Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

“I told you, Leon and I didn’t talk very often. He disapproved of me, didn’t like my politics. The feeling was mutual.”

“But you must have seen him, the odd time?”

“Oh, we saw each other for a pint, now and then.” He noticed Hackett’s look, and sighed. “You’re thinking I wasn’t much of a father. Maybe I wasn’t. But I loved him, all the same. I just wasn’t much good at showing it. He understood. He was the same himself. As my old mother used to say, we’re not the kissing kind.”

“Did you ever meet his girlfriend?”

Corless stared. “Did he have a girlfriend? That’s news to me.”

“A girl called Lisa.”

“Lisa who?”

“Smith, she calls herself,” Hackett said, “though we’re not entirely sure that’s really her name. It seems she was there, the night your son died.”

“Was where? Where was she?”

Hackett got out his cigarettes. “Will you smoke a Player’s?”

“No, thanks, I’ll stick to the Woodbines.”

The both lit up. At the first intake of smoke Corless coughed so hard he had to put the whiskey down on the draining board so as not to spill it. “Jesus Christ,” he said, gasping, “one of these days I’ll bring up a lung.” He stood with his head lowered, taking deep breaths, then picked up his glass again and drank. The cigarette was still burning in his fingers.

“It seems,” Hackett said, “this girl, this young woman, Lisa, had been to a party of some kind with your son. They were coming home late and they had a row, and she made Leon stop, and she got out of the car to take a taxi. Next thing she saw was the car in flames, apparently.”

Corless stood motionless, watching him. “And then what did she do?”

“She got into a panic, I think, and went home.”

“She went home? She didn’t try to help Leon, she didn’t call an ambulance, or the Guards?”

“I don’t think there was anything to be done, by that stage,” Hackett said, looking down at his hat where he had put it on top of the pile of books on the floor beside his chair. “Not anything that would have helped your son, anyway.”

Corless’s mouth was set in a thin, bitter line. “Who is she, anyway?” he asked.

“Well, that’s what we don’t know, you see.”

“What do you know?”

Hackett sipped his whiskey.

“It’s a queer sort of a situation,” he said. “You remember Dr. Quirke, that was here with me the other day, the pathologist? It seems the girl, Lisa, knew his daughter from a course they were in together, and came to her and asked for her help, saying she was frightened and needed somewhere to hide.”

“What was she frightened of?”

“She wouldn’t say. Anyhow, Dr. Quirke’s daughter brought Lisa to a house down in Wicklow, a holiday house that the family had, and left her there. Later on, Phoebe, Dr. Quirke’s girl, got worried, and went back down to the house, only to find that she was gone, that Lisa was gone, without leaving a trace behind her. We also searched in Lisa’s flat, up in Rathmines, or what we think was her flat, anyway, but there was nothing there, either. She just — well, she just vanished.”

Corless’s eyes were fixed on Hackett. “So you’re taking this as another sign that Leon didn’t die by accident?”

“We don’t know how to take it, Mr. Corless, and that’s the truth. It has us baffled, I don’t mind confessing.”

Corless lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one and dropped the butt into the sink, where it made a tiny hiss.

“You asked me, when you came in,” he said, “if Leon ever talked to me about his work. What was that about?”

“I went to see Leon’s boss, a chap called O’Connor, up in the department. Do you know him?”

“I know of him. Patriot, church stalwart, Knights of St. Patrick, that kind of thing.”

“That’s the man. He said Leon was doing work, keeping some kind of statistics, in the mother-and-child area. Know anything about that?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Leon didn’t talk to me about his work.”

“Was he secretive, would you say?”

“It wasn’t that. He knew I wouldn’t be interested. I don’t care a damn what this rotten gang, our so-called government, gets up to.”

“But your son,” Hackett said softly, “was a government employee.”

“You don’t have to tell me that!” Corless snapped. “As I said to you about your own”—he smiled thinly—“profession, I never hold it against a man how he earns his living.” He looked aside, blinking. “I never told him how proud of him I was. It’s another thing not to forgive myself for.”

“Right. Right.” Hackett had finished his whiskey, and now he balanced the empty glass on his knee. He pursed his lips and considered his hat again. “It’s only,” he said, “that when I began to ask about Leon’s work, Mr. O’Connor seemed to get very agitated, and talked about things being delicate, and mentioned the Archbishop’s Palace.” He glanced at Corless and smiled. “I find that when I hear the Archbishop spoken of by a person of position and power such as Mr. O’Connor, my ears begin to tingle, in an interested sort of way.”

Corless closed his eyes and massaged the skin at the bridge of his nose with a thumb and two fingers. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, “but I can’t concentrate these days. Even when I’m not thinking about Leon, my mind still seems to be somewhere else all the time. It’s like being in that state when you wake up after being knocked out.”

“I’m sorry,” Hackett said. “I should take myself off and leave you alone.”

Corless waved a hand. “No, no,” he said, “don’t mind me, I’m just — I’m just—”

“You’re exhausted, Mr. Corless,” Hackett said. “That’s all it is. Sorrow is a wearying thing.”

Corless poured himself another drink. This time he didn’t bother to offer Hackett a refill.

“Tell me,” he said, “tell me what it is you’re talking about. Tell me what you think is going on here. All my life I’ve had to guard against imagining that there are conspiracies all around me. It’s an occupational hazard for an old revolutionary.” He chuckled dully. “Look at Stalin. But from what you say, or at least from the tone you say it in, it seems to me you have the idea that there’s a great big mess under our feet here, and that Leon’s death is part of that mess. Am I right?”

Hackett took his time before answering.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s to say, I know that there must be a whole lot more here than meets the eye, only I can’t tell you what it is. There’s not only the death of your son, there’s this young one, Lisa, and the way she disappeared. There’s Mr. O’Connor nearly wetting himself when I asked him a few simple questions about Leon’s work in the department.” He picked up his hat. “Every web, Mr. Corless, has a spider sitting at the center of it. That’s my experience, anyway.”

He stood up. His sweat-soaked cotton shirt was cold now, and he shivered. The feeling made him think of childhood, of being on the beach on gray summer days, his teeth chattering, with a wet towel wrapped around him and clamped under his armpits. Nothing ever gets lost, he thought, it’s all in there, somewhere, ready to spring out at the least hint of an invitation. He could imagine what poor Corless was having to put up with these days, the past pouring out, an unstoppable torrent.

“I’ll go now, Mr. Corless,” he said. “Thank you indeed for the whiskey. It was a great tonic, though I imagine I’ll have to have a little sleep later on in the afternoon.”

Corless walked behind him down the stairs. The air in the street was blue with exhaust smoke and the dust thrown up by wheels and hooves and feet.