Ken Bruen - Sanctuary

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.