beautiful thing to say”

I felt better than I had in longer than I’d ever admit. Then she asked,

“Did you ever love someone?”

“There was a woman, when I was in the guards. She made me feel more than I was.”

“That’s a good feeling.”

“But I screwed it up.”

“Why?”

“It’s what I do best.”

“That’s no answer.”

“I could say it was the booze, but that’s not true. There’s a self-destruct button in me. I keep returning to it.”

“You can change.”

“I don’t know if I want to.” On that sombre note, we went to sleep.

She was gone when I woke. A note on the pillow,

Dear Jack,

You’re a lovely man. Don’t self-destruct on me.

I couldn’t bear it.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wasn’t sure what I’d let myself in for.

A conscience full

of

others’ dreams

I never meant to kill him.

A current expression,

“It got away from me”, is hackneyed beyond tolerance. Used to excuse everything from

Wife battering

to

Drunk driving

Well, it got away from me. What began as an exercise in intimidation ended in murder. Here’s how it went down.

After my sojourn with Ann, I met Sutton the next day. Sojourn is a lovely word, has a resonance of culture and wonder. So I was feeling good, feeling strong and ready I made arrangements for Sutton to pick me up at Seapoint, the huge ballroom that sits sentinel to Salthill.

I’d served my dancing apprenticeship to the late sixties showbands there.

What bands!

Brendan Bowyer

The Indians

The Freshmen

Those guys came on stage at nine, played non-stop for hours. And did they give it large. Flogged their guts out with cover versions of everything from

“Suspicious Minds”

to

“If I didn’t have a dime...”

If not a time of innocence, it was most definitely an era of enthusiasm.

As I sat on the promenade, The Specials’ “Ghost Town” was playing in my head. A No. 1 from 1981, it caught perfectly the civic unrest of London back then.

Sutton pulled up in a Volvo. It looked seriously battered. I got in and asked,

“Where did you find this?”

It was an automatic and he set it on cruise, said,

“Bought it from a Swede in Clifden.”

He glanced at me, asked,

“What’s the difference with you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you’ve got a shit-eating grin going there.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, like the cat got the cream.”

Then he slapped the wheel with his palm, exclaimed,

“I get it... you got laid... you dirty dog, you did, didn’t you?”

“I got lucky.”

“Well I never! Good ol’ Taylor. Who was it, that rock chick, what’s her face, Cathy B.?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t make me do the hundred guesses trip. Or did you get a hooker, eh?”

“Ann Henderson.”

“The dead girl’s mother?”

“Yeah.”

“Jeez, Taylor, how bright was that?”

Cathy B. had found Ford’s address. When I’d told Sutton, he asked,

“The guy isn’t married?”

“No.”

“Let’s go visit his gaff, see what shakes.”

We parked at the side of Blackrock. The Salthill Towers loomed behind us. Sutton asked,

“Where’s he located?”

“Ground floor.”

Breaking in was a breeze. The lock was one of those Yale jobs. We walked into a spacious living room, expensively furnished. Tidy, too. A long coffee table had a book, open-ended, but nothing else. I checked the title, Finnegans Wake. Sutton said,

“Yeah, like anyone actually reads this.”

We did a thorough search, found nothing. Sutton asked,

“You sure anybody lives here?”

“There’s suits in the wardrobe, food in the fridge.”

Sutton leaned against the sitting room wall, said,

“See this carpet?”

“Expensive, I’d say.”

“But it’s not level. See near the lamp, it rises slightly.”

“So?”

“So, let’s roll that sucker.”

With the carpet back, we stared at loose floorboards. Sutton bent down, pushed them aside, said,

“Bingo.”

Began to hand up a series of videos. A batch of magazines, too. A glance showed the subject, child pornography Sutton said,

“Put all this crap on the table.”

I did.

We checked out two of the videos. More of the same. Sutton asked,

“What now?”

“Let’s wait for him.”

We raided the fridge, found some nice steaks, got them cooking. Round 6.30, I was dozing when I heard a key in the lock. Sutton was standing, looking relaxed. Ford came in, was into the sitting room before he saw us. Sutton had moved to the door. Ford glanced at the table, its piled contents. If he was panicked, he hid it well; he asked,

“What do you want?”

“Information.”

“Ah.”

“Tell me about Sarah Henderson, the other girls.”

He sat down, looked towards Sutton, said,

“More ex-garda.”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“So Mr Ford, tell all.”

“It’s no big deal. Mr Planter likes young girls. Sometimes they get awkward, start making threats. What can I say, they get depressed, go for the long swim.”

Till then, I’d stayed calm. But something in his smug expression, the contempt in his voice, got me. I was up and smacking him across the face. I pulled him to his feet and he spat at me. I threw him from me, and his head came down heavily on the coffee table. He didn’t move. Sutton was over, checking for a pulse, said,

“The fucker’s gone.”

“What?”

“He’s dead.”

“Christ.”

“We better get out of here. We clean off everything.” We even put the videos back in place. As we left, Sutton wiped the door handle, said,

“Let’s hope they think he fell.”

Sutton dropped me off at my home. We hadn’t spoken en the way. He asked now,

“Do you want me to come in?”

“No.”

“You going to be OK?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Look, Jack... listen. It was an accident. Plus, how big a loss is he? The guy was garbage, the world is better off without him.”