The Guards Read Online Free PDF Page B

policeman?”
    “No.”
    “Have you any official standing?”
    “Zero.”
    Nice to hop the word back. He said,
    “So, I have no obligation whatsoever to talk to you?”
    “Save common decency.”
    He walked round the desk, adjusted the razor crease in his trousers, sat on the edge of the desk. His feet didn’t quite reach the floor. His shoes were Bally. I know so well what I can’t afford. Argyll socks with a snazzy pattern. He said,
    “There’s no good reason not to sling your sorry ass on out of here.”
    I realised the guy loved to talk, no sound so sweet as his own voice. I said,
    “Would you be surprised to hear three girls, now dead, all worked here?”
    He slapped his knee, said,
    “Have you any idea of the hundreds of staff we put through our doors? I’d be amazed if they all lived for ever.”
    “Did you know the girl?”
    I don’t think I knew what sardonic really meant till I heard him laugh, he said,
    “I very much doubt it.”
    “Would you check, as a favour to the girl’s mother?”
    He hopped off the desk, hit the intercom, said,
    “Miss Lee, rustle up the file on a Sarah Henderson.”
    He sat down, the portrait of relaxation. I said,
    “That’s impressive.”
    “An intercom?”
    “No, how you didn’t even have to think for a second to get the girl’s name.”
    “It’s why I’m sitting here in a suit worth three grand and you’re … shall we say … in last year’s remainder.”
    The secretary arrived with a thin folder. Ford reached for glasses, pince-nez, naturally. Made a series of
    M … m …’s
    Hm … m …
    Ahh’s …
    Then closed the file, said,
    “The girl was a shirker.”
    “A what?”
    “Work shy. We had to let her go.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Indeed. She was, alas, what we call a reject. No future whatsoever.”
    I stood up, said,
    “You’re right about that. She certainly has no future.”
    …so smug believed—that desolation
had the limits full explored.
    Sutton was staying in the Skeff. Like every place else in Galway, it had recently been renovated. Any space is immediately seized for “luxury apartments”.
    I found Sutton at the bar, nursing a pint of Guinness. Inspired, I said,
    “Hey.”
    He didn’t answer, took in my vaguely healing injuries, nodded. I took a stool beside him, signalled to the barman for two pints, said,
    “Remember Cora?”
    Head shake and
    “I’m not from here, remember.”
    The pints came and I reached to pay, but Sutton said,
    “Put it on the slate.”
    “You’ve a slate?”
    “Comes with being an artist … a burnt-out artist in fact.” I thought it was best to take it head-on, said, “My hiding, your blaze, I didn’t believe they were connected. Or connected to anything else.”
    “And now?”
    “I think it’s all deliberate. I’m … sorry …”
    “Me too.”
    Silence then till he said,
    “Run it all by me.”
    I did.
    Took longer than I thought, and the slate grew. When I’d finished, he said,
    “Bastards.”
    “Worse then that.”
    “Can you prove anything?”
    “Nothing.”
    I told him about Green Guard, the security firm, said,
    “They employ the guards.”
    “They do. And you’re thinking … what?”
    “See if my assailants are there.”
    “Then?”
    “Payback.”
    “I like that. Include me in.”
    “I’d like to meet Mr Planter too. He or Ford killed that girl. I want to know how and why.”
    “Planter’s a rich fuck.”
    “Oh yeah.”
    “Probably got notions.”
    “Sure to.”
    He took a large swig. It left a white foam moustache. He asked,
    “Think he likes paintings?”
    “Oh yeah.”
    “Lemme work on that.”
    “Great.”
    “Want to grab some grub or just get wrecked?”
    “Wrecked sounds better.”
    “Barman!”
    … fears daily revealing…
Real
The lines on hour
Scarred.
    Next day, I was dying. Not your run-of-the-mill hangover but the big enchilada. The one that roars— SHOOT ME!
    I surfaced near noon. Events up till four the previous afternoon were retrieveable.