Benjamin Black - Elegy For April

Hackett sat back, frowning. Quirke put down his cup- he had not touched the tea.

“So you have no idea where she might have gone, or”- he paused a second-”or who she might be with?”

He could see her turning over the implications of his question, the second part of it in particular.

“I’ve told you,” she said, “she leads her own life.” Becoming brisk suddenly, she stubbed her half-smoked cigarette into the glass ashtray on the table before her. “I can’t afford to let myself be concerned about her. April hardened her heart against us, rejected all we stand for, gave up her religion. She lives among God knows what kind of people, gets up to things I dare not speculate on. Of course, I’m not indifferent. She is my daughter, I have to love her.”

“Would you rather you didn’t?” Quirke said, before he could stop himself.

“Didn’t what- love her?” Again that green glitter. “You’re impertinent, Mr. Quirke.”

“Doctor.”

“Forgive me. Doctor. I’m used to a different kind of medical man. Besides, from what I hear, you’re not exactly in a position yourself to challenge anyone on the duties of a parent.”

Quirke only looked at her, almost but not quite smiling, and Hackett half lifted his hand as if to forestall some violent movement. They heard from downstairs the sound of the front doorbell ringing. Mrs. Latimer turned aside and set down her cup on the tray. “That will be my brother-in-law,” she said. “I asked him to call in.”

BILL LATIMER CAME INTO THE ROOM CHUFFING LIKE A STEAM train, his hand already out, smiling his broad, cold smile. He was large and heavy, not fat, with a wide, bony face and thick, brown, wavy hair; he was much favored, it was said, by women voters. He moved with surprising lightness, even grace, and Quirke recalled that he had been some sort of athlete in his college days. “God!” he said, “isn’t the weather dire.” He shook hands with both men, addressing Quirke by name. His sister-in-law he greeted with a glancing peck to the cheek and walked past her to the table by the fireplace. “I’d kill for a cup of tea,” he said. “Will you ring for Maisie or Mary or what ever she’s called, and tell her to bring up an extra mug.”

Mrs. Latimer was wearing her chilly smile again. “This is china,” she said. “I’ll get Marie to make some indian for you.”

He laughed, turning to her. “Christ, Celia,” he said, “it’s far from china tea we were reared.” He rubbed his hands and held them out to the fire, then turned and lifted the flap of his jacket and offered his backside to the heat. He looked at Hackett and then at Quirke. “So,” he said, “that niece of mine is causing heartache again, is she? What is it this time- another boyfriend from the criminal classes?”

Mrs. Latimer had tugged a bellpull on the wall beside the fireplace, and now Marie the maid entered and was told a pot of tea was required-”Real tea, mind!” Latimer said with mock severity- and she went off again, grinning from the effect of the Minister’s jovial charm. When she had closed the door behind her they sat down all four at the little table, and Latimer accepted a cigarette from the ebony box. Hackett briefly repeated what he and Quirke had already said to Mrs. Latimer. The Minister sat back on his chair and laughed loudly; it was a laugh without humor or warmth, a noise only. “For the Lord’s sake!” he said, “she’s probably off down the country somewhere with some fellow”- he broke off and turned to his sister-in-law-”I’m sorry, Celia, but you know as well as I do what she’s like.” He turned back to Quirke again. “A terrible tearaway, I’m afraid, the same April. Our very own black sheep.”

Quirke and the policeman said nothing. The silence yawned, and then Mrs. Latimer, as at a signal, tapped her hands briskly on her knees and stood up, smoothing the pleats of her dress. “Well,” she said, “I have things to be doing. I’ll leave you three gents to it.” She crossed to the desk and took up the diary and her propelling pencil and, casting back at them a brittle, brilliant smile, left the room, shutting the door softly behind her.

Latimer sighed. “It’s hard on her, you know,” he said. “She doesn’t show it, but it is. That daughter of hers was wild from the start.” He sat back and gave the two men a hard look each. “So: what have you to tell me?”

Hackett shifted on his chair. “We went to the young woman’s flat,” he said. “To have a look.”

“How did you get in?”

“She leaves a key under a stone, for her friends,” Quirke said. “My daughter came with us, to show us where the key was.”

“And? “

Hackett hesitated. “I think, Mr. Latimer, there’s cause for concern.”

Latimer glanced at his watch. “Concern over what?”

“It didn’t look to us like she’s gone away,” Hackett said. “There are two suitcases in the wardrobe in her room. And all her makeup and stuff is there- I can’t imagine a girl going off without her lipstick.”

“Maybe she’s staying with a friend? Or as I said already, maybe she’s shacked up somewhere with some fellow.”

“Either way she’d have taken her things with her.”

The politician and the policeman eyed each other levelly.

“Then where the hell is she?” Latimer demanded angrily.

They all had finished their cigarettes, and now Quirke brought out his silver case and offered it round. Latimer rose with a sigh and went to the fireplace and stood leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece, looking into the burning heart of the coals. “That little bitch has caused nothing but trouble since the day she was born. Her father dying didn’t help- she was only nine or ten, I think it was. Who knows what it does to a child when she loses her father? That’s the charitable view. I’m inclined to think she’d have been the same even if Conor had lived.” He put a hand into his trousers pocket and nervously jingled coins. “It’s in the blood,” he said. “Her grandfather, my father, was a gambler and a drunkard.” He gave his empty laugh again. “The sins of the fathers, eh?” He looked at Hackett. “What else did you find?”

Again Hackett hesitated. “There was a bloodstain beside her bed.”

Latimer stared. “Blood?”

“Cleaned up,” the policeman said. “But of course you can’t ever really get rid of blood, as I’m sure you know. It always leaves a telltale trace”-he glanced at Quirke-”isn’t that so, Doctor?”

With a violent movement Latimer pushed himself away from the mantelpiece and began to pace the room, so that Quirke and the policeman had to swivel on their chairs to keep him in view. He stopped, staring at the floor and scowling. “What about the bed?” he asked. “Was there blood there, too?”

“You’d expect that, wouldn’t you, if it was on the floor,” Hackett said, “but I didn’t find any. Only between the floorboards. I have a couple of my fellows in there now, going over the place.”

Latimer set off pacing again, smoking his cigarette tightly in rapid, sharp drags. “This is not what I expected to hear,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “This is serious.” He stopped, turned. “It is serious, isn’t it?”

Hackett lifted his shoulders and let them drop again. “We’ll have to see what the forensics fellows say. I’ll have their report tomorrow.”

“Who are they,” Latimer asked sharply, “these fellows? They’ll report direct to you, yes?- they won’t go blabbing around the place?” Inspector Hackett chose not to reply but sat as stolid as a bullfrog, gazing before him. “I mean,” Latimer said, “I wouldn’t want Celia to hear any tittle-tattle before… before there was anything official known.”