Benjamin Black - Holy Orders

“So he is being sent.”

The old man smiled softly. “Sure, who would send him?”

“The Father Superior?”

Thady frowned, his jaw working as if he were grinding some small thing between his teeth. Suddenly he cackled. “His Reverence? His Reverence hasn’t been in communication with anyone, only me, this many a year.” He put a finger to his temple and made a screwing movement. “He’s not the best up top, so he’s not. Father Dangerfield is the boss now. He’s the man in the saddle.”

“I spoke to him. He seemed to know very little about Father Honan.”

“Did he, now.” The old man shook his head, greatly amused. “He keeps his cards close to his chest, does Father Dangerfield.” A bell tinkled. There was a board of bells high up on the wall above the stove. The old man peered up at it. “That’ll be the Father Superior now,” he said, “wanting his pap.” He laughed again, a string of phlegm making a wet twang in his sunken chest; then he rose and went to a cupboard and took from it a tin of Ovaltine and carried it to the stove.

“A young man was killed the other night,” Quirke said. “Murdered.”

The old man brought forward a sort of footstool and set it in front of the stove and stepped up onto it. He opened the tin and shook a measure of the dull-brown powder into a small saucepan. “Would you do me a favor,” he said, “and go into the scullery there and bring me the bottle of milk that’s in the safe? I’m sick to my soul of climbing up and down on this bloody yoke.”

Quirke did as he was asked. The green-meshed food safe was set into a rectangular hole in the wall so that the air from outside could circulate through it. There were raindrops on the milk bottle. He carried it back to the kitchen and gave it to the old man. “Are you a detective?” the old man asked, watching himself pour the milk into the saucepan.

“No,” Quirke said. “I’m a doctor, sort of.”

“What sort would that be?”

“Pathologist. Dead people.”

The old man nodded, stirring the mixture in the saucepan with a tarnished metal spoon. “Who was the poor fellow that died?” he asked.

“A reporter — a newspaper reporter.”

“That’s right. I saw it in the papers. Was he some relation of Father Honan’s?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well well, the poor chap.”

Quirke’s brain was buzzing. He knew he should not have drunk whiskey at this hour of the day. That must be what was wrong with him, that’s what was making his heart pound and his thoughts turn in circles. He wondered again where Hackett was — surely he was not still with Father Dangerfield?

The rain had stopped, and the sun was shining in more strongly at the window now. Faintly from outside came the fluting calls of a blackbird — was it the same one he had seen earlier, digging for worms on the lawn? For some reason he thought of Isabel, sitting up in bed in her room above the canal, enthroned there in her silk tea gown, his regal lover. She was a beautiful, clever, and talented woman, too good for him, far too good. Sometimes he forgot what she looked like. He would remember the color of her hair and her eyes, the shape of her nose, the curve of her mouth, but he would not be able to summon her image to his mind, hard as he might try. That must mean something. It must mean he did not love her, as she would wish him to love her, however that was.

The old man lifted the saucepan off the stove. “I’d better not let it boil,” he muttered. “He always knows when it’s after being boiled.”

He stepped down from the stool and bore the saucepan to the left-hand sink and set it on the draining board. He turned to Quirke. “Will you get us that mug up there?” he said, pointing to a high cupboard on the wall. Quirke took down the thick enamel mug. “Thanks,” the old man said. He grinned. “I could put in a word and get you a job here, maybe. Chief assistant to the head bottle washer.” He did his cackle, and poured the steaming beverage into the mug. His chin was on a level with the draining board. “What was his name again?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The young fellow, the one that was killed.”

“Minor. Jimmy Minor.”

“That’s a queer name, Minor. I never heard of anybody called by that name before. Where was he from?”

“Somewhere down the country, I don’t know. The Midlands.”

“Ah, well, God rest him anyway.” He stood, holding the mug. “Minor,” he murmured. “Minor. No, that’s a new one on me.”

“Did he ever come here?” Quirke asked.

The old man glanced at him quickly. “Here? Why would he come here?”

“To see Father Honan.”

“What would he want to see Father Honan for?”

“I don’t know. He might have been writing a story about him, an article about his good works with the kiddies, and the tinkers.”

The old man pondered. “No, I don’t remember anybody of that name. And now I’d better bring His Reverence up his hot drink or he’ll start his roaring again.” He swiveled his head up sideways as far as it would go and looked at Quirke. “You’d want to take care yourself,” he said. “The old nerves can be a killer, worse than the bronicals.”

* * *

More tiles, pale gray like the ones in the kitchen. A window was open; he could feel cool damp air on his face. He was standing by it, by the window; it was small and square and looked out onto a concrete yard. The top half of the sash was pulled all the way down. The concrete outside, with the rain on it, was the color of wet sand.

Porcelain, the chill smooth thick feel of porcelain. It was a bathroom he was in, no, a lavatory, with a small hand basin under the small window. How had he got here, how had he come to be standing here, with the air of outside in his face and his left hand gripping the porcelain basin to support him? He had an extraordinary sense of well-being. His heart was calm, his mind was clear. He could smell the rain in the yard, and there was the scent of wet grass, too, and of unseen trees. Beside him on the wall there was a little rectangular mirror with a crack running diagonally across it from top left to bottom right. He looked at his face reflected in the glass, severed in two from temple to chin. Faintly he heard again the blackbird whistling.

He found Hackett in the hall, sitting on a thronelike chair next to the front door, with his hat on his knees. The chair, of age-darkened oak, had a high back topped with wooden spires and heavy, carved armrests.

“You’d make a good bishop,” Quirke said. He thought his voice sounded very loud again; it seemed to reverberate between the walls and the high ceiling.

“Not a cardinal?” Hackett said.

“Scarlet wouldn’t suit you,” Quirke answered, and laughed, and his laughter also sounded strangely loud, a falsely hearty, bogus booming, a sound that not he but someone else must have produced. He carried himself carefully, still with that sense of being a large frail vessel with something frailer inside it.

The detective rose from the chair with a grunt. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine — why?”

“You look a bit shook.”

Quirke heard someone approaching behind him and turned. “Ah, Thady,” he said. “There you are.”

The old man peered up at him warily. “Beg pardon, sir?” he said.

Quirke turned to Hackett again. “Thady and I had a long chat in the kitchen — didn’t we, Thady?”

The old man frowned. “The name is Richie, sir,” he said.

“But…” For a moment it seemed to Quirke that the floor had tilted under his feet. “But you told me…”

The old man stepped past him and opened the door, drawing it back with an effort. “Good day, sir,” he said, addressing Hackett.