He continued, fortified,

“Young Brennan got a hard-on with the amount of product they’ve got, and got a warehouse off the canal, named his version of this lethal crap Tribe. A true Galwegian, you might say, save we are going to go fucking Cromwell on his arse, right?”

He was expecting cries of the Marine type,

“Huh! Huh!”

But they were Irish cops, so he got,

“Okay.”

Not exactly gung ho, but there it was. Including Sharkey, they numbered seven. Less the magnificent than the mediocre. Sharkey added as they piled into the Black Maria,

“These shitheads have been buying up replica guns, makes them feel like gangstas, and we’ve had a whisper that a guy in Shantalla adapts those to real firepower. You’ve been warned.”

A young guy, wannabe jarhead with the mandatory buzz cut, Iraq-style pants, and desert boots, asked,

“Sarge, how many of these cunts are there?”

Ridge dug him hard in the ribs, said,

“Watch your mouth.”

The sergeant said,

“Perhaps six, but who knows? If they’re having a rave” (Jesus, no one told him how redundant that was), “could be a full deck.”

Arriving at the canal, they parked a few yards down from the said warehouse. The top floor of the building was lit up, presumably like the occupants.

They were out of the van, shields ready, a battering ram held by the cess mouth. Up the stairs, and they could hear consternation as the alarm hit. Ridge tried the door. Locked. The ram took it down in two goes.

They were in, pulled on gas masks as three canisters hit the floor, the sarge shouting,

“Everyone down, this is a raid.”

Like, what, they thought it was a gate-crasher?

Ridge could see lines of table with scientific gear assembled and cauldrons brewing; the cook was in full swing. Guys were attempting to climb out windows. Batons out, the cops were taking no chances, dropping the party like good uns. A young woman, her face streaming from the gas, stood in front of Ridge and leveled a sawed-off. Ridge shouted,

“Don’t be freaking daft.”

Behind the mask, it sounded like,

“You’re flaking gas.”

The girl, eyes streaming, muttered,

“Fucking bitch.”

And fired.

Ridge had a frozen moment, registered that the girl had braces on her teeth. Like that was relevant? Heard, as if in echo,

The Cocteau Twins

and, for fucksake, she hated their music.

Go figure.

And the ice white clarity of what Stewart must have felt as he faced those lethal barrels.

The gun jammed.

And Ridge’s baton was coming up, lashing into the girl’s mouth, smashing the braces and the ultraexpensive dental work. A guy beside her yelling,

“Yah stupid cow, this is Mr. Westbury’s daughter.”

Sharkey, beside her, pulling her back, then turning to the guy, kicked him in the balls, said,

“You are nicked, mate.”

Back at the station, debriefing done, Ridge was summoned to the superintendent’s office. She was coming off the surge of adrenaline, fear, euphoria, and the realization she could have been killed. Heady stuff as the posh papers would have it. Clancy’s office was packed with cops and a slew of booze lining the desk. A cheer went up as she entered. Clancy moved to her, took her arm, raised it, declared,

“Now this is a Guard!”

She was handed a mug full of Jameson and took a lethal swipe for her nerves. Her eyes watered. Clancy was beaming, his eyes bright with cunning and glee. He said,

“Not only have we brought down a major drug gang but the shotgun murders are solved.

And”

Long pause

“We get to nail the daughter of that fucking showboat Westbury. Girl, you have made us fucking golden.”

She wanted to go back at least two sentences, and go,

“What?”

. . The shotgun murders. But the gun was never found. Was he saying Westbury’s daughter killed Stewart?

. . It didn’t add.

No.

No way.

30

There’d been a recent rift between academics who lined up on opposing sides. The first, who affirmed Wilde as more relevant now than Joyce. The rivals, who believed, as always, that Joyce was golden, beyond criticism.

Then there were those who thought that, in an age of Fifty Shades of Grey, it was all just so much fucking literary roadkill and who gave a fuck?

Kelly had tried to replicate the meal as laid out in Joyce’s “The Dead.”

Like this.

Red and yellow jelly

Floury spuds

Figs

And

Christmas cake.

Some guy had played The Lass of Aughrim, on, she tried to recall, a harpsichord? Like where the fuck would she get one of those babes. So?

So she hummed it.

The meal had taken place at

15 Usher’s Island

in a house described as gaunt.

Well, fucking gaunt she could do. Ask her ex-husbands. She was doing Joyce as she was just a tad peeved at her man Oscar.

Because.

Taylor now knew what C33 meant and worse, who used it. Looked at the time: seven after seven in the evening. Said aloud,

“Presto.”

And poured a large Seven and Seven, because she could, and added,

“Because I’m nuts.”

She knew that beyond a shadow, had known for years and had no problem with that. In fact, if she was pissed about anything, it was that nuts was too simplistic. Bundy had told a shrink,

“I’m something new.”

As she was.

The books didn’t cover her and, God knows, she’d searched, out of a fine sense of interest. When you had a father who was seriously bat shit and he, a certifiable lunatic, was afraid of her, well, come on, you’ve got to be a wee bit curious. By one of those odd quirks, her old man had been confined in the hospital they held Robert Lowell in. It’s not the ideal start to a literary obsession but, hey, it’s far more interesting than your Ivy League gig. Lowell, heavily sedated, had seen something off in this child, she of the golden locks, enigmatic and fixed smile, whispered to her,

“Study Wilde.”

For years, she thought, maybe he’d meant, simply,

“Wild.”

As in free and unfettered. But then it was too late. Some mental osmosis had occurred and, as this concurred with her father’s suicide, the die was cast. She’d found her father swinging gently from the oak tree in the garden her mother had so industriously tended. At his feet was The Collected Oscar Wilde.

Her inheritance?

Certainly her compass.

Was the child freaked? Depends on how you term that.

She most certainly stood for a long time, staring up at him, Daddy leaking from her lips, over and over. Not in a hysterical fashion, as in frenzied howling, but more a detached “Look what the cat brung in.”

Kind of dawning, as opposed to “Look what the damn cat strung up!”

And began in her mind, over and over, like a demented sound track,

. . You are mad. What have I to do with her intrigues with you? Let her remain your mistress. You are well suited to each other. She, corrupt and shameful-you, false as a friend, treacherous as an enemy. .

When her mother finally appeared, grabbing the child, screaming,

“Oh, sweet Lord Alabama, what are you muttering, darling?” (her being a child of that there southern state),

Kelly, cold as ice, said,

“An Ideal Husband. .”

Her mother looking at her in fear and confusion and Kelly scolded her,

“One does not mutter Wilde, Mother; one intones.”

Her father had worked for a large legal firm and was one of the senior partners. Her mother swore the partners drove her husband to suicide to take the rap on serious malpractice allegations. It became a refrain of hers.

“The guilty go free, la di dah.”

Followed by the stern command,

“Kelly, make sure someone pays, sometime.”