Benjamin Black - Holy Orders

When she looked out the window she was startled to see Quirke standing on the far pavement, by the railings above the towpath, in a splash of sunlight under the trees, where that other time she had seen the man in the cap and the sheepskin coat with the cigarette in his fist. Quirke spotted her at the window and lifted his hand in an oddly tentative wave that seemed to her more like a gesture of farewell than greeting. What was he doing out at this hour? For Quirke was anything but an early bird.

She had been about to leave for work, and now she put on her coat and took up her handbag and ran down the stairs, thinking something must be wrong, that something calamitous had happened, and Quirke had come to tell her about it.

He was lighting a cigarette as she crossed the road. Instead of greeting her he pointed a finger upwards at the cloudless, china-blue sky. “Do you realize,” he said, “that it hasn’t rained in the last ten hours?”

She laughed, mostly from relief — if there had been bad news Quirke would have told her at once. “How do you know?” she said. “Have you been up all night, watching the sky?”

“More or less. I’m not sleeping much, these days.”

She regarded him quizzically. “Why didn’t you ring the bell?”

“It was pleasant, standing here.” He glanced about. “Memory Lane, for me, around here.”

“Quirke, I’m on my way to work.”

He smiled at her vaguely, thinking of something else, she could see. “Take an hour off,” he said.

She laughed again. “I can’t! How can I?”

“Oh, come on. I’ll square it with Mrs. Cuffe-Dragon. There’s something I want us to do.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. It’s on the way.”

He took her by the elbow and they turned and set off in the direction of Baggot Street. It was indeed a fine spring morning, bright and clear, the air all flashes of gold and fragile blue. The trees above them bustled with birds. The sawmill on the other side of the canal was busy already, and the fragrance of freshly cut wood was a kind of grace note amid the smell of exhaust fumes and the smoke from buses.

They had gone some way before either of them spoke again. “Have you heard from her?” Quirke asked.

“From Sally? No, of course not. What about Inspector Hackett? Has he had news of her?”

“They traced her as far as Holyhead and the London train. She didn’t return to her flat. She may not be in London — she could have got off that train anywhere along the way.”

“She’s disappeared, then.” She smiled wryly. “Maybe she and April Latimer will meet up somewhere. My two vanished friends.”

Quirke glanced at her. “ Was Sally your friend?”

“Yes. Yes, she was, in a way, I think.”

Again they walked in silence. Then Quirke said, “You didn’t have to tell me about the gun. Why did you?”

“When she disappeared, I knew she was going to do something.” She paused. “Why didn’t you warn that priest?”

Quirke did not answer. They walked on. Baggot Street was a sweep of sunlight, hard-edged, pale gold, glistening. Mr. Q and L was standing in the doorway of his shop, sunning himself and smoking a cigarette. He was wearing his canary-yellow waistcoat today; it fairly glowed in the sunlight. Even though she was on the other side of the street he recognized her, and sketched a comically elaborate bow, inclining his big round head and making a hoop with his hand from chin to navel and showing her his palm, cavalier-fashion.

“I spoke to Hackett about Costigan,” Quirke said, “about him sending that fellow after you.”

She said nothing. She was not sure she wanted anyone knowing what had happened that night in the rain when the man in the sheepskin coat had overtaken her and grabbed her by the wrist. She wanted to forget it herself, as if it were something indecent that had been done to her and the only way to get rid of the stain would be to expunge even the memory of it. “It seems,” Quirke went on, “he’s been fiddling his tax, the same Mr. Costigan. Hackett thinks he can get him that way.”

“Like Al Capone,” Phoebe said, drily.

“Exactly,” Quirke said, ignoring or perhaps not noticing her sarcasm. “Like Al Capone.”

“And what about those tinkers, the ones who killed Jimmy?”

“Disappeared too, like your friend Sally, into the depths of darkest Palantus.”

“Palantus?”

“It’s their name for England.”

The trees along Baggot Street leading into Merrion Row were delicately dusted with the season’s first green buds. “I’m thinking of going away,” Phoebe said.

“Oh, yes? Where to?”

“I don’t know. London, maybe.” She smiled. “Palantus.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know that, either.” She looked down at the toes of her shoes. How odd it was, sometimes, to see oneself in motion, one foot going in front of the other, turn and turn about. “On my next birthday I’ll have my money from Grandfather Crawford.”

Josh Crawford, Rose’s first husband, had left his granddaughter a considerable legacy in his will. “You’ll be an heiress,” Quirke said. “Watch out for fortune hunters.” He paused. “What about Sinclair? David, I mean.”

She dropped her eyes and looked at her shoes again. “What about him?”

“Have you told him you’re going away?”

“I haven’t decided finally, yet,” she said, in a neutral voice.

They walked on. The doorman at the Shelbourne in his gray coat greeted them, lifting his top hat. Across the street a line of jaunting cars were parked, the horses steaming in the sun.

“How did they keep it out of the papers?” Phoebe asked.

“Holy orders, from on high. The Archbishop’s Palace telephoned the newspapers, told them the church was treating Honan’s death as an internal matter and said no report of it was to be printed yet, until they’d completed their inquiry.”

“Can they do that? Can the church do that?”

“They can. Carlton Sumner, at the Clarion, raised an objection, of course. The Archbishop himself phoned him. His Grace was prepared, he said, to hurt Sumner where it would really hurt — in his pocket, that is.”

“What did he mean?”

“Oh, the usual. If Sumner went ahead and printed the story, the bishops would be directed to write a pastoral letter to be read out from every pulpit in every church in the country next Sunday morning, instructing the faithful to shun not only the Clarion but all of Sumner’s other publications too. And the faithful, as always, would obey. It’s what’s known as a belt of the crozier. It’s very effective.”

Phoebe was shaking her head incredulously. “Poor Jimmy,” she said.

They crossed at the top of Dawson Street. A chauffeur in a peaked cap was maneuvering a long sleek Bentley through the narrow entranceway of the Royal Irish Automobile Club.

“I might be going away myself,” Quirke said, glancing at the sky.

“Away? Where to?”

He smiled. “Like you, I’m not sure.”

Phoebe nodded. “I’ll ask you a version of the same question you asked me: what about Isabel?”

“No,” Quirke said, “Isabel won’t be coming with me. If I go.”

In front of Smyth’s on the Green there were daffodils set out in pots. Quirke had never been able to see the attraction of these vehement, gaudy flowers.

“Where are we going?” Phoebe asked.

“Just here,” Quirke said, pointing across the road to Noblett’s sweet shop on the corner of South King Street. In the window were displayed all manner of confections set out in the shop’s own royal blue boxes. They crossed the road, and as they entered the shop the little bell above the door gave its silvery tinkle. The girl behind the counter was tall and soulful, with pale features and long black hair. She smiled at them wanly.