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Автор Кен Бруен

Ken Bruen

Part One

Part Two

Ken Bruen

Sanctuary

Part One

‘For now at least, all that was to come, and

would come in its own delicious time. She

would enjoy each minute of what was to come

next, let it unfurl as slowly as she liked. ’

Cathi Unsworth, The Singer

Benediction

Dear Mr Taylor,

Please forgive the formality. We’ll progress to a more informal tone. Here is my shopping list — I know you like lists:

Two guards

One nun

One judge

And, alas, one child.

The latter is tragic but inevitable and certainly not negotiable.

But this you already know — the death of a child, I mean.

The list has already begun: see Garda Flynn, deceased two days ago.

Only you will truly comprehend my mission.

You are to be my witness.

I remain, in benediction,

Benedictus

Bridge of Sighs

I was standing on the bridge that faces the Spanish Arch in Galway city and the rain was pelting down, drenching me to the core. Despite my all-weather coat, item 8234 of my former Guards issue, and a watchcap pulled down over me forehead, I was soaked. And thinking.

Oh sweet Jesus, if only I could stop thinking.

I should have been in America — even better, down in Mexico, lying on a beach, cold beer on my mind and who knows, maybe a señorita? I certainly had the cash. Yeah, I’d sold my apartment and was sitting on my suitcase, waiting for the cab to the airport. Then the phone had rung.

Even now, I cursed myself for answering.

Ridge, in Irish Ni Iomaire, a female Guard and my partner in hostility and uneasy alliance for years, had been having tests for breast cancer.

She was scared, not a thing she ever gave in to, and I was scared too, for her. It’s God’s own vicious joke, the only woman I managed to keep in my life was gay.

I put the phone to my ear and she had said one word.

‘Malignant. ’

Is there a more loaded, sinister one in the whole of the language?

I remembered the story about Joyce furiously ripping through a dictionary and Nora Barnacle asking, ‘Aren’t there enough words in there for you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, but not the right ones. ’

What’s the right word for a death sentence?

So I had stayed.

And every single day I was sorry.

Sorry is what I do if not best, certainly most frequently.

They’d removed Ridge’s right breast and she was now two months along in recovery.

How does a woman recover from that?

She was out of hospital and recuperating at home, if recuperating means sitting in an armchair, listening to the kind of whining music they give free razor blades with, and drinking.

Yeah, Ridge, drinking. She’d busted my balls for years about my drinking and here she was, sinking into the abyss.

I tried to go round most days to see how she was doing and at first it was a bottle of dry sherry on the mantelpiece, then the bottle was on the coffee table, always getting nearer to reach, and now it was vodka.

First few times, I didn’t mention it, especially as she was glaring at me, willing me to go for it.

I didn’t.

But finally, a damp cold Monday, not yet noon and there she was, in her dressing gown, the bottle, near empty, perched on the arm of the chair.