Galway Confidential by Ken Bruen

Author:Ken Bruen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penzler Publishers
Published: 2024-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

Back at my apartment, as I waited for Raftery, I took my second hurly from the cupboard. It was nearly new. I hadn’t yet put the steel clips on the top but figured I could manage without them. Kept reminding myself,

“This is probably a wild-goose chase.”

And yet.

I tried to read the newspapers piling up on the sofa. The photos of dead children in Ukraine were almost unbearable. It was ten days until a huge Russian celebration, the commemoration of Russia’s victory in the Second World War. It was two days to May Day and Putin had hoped to have utterly conquered Ukraine by then.

He hadn’t.

So, a muted May Day.

Maybe.

Putin continued to threaten the West with the nuclear option if aid was given to Ukraine.

Refugees continued to pour across Europe. Here in Ireland we had already received thirty thousand and the housing of them was a mega problem.

One-third of our own government was The Green Party, led by an ejit named Ryan. He wanted to ban the turf industry and make it illegal to sell it.

If he managed to pass this proposed bill, it was truly the end of rural Ireland.

His government partners were scathing in their criticism of him, but he refused to back down and it seemed he might yet bring down the government.

The response from the public was reminiscent of the outrage over the water charges, and that had literally brought down the previous lot.

I lit a cig, my first in three days, and was dizzy from the nicotine. I moved to the window, the bay window that revealed a brilliant view of Galway Bay.

It soothed my soul somewhat and set up that old yearning. For what, I still didn’t know. My attention was drawn by a young man leaning against a bench, he was staring right at me. Something about him. . . .

Then it hit.

The two men who’d attacked the homeless, what were the names?

Yeah, Scott Williams, the one who had run away . . . and—

Tony Wren, whose knee I had shattered.

The one staring up at me, defiance writ large, was Scott Williams. It made me smile to imagine that he might have come to intimidate me. I grabbed my jacket, went down to meet him. My heart was jumping at the prospect of violence, a surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Outside, Williams moved from his slouch against the bench to stand up, face me. I crossed the road, got right in his face, snarled,

“You are looking for me?”

Uncertainty moved across his face, and he tried to back off a little, but the bench was blocking his passage. He was average height and I towered over him. He had regular features but odd eyes, as if they weren’t in focus. He had the sort of loose body that is not quite flabby but heading fast in that direction. The sort of shape becoming common in our youth, with all the fast-food outlets and incessant phone surfing but no moving.

He summoned up something to have him say,

“I know where you live now.

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