Ken Bruen - The Emerald Lie

Nick Kent

Nina Antonia

Mick Wall

Robert Greenslade

Philip Norman

For some weird unconnected reason, all this fire ran through my mind as I tried to grapple with Emily being the arsonist. Close to babbling,

I said,

“I don’t know which is worse: that you did it or that you didn’t and are claiming it.”

She said simply,

“They beat you up, I got payback.”

I tried,

“But a man is dead.”

She smiled, chilling in its simplicity, said,

“He was a piece of shit.”

Park heard the doorbell sound again and now it had that impatient shrill. His mind was still in the white zone, letters tumbling around like confetti. He felt weightless and yet strung out. He opened the door.

A woman in a dark coat and a tall Guard behind her. Beyond her, he could see Garda vans and cars. He thought,

“Uh-oh.”

The woman flashed a warrant card and a formal-appearing sheet of paper. She barked,

“I’m Sergeant Ridge, and this here is a warrant to search your home. You are Parker Wilson, I presume?”

Park found all kinds of wrong in the way she formulated the statement and question. It was in the wrong order.

He asked,

“Shouldn’t you at least attempt civility?”

Then his mind flipped and he lunged at her, but halfheartedly. The ECT had weakened him so it was, at best, a feeble effort but sufficient for the tall Guard to push her aside and tackle Park, bring him down heavily with a severe blow to the back of the head. Add this to the gin and the shock treatment and Park was out.

Ridge muttered,

“Jesus.”

Guards were running toward the house and she got control, ordered,

“Get him in the van, and search this house top to bottom.”

She looked down at the limp form of Park. The Guard asked,

“Is it him, do you think?”

Ridge felt that tingle of greatness hovering, the opportunity to score big. She took a breath, managed a smile, said,

“He is certainly now a person of interest.”

The Guard, a recent convert to U.S. idiom, said,

“Fucking A, sister.”

A storm had been threatening the city for weeks. The government focused on this to lure us away from the horrors of the water charges but it wasn’t working. Large-scale marches of ordinary, decent people were increasing and the ministers scoffed. The leader of the Labour Party had been especially condescending about the protesters until

She was trapped in her car by them for over two hours.

Ebola continued to wreak havoc in Africa. Of course what do the powers that be do when they want to distract the public? Fall back on the old reliable scare:

... Bird flu.

Yeah, time to float that handy threat again.

In the European qualifiers after a wonderful draw with the world champion, Germany, we were beaten by a newly invigorated Scottish side. Bob Geldof resurrected the Band-Aid single with a whole new cast of young singers to help the Ebola-stricken countries.

George Bush brought out a book about his dad and wrote on his friendship with Clinton! Ireland decided it needed an Irish fiction laureate and drew up a list of the usual suspects that nobody read.

I was walking the pup along the prom when I met a slow-moving elderly man. He raised his cane, boomed,

“Well, I declare, Jack-een Taylor.”

There was no warmth in that, none at all. I didn’t recognize him but nothing new in that. He was one of those who didn’t see the pup. That was all I needed to know. I gave a terse,

“Hello”

Kept going.

But he wasn’t done, said,

“Getting very high and mighty, are we?”

I sighed, wondered if I should just get honest, slap him in the mouth, be done with it. I looked at him, said,

“Hey, I don’t know you and I have no desire to remedy that.”

He smiled, showing some seriously bad teeth, said,

“I had a pub in Forster Street and you were more than a regular.”

I moved to go. The pup was showing signs of maybe gnawing on the guy’s leg and I wasn’t sure I’d stop him. Before I could answer, he added with a smirk,

“I barred you.”

That didn’t really jog my memory a whole lot. I’d been barred from the best and the worst. I said,

“You take care now.”

I leaned on the care letting it be something else entirely. He seemed reluctant to let it slide, said,

“They caught that lunatic, the guy who was killing people for speaking badly.”

I thought, Emily will be pissed. He was on her to-do list. I looked out at the bay, dark clouds were forming on the horizon, I said,

“You need to get home before the storm.”

He laughed, near spat,

“Weather never worried me.”

I gave the pup a rub on his ear, turned to go, and asked,

“Who’s talking about the weather?”

Emily was curled up on my couch when I got back. The pup, with no fanfare, leaped onto her lap, settled down for a kip. I said,

“Feel free to break into my apartment as the feeling grabs you.”

Then I saw the tears on her cheeks. I asked,

“Hey, you okay?”

She made a supreme effort, focused, then spat,

“Do I seem okay ? But I’ll be fine. I’m always fucking fine.”

I let out a slow breath, said,

“Whoa, just trying to show some concern.”

She rubbed the pup, said,

“Keep it for some fool who gives a fuck.”

I didn’t answer, let the harshness be its own resonance. She heard it, tried,

“Sorry, I’d been reading India Knight and, you know, I used to admire that cow, then she demolishes women without children with the cruelest sentence in the language.”

I said,

“But you’re young, you can have a whole hurling team of kids.”

She scoffed, intoned,

“You see me as the mothering type. I mean, seriously?”

Hmm.

I said,

“Some breaking news: they got the Grammarian.”

Got her attention. She said,

“That’s awkward.”

Of the many things I thought it was, that wasn’t the first to spring to mind. I asked,

“Why?”

“Hard to kill the fuck in jail. Not impossible, but difficult.”

To argue with her would just be wasted energy. I said,

“Let it go. If the guy is guilty, he’s done.”

She gave me a long look, said,

“Sometimes, you might well be the weakest shite I know.”

Ouch.

I went with a smile, said,

“But you keep on coming back.”

Shook her head, said,

“Don’t flatter yourself, Taylor, I love the pup.”

I opened the door, asked,

“If there’s nothing else?”

She put her hands on her hips, glared, said,

“You don’t get it, do you?”

I headed for the fridge, pulled out a longneck, and, like a good ole boy, flipped off the cap. Looked impressive, I think. Said,

“I get that you are some weird hybrid of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Carol O’Connell’s Mallory. You should read Boston Teran’s God Is a Bullet , but alas, the novelty has worn off and I am seriously tired of you so here’s the thing: fuck off.”

I drank off half the bottle then moved to physically grab her and sling her. She recoiled in total ferocity, hissed,

“You put a hand on me, I will tear it from the socket and feed it to the pup.”