Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

Costigan was smiling. “It’s what I say, Quirke: you have some imagination.” He lit another cigarette and blew smoke up at the window. Then he sat thinking for a while. “We were always disappointed in you, Quirke,” he said, “your father and I.”

“What father?”

“‘What father?’ he asks.” Costigan’s smile widened. “As if you didn’t know.” Quirke stared at him for a moment, then lifted his glass and threw back his head and gulped down the last of the whiskey. Costigan nodded, grinning, those lenses flashing reflected rainlight from the window. “That’s right,” he said, “have another drink — maybe you’ll forget all the things you’d rather not know.” He chuckled contemptuously. “‘What father?’” he said again.

Quirke felt dizzy, and his head swam, but not from the alcohol. Something had given way, like the bulkhead of a ship. He had kept it all from himself for so long, for so many years, the known thing that he refused to know. Now, suddenly, as he gazed into Costigan’s grinning face, the barrier was breached, and the truth surged in, and at last he acknowledged to himself his true origins, his true identity.

Costigan was speaking again, in a low, urgent, menacing voice: “Now listen to me, Quirke, and listen carefully. You have a daughter, just like I have. You’re going to return mine to me, from wherever you’ve hidden her. And I’d better get her back, if you want your girl safe. You know me, Quirke. You know the lengths I’ll go to.” He sat back, and took a drag at his cigarette, and expelled two slow streams of smoke from his nostrils. “So,” he said, “I’m asking you for the last time. Where is she?”

Abercrombie’s battered blue Ford nosed its way around the corner from Baggot Street into Herbert Place and pulled up under the dripping trees on the canal side of the road, opposite No. 12, which was where Costigan had told him Phoebe lived. It was still afternoon but the rain made it seem like twilight. He turned off the motor and peered out through the rain-streaked windscreen.

He had two men with him, hard cases who had worked for him before, and he knew he could trust them. One of them, Hynes, tall and thin, with a crew cut, had got out of Mountjoy only the week before. He had wanted to lie low and stay out of trouble for a while, but he owed Crombie a big favor — there was a fellow who’d been sniffing round his missus while he was inside, and Crombie had made him disappear — and so he had no choice but to come with him on this job.

The other one, Ross, sitting in the back seat smoking a cigarette, was a kid of sixteen with a little pinched white face and a widow’s peak. He looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he’d already done time for maiming a tinker his ma had been shacked up with and who’d been in the habit of giving her a beating every Saturday night. It was Ross who had gone down with Abercrombie that night to Wicklow to get Costigan’s daughter.

“What house is it?” Hynes asked.

“That one,” Abercrombie said, pointing. “The black door.”

“Is she in there?”

“Whether she is or not, we’re going in. If she’s not there, we wait. She has to come home sometime.” He turned to Ross. “You stay here, keep an eye out. We’ll watch from the window. You see her coming, tip us the nod.”

“How will I do that?”

“Open your window and wave, you stupid little fuck!”

“Can I not go in with you?” Ross said, disappointed. His voice was a nasal whine that always set Abercrombie’s teeth on edge.

“Why don’t I stay?” Hynes said. “Let him go. He’s good with locks.” He turned in the seat. “Aren’t you, Rossie?”

Ross only looked at him. Ross’s eyes were funny; they turned up at the outer corners, like a Chinaman’s. Hynes always wanted to ask him if his ma had done it with a Chink, only he was afraid to. He’d never come across anyone like Ross; Ross had no fear, no fear at all. It was uncanny.

“I told you,” Abercrombie said to Ross. “Keep your trap shut and your eyes open. Right?”

Hynes got out of the car and held the door for Abercrombie, and together they set off across the road. Abercrombie pulled the collar of his jacket tight around his neck. “Fucking weather,” he said. “Sun splitting the trees for weeks on end but today it had to rain.”

Hynes had lit a cigarette but it was sodden by the time they reached the other side of the road. He threw it into the gutter and swore.

They went up the granite steps to the front door. Hynes kept watch while Abercrombie worked on the lock. It gave him no trouble, and within seconds they were inside.

Ross saw them go in, and leaned his head back on the seat and settled down to wait. He was angry that Crombie had chosen Hynes to go in. Crombie had shown him a picture of the girl; he’d have liked to have a bit of fun with her, before they took her away.

Inside the house, the two men crept up the stairs. The place was silent, the people who lived in the other flats probably all off at work. Maybe she was, too. It didn’t matter; they could wait.

They reached the second-floor landing and stood outside the door, looking at each other, listening. No sound. Abercrombie nodded, and got to work on the lock.

The car, coming up from the Mount Street direction, had no markings, but as soon as Ross saw it he sat up. It was moving slowly, the tires throwing up little waves of rainwater on either side. Ross watched it, his eyes narrowed. Then he wriggled sideways through the gap in the seats and got behind the wheel. Crombie, the fucker, had taken the key with him. He looked out at the car again, trying to see who was in it. There were four of them, two in the front and two in the back. He couldn’t make them out; the rain was coming down too heavily. The car didn’t stop, and he relaxed.

Abercrombie and Hynes were in the flat now. They put their heads into the kitchen. Nobody. Then they walked into the living room, and stopped. Hynes turned immediately and tried to make a break for it, but when he got to the door he met two plainclothes detectives coming up the stairs. Abercrombie, standing in the doorway, heard the scuffle outside, and Hynes cursing and then giving a gasp of pain. Hackett was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, with his hat on his knee. There were two more detectives by the window, one of them on either side. Hackett stood up.

“Well now,” he said, “if it isn’t Mr. Abercrombie. Come in, come in.”

Down in the street the car with the four men in it did a rapid U-turn, its tires squealing. Ross was already out of the Ford, sprinting along the pavement, under the dripping trees. The car pulled up and the four doors flew open and the men inside, all wearing hats and gabardine raincoats, scrambled out. Ross dodged through a gap in the railings and ran along the towpath, head back, his elbows sawing and his knees going like pistons.

And Crombie had called him a stupid fuck. He didn’t have the breath to laugh, as he ran. Behind him there were shouts. Too late, boys, too slow.

He raced on.

* * *

When the phone rang, Quirke smiled at Costigan. They were still sitting at the table, and Quirke had poured himself another whiskey. It was his third, but all three measures had been small, and the dizziness was gone and his head was clear. Costigan was watching him suspiciously, his black-framed glasses riding high on his nose. The telephone kept ringing.

“Are you going to answer it?” Costigan said.

Quirke stood up and went into the living room.

Costigan sat motionless, listening. He heard Quirke pick up the receiver and speak a word or two that he couldn’t catch. Then Quirke came back and stopped in the doorway.