Benjamin Black - Elegy For April

“See you about what?”

Minor glanced at him quickly, startled. “Well, about April.”

“Are you planning to write something, something in the newspaper, about April’s disappearance?”

The fellow’s look became evasive. “I don’t know. I’m just… I’m just trying to gather the facts, such as they are.”

“And when you’ve gathered these facts, will you write a story then?”

Minor was squirming now. “Look, Dr. Quirke, as I said, I’m a friend of April’s-”

“No, you said you were a friend of Phoebe’s. You said you knew, or know, April.” He paused. “What I’m wondering, Jimmy”- he laid a menacing emphasis on the name-”is what exactly your interest is in this business. Are you being a friend or a reporter?”

“Why not both?”

Quirke leaned far back in his chair. There was, he suddenly remembered, a bottle of whiskey in one of the desk drawers. “I don’t think it works that way. I think you’d better decide which to be. There are facts and facts, and some of them might call for a friendly interpretation.”

Jimmy Minor smiled, and for a second Quirke was taken aback, so sweet a smile it was, so sudden, so open and unguarded. “Even newshounds have friends, Dr. Quirke.” Along with the smile had come a movie actor’s accent- nooshounds -and now he too sat back, and lit another Woodbine, and dropped the spent match into the ashtray with a finical little flourish. He had decided, Quirke saw, to give charm a try.

“Tell me what you want from me, Mr. Minor,” Quirke said. “Time moves on, and there’s a cadaver out there that’s not getting any fresher.”

“It’s simple,” Minor said, cocksure now and still with that winning smile. “I’m hoping you’ll help me to find out what happened to April. I like her. What’s more, I admire her. She’s her own woman. She may have a funny taste in men, but that doesn’t mean that she-” He stopped.

“That she what?”

Minor examined his smoke-stained fingers and the cigarette they were holding. “Phoebe thinks something happened to her- to April. Do you?”

“I don’t know… do you ?”

“There must be some reason for her disappearing like this.”

“Maybe she went off somewhere. Maybe she needed a break.”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do, or than Phoebe does. April would have told us she was going.”

“So you do think something happened to her.”

“It’s not what I think that matters. You’ve spoken to the family. What do they think?”

“They think she’s wild, and disreputable, and they don’t want to have anything to do with her. So they say, and I’ve no reason not to believe them.”

It came to him suddenly, with something of a mild shock, that he did not know what April Latimer looked like, that he had not even seen a photograph of her. All along she had been someone that other people talked about, worried about, someone that other people loved and, perhaps, hated, too. Now, though, suddenly, talking to this peculiar and unappetizing little man, it was as if the wraith he had been following through the fog had stepped out into the clear light of day, but still at such a distance that he could make out the form of it only, not the features. How far and for how long would he have to press on before he saw April Latimer clear?

“Tell me,” he said, “do you know this other friend of April’s, the Nigerian, Patrick Ojukwu?”

The young man’s expression altered, grew dark and sullen. “Of course,” he said shortly. “We all know him.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“We call him the Prince. His father is some kind of headman of his tribe. They have their version of aristocrats, it seems.” He snickered. “Big shots in the jungle.”

“Were they more than friends, he and April?”

“You mean, did they have an affair? I wouldn’t be surprised.” He gave his mouth a sour twist. “As I say, April had strange tastes in men. She liked a bit of spice, if you know what I mean.”

He was jealous, Quirke saw. “Was she promiscuous?”

Jimmy Minor laughed again nastily. “How would I know? She was never promiscuous in my direction, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Quirke gazed at hi m. “ Where does he live, this Nigerian chap? “ he asked.

“He has a flat in Castle Street. Phoebe, I’m sure, can tell you where.” He smiled again, this time showing the point of a sharp tooth.

Quirke stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I have a busy afternoon ahead of me.”

Minor, surprised, stubbed out his cigarette and slowly got to his feet. “Thanks for your time,” he said, with smiling sarcasm. Quirke steered him towards the door. At the dissecting room window he paused and glanced in again at the draped corpse on the slab. “I’ve never seen a postmortem,” he said, a little sulkily, as if it were a treat that had been willfully denied him.

“Come round someday,” Quirke said. “We’re always happy to accommodate the gentlemen of the press.”

WHEN MINOR HAD GONE QUIRKE SAT DOWN AGAIN AND LOOKED AT the telephone for a while, tapping out a tattoo with his fingers on the desktop. He saw Sinclair come into the dissecting room- they gave each other the usual, faintly derisory wave through the glass- then he picked up the phone and dialed Celia Latimer’s number. The maid answered, and said that Mrs. Latimer was not available at the moment. “Tell her it’s Dr. Quirke,” he said. “She expecting a call from me.” It occurred to him to wonder if Sinclair might have known April Latimer. The younger doctors in the hospital that he had asked had said that April kept herself to herself, and it seemed she did not socialize much, among the staff, anyway. He had the impression she was disliked, or resented, at least, for her standoff ishness. She might have made common cause with the cynical and jadedly laconic Sinclair, if their paths had crossed.

“Thank you for calling, Dr. Quirke,” Celia Latimer’s cold, sharp voice said in his ear. “As I told you, I’d like to have a word. Do you think you could come out to the house?”

“Yes,” he said, “I can come out. I have to see someone this afternoon.”

“Shall we say five o’clock? Would that suit you?”

Her voice was tense and tremulous, as if she were having difficulty holding something back. He did not want to go out to that house but knew he would.

“Yes,” he said, “five o’clock, I’ll be there.”

He put down the phone slowly, thinking, then rose and went into the next room. Sinclair had drawn back the sheet from the corpse- an emaciated young man with sunken cheeks and a stubbled chin- and was gazing down on it in his usual stony manner. “The Guards stumbled on him in the early hours in a lane behind Parnell Street,” he said. “Hypothermia, by the look of it.” He sniffed, nodding. “Somebody’s son.”

Quirke leaned against the stainless steel sink and lit a cigarette. “April Latimer,” he said. “A junior here. Do you know her?”

Sinclair was still eyeing the corpse, measuring it up. “I’ve seen her about,” he said. “Not recently, though.”

“No, she’s been out sick.” He tapped his cigarette over the sink and heard the tiny hiss as the flakes of ash tumbled into the drain. “What’s she like?”

Sinclair turned and leaned in a slouch against the dissecting table and pushed back the wings of his white coat and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “No idea. I don’t think I’ve spoken to her more than once or twice.”

“What’s the word on her?”

“The word?”

“You know what I mean. What do the other juniors- the men- what do they say about her?”

Sinclair studied his shoes, then shrugged. “Not much, that I’ve heard. Is she supposed to- is she supposed to have a reputation?”