Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

Gallagher was looking at him now with a bitter, tight little smile. “It’s true, what they say,” he said quietly. “There’s never a favor done that won’t be called in, sooner or later.”

Hackett had his hat in his hand. “Oh, you’re in the right of it there, Mr. Gallagher,” he said genially. Then he, too, lowered his voice. “The thing to do, though, is not to put yourself in the way of needing a favor, in the first place. Wouldn’t you say?”

When the doorbell rang, Quirke pulled up the lower half of his front window and put his head out and looked down into the street and was surprised to see Phoebe standing below on the step. He wrapped the front door key in his handkerchief and dropped it down to her. The street was thick with the evening’s smoky sunlight. He went back into the kitchen, where he had been eating a lamb chop with bread and sliced tomatoes; it was his standard dinner when he was dining alone, if dining it could be called. He scraped the plate into the bin under the sink and rinsed it at the tap. He rinsed his knife and fork, too, and put them with the plate on the draining board and laid a tea towel over them. Then he stopped, surprised at himself. Why try to hide the fact that he had been having his dinner? After all, Phoebe too lived alone, and must often eat by herself.

He heard her tap at the door and let her in. He always felt shy of her when there were just the two of them together. He frowned at her agitated look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong.” She stepped past him and went into the living room. There was a splash of late sunlight on the floor by the window. She turned to him, holding out a sheet of paper. “I got this today.”

“What is it?”

She handed him the page. The first thing his eye fixed on was the Mother of Mercy heading. The message was in shorthand, with Phoebe’s translation written out below it.

Dear Phoebe sorry this is the only way I can contact you I’m being kept here against my will please help me Lisa

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this from Lisa Smith? How did you get it?”

“It was in a parcel of laundry.”

“What sort of laundry?”

“Just laundry. Not mine. It was delivered to the Country Shop, and they kept it for me.”

Quirke sat down at the table and read the message again. Years ago, he had gone to the Mother of Mercy Laundry in search of a young woman called Christine Falls; later there was the business of getting Maisie out of there; and now here was a plea from another young woman, from the same place.

“I don’t understand,” he said again.

“Isn’t that laundry the one where that girl had a baby that was sent away to America? The place Grandfather Griffin was involved in funding?”

He nodded. “Yes. Your grandfather and his friends in the Knights of St. Patrick used it as a maternity home — cum — detention center for unmarried mothers. But how would Lisa Smith be in there?”

“Someone must have known she was in the house in Ballytubber, and came and took her away. I’m going to go to that Mother of Mercy place and find out what’s going on. From what she says, you’d think it was prison she was talking about, not a laundry.”

Quirke sighed. “You’ll be wasting your time. No one will tell you anything. That place is run on secrecy and fear.”

“What do you mean? It’s a laundry, for God’s sake.”

“Sit down, Phoebe,” he said. She came to the table and sat opposite him. “There are things you don’t know about, believe me. The church controls this country, the church and its agents in organizations like the Knights of St. Patrick. You can’t imagine the power they hold. They’re not ignorant, they’re not just bigots. Well, they are bigots, they are ignorant, but they’re also very clever and very subtle, and they know exactly what they’re doing. They have a philosophy, of sorts. Or ideology, I suppose, is a better word. They’re just the same as the Communists they’re always warning us about — two sides of the same coin. The child they took from Christine Falls and sent to America was only one of hundreds of babies, maybe thousands, that over the years have been sent abroad in secret and given to Catholic families to bring up as their own.” He paused, with a bitter laugh. “Hackett and I tried to put a stop to it. The only result was that I got beaten up, Hackett was taken off the case, and that was the end of it.”

Phoebe was gazing at him, baffled and indignant. “So it’s still going on?”

“I suppose so.”

“But surely it’s illegal?”

“It probably is. I don’t know.”

“But there are adoption laws.”

“Laws can always be got round, or just ignored. This is Ireland, Phoebe. There’s nothing the church can’t get away with.”

She sprang to her feet. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “The church isn’t above the law.”

He smiled up at her sadly. “In this country, it is.”

“I don’t care. I’m going up to that place and I’ll demand to see Lisa. You read the note: she needs our help.”

She started towards the door, but he reached up and caught her by the wrist. “Wait,” he said. “Sit down. Please, Phoebe.”

She hesitated, her lips set in a thin, pale line— How much she looks like her mother when she’s angry, Quirke thought — then reluctantly went back and sat down again, holding herself erect, with her hands on the table.

“Well?” she said coldly.

“I’ve told you, there’s no point in going up there. They’ll deny everything. They’ll say they never heard of Lisa Smith.”

“Then I’ll go to the Guards.”

“The Guards won’t do anything. Places like that laundry are protected — there’s an invisible fence around them that you won’t break through. Take my word for it. I tried, and I failed. Inspector Hackett failed. That’s the way it is.” She began to protest, but he held up a hand. “Wait. Listen. There might be a way to get her out, if she is there.”

“How?”

“There’s one person who can get in, if anyone can.” He stood up. “Come on. It’s a long shot, but let’s try it, at least.”

* * *

Taxis were scarce at that time of the evening, and they had to walk up to Baggot Street before they spotted one and flagged it down. The sun was setting behind the rooftops, and spiked shadows lay along the road and against the housefronts. Quirke asked Phoebe to recount again, in detail, how the parcel of laundry had got to her, but she could add nothing to what she had already told him: it had been left at the Country Shop with her name on it. “Probably it came with the ordinary delivery from the laundry,” she said. “The manageress, when she gave me the parcel, wasn’t in a mood to be helpful.”

“But why at the Country Shop?”

“Because Lisa Smith doesn’t know where I live. She must have put the note in the parcel and addressed it to me at the only place she thought I was likely to be.” She looked out at the street and the houses passing by. “How can they keep her there, virtually a prisoner, in this day and age?”

“Because they can, that’s all,” Quirke said.

The taxi crossed the canal over the humpbacked bridge and drove down into Lower Baggot Street.

“By the way,” Phoebe said, “I had lunch today with Dr. Blake.”

Quirke set his jaw and stared straight ahead. “Oh, yes?”

“Yes. She’s very frank, isn’t she.”

“Is she?”

She leaned around so that she could look him in the face. “Why, Quirke,” she said, “I do believe you’re blushing. Are you in love?”

“What a question.”

“It’s a very simple question, I think.” She sat back, smiling to herself, pleased. “I like her a lot. Though I wouldn’t have thought she was your type.”