Purgatory (3 page)

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, about the note you received.”

We met in Crowe’s bar in Bohermore. My choice. A sign in the window declared

Bohermore’s first Mayor.

Michael Crowe, one of the brothers who owned the bar, was indeed the mayor and a good one. Stewart was from a middle-class family, reared in Devon Park, which in my day said,

“You’re posh.”

Not really, but the notion was there, still lingered. Meant that Stewart didn’t know the family and Stewart made it his business to know almost all the players. I was sitting at the bar, groaning at a sparkling water, discussing hurling with Ollie Crowe, when Stewart arrived. In yet another fantastic suit. Coming in the swing door, he brought the sun with him. Ollie muttered,

“Hell of a suit.”

Moved off.

After the usual fandango about Stewart’s herbal bloody tea, we moved to a table. Stewart had a serious expression, laid out the clippings I’d given him, the note. Said,

“Take another look.”

“Why? I remember the damn thing and C33, or whatever the fooking number is.”

He leaned on the notes so I reached, took them. Made a show of concentrated interest. Stewart took a genteel sip of the tea, then said,

“Rourke, the guy due in court?”

I said,

“Sounds like a nasty piece of work.”

“Not anymore.”

“Why?”

“Apparent suicide, from the lonelamp post on Nimmo’s Pier.”

“Apparent?”

“I had a chat with Ridge.”

I sneered, bile leaking over my tone.

“And ye concluded what?”

“He’d been tasered first.”

I digested this, mulled over a few ideas. PIs are renowned for
mulling.
I said,

“Either way, the bad bastard is no loss; good riddance.”

Stewart never quite came to terms with what he saw as my cold heart. If he only knew the half of it. He asked,

“What about the note, the phrase
Your turn
?”

I had a longing for a short sharp jolt of Jameson, so intense I could taste it. Tried to shuck it away, said,

“Another eejit, the city is full of them; some of them are even running it.”

Stewart had that light in his eyes, meant he’d done some digging, gone that extra mile. He said,

“The skateboarder who was shot? He was dealing dope.”

I took the shot.

“You dealt dope.”

He took the hit, not well but ran with it, said,

“This guy dealt to schoolkids.”

I finally got it, did a double take, asked,

“You think somebody took out . . . killed . . . those
wrongdoers
?”

Made a mental note to seriously stop thinking in italics, added the dreaded word, in mocking fashion,

“Vigilante?”

He stayed the course, said,

“Worse.”

Surprised me, and before I could speak, he added,

“And I think he wants you to play.”

5

He looked at her again, at the white body by the black water, surrounded by dark spruce trees. The scene had nothing of violence in it. In fact, it looked peaceful.

—Karin Fossum,
Don’t Look Back

I’ve never seen much good press on purgatory.

Galway nun

Sister Maeve gave nuns a good name. My history with her had started real fine. Even went for cappuccino and croissants, her joy in such a rare treat. Then, par for my course, things hit the shitter, bad and ugly, and she deleted me from her life. Few can freeze you like the clergy, and the nuns learn early in nun school how to deliver that withering look.

I’m stunned, a compliment almost!

Then, busting a rib in the devil, she came to me for help in a delicate case of missing funds and I came through. I wasn’t back on her prayer list but neither was she watching the papers for my obituary.

I was in Java, the designer coffee shop, when she found me. I didn’t recognize her as she was in civilian clobber. And thank fook I didn’t burst out with,

“Didn’t know you without your habit.”

She said,

“Jack.”

Her smile was hesitant, but still had that radiance leaking at the corner of her mouth. A Cupid’s bow that, Ridge said,

“Was fecking wasted on a nun.”

Maybe.

I said,

“Sister, good to see you.”

I offered a seat and she demurely took it. Nuns, if this isn’t too weird, have a trait in common with Frenchwomen.

Delicacy.

A grace of movement, economical but compelling. I asked,

“Cappuccino and . . . they have cheesecake fresh out of the bakery.”

She was thrilled. I mean you’ve got to love a person who is so easily fulfilled. Buckets of Jameson, acres of Virginia leaf, a whole mess of pharmaceuticals, lines of pints, and I was as near to peace as the church to the people.

Her fare came and she set to with gusto. It was a pleasure to see her demolish that cheesecake. I asked,

“Another?”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

But no heart in it.

I said,

“A little wickedness gives us all something for the confessional.”

I settled back in my chair and she gave me that nun appraisal, all encompassing. I came up short, I already knew that. But I had credit in the ecclesiastical bank, so I waited. She said,

“You look well, Mr. Taylor.”

No point in trying

“Jack.”

So I took

“Thank you.”

But this wasn’t a social call, the get-together with the local thug gig. She said,

“I find, or we . . . the church . . . in need of your valuable assistance once more.”

I bit down on sarcasm too easy and I figure, take a run at a nun, all kinds of shite coming down the karma pike. I said,

“If I can.”

She produced a sheet of paper, laid it on the table, asked,

“Are you familiar with Our Lady of Galway?”

Knock

Lourdes

Medjugorje

Sure.

But Galway?

Really?

Not that it would hurt the tourist trade. Always money in devotion, and if you can find the Madonna on a wall, bingo. Work it.

I said

“No.”

This is the short version.

Our Lady of Galway.

A seventeenth-century Italian statue of Our Lady. She holds in her hand a stunning mother-of-pearl rosary, donated by a Claddagh fisherman. The first Catholic mayor of Galway, in 1683, put a gold crown on the head of the statue.

The Penal Laws came down the pike, Catholics were forbidden to practice. The statue was buried by a man named Brown, who, after the persecution was over, presented it to the Dominican order.

They resided in an old thatched church in the Claddagh. A new church was erected in 1891. The Madonna, the centerpiece of the church, has an altar showing

A Claddagh fishing boat

Saint Edna, the patron saint of the Claddagh

And

Saint Nicholas, saint of Galway.

A week previously

Someone nicked the statue.

Thus Sister Maeve.

She said,

“Of course, we don’t expect you to work for free.”

They did.

This was just cover-your-arse nicety.

I played.

“No need for that.”

Did she argue?

Guess.

Peg Ramsay was not a nice lady. There was little in her background to indicate she’d become a mean, vicious, greedy cow. She was simply a bad bitch. Her husband had been a moneylender, on a small scale, without too much intimidation in tow. Junk food, brandy took him out in his early fifties. Peg decided to up the game.

Recruited two East Europeans who learned their trade in the Serbo-Croat conflict.

Learned to be vicious.

Francis

And Xavier

FX.

Their special effect was to break all the bones in the face. All the bones.

Slowly.