Free Priest by Ken Bruen

asking,
    â€˜Where did he go during the renovations?’
    He looked at me as if I was mad, said,
    â€˜How the hell would I know?’
    And stomped off.
    What had I learned? Precious little. Sat in the corner myself, wished I could have the Paddy and chaser. Ordered a pot of coffee and watched the door. Half an hour before Ridge appeared. She arrived, wearing a white T-shirt, tan jeans, sandals, the outfit declaring,
    â€˜Hey, I’m cool, not a thing bothering me.’
    Her face told a different tale – lines of worry along her forehead, her mouth a grim purse. I stood as she approachedbut the gesture didn’t impress her. She sat, said,
    â€˜I got caught in traffic’
    I indicated the coffee pot, said,
    â€˜It’s cold, I can order fresh . . .’
    She shook her head, did what police do – checked the exits, windows, number of people. You do it automatically and it never goes away. She said,
    â€˜I ever tell you I was thinking of being a nurse? I’d applied to the Guards, but if they turned me down, then nursing was my next choice.’
    The way she said it, you’d think we had frequent intimate chats. We certainly had a lot of mileage, but never by choice. I said,
    â€˜No, you didn’t tell me.’
    She was fiddling with the strap of her watch, the only sign of her agitation. She said,
    â€˜As preparation, I was working as Care Assistant with old people. One old woman, lived in Rossaville, she was very wealthy but a cow, a walking bitch.’
    The vehemence of her words was fevered. It was like Ridge was back there, with the woman. I wanted to shout,
    â€˜Go for it, girl! Get it out, vent that fucker.’
    She said,
    â€˜The day I got accepted for the Guards and had a date to report for training, I went to tell the old biddy I wouldn’t be seeing her any more. She wouldn’t hear of it. You know what she said?’
    I’d no idea and shook my head.
    â€˜You’re being paid to care for me.’
    Ridge almost smiled at the memory, said,
    â€˜I told her, the cheque’s not been written that would make me care for you.’
    I wondered how this related to what was spooking her. She said, as if reading my mind,
    â€˜That’s nothing to do with why I wanted to talk to you.’
    I must have looked confused. I’d been trying for
attentive
and she added,
    â€˜I wanted you to understand that being a Guard is what I do care about. Sometimes I think it’s all I have.’
    As if I needed that spelled out. The day I got kicked off the Force was among the darkest of my life. You hear people say, ‘What I do is not who I am.’ They were never cops. The rate of suicide among retired cops is through the roof, because you can’t stop being one. Everything for me related to my time as a Guard. I never recovered from losing it. All the disasters, one way or another, they’d their basis in that loss. I said,
    â€˜I understand.’
    I waited, figuring she’d get to it in her own time. Then,
    â€˜I’m being stalked.’
    I hadn’t known what to expect, but this threw me. Took me a few minutes to get my head round it, then I said,
    â€˜Tell me.’
    Her face was scrunched, her eyes almost closed, the effort of articulating it requiring massive effort. She said,
    â€˜The past few weeks, I’d the sense of being watched. Then late-night calls, no one there and when I hit 1471 got blocked call. My apartment – someone’s been in there. Nothing taken, just a very subtle rearranging of things. Then yesterday, this came.’
    She reached in her jeans, took out a folded envelope. I looked at it – it had her name and address on (in Irish), posted in Galway the day before. I took out a single sheet of paper, read
Say
Your
Prayers
Bitch.
    Nothing else.
    And the first thought that struck me was,
    â€˜Cody?’
    Would he be double fucking, me and Ridge?

9
    â€˜Atheism indicates strength