Ken Bruen - Sanctuary

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.

I gazed at them in total admiration, whistled, ‘Wow.’

He gave that enigmatic smile, like wow was as much as he could expect from me, explained, ‘Kabuki knives. You’ll notice there are seven, for each stage of my life.’

The Xanax had kicked in big time and I could listen to whatever Zen bullshit he wanted to pedal. I muttered, ‘And which number are you on now?’

He lifted one out gently, with more care than if it was a baby. ‘The sixth, I term it. . I’ll explain when you are a little further along the road to enlightenment.’

I was cool, or indeed chill enough to ask, ‘So, these knives, they tell you what?’

He leaned right into my face, said in a stone tone, ‘What do they tell you, Jack?’

Even with the pill, I was ready to rumble, You know, they tell me fuck all. And mainly they tell me, you need to get out more .

I said, ‘They’re impressive. What are they meant to be — the Seven Samurai?’

He stared at them. ‘They are for the seven levels of evil. Each one removes another layer of the ills that bedevil our world.’

I should have paid more attention to what he was telling me, and later I’d learn exactly what the levels of evil were, but then they were just knives — impressive but, you know, just fucking blades. I’d seen enough of them and was tempted to say, A Stanley knife is just as useful . But the Xanax whispered, Who cares?

He stood back, considered me, then said, ‘Stand up.’

Was he kidding? I’d eat him for breakfast. But what the hell, he wanted to take a shot at me. I was up for it. He moved right into me, his arms hanging by his sides, palms outwards in the classic show of non aggression, said, ‘Hit me.’

I laughed. Long time since I’d had cause and I don’t suppose the medication hindered my mood either. I scoffed, ‘You’re fucking kidding.’

He didn’t move, his face set in a serious mode. ‘I mean it, Jack. Hit me with all you’ve got.’

I shook my head. ‘Stewart, I like you. You piss me off with all the Zen bollocks. But hit you? I don’t think so.’

He never moved, said, ‘You’ve got a limp, a hearing aid, and a dead child to your credit.’

I swung with all my might and. . where’d he go? I hit air.

He was standing to my right, smiled, asked, ‘That your best, Jack? Losing your sight too?’

I lashed out with me foot and missed again. Where was he getting this speed from? For five more minutes, I tried in vain. Zip, nada, couldn’t touch him.

He said, ‘With Zen and a few other Eastern disciplines, I’ve learned how to be at one.’

I was breathing hard and seriously pissed. ‘Yeah, did you learn how to hit, though?’

And I was flat on my back, a throbbing in my throat where he’d taken me with the side of his left hand.

Guess that answered that.

When I got my wind back, I said, ‘You’re good. What’s your point?’

He did a flexing routine, said, ‘As well as Zen, I can teach you some moves that will make you less vulnerable.’

I said I’d think about it. When I was leaving, he was standing at the door. I said, ‘Oh shit, forgot me jacket.’ He turned and I rabbit-punched him. As he went down hard I said, ‘It ain’t Zen but it sure is effective.’

I’d swear, though he had to be hurting, he was smiling. Mad bastard.

I wasn’t sure why I was replaying this unless somewhere in my mind I expected Ridge to attack me. One way or another, she always did.

I’d reached her house. Took a deep breath and rang the bell.

Ridge surprised me all right. She was sober, dressed in clean clothes, her eyes clear, and was holding a book. I nearly smiled. Books had brought me through so many hangovers, not that I could read them then, but they were a lifeline to some semblance of sanity.

I said, ‘You look good.’

She waved me in, asked if I’d like some coffee. While she went to make it, I took a look at the book she’d put aside. Something to Hide .

Got that right, I thought.

It was by Penny Perrick, an account of the life of Sheila Wingfield, Viscountess Powerscourt. Talk about perfect timing. I was about to ask her to investigate a case involving the West Brits or Anglo-Irish or whatever the fuck you called them and here she was, reading about them. Sometimes you get lucky. I don’t, but this was definitely a help.

She came back with two mugs of coffee. ‘Biscuits?’

I said, ‘I don’t do sweet.’

She nodded, knowing the truth of that.

‘Interesting reading,’ I said.

Ridge sat, sipped at her coffee, her usual antagonism not on display. Least not yet. She said, ‘It’s odd, I’m as Irish as it gets, reared in the Irish language and everything nationalistic, and not exactly in the lap of luxury, and yet I find a resonance with her.’

I didn’t know zip about the woman so I asked, ‘Why?’

I really wanted to say I’d never seen Ridge with a book in all the time I’d known her and she had been more than dismissive of my reading. She put her coffee aside.

‘She was an Anglo-Jewish heiress, a poet, and the wife of the very last of the Powerscourts. She was racked by drink, drugs and illness, in conflict with the tradition she was supposed to maintain. She never really fitted into any of the worlds she tried to live in.’

I could see the parallels. Ridge was a female guard in a force that worshipped macho bullshit, and worse, she was gay. A young woman, now she was threatened by cancer and could do little but wait.

I nodded in what I hoped was sympathetic understanding. ‘Maybe I’ll read it.’

She said, ‘I doubt it.’

I wanted to ask her how she’d pulled herself together but she got there before me.

‘You’re wondering how come I’m still not sucking on a bottle?’

Jesus. Not the way I’d have phrased it, but yeah, the content was right.

‘I’m just glad to see you, OK.’

She laughed. ‘Good old Jack, evasive as ever.’

Old ?

She added, ‘Actually, it was you who helped me stop whining and drinking.’

‘What did I do?’

She looked right at me. ‘I’ve seen you stupefied by drink so many times, drowning in selfpity, hitting out at everyone, and I asked myself, do I really want to be like that?’

The lash was back. I should have known it wouldn’t last. I wanted to say, So happy to have provided you with the motivation .

Instead I tried to bite down my anger, asked, ‘Would you like a job? You know, till you get back on the force?’

I told her about the phone call from Anthony Bradford-Hemple, the young girl’s missing pony and the threats. Instead of ridiculing me, she seemed delighted. She got her notebook, took down the details, said she’d go out there today.