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 Cafe. 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 best friend. Did he, as you’d expect, lacerate me, berate me for destroying his life?

Nope.

He thanked me!

I shit thee not.

Said, and I quote,

“Thanks to you, Jack Taylor, I’ve turned my life around. I have great plans for my future.”

My arse.

He was the real McCoy, a full-blown psycho, the out and full-focused ultimate predator, and he’d learnt to hide in plain sight. He could mimic human behavior to a degree of charm that probably fooled most people. A good-looking kid, blond hair falling into his remaining eye. The new artificial one was, no doubt, the best money could buy, but disconcerting in its stillness.