The Guards by Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page B

to, she’s there in your eyes all the time.”
    She hugged me close, said,
    “What a beautiful thing to say”
    I felt better than I had in longer than I’d ever admit. Then she asked,
    “Did you ever love someone?”
    “There was a woman, when I was in the guards. She made me feel more than I was.”
    “That’s a good feeling.”
    “But I screwed it up.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s what I do best.”
    “That’s no answer.”
    “I could say it was the booze, but that’s not true. There’s a self-destruct button in me. I keep returning to it.”
    “You can change.”
    “I don’t know if I want to.” On that sombre note, we went to sleep.
    She was gone when I woke. A note on the pillow,
    Dear Jack,
You’re a lovely man. Don’t self-destruct on me.
I couldn’t bear it.
    Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Ann.
    I wasn’t sure what I’d let myself in for.
    A conscience full
of
others’ dreams
    I never meant to kill him.
    A current expression,
    “It got away from me”, is hackneyed beyond tolerance. Used to excuse everything from
    Wife battering
    to
    Drunk driving
    Well, it got away from me. What began as an exercise in intimidation ended in murder. Here’s how it went down.
    After my sojourn with Ann, I met Sutton the next day. Sojourn is a lovely word, has a resonance of culture and wonder. So I was feeling good, feeling strong and ready I made arrangements for Sutton to pick me up at Seapoint, the huge ballroom that sits sentinel to Salthill.
    I’d served my dancing apprenticeship to the late sixties showbands there.
    What bands!
    Brendan Bowyer
    The Indians
    The Freshmen
    Those guys came on stage at nine, played non-stop for hours. And did they give it large. Flogged their guts out with cover versions of everything from
    “Suspicious Minds”
    to
    “If I didn’t have a dime …”
    If not a time of innocence, it was most definitely an era of enthusiasm.
    As I sat on the promenade, The Specials’ “Ghost Town” was playing in my head. A No. 1 from 1981, it caught perfectly the civic unrest of London back then.
    Sutton pulled up in a Volvo. It looked seriously battered. I got in and asked,
    “Where did you find this?”
    It was an automatic and he set it on cruise, said,
    “Bought it from a Swede in Clifden.”
    He glanced at me, asked,
    “What’s the difference with you?”
    “Me?”
    “Yeah, you’ve got a shit-eating grin going there.”
    “Do I?”
    “Yeah, like the cat got the cream.”
    Then he slapped the wheel with his palm, exclaimed,
    “I get it … you got laid … you dirty dog, you did, didn’t you?”
    “I got lucky.”
    “Well I never! Good ol’ Taylor. Who was it, that rock chick, what’s her face, Cathy B.?”
    “Nope.”
    “Don’t make me do the hundred guesses trip. Or did you get a hooker, eh?”
    “Ann Henderson.”
    “The dead girl’s mother?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Jeez, Taylor, how bright was that?”
    Cathy B. had found Ford’s address. When I’d told Sutton, he asked,
    “The guy isn’t married?”
    “No.”
    “Let’s go visit his gaff, see what shakes.”
    We parked at the side of Blackrock. The Salthill Towers loomed behind us. Sutton asked,
    “Where’s he located?”
    “Ground floor.”
    Breaking in was a breeze. The lock was one of those Yale jobs. We walked into a spacious living room, expensively furnished. Tidy, too. A long coffee table had a book, open-ended, but nothing else. I checked the title, Finnegans Wake. Sutton said,
    “Yeah, like anyone actually reads this.”
    We did a thorough search, found nothing. Sutton asked,
    “You sure anybody lives here?”
    “There’s suits in the wardrobe, food in the fridge.”
    Sutton leaned against the sitting room wall, said,
    “See this carpet?”
    “Expensive, I’d say.”
    “But it’s not level. See near the lamp, it rises slightly.”
    “So?”
    “So, let’s roll that sucker.”
    With the carpet back, we stared at loose floorboards. Sutton bent down, pushed them aside, said,
    “Bingo.”
    Began to