Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

“I’m told you’re not the first one to ask after her,” the nun said. “One of our former girls, Maisie Coughlan, was here, making inquiries, asking questions. Did you know that?” she turned to Phoebe. “Maisie works at your — at Dr. Griffin’s house now, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does,” Phoebe said. “It was she who told us that Lisa was here.”

Again there was a silence; again Quirke could almost hear the nun’s brain busy at its calculations.

“We all wonder how she’s getting on, you see,” Quirke said.

“I can tell you that she’s getting on very well,” the nun snapped back at him. “All our girls get on well.”

“I’m sure they do, Sister, I’m sure they do. But I’m sure also that she’d welcome a visit from Phoebe. Everyone, always, likes a visit, don’t you find? Especially when they’re cut off from the outside world, as you all are here, at the laundry.”

“I’d hardly put it that way,” Sister Dominic said frostily.

“Wouldn’t you?” Quirke smiled.

Sister Dominic looked over the desk again, like a general surveying a set of campaign maps, eyeing in turn each of the things that were on it: the pencil, the blotter, an inkwell, a box of paper clips, a big black telephone, the cut-glass ashtray, into which at intervals Quirke insouciantly flicked his ash, to her obvious, tight-lipped irritation. Sister Dominic was not a tolerant woman. She had her standards. Her church was the Church Militant; not for her those pale, languishing saints, the ones clutching lilies and prayer books, their eyes cast upwards in meek devotion, their pink little mouths open in adoration and awe, to whom so many of her fellow nuns had dedicated themselves. No, give her vigor and certitude. Her favorite passage in all of Scripture was the one in which Christ made a whip of cords and drove the money lenders out of the Temple.

“The thing is, Dr. Quirke,” she said, “we don’t really welcome — that’s to say, we can’t really accommodate unannounced visits. Our day here is highly structured, as it must be. You’ll know that from your own work, at the hospital. Institutions have their rules, which must be observed.”

“I appreciate that, of course,” Quirke said with a show of bland urbanity. “And yet, since we’ve come all this way, I do feel I can ask you to bend the rules, a little, just this once?”

Somewhere in the building a machine switched itself off, adjusting the silence in the room.

“I wonder, Dr. Quirke,” the nun said slowly, “if you are aware of who Lisa is. More to the point, I wonder if you know that her father is Joseph Costigan. You’ll remember Mr. Costigan?” She turned to Phoebe again. “He was a close associate of your grandfather’s.”

“Oh, yes,” Quirke said brightly, “I know Mr. Costigan, I know him well. He’s a formidable man — I know that, too.”

“And do you know that it was Mr. Costigan himself who brought Lisa to us, who gave her into our care?”

“Yes, I would have guessed as much.”

Phoebe was sitting on the edge of her chair; her palms, she found, were damp.

“Dr. Quirke,” Sister Dominic said, with the resigned air of a person compelled against her will to make a frank disclosure, “I have to tell you that Lisa Costigan is in a rather disturbed state.”

“I know that she’s pregnant,” Quirke said flatly.

Again the nun did that slow, mechanical blink.

“Yes,” she said, “as it happens, Lisa is, to her great misfortune, expecting a child. That’s why she’s here, of course.”

“Of course?” Quirke said softly. “But this is a laundry, Sister, not a lying-in hospital. As I understand it.” The nun was about to speak, but he cut her off. “There’s something that perhaps you don’t know, Sister,” he said, letting his voice harden a little. “Her boyfriend, Lisa’s boyfriend, the father of her child, died in the early hours of last Friday morning. He was found in his car, crashed against a tree in the Phoenix Park. The Gardaí, I have to tell you, suspect that his death may not have been an accident. In fact, they think he may have been — well, murdered.”

The nun fixed him with a level look. It seemed to Phoebe that her pale features had grown paler. Her fingers were doing an agitated little dance on the blotter.

“I knew the young man was dead, yes,” she said. “I heard nothing of any suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.”

“Well, there you are,” Quirke said, lifting both hands and letting them fall again. “The fact of the matter is that Leon Corless — that was the young man’s name, if you didn’t know it — is dead, murdered perhaps, and his pregnant girlfriend is here, under your care.”

Sister Dominic drew her narrow shoulders upwards. “Are you suggesting, Doctor, that there’s a link of some kind between this so-called suspicious death and Lisa Costigan’s presence here with us?”

Quirke gave all the signs of pondering this carefully. “Yes,” he said at last, “I think that is what I’m suggesting.”

Phoebe watched him intently. He, in turn, did not take his eyes from the nun’s face. They could both hear the nun breathing.

“And what,” she asked, “could this link be?”

“I don’t know. That’s one of the things I’d like to have a word with Lisa about. In fact”—he drew his chair an inch or two closer to the desk—“in fact, Sister, what I would suggest is that Lisa should collect her things and come away with us, with Phoebe and me, today. Now.”

“That’s out of the question,” the nun said, with a dismissive little laugh. “Her father expressly—”

“Yes, I’m sure her father insisted that she should see no one, talk to no one, and certainly not leave the laundry, without his permission.”

“Exactly.”

“But I, Sister Dominic, I’m here to — how shall I put it? — I’m here to countermand his orders. I’m here to fetch Lisa and take her away, to a place of safety.”

“Safety?” the nun said, in a deepened voice. “Are you implying that she’s in some kind of danger here?”

“I believe,” Quirke said slowly, “that she’s in danger generally. I can’t say exactly what kind of danger. But let me put it this way: I know her father, I know the kind of man he is. He is a danger. And he’s not to be trusted with the safekeeping of his daughter, nor”—he tapped the desk with the tip of his middle finger—“with the care of her unborn child.”

The nun sat back in her chair, her mouth set in a thin line and her eyes narrowed.

“Dr. Quirke,” she said very softly, “these are outrageous charges.”

“Yes,” Quirke said calmly, “they are, aren’t they. But so are the circumstances. I know as well as you do what goes on here, Sister. Therefore I suggest that you do as I say, and tell Lisa that I’m here, that Phoebe is here, and that we’ve come to take her away.”

“This is ridiculous, I can’t possibly—”

“Yes, you can, Sister. And you will.”

Phoebe felt a thrill of excitement rising in her breast. The nun took a deep breath, controlling herself.

“I’ll phone the girl’s father,” she said, picking up the receiver. “I’ll phone him now and tell him the scandalous accusations you’ve made against him and—”

She stopped, watching, as if mesmerized, Quirke’s hand as it slowly approached and slowly took the receiver from her and replaced it gently on its cradle.

“You will call no one,” he said in a calm, low voice. “Instead, you’ll tell one of the sisters to fetch Lisa Costigan here, with her belongings.” The nun’s pale blue eyes were wide. “Believe me, Sister, this is the best course to follow, for all concerned. In fact, it’s the only course open to you.”