Read Online Sanctuary by Ken Bruen - Free Book Online Page B

like a lost angel. Serena May came too, heading the line of the dead, all accusing, all reaching out with wasted limbs, reaching to bring me with them, and me howling, ‘I’m already there.’
    And behind the procession of the departed, always, a shadowy nun, singing like a nursery rhyme,
Catch me if you can
.
    There were odd moments, days, I don’t know, of partial lucidity, when I’d stagger out, needing a tiny drop of whiskey just to get dressed and buy food, knowing I had to have something in my system. Most of it came back up. Still, I persisted.
    The day I got by on one mouthful of booze, I knew the worst was over. Physically, anyway. The guilt, themental torture, I was too fucked to be able to recoil under its lash. It could wait; it usually did.
    Â 
    Noon, how many days later I had no idea, I opened my eyes, sheets twisted round my neck like a shroud, and felt better. I moved off the bed, which reeked to high heaven of – well, you can imagine. My legs were shaky and for a moment I thought,
I’m not able to walk
, but then they began to steady and I got to the bathroom. And there I was. A full grey beard had grown. My eyes, though shadowed, were clearing, the awful sickness had left them. I got into the shower and for over half an hour I scrubbed like a demented thing. Finally, I emerged, scaled to the core but clean. I shaved off the beard and my hand had only had the vaguest tremble. The lone whiskey bottle had maybe two inches left but I ignored it.
    I made some tea, scrambled some eggs, added burnt toast and got most of it down. I gathered up my ruined clothes, put them in the washer and found, as Kristofferson sang, my cleanest dirty shirt, and a pair of jeans I’d never worn as they’d been too tight. Now they hung off me like an abandoned prayer. I had to tie my belt twice round to hold them up.
    I charged the phone and found one of Stewart’s pills, which I took, not knowing what the hell it was. Twenty minutes later, I was mellowing out.
    When the phone was ready, I took a deep breathand clicked on the messages. Six from Ridge – where the hell was I? – and eight from Stewart, insisting I call him. His last call said, ‘I’ve found her.’
    The ex-nun?
    Then a voice I didn’t recognize came on. There must have been a handkerchief over the mouthpiece to disguise the voice, but it was definitely a woman.
    â€˜Ah Jack, you have been a biblical disappointment. You sank into the pit and so are no longer a worthy adversary. May the Lord leave you in the inferno of your own making. Your friend, ah, he was so clever and I very nearly underestimated him, but his own ingenuity led by pride caused, shall we say, his loss of focus. I got your number from him, albeit unwillingly. God spoke, as I prepared to send him to his Maker I heard the Word, and so he was spared. God’s ways are not ours, he should have died, And he will, if he continues to meddle.
Salve et genuflectis
. I have his phone, I have your number,
sea secundis mea
. Benedictus.’
    Jesus, chilled me to the bone.
    I rang Stewart’s number. No dial tone, nothing.
    I grabbed my coat, got moving.
    Â 
    Stewart lived in a small terraced house near Cooke’s corner. I rang the doorbell for five minutes. Finally a man looked out of the house next door and said, ‘That young lad just went to the shops.’
    I waited and finally here he was, dressed in a fine suit as usual, but with a fading bruise on his forehead.
    He smiled, said, ‘Ah, Maigret shows up, if a little late.’
    I didn’t know what to say.
    â€˜How are you?’
    Seemed so inadequate.
    He said, his voice strangled, ‘I found our nun, but in retrospect, I think she found me.’
    He took out his keys and we went in. His house reeked of patchouli.
    He said, ‘I’m going to make some tea, and if you really need a drink, there’s a bottle of gin in the cupboard.’
    Jesus, I needed