“Bethany.”
I signaled to the waitress for the bill, said,
“Your family as I recall has lots of resources, and at last count, there are nine professional investigators in the city. They’d be glad to take your money. Me, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse what happens to your whacko brother.”
I paid the bill, stood up, and was turning to leave when she near whispered,
“I have something you want, Taylor.”
I shook my head, had already reached the door when she hissed,
“I know what happened to the priest,” pause,
“and the retard.”
Stopped me. But she was up and brushing past me, moving fast.
I went after her.
Great.
Pursuing a young girl on the busiest street in Galway. My mobile shrilled, I said,
“Fuck.”
Pulled it from my jacket. Bethany had reached McDonagh’s Fish ’n’ Chip shop, the bottom of Quay Street. Christ, that girl could move. She turned, stared back at me, then ever so elegantly, gave me the finger. She disappeared among the horde of tourists being off-loaded from a coach.
I answered the mobile, heard,
“Jack, it’s Stewart.”
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Iraq.”
“What?”
“The bottom of Quay Street, the fuck does it matter where I am?”
He wasn’t fazed, he’d heard it too often, asked,
“I’m at the Meyrick, can you come? We need to talk.”
I said OK and rang off. The Meyrick used to be the Great Southern Hotel. It was never great but it was one more fading landmark on the city’s landscape. I’ve always had a sneaking fondness for it, mainly as they allow me in. It had moved further up the ladder in its new incarnation. And me, I just got older.
I headed up Shop Street, marveling at the new outlets, a new one every day. The street was ablaze with buskers, mimes, panhandlers, and the dying remnants of a drinking school. I stopped outside the GBC Cafe. The name had come to me. Bethany’s brother broke the surface of my bedraggled mind.
Ronan Wall.
The last time I’d met him, he’d been charm personified. You’d think he’d have a hard-on for me. But no, despite his eye loss, his incarceration in the mental hospital, you’d swear I was his best friend. Did he, as you’d expect, lacerate me, berate me for destroying his life?
Nope.
He thanked me!
I shit thee not.
Said, and I quote,
“Thanks to you, Jack Taylor, I’ve turned my life around. I have great plans for my future.”
My arse.
He was the real McCoy, a full-blown psycho, the out and full-focused ultimate predator, and he’d learnt to hide in plain sight. He could mimic human behavior to a degree of charm that probably fooled most people. A good-looking kid, blond hair falling into his remaining eye. The new artificial one was, no doubt, the best money could buy, but disconcerting in its stillness.
His good eye couldn’t quite disguise what lay beneath, and worse, he knew I knew.
But he’d rattled on, flush with affability and studied warmth. I hadn’t seen him since but I knew, one day, he’d show, and so here he was again in my life. Whatever the gig, it wouldn’t be good. How could it, with a stone killer just biding his time?
The Meyrick Hotel lies at the bottom of Eyre Square and the new renovations should have made it imposing. All that solid granite, the iron railings, but to me it was still the hotel of my youth. I pushed through the freshly polished glass door, saw Stewart in the lounge. A white porcelain teapot, matching cups before him. Decaffeinated or herbal tea no doubt. He stood up on seeing me. Dressed in an Armani suit, one of those suits that whispered to you,
“You ain’t never going to be able to afford this.”
He was the personification of the new Irish: sleek, smug, self-contained. I felt like his bedraggled grandfather. We sat, he offered me some of the shite stuff he was drinking, and I gave him the look.
Asked,
“What’s up?”
He reached in the pocket of the immaculate suit, produced a small package, said,
“This came in the post.”
I said,
“A headstone.”
His surprise was evident so I said,
“I got one too.”
He glanced at the package, said,
“It’s unnerving.”