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best and the brightest

      Were not at the party.

      They’d emigrated.

      What we had was the shoddy and the smiles. The Galway celebrities, who’d yet to make it to The Late Late Show but claimed they’d gotten the call. Waiters in livery, I kid you fooking not, were dispensing champagne. Ridge took a glass and the waiter, familiar in a bad way, said to me,

      “It’s free, Taylor.”

      I said,

      “It’s a lot of things, but free ain’t one of them.”

      I heard him mutter,

      “Kent.”

      And no, he didn’t think I was from the county.

      Stewart approached, a dark girl in tow, looking like Beyoncé in her younger days. He had, as the Brits say, an impeccable evening suit and I hope I’m wrong, but what appeared to be a maroon cummerbund.

      Jesus wept.

      He introduced her as

      “Tiffany.”

      Of course, no chance we’d be running into too many named Mary. Out of absolute zero interest, I asked,

      “And do you work . . . um . . . ?”

      Couldn’t quite bring myself to utter the name. She gave a champagne giggle, said,

      “How droll.”

      I’ve been called every variety of bollix but this was a first. She countered,

      “And you, John, do you?”

      Great.

      “It’s Jack. I insult people.”

      She was game, went with it.

      “And does it keep you?”

      “Off the streets, at least.”

      Stewart whisked her away, fast. Ridge glared at me but a man was coming up on her right, dressed in ratty jeans, battered Converse, and a sweatshirt with the logo

      I’m a gas.

      Yeah.

      Reardon.

      He hugged Ridge, said,

      “Sergeant Ní Iomaire, great to see you.”

      Then turned to me. Ridge said,

      “Jack Taylor.”

      He didn’t take my extended hand and it hung there, like a government promise, sad and empty. His eyes were dark brown, close to black with a curious light at the corner, as if he’d had them high-lit. The guy had presence, no denying that, but a pity he was the one most impressed by its glow. He asked,

      “You the guy who got the handicapped kid killed?”

      Tim Rourke was born nasty, got worse. He’d been in trouble all his life; liked trouble. Liked to hurt people. He should have just been lost in a lost system but the social workers discovered him. The workers with

      Awareness.

      The ones who cared in italics.

      Julie Nesbit in particular. All of twenty-six years of age, with accreditation from London. And determined to make her mark. Rourke charmed her. A serial rapist with a dirty soul, he’d managed to con her into the belief that if only someone would believe in him, ah, he’d be gold.

      Like that.

      She had that rare ability, given mostly to judges and priests, to completely ignore all the evidence. They didn’t think outside the box, they were fucking buried in it. A measure of Rourke’s psycho charm borne out by Nesbit’s description of this spawn of Satan as

      “A cheeky monkey.”

      Her impassioned plea before the judge, in what the Guards had believed was a slam dunk, turned the verdict. Rourke walked, rather strutted, free.

      Was he grateful?

      Yeah.

      Nesbit, rushing to him on the courtroom steps, expecting a wave of gratitude, got,

      “Fuck off, cunt.”

      4

      She can be delicately morbid.

      —Alice Blanchard, The Breathtaker

      Purgatory is seen as hell light.

      Rourke should have been a good-looking kid. Tousled blond hair like a character in a chick-lit novel, delicate build, but the eyes . . . the eyes contained an essence that had come from a place of eternal dread. They conveyed the black energy that drove on hate. He never wondered why he had more of this emotion than all others; he learned early to conceal it, used a knife charm to evade responsibility, and derived almost ecstatic bliss from the inflicting of pain.

      His type does well in

      The army

      And

      The church.

      Now, late on a Friday night, thrown out of a pub on the Quays, he’d ended up near Nimmo’s Pier. He’d trolled here before, robbing gays, penny-ante dope dealers. He’d been downing the working stiff’s cocaine, vodka and Red Bull, not that Rourke and work had ever met. His acquittal was blurred in his mind, owing to the amount of booze he’d taken, and a hit of the new solvent doing the rounds added a level of confusion to his head.

      All he felt was the usual compulsion to wreak damage. He moved to the end of the pier and looked up at the lone light hanging above the rim. The bulb was gone so he was in virtual darkness. Saw the figure weaving toward him and his body went into attack mode. Then a moment of confusion.

      Was the figure moving very fast and . . . moving in a direct line toward him?

      WTF?

      Then thought,

      “Good, come to Momma.”

      Then a hand was reaching out and he felt the full voltage of the taser. His brain briefly registered

      Born to Be Wild.

      I was on a female mystery kick, reading only lady crime writers. My contribution to equality. Had asked Vinny to stack my new bookshelves with them.

      He did.

      I skimmed through the authors.

      Sara Gran

      Zoë Sharp

      Margaret Murphy

      Wendy Hornsby

      Lynn S. Hightower

      Megan Abbott

      Cornelia Read

      Alafair Burke

      Hilary Davidson

      Jan Burke

      And was content.

      A further two boxes were yet to be opened and I kept the anticipation of that for the dire days of February. The radio was tuned to Jimmy Norman and he was playing the new album from Marc Roberts. You could think that most was okay in my narrow world. Apart from a desperate yearning to get hammered but I knew how those demons roared. Could see clearly in my mind

      The double Jameson

      Two tabs of Xanax

      Pack of Major.

      Almost in sync, I scratched the patch on my left arm. Muttered not today; was reaching for a book when my mobile shrilled.

      Stewart.

      Said,

      “Need to talk to you urgently.”

      “Thought you Zen masters didn’t do . . . you know . . . urgency.”

      He sighed, then,

      “Jack, it’s serious,

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