Читать книгу Purgatory - Ken Bruen - Страница 9

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Some people, I saw, had drowned right away. And some people were drowning in slow motion, drowning a little bit at a time, and would be drowning for years. And some people, like Mick, had always been drowning. They just didn’t know what to call it until now.

—Sara Gran, The City of the Dead

Purgatory is the pit stop en route to hell.

The woman sat opposite me, didn’t ask, just sat. This used to happen a lot. People believing I had some inside track for finding things, people, solutions, and maybe answers. I’d found some answers, over the years, and they were always the wrong ones. Or right but for the wrong reasons. I’d given it up with the booze, the cigs, the Xanax.

Before she could speak, I said,

“No.”

Knocked her back.

Her mouth made a small O of surprise. I knew the gig.

The touching photo.

Some heart-kicking story.

Her son/brother/husband

Missing

Was a great/caring/lovable

Individual

And

Could I find him, what happened to him?

The whole usual awful parade of misery.

She tried,

“But, they said, you care.”

I said,

“I don’t.”

And I didn’t.

Not no more.

Sorry.

My new home was a steal.

Galway, in the boom years, the most sought-after location for housing in the country. Plus the most expensive. Now the new austerity, the bankruptcy, and you couldn’t give away property. I rented a two-bedroom, ground-floor, bright, open apartment in Merchants Road, not a spit from the Garda station.

Flat-screen TV, modern kitchen for all the cooking I’d never do. Large pine bookcase. I’d given Vinny a shout at Charlie Byrne’s bookshop and he’d stacked the shelves. He knew my books, sometimes, even knew me. Plus, he’d handed me an envelope, said,

“It was left in the shop for you.”

No, he hadn’t seen who dropped it off.

My name on a deep blue envelope, almost the color of a Guard’s tunic. Inside

A photo of a young man, on a skateboard, high in the air, looking like an eagle against the sky. Then a piece from The Galway Advertiser which read

. . . verdict due on January 10th in vicious rape case. Tim Rourke, accused in the brutal rape and battery of two young girls, is due in court for the verdict. Controversy has surrounded the case since it was revealed the Guards had not followed procedure in obtaining the evidence.

There was more, about this being the latest high-profile case likely to be thrown out over some technicality. And still

The bankers

Developers

Clergy

Continued to fuck us over every way they could.

A single piece of notepaper had this printed on it

You want to take this one? Your turn, Jack.

Signed

C33.