Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

They came to the canal, and soon were passing by Portobello Bridge. Quirke looked across the water and saw Isabel Galloway’s little house. He thought of the first night he had spent there. At a late hour, while Isabel slept, he had got up from her bed and leaned by the window, looking out into the moonlit night, and had seen two swans paddling these waters side by side, unreal-seeming creatures, pale enough to be their own ghosts.

He should ring Isabel. He had treated her badly, dropping out of her life without a word. She had said she loved him. Love, Quirke had long ago decided, was a word people used when their own emotions overwhelmed them and they felt helpless. It was like saying someone was a genius, or a saint, as if at a certain point a barrier was crossed and ordinary human standards no longer applied.

“When I came down here first to work,” Hackett said, “straight out of the training depot at Templemore, the city seemed to me a mighty place, bigger than anything I could ever have imagined. I’d get dizzy just seeing so many people in the streets, all of them rushing around, going places, bumping into each other and cursing and hurrying on. Where I came from, no one was ever in a hurry — where would they have been hurrying to?” He shifted on the seat. His hat was balanced on his knees, and he drummed his fingers on the brim. Quirke guessed he was craving a cigarette. “It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that this place is just another village. Look at this business with young Corless. He dies in the middle of the night, and the very next day your daughter meets his girlfriend.”

“Phoebe didn’t meet Lisa Smith,” Quirke said. “Lisa Smith came to her. And I’m not sure it was such a coincidence as it seems.”

Hackett glanced at him sidelong. “How so?”

“They’d been in a training course together. Maybe Lisa Smith knew who Phoebe was, maybe she knew she was my daughter, and that I knew you. Our names have been in the papers, yours and mine.”

“By the Lord Harry,” Hackett said, laughing, “if that’s the case, she certainly chose a complicated way of seeking the help of the law. She could have gone into any Garda barracks and told them who she was and asked for shelter.”

“Phoebe said she was frightened, that’s why she was looking for a place to hide.”

“She didn’t stay in hiding for long.”

“You think she left Ballytubber of her own free will?”

“I don’t know what else to think. Who knew she was down there, except your daughter?”

They were on Rathmines Road now. There was little traffic. Three-quarters of the way up, they turned right onto a narrow side street of tall, red-brick terraced houses and stopped at No. 17. The street on both sides was lined with cars, and Wallace had to go off in search of somewhere to park. Quirke and the Inspector stood on the pavement and looked up at the house. It had a dingy aspect. The windows were grimy, and tattered lace curtains hung crookedly in a few of them.

“An insalubrious establishment, by the look of it,” Hackett said.

There was a panel of electric bell pushes beside the door, but either the labels accompanying them were blank or the names were smudged. Hackett shrugged, and pressed the second-floor bell. They waited, but no one came. Next he pressed the bell for the ground floor. They heard it ringing faintly inside. After a moment, at the window nearest to them, the curtain twitched and a pale, pinched face looked out at them and quickly withdrew. Time passed. Hackett pressed the bell again, and kept his finger on it. Eventually the door opened a little way and there appeared in the crack the same pale, anxious face they had seen at the window.

“Good morning,” Hackett said, in his special, detective’s voice. “We’re looking for a Lisa Smith. Do you know is she in?”

The head shook. It seemed to belong to a young man, though it might as easily have been a young woman’s. “No Lisa Smith here,” it said.

Hackett put his hand against the door and pushed, gently but firmly. The figure inside resisted, then stepped back, and the door swung open. A smell of frying bacon came from somewhere at the rear of the house.

The person in the hall was definitely a young man. He wore a dirty white singlet and a pair of extremely dirty khaki shorts. He was barefoot. He had buck teeth and a bad case of acne. He looked uncertainly at the two men standing on the doorstep.

“And you are?” Hackett said.

“How do you mean?” the young man asked suspiciously.

“I mean”—very slowly and deliberately—“what is your name?”

“Prentice. Why?”

Hackett smiled with his teeth. “Because I always like to know the name of the person I’m speaking to. Now: Lisa Smith. You say she doesn’t live here?”

“Are you from the landlord?” the young man asked suspiciously.

“We are not from the landlord, no. But you could tell me the landlord’s name, and where I might find him.”

Prentice’s initial anxiety was abating, and he had taken on a cocky look. “Who’s asking?” he said, with the beginnings of a sneer.

“I’m Detective Inspector Hackett, and this”—indicating Quirke—“is my associate.”

The young man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He turned to Quirke. “What’s going on?” he said.

Quirke made no reply. Hackett’s smile was hardening by the moment.

“What’s going on,” he said, “is what I already told you. We’re inquiring after a young lady by the name of Lisa Smith.”

Prentice shook his head. “I told you, there’s no one lives here by that name.”

Hackett sighed. He was a forbearing, slow-moving man, but there were times when he felt his patience sorely tried. This young fellow, in his filthy undershirt and shorts, was not particularly offensive, certainly not as offensive as some of the members of the public it had fallen to the detective to question in his time, yet there was something about him, something of the ferret, or the stoat, that was distinctly unappealing.

“All right,” Hackett said, keeping his voice calm and low. “Then tell me the name of the landlord, and where he can be found.”

“I only know the fellow who comes for the rent.”

“And what’s his name?”

“Abercrombie.”

Quirke and Hackett looked at each other. Hackett turned back to the young man in the doorway. “Abercrombie,” he said, in a flat voice. “The rent collector’s name is Abercrombie.”

“That’s right. I don’t know his first name.”

“Abercrombie,” Hackett said again. “Real people haven’t got names like Abercrombie. You wouldn’t be pulling my leg, would you?”

“That’s his name!” the young man said indignantly. “I swear.”

Hackett shrugged. “All right,” he said. “And we’d find him where?”

“He has a room over a chip shop down there.” He gestured in the direction of Rathmines Road. “It’s called Luigi’s. It’s just around the corner.”

“And Mr. Abercrombie lives upstairs, does he?”

The young man tittered. “I’d say it’s more that he roosts there than lives. It’s some kip.”

Hackett was about to say something more, but instead he abruptly snapped shut his traplike mouth and stalked off.

“Is he really a detective?” the young man asked as Quirke was turning away. He did his squeaky little laugh again. “Old Crombie will have a heart attack.”

Quirke followed Hackett and caught up with him at the corner. Hackett shook his head. “The youth of today,” he said, “God help us.”

They turned to the left and spotted the sign for Luigi’s a little way down.

“Tell me something,” Quirke said as they walked along. “Do you ever take a day off?”