Even the Dead

by Benjamin Black

  “What was she frightened of?”

  “She wouldn’t say. Anyhow, Dr. Quirke’s daughter brought Lisa to a house down in Wicklow, a holiday house that the family had, and left her there. Later on, Phoebe, Dr. Quirke’s girl, got worried, and went back down to the house, only to find that she was gone, that Lisa was gone, without leaving a trace behind her. We also searched in Lisa’s flat, up in Rathmines, or what we think was her flat, anyway, but there was nothing there, either. She just—well, she just vanished.”

  Corless’s eyes were fixed on Hackett. “So you’re taking this as another sign that Leon didn’t die by accident?”

  “We don’t know how to take it, Mr. Corless, and that’s the truth. It has us baffled, I don’t mind confessing.”

  Corless lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one and dropped the butt into the sink, where it made a tiny hiss.

  “You asked me, when you came in,” he said, “if Leon ever talked to me about his work. What was that about?”

  “I went to see Leon’s boss, a chap called O’Connor, up in the department. Do you know him?”

  “I know of him. Patriot, church stalwart, Knights of St. Patrick, that kind of thing.”

  “That’s the man. He said Leon was doing work, keeping some kind of statistics, in the mother-and-child area. Know anything about that?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Leon didn’t talk to me about his work.”

  “Was he secretive, would you say?”

  “It wasn’t that. He knew I wouldn’t be interested. I don’t care a damn what this rotten gang, our so-called government, gets up to.”

  “But your son,” Hackett said softly, “was a government employee.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that!” Corless snapped. “As I said to you about your own”—he smiled thinly—“profession, I never hold it against a man how he earns his living.” He looked aside, blinking. “I never told him how proud of him I was. It’s another thing not to forgive myself for.”

  “Right. Right.” Hackett had finished his whiskey, and now he balanced the empty glass on his knee. He pursed his lips and considered his hat again. “It’s only,” he said, “that when I began to ask about Leon’s work, Mr. O’Connor seemed to get very agitated, and talked about things being delicate, and mentioned the Archbishop’s Palace.” He glanced at Corless and smiled. “I find that when I hear the Archbishop spoken of by a person of position and power such as Mr. O’Connor, my ears begin to tingle, in an interested sort of way.”

  Corless closed his eyes and massaged the skin at the bridge of his nose with a thumb and two fingers. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, “but I can’t concentrate these days. Even when I’m not thinking about Leon, my mind still seems to be somewhere else all the time. It’s like being in that state when you wake up after being knocked out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hackett said. “I should take myself off and leave you alone.”

  Corless waved a hand. “No, no,” he said, “don’t mind me, I’m just—I’m just—”

  “You’re exhausted, Mr. Corless,” Hackett said. “That’s all it is. Sorrow is a wearying thing.”

  Corless poured himself another drink. This time he didn’t bother to offer Hackett a refill.

  “Tell me,” he said, “tell me what it is you’re talking about. Tell me what you think is going on here. All my life I’ve had to guard against imagining that there are conspiracies all around me. It’s an occupational hazard for an old revolutionary.” He chuckled dully. “Look at Stalin. But from what you say, or at least from the tone you say it in, it seems to me you have the idea that there’s a great big mess under our feet here, and that Leon’s death is part of that mess. Am I right?”

  Hackett took his time before answering.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s to say, I know that there must be a whole lot more here than meets the eye, only I can’t tell you what it is. There’s not only the death of your son, there’s this young one, Lisa, and the way she disappeared. There’s Mr. O’Connor nearly wetting himself when I asked him a few simple questions about Leon’s work in the department.” He picked up his hat. “Every web, Mr. Corless, has a spider sitting at the center of it. That’s my experience, anyway.”

  He stood up. His sweat-soaked cotton shirt was cold now, and he shivered. The feeling made him think of childhood, of being on the beach on gray summer days, his teeth chattering, with a wet towel wrapped around him and clamped under his armpits. Nothing ever gets lost, he thought, it’s all in there, somewhere, ready to spring out at the least hint of an invitation. He could imagine what poor Corless was having to put up with these days, the past pouring out, an unstoppable torrent.

  “I’ll go now, Mr. Corless,” he said. “Thank you indeed for the whiskey. It was a great tonic, though I imagine I’ll have to have a little sleep later on in the afternoon.”

  Corless walked behind him down the stairs. The air in the street was blue with exhaust smoke and the dust thrown up by wheels and hooves and feet.

  “You’ll keep me informed,” Corless said.

  “Oh, I will indeed. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to shake the web. I’m going to give it a good shake, and see what might come running out.”

  Corless was studying him, his head to one side. “What will you do if you find out for definite that my son was killed?”

  They could hear the wireless playing in the shop beside them. This time Hackett couldn’t identify the tune.

  “I’ll look for the killer, and bring him to justice,” he said. “What else would I do?”

  Corless laughed shortly.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “What else would you do.”

  Hackett walked away. When he reached the corner and glanced back, Corless was still standing in the doorway, watching him. Hackett waved, he wasn’t sure why, and turned down North Frederick Street. Outside Findlater’s Church, a one-legged beggar leaned against the wall, playing a mouth organ.

  Should he have told Corless that Lisa Smith was expecting his grandson? He judged the man had enough momentous things to deal with already.

  Shake the web, yes; shake the web.

  15

  Phoebe was surprised when Dr. Blake asked if she could accompany her to lunch. Mr. Jolly had just left at the end of his session, looking secretive and conspiratorial. He paused as he passed by Phoebe’s desk and leaned down and whispered excitedly, “Oh, I’ve been a naughty boy—a very naughty boy!” She supposed he was harmless, although Mrs. Jolly, if there was one, probably wouldn’t agree. She was clearing up her desk when Dr. Blake came out and said to her, “Oh, Phoebe, are you going to that place you told me about, that nice café in that nice cool basement? Perhaps I will come with you. You’ll permit, yes?”

  They walked along Fitzwilliam Square in the sun.

  “We have a key to the gate here, haven’t we?” Dr. Blake said.

  “Yes. I think they’re only supposed to be for residents, but there is one in the office.”

  “Good. We should bring a picnic lunch one day and have it in there, in the square. It would be so nice. This fine weather will not last, and then we will be sorry.”

  Phoebe glanced at her sidelong. She seemed to be smiling to herself. She was in a strange mood today. Maybe it was the effect of her hour with Mr. Jolly, for she was somewhat as he had been, as if she had a secret and was brimming over with it.

  Phoebe wondered more and more keenly what exactly it was that went on behind the consulting room’s reinforced door. Surely it would be boring, sitting for hour after hour, listening to people pouring out their troubles, their obsessions, their manias. She supposed it must be part of a psychiatrist’s training to sit very still and just listen. In her deepest heart she believed that most of Dr. Blake’s patients had nothing wrong with them at all, apart from their ordinary eccentricities—everyone was eccentric, there was no such thing as absolute normality—and that all they were suffering from, if it could be called sufferi
ng, was a kind of inverted pride, the arrogance of the self-obsessed.

  In the Country Shop they sat at Phoebe’s favorite table by the window. Dr. Blake read the menu with the same calmness and deep concentration she brought to everything she did. “Yes,” she said, “I shall have a salad with some cold chicken. That will be good.”

  The waitress came, and they ordered. Phoebe had her usual ham sandwich. Then Dr. Blake leaned forward at the table with her fingers entwined in front of her.

  “There is something I wish to talk to you about, Phoebe,” she said. “It is something that might affect our professional relationship, and so we should speak of it, and then”—she moved her hands to the right—“put it aside. Yes?”

  Phoebe felt a chill along her spine. Had she done something wrong, was her work not satisfactory? She couldn’t bear the thought of having to give up her office, her desk, her routine that already, in the short time she had been in the job, had become so important for her. She would even miss her encounters with Mr. Jolly, and the thumb sucker, and all the other patients, except maybe the mother with the uncontrollable son.

  Dr. Blake was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer. But what had the question been?

  “I hope,” Phoebe said, “I hope there isn’t anything wrong?”

  “No, no,” Dr. Blake said quickly. “There is nothing wrong at all. But last evening, after we left you, I went with your father for a drink. We sat in that nice pub, the one on Baggot Street.”

  “Doheny and Nesbitt’s?”

  “Yes, yes, that one. We drank whiskey with soda, very nice. Then I drove him to his flat and we sat outside in my car for a long time, talking about all sorts of things, his life, his upbringing, or”—she smiled—“his sad lack of upbringing, and after that we went for a little walk. We sat on a bench by the canal, and he told me—well, he told me about someone he knows who is gravely ill. This has upset him very much, but of course, you know your father—he is aware of so very little of what goes on inside him.” She paused while the waitress set out glasses and a jug of water. “So then, after our talk by the canal, we returned to your father’s flat, and there we went to bed together.”

  Phoebe blinked. At once, as if the thing itself had popped up in front of her, she saw in her mind the photograph Quirke kept on his mantelpiece, of himself and Mal, and Sarah and Delia, together long ago, in Boston.

  “I see,” she said, falteringly, and then, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”

  Dr. Blake smiled. “Are you shocked? I hope not. There was nothing shocking about it, you know. He is a very sweet man, your father, very gentle, very kind, even. Oh, I know he thinks he is a terrible person, but that’s not so at all. Surely you know this?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do,” Phoebe said. “But—”

  “But? Yes?”

  Phoebe groped for words. She felt so helpless. She was trying to picture Quirke in bed with this large, plain woman, with her baby’s fat upper lip and her cropped, graying hair, her huge, calm, dark eyes. But it was impossible.

  “Will you—will you see him again?” she said. “I mean, are you—?”

  “Will we be together for some time, is that what you want to ask? That I cannot answer. Certainly, yes, I will see him, it would be strange if I did not, and no doubt I will go to his flat again, and he may come to my house, too.” She paused. “I think I made him a little happy, last night. Oh, it was not just sex, you know, that’s not important, despite what everyone says, even Dr. Freud.” She smiled what for her was a mischievous smile.

  “What, then?” Phoebe asked. By now she was genuinely curious—indeed, by now she was in a fever of curiosity.

  “Well,” Dr. Blake said, “of that I am not sure. That is, I am not sure why I would have been able to make him happy, and why he would allow himself to be happy with me.” She looked aside, frowning. “That will be for me to consider. Yes, I shall have to think about that.”

  My God, Phoebe thought, will Quirke become a case study, to be mulled over, analyzed, maybe even written up one day? The possibility was either appalling or comic; perhaps it was both.

  The waitress brought their food. Phoebe didn’t know how she was going to manage to eat it, in this world turned upside down.

  “I hope,” Dr. Blake said, “what I have told you will not affect how we are together in the office. Mmm, this chicken is very good. What is this sauce on the salad, though?”

  “It comes out of a bottle,” Phoebe said.

  “Ah. It does not taste of very much except—what is it? Vinegar?”

  “Dr. Blake,” Phoebe said suddenly, “has Mr. Jolly really got a wife?”

  The doctor did not lift her eyes from her plate.

  “Why do you ask this?”

  “Well, he talks to me about her all the time. He always comes early for his session, a half hour, forty-five minutes, and just sits there, talking, while you’re with another patient.”

  Dr. Blake smiled at her plate. “Perhaps you should charge him a fee.” She looked up. “What does one drink here? That man has a glass of milk, look. And he is eating stew. There are many things in this country that are still a mystery to me.”

  Phoebe toyed miserably with her sandwich. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, “I shouldn’t have asked about Mr. Jolly.”

  “Why not? It is natural to be curious.”

  “But it’s unprofessional. And that’s what I want to be, I want to be professional. I want”—she couldn’t stop herself—“I want to be like you.”

  “Do you? This is interesting. Why, do you think?”

  “Because you’re—because you’re admirable.”

  “Am I? In what way?”

  “I don’t know. I want to be calm, like you.”

  “Calm,” the doctor said, seeming to turn the word over and examine it from all sides. “I suppose that is a good quality. But not very—what shall I say?—not very positive.”

  “Oh, but it is!” Phoebe said quickly. “You’ve been through so much, you’ve seen so many terrible things, and yet you look at the world in such a tranquil way.”

  “Calm. Tranquil. This is a very interesting view you have of me.” She ate some more of her food. “This salad sauce really is rather unpleasant,” she said. She moved her plate aside and set her elbows on the table. “Yes, Mr. Jolly has a wife, I can tell you that. I can also tell you she is a very aggressive woman.”

  “Aggressive? But he tells me that he beats her, all the time.”

  Dr. Blake produced an an old little hiccuping sound; it took Phoebe a moment to recognize it as laughter.

  “Ah, Mr. Jolly! He is so well named. Such a funny man—funny, and quite sick. Now, I would like a coffee. Is the coffee good here? I suppose not.”

  Phoebe saw the manageress making her way between the tables, carrying a bulky parcel wrapped neatly in brown paper and tied with string. She stopped at their table. She was a small, bossy woman with a bad perm that made her hair look like a tightly packed mass of steel shavings. “Are you Miss Griffin?” she asked coldly, consulting the label on the parcel. “Miss Phoebe Griffin? This was left in for you. It’s laundry, I believe.”

  “Laundry?” Phoebe said weakly, baffled.

  “Yes. This is a restaurant, you know, not a collection depot.” She pronounced it DEEP-oh. “Kindly direct deliveries to your home in future.”

  She dropped the parcel on the table with a thud and turned on her heel and marched away.

  “Thank you,” Phoebe said weakly to her departing back, and was ignored.

  The two women gazed at the parcel.

  “I don’t know what this is,” Phoebe said. “I never asked for laundry to be delivered here.”

  “How very strange,” Dr. Blake said. “You really know nothing about it? Jung has some interesting things to say on this kind of phenomenon. Otherwise, of course, he is a charlatan.”

  They ordered coffee, which, when it came, Dr. Blake, without rancor, pronounced undrinkable
. “I’d like to smoke a cigarette,” she said. “Do you permit?”

  “Yes, of course. Have one of mine.”

  “Thank you. What are they called? Let me see the packet. Gold Flake! What a beautiful name. Are they very exclusive?”

  “No, no, they’re just—ordinary.”

  “Gold Flake. This I must remember.”

  I know what it’s like, Phoebe suddenly thought, being here with her: it’s like Alice in Wonderland. It’s all completely logical, and completely mad.

  “What is funny?” Dr. Blake asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about you and my father, and how—how wonderful it is.”

  “You think so? I am glad.” She had a peculiar way of holding her cigarette, between her middle fingers and resting on her thumb, as if it were a chopstick. And she didn’t inhale, but drew the smoke barely past her lips and quickly expelled it again. “My father gave me my first cigarette to smoke when I was ten years old,” she said. “My mother argued with him, but he said, no, children must be allowed to experience everything as soon as they are ready—sooner, indeed.”

  Phoebe wondered, somewhat uneasily, what Herr Nussbaum’s notion of “everything” might have encompassed.

  After a few puffs, the doctor stubbed out the cigarette. “Now we shall go back to work, I think,” she said. “Who have we this afternoon?”

  “Mr. Doherty is first. You know, I always suspect he’s a priest.”

  “Do you? Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he give off—what do you call it?—the odor of sanctity?”

  “No. It’s the white socks, I think.”

  Dr. Blake did her hiccupy laugh again, and stood up. “Let me pay for this,” she said. “You hardly ate any of your food. Was it not good? Perhaps what I told you about your father and me, perhaps that took away your appetite. So difficult, when one is young, to believe that older people also make love. Inconceivable, I should say. Ha! What a word to use. You see? Language is never innocent.” She had produced a tiny leather purse from the pocket of her dress and was counting out coins. “What do you call this one?”