Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

Rain whispered against the window.

“You know I’ll find her, sooner or later,” Costigan said. “We could behave like civilized men and sort this out between us, here and now. Don’t you think that would be the best thing to do, the simplest thing? What’s the point of fuss and bother and all the rest of it?”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Quirke said.

Costigan still had his eye on the street. “I’d rather stand,” he said.

“Suit yourself. I’m going to have a drink. Do you want one? Oh, I forgot — you never touch the stuff.”

He went into the kitchen, taking his time, and reached up for the bottle of Jameson at the back of the wall cupboard beside the window. As he did, he glanced down into the street. He was sure Costigan was lying; his men were bound to be down there somewhere, waiting for word from their boss to come clattering back up the stairs, carrying whatever it was they had used to break open the door. He could see no one, however, and there were no cars parked at the curb.

He took a tumbler from the draining board and polished it with a tea towel. He had balanced his cigarette on the edge of the sink. Why, he wondered, did cigarettes always seem to send up a thicker stream of smoke when they were set down on something cold, like the porcelain of the sink, or a marble shelf? Or was it just something he imagined? The world was full of things he didn’t know the reason for.

Costigan appeared in the doorway and stood there with his hands in his pockets. Quirke poured himself a tot of whiskey, measuring it carefully.

“Watching your intake, are you?” Costigan said. “Have you been back to St. John of the Cross since we last ran into each other?”

“I don’t think so. When did we meet last?”

“Oh, I see you about, frequently.”

“Do you?” Quirke took a sip of his drink. The sharpness of the whiskey burned his tongue pleasantly. “I don’t see you.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Quirke turned with the glass in his hand. “So you’re keeping watch on me, are you?”

“I keep a watch on a lot of people.”

“I’m sure you do. Look, Costigan, you’ve asked what you came to ask, and I’ve given you my answer. I’m tired.”

“I can believe it. You’ve had a busy day.”

Quirke sat down at the table by the window. Costigan hesitated, then came forward and pulled out a chair and sat too.

“How are we going to resolve this, Quirke?”

“I’m not sure we are going to resolve it. For a start, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What kind of resolution could there be?”

Costigan ran his fingers over the smooth plastic top of the table. “You know, I could have you charged with removing my daughter from a place where she was legally residing.”

Quirke laughed. “Go ahead. Besides, I didn’t remove her. She came of her own free will, despite the best efforts of Sister what’s-her-name.”

“Dominic,” Costigan said darkly. “Sister Dominic. Who’ll shortly be on her way to the mission fields in the Congo.” He paused, his jaw working. “How’s Malachy?” he asked.

“He’s not well.”

“Is that so? I heard something, all right. Is he bad?”

“Yes, he’s bad.”

“Sorry to hear it.” Costigan set both fists on the table now. “Come on, Quirke, where’s my daughter, what did you do with her? Was that bastard Hackett with you when you went to the laundry?”

Quirke took another, sparing sip of his drink and sat back in his chair, crossing an ankle on a knee. He felt slightly light-headed; he supposed he must be afraid, after all. Yet still there was that strange calm inside him. He could feel the whiskey doing its work on him.

“I know what it was that Leon Corless found out about you and what you’re up to,” he said.

The lenses of Costigan’s spectacles caught the light from the window and turned opaque; they looked like two coins placed over his eyes. “Is that so?” he said. “What am I up to, then?”

“I know about the money you’re making in America. When Garret Griffin and Josh Crawford were running the thing, at least they weren’t in it for profit.”

“Profit? What profit? Have you any idea what the overheads are in an operation like this?”

Quirke laughed again. “The overheads! Jesus, Costigan.” He stopped laughing, and leaned forward across the table, lowering his voice to almost a whisper: “Tell me, did you have Leon Corless murdered?”

“What do you mean, murdered? The young pup was at a party and got drunk and ran his car into a tree.”

“No, he didn’t. He was dead, or unconscious at least, before he got anywhere near that tree.” Those glossy lenses flashed at him. “What happened, Costigan? Was it another one of those mistakes your people are prone to making? Did you send some of your boys to frighten him, to rough him up a bit, maybe, and warn him to stay away from your business and keep his mouth shut about the things Lisa had told him and the other things that he found out for himself? And then it all went wrong?”

Costigan leaned away from him, putting his head far back.

“You have some imagination, Quirke,” he said.

Quirke lifted the whiskey glass and was surprised to see that it was empty. Should he have another? He looked at his watch. Ten minutes; he would wait ten minutes. He still felt slightly dizzy. Someone was calling to him, a voice in his head. He shut his eyes for a moment. He seemed to feel a finger against his lips. Not speakable . He opened his eyes and looked about himself, and for a second he didn’t know where he was.

“What’s the matter with you?” Costigan growled.

“What?”

“Are you sick too, like Malachy?” He gave a low laugh. “Jesus, if I wait long enough you’ll both be gone and out of my hair.”

Quirke went to the sink and took up the whiskey bottle and poured a measure into his glass. He must hold on; he mustn’t let the dizziness overcome him. He willed the voice in his head to be silent. Whose voice was it, anyway? Evelyn, yes, it was Evelyn’s voice, wasn’t it? That was all right. She would speak to him; she would tell him things.

He returned to the table. A thought occurred to him. “Where’s Lisa’s mother, Costigan?” he said. “What does she think of all this?”

“My wife is dead,” Costigan said.

“Ah. Sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry.” Costigan was sweating, and his spectacles had slipped down the moist bridge of his nose. He pushed them back into place with a fingertip. “She died when Lisa was seven. Lisa never got over it. That’s her trouble.” He looked up at the window. “You know what it’s like, Quirke, worrying about a daughter, watching over her and worrying about her.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” Quirke said. “But I would never have been worried enough to put my daughter into the Mother of Mercy Laundry.”

Costigan’s look hardened. “I knew what I was doing,” he said. “She was going to have that fellow’s bastard. Bad enough he was getting ready to try to destroy me, he had to ruin my daughter, too.”

“Your reputation, your daughter. Would you have sold her child to the Americans, when the time came, along with all the other ones?”

Costigan brought the side of his fist down hard on the table, making Quirke’s whiskey glass jump.

“No damn Commie’s son was going to dirty my family’s reputation!” he snarled. “You think I’d let that get out, that Sam Corless’s whelp had got my daughter in the family way? You think I’d allow that? No, by Christ. No Corless was going to destroy Joe Costigan, that’s for sure.”

Quirke retrieved his glass from the table, where Costigan’s white-knuckled fist was still braced. “I know you had him killed, Costigan. Your people followed him that night, and stopped him, and hit him on the head and doused the car with petrol and set it on fire and then ran it into a tree to make it look like an accident, or a suicide. Abercrombie, was that who you sent? If so, he botched the job. It didn’t look like an accident. It didn’t look like anything other than what it was. My second-in-command at the hospital spotted straightaway that before he died Corless was unconscious from a blow to the head. That’s part of your trouble — you’re careless, and the people you hire to do your dirty work are more careless still.”