Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

“Ah. That’s good. I like that.”

The flame under the percolator was too high and the coffee began to overflow the lid. She stepped away from him, and turned down the gas.

“Why don’t you marry me?” he said.

She threw him a sidelong glance. “How funny you are,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to be.”

She took the percolator off the stove and put it to stand on a cork mat on the table. “Let me tell you my joke,” she said. “It is the only one I know, but it is such a good joke I don’t need to know any others. The schlemiel —you know what is a schlemiel ?”

“I think so.”

“Well, the schlemiel is having his breakfast. He butters a slice of toast, which he accidentally lets drop to the floor. It falls with the buttered side up — up, you understand? ‘ Oy vay ,’ the schlemiel says, ‘I must have buttered the wrong side!’” She smiled. “Is good, yes? But you’re not laughing.”

“Is that me,” he said, “am I the schlemiel ?”

“A little bit, sometimes. But it doesn’t matter. The dawn is coming up, remember, behind you. Here, carry the coffee for me.”

He didn’t move. They stood facing each other. They could hear the rain beating on the little garden outside. Thunder muttered in the distance — the storm was moving away. Neither spoke. A plume of steam rose from the spout of the coffeepot. In the other room, Phoebe and Paul Viertel were debating the future of mankind. Evelyn put out her hand, and Quirke took it in his. The candle flame wavered and then was still again, a glowing, yellow teardrop.

* * *

When his taxi came he offered Phoebe a lift, but Paul had said he would walk her home, and the two set out together in the glistening darkness. When they had gone, Evelyn stood with Quirke at the front door for a minute, amid the damp odors of the night. The taxi waited, exhaust smoke trickling out at the rear and its windows stippled with raindrops. Quirke had wanted to stay, but they had become suddenly shy of each other again, and now Evelyn kissed him, brushing her lips lightly against his, and stepped away from him, back into the house. They had agreed they would meet tomorrow for lunch. They would talk about everything, everything. The taxi man revved his engine impatiently.

It was midnight when Quirke got to his flat. He didn’t switch on the lights, but stood at the window in the darkness, smoking a cigarette.

Father. Mother. He spoke the words aloud, testing them. They fell from him with a dead sound.

The phone rang, making Quirke jump. It was Sergeant Jenkins with a message from Hackett, summoning him to the Phoenix Park.

* * *

He saw the squad cars stopped at the side of the road and the ambulance with its back doors wide open, shedding a cold white light on the scene. Vague figures stood about, as if idly waiting for something to happen. He got out of the taxi and made his way down the grassy slope. The drenched grass was slippery and the ground underneath was still awash and he had to take care not to lose his footing. Hackett was standing with his hands in his pockets and his hat pushed to the back of his head. He greeted Quirke with a nod. They looked down at the body of Joseph Costigan, his black horn-rimmed spectacles snapped at the bridge and twisted askew.

“Broken neck,” Hackett said. He pulled at his lower lip with a finger and thumb. “Expertly done, too.”

Costigan’s suit was soaked from the rain, and there was mud on his face. He lay somewhat on his side, his legs drawn up and one arm flung wide. There was a leaf in his hair. The light from the ambulance gleamed on the lenses of his broken spectacles. His eyes were open and so was his mouth, as if he had died in amazement. This was the man, Quirke reflected, who years before had sent men to beat him up as a warning against interfering in the business of exporting babies to America, and then had sent the same men to torture Dolly Moran to death because she knew too much. Costigan, the ultimate fixer, had represented, for Quirke, all the vileness and cruelty of life, and now he was dead, and Quirke felt nothing, nothing at all. He wondered if his indifference, like his acknowledgment at last of who his parents had been, was perhaps a sign that “something momentous” had indeed occurred. Was change possible, radical change? He had never believed it before. Now it was as if a door that had long been wedged shut had opened a crack and let in a narrow chink of light.

The bark of the lower part of the big tree under which they stood was badly charred and the branches above were blackened and bare. The night’s rain had brought out a rank, acrid smell of burnt foliage, petrol, and scorched metal.

“Is this where Leon Corless was killed?” Quirke asked, peering into the surrounding darkness. Everywhere there was the sound of dripping leaves.

“The very spot,” Hackett said. “Some coincidence, eh?”

The two men looked at each other.

“Yes,” Quirke said. “Some coincidence.”

Sergeant Jenkins appeared, carrying a walkie-talkie handset the size of a brick. “Forensics are on their way,” he said.

“Oh, they are, are they,” Hackett said with disdain, turning away. “Tell the supersleuths to report to me tomorrow.”

Quirke and he made their way with difficulty up the muddy slope. At one point Hackett slipped and almost fell and had to grab at Quirke’s arm for support. They reached the road.

“Bloody rain,” Hackett said. “The farmers got the answer to their prayers, anyhow.” He peered down in disgust at the sodden legs of his trousers and his muddy shoes. “The missus will murder me,” he said, and sighed.

There were still mutterings of thunder far off, and now and then the horizon flashed white, as if there were a battle going on in the distance.

“When did you hear?” Quirke asked.

“About our friend there?” Hackett said, glancing back in the direction of what remained of Joe Costigan, crumpled at the foot of the charred tree. “Anonymous call, made from a phone box. No leads, nothing. I’d say”—he sniffed—“I’d say, Dr. Quirke, this’ll be one of those unsolved ones.”

Quirke nodded, avoiding his eye. “You think so?”

“I have that feeling.”

Hackett fumbled in his pockets for his cigarettes, offered the packet to Quirke, and took one himself. Then he brought out a lighter, and flipped up the lid and flicked the roller with his thumb, and at once the wick caught. “A handy thing, the Zippo,” he said, hefting the lighter in his palm. “Lying there in the grass for God knows how long this evening, in the rain, and still it works.” He dropped the lighter into his pocket. “Can I give you a lift, Doctor?” he said.

“No, thanks, I told the taxi to wait.”

“Ah. Right. I’ll be off, so.” He started to move away, then stopped. “Did you ever hear,” he said, “of the Battle of Jarama, and the heights of Pingarrón? No? Spain, you know, the civil war. Remind me to tell you about it, sometime. Sam Corless was in it,” he added.

Quirke was stony-faced. “Was he?”

“Aye. A fierce scrap, it was, men killing each other with their bare hands.” He glanced back to where Costigan’s corpse was being transferred into the ambulance. “A terrible thing, having to learn how to break a neck.” He studied Quirke’s impassive features. “Wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”

Quirke said nothing, and the detective tipped a finger to the brim of his hat, and was gone.

Quirke stirred himself. “Good night, Inspector,” he called into the glistening darkness, but no response came back.