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beheading
    swans. I’d nailed him and, yeah, he came from a
    good family, meaning cash and clout. No jail time,
    sent to a hospital. She asked,
    “Coming back dude? The booze hasn’t destroyed
    all the brain cells?”
    I’d met most brands of psychos during my career
    as a half-arsed investigator. They all shared the
    same total lack of empathy. Not so much they
    lacked a human element, more like they were a
    whole other species. A highly lethal one. But that
    kid, he’d used a samurai sword to decapitate the
    swans. What I most recalled was the absolute glee
    in his eyes. He didn’t so much enjoy his deeds as
    revel in them. I’d used a stun gun to knock him
    back into the water. The swans had gone for his
    eyes. He lost one. Every fiber of my being had
    been to let him drown. But I’d dragged him out. I’d
    hoped never to see the creep again.
    Years later, he’d turned up,
    “ Cured ,”
    he told me.
    The medicine hadn’t been invented to rewire his
    kind. They simply changed their act. The deadly
    impulse even more honed and ferocious than ever.
    He’d then vanished from my radar. I always knew
    he was out there and I was unfinished business. I
    said,
    “I remember him; he told me he was a student.”
    She gave me a look of pure defiance, said,
    “He got his degree.”
    I couldn’t resist, said,
    “Long as it wasn’t as a vet.”
    She pushed the Danish back, said,
    “It’s stale.”
    I said,
    “So……..?”
    “He’s missing.”
    I wanted to say,
    “He was born missing,” but went with
    “And I should care………….why?”
    “I want you to find him.”
    I laughed, said,
    “I’m the very last person he’d want on his case.
    You never gave me your name.”
    Her whole body language was screaming that she
    had ammunition. She said,
    “Bethany.”
    I signaled to the waitress for the bill, said,
    “Your family as I recall has lots of resources, and
    at last count, there are nine professional
    investigators in the city. They’d be glad to take
    your money. Me, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse what
    happens to your whacko brother.”
    I paid the bill, stood up, and was turning to leave
    when she near whispered,
    “I have something you want, Taylor.”
    I shook my head, had already reached the door
    when she hissed,
    “I know what happened to the priest,”
    pause,
    “and the retard.”
    Stopped me. But she was up and brushing past me,
    moving fast.
    I went after her.
    Great.
    Pursuing a young girl on the busiest street in
    Galway. My mobile shrilled, I said,
    “Fuck.”
    Pulled it from my jacket. Bethany had reached
    McDonagh’s Fish ’n’ Chip shop, the bottom of
    Quay Street. Christ, that girl could move. She
    turned, stared back at me, then ever so elegantly,
    gave me the finger. She disappeared among the
    horde of tourists being off-loaded from a coach.
    I answered the mobile, heard,
    “Jack, it’s Stewart.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Where are you?”
    “Iraq.”
    “What?”
    “The bottom of Quay Street, the fuck does it matter
    where I am?”
    He wasn’t fazed, he’d heard it too often, asked,
    “I’m at the Meyrick, can you come? We need to
    talk.”
    I said OK and rang off . The Meyrick used to be
    the Great Southern Hotel. It was never great but it
    was one more fading landmark on the city’s
    landscape. I’ve always had a sneaking fondness for
    it, mainly as they allow me in. It had moved further
    up the ladder in its new incarnation. And me, I just
    got older.
    I headed up Shop Street, marveling at the new
    outlets, a new one every day. The street was
    ablaze with buskers, mimes, panhandlers, and the
    dying remnants of a drinking school. I stopped
    outside the GBC Café. The name had come to me.
    Bethany’s brother broke the surface of my
    bedraggled mind.
    Ronan Wall.
    The last time I’d met him, he’d been charm
    personified. You’d think he’d have a hard-on for
    me. But no, despite his eye loss, his incarceration
    in the mental hospital, you’d swear I was his