The Silver Swan

by Benjamin Black

  "No, I didn't-that's what you said I was."

  "Did I? Ah, I'm getting very forgetful. It must be old age creeping up." He inserted a little finger delicately into his right ear and waggled it up and down, then extracted it again and peered to see what had lodged under the nail. "So where would she go, when she went out?"

  Billy would not meet his eye. "I don't know."

  "Was this when you were away?"

  "Was what when I was away?"

  "That she went out."

  "I don't know what she did when I was working, traveling." He winced, as if at a stab of pain. "And now I don't want to know."

  "And who would she see, do you think, when she went out?"

  "She wouldn't say."

  "And did you not press her to say?"

  "You didn't press Deirdre. She wasn't the kind of person that you press. All you'd get is a wall of silence, or be told what to do with yourself. She was her own woman."

  "But you must have wondered-I mean, who she saw, when she did go out. I take it it was at night? That she went out?"

  "Not always. Sometimes she'd disappear for whole afternoons. There was some doctor fellow she would go to see."

  "Oh?"

  "A foreigner. Indian, I think."

  "An Indian doctor."

  "And there was that other long streak of mischief, of course. Her 'partner.'" He spoke that last word with venom.

  The inspector had begun to hum softly under his breath; it sounded as if a bee were trapped somewhere in the room, inside a cupboard or a drawer. "And who," he said, "was this partner?" Quirke had told him the name but he had forgotten, and anyway, he wanted to hear Billy say it.

  "Fellow called White. Some kind of an Englishman. Used to have a hairdressing place until it went bust. It was him that got Deirdre going in the beauty parlor. He had the premises and helped her to get set up; then something happened there, too-the money ran out, I suppose."

  "What sort of help did he give Deirdre?"

  "What?"

  "You said he helped her to get set up. Did he put up the funds?"

  "I don't know. I'm not sure. He must have had money from somewhere, to get the thing going. Maybe his wife kicked in-she has a business of her own. But Deirdre wouldn't have needed much assistance. She had a good head on her shoulders, Deirdre did."

  "Had she money too, like this fellow's wife?"

  "Not what you'd call real money. But we were doing all right, between us." He ruminated, a muscle working in his jaw. "I thought I might have gone in with her on something, give up the traveling and start a business together, but then White came along. I suppose she was a bit taken with him, what with the fancy accent and all."

  "Were you jealous?"

  He considered. "I suppose so. But he was such a-such a drip, you know. I always thought he was a bit of a pansy. But you can never tell, with women."

  "True enough."

  Billy Hunt looked at the policeman sharply again, as if suspecting he was being mocked; the inspector gazed back at him with unwavering blandness.

  "If I thought," Billy Hunt said, in a strangely dull, distant tone, "if I thought it was him that drove her to do what she did, I'd…" He let his voice drift off, his imagination failing him.

  The inspector, his head cocked to one side-to do what she did-studied him thoughtfully. "Was she in love with him, maybe, would you say?"

  Billy Hunt put that hand over his eyes again, more in exhaustion than distress, it seemed, and slowly shook his head from side to side. "I don't know that Deirdre loved anyone. It's a harsh thing to say, but I've thought about it a lot over the past couple of weeks and I think it's true. I don't hold it against her. It just wasn't in her nature. Or maybe it was, to start with, and got knocked out of her. If you knew her father you'd know what I mean."

  "Aye," the inspector said. "Life is hard, and harder for some than others." Abruptly he rose and extended a hand. "I won't take any more of your time, I'm sure you've things to do. Good day to you, Mr. Hunt."

  Billy Hunt, taken by surprise, rose slowly, and slowly took the offered hand and slowly shook it. He mumbled something and turned to the door. The inspector remained standing behind his desk, expressionless, but when Billy had the door open he said, "By the way, this doctor that Deirdre used to see-what's his name, do you know?"

  "Kreutz," Billy said. He spelled it.

  "Doesn't sound Indian to me."

  Billy looked as if this had not occurred to him. But he answered nothing, only nodded once and went out, shutting the door softly behind him. For a long moment the inspector stood motionless; then slowly he sat down. He took a pencil from a cracked mug on the desk and in the looping, rounded handwriting that had not changed since he was in fourth class he wrote out the name on the back of a manila envelope: Kreutz.

  14

  PHOEBE HAD NOT SEEN LESLIE WHITE AGAIN AFTER THAT AFTERNOON in her flat when they had gone to bed together; nor had she telephoned him. Yet the thought of him haunted her. She had only to close her eyes to see his long, pale body suspended above her in the velvet dimness of her mind. Half a dozen times at least she had picked up the telephone and begun to dial his number but had made herself put the receiver down again. Was she in love with him? The notion was preposterous-it almost made her laugh. She cursed herself for her foolishness, yet there he was, the memory of him, the image of him, trailing her everywhere like that other phantom watcher she was convinced was following her in the streets. This was the state of mind she was in-on edge, bewildered, caught up in a tangle of half memories and weird fancies-when she stopped that night on the pavement in the grayish dark of eleven o'clock and peered at the crumpled figure on the steps.

  Her first thought was to turn and flee. Then she saw who it was. She hesitated. She was sure he was dead, lying there like that, like something broken. Why did you come here? she wanted to ask him. And what was she to do? The Garda station was not far: should she go there now, straightaway, summon help? The street was deserted. For a moment she was back again in the car on the headland with the steel blade against the vein that was beating in her throat and that maddened creature gasping foul endearments in her ear. Her hands were shaking. Why did you come to my door, why? She held her breath and forced herself to take a step forward. She knew instinctively he would not want her to call the Guards. She reached out a hand and touched his shoulder. He flinched, then groaned. Not dead, then; she was conscious of a fleeting pang of regret. Her fright was abating. Perhaps he was only drunk.

  "Leslie," she said softly-how strange it felt to say his name!-"Leslie, what is it, what happened to you?" With another, long-drawn groan he lifted his head and tried to focus on her, licking his swollen lips. She drew back with a gasp. "My God-have you been in an accident?"

  His face was so badly battered she would hardly have recognized it. The narrow gleam of his eyes between the puffed-out lids seemed to her devilish, as if there were someone else crouched inside him, someone different, peering furiously out. "Get me inside," he muttered hoarsely. "Get me inside."

  It was a grim coincidence that in the film she had been to see, a violent tale about the French Resistance, there had been a scene in which a young woman, a member of the Maquis, had helped a wounded English soldier out of a burning building. Draping his arm over her shoulders, the dauntless girl, scornful of falling rafters and blazing floors, had walked the Tommy with unlikely ease and dispatch out into the night, where a band of her comrades was waiting to receive them both with cheers. Now Phoebe learned just how heavy a weight an injured man could be. By the time she got to the fourth floor, with him clinging to her and her arm supporting him about his waist, she had an agonizing ache across her back and her face was dripping sweat. In the flat she kicked the door shut behind them and they hobbled to the sofa and fell down on it together in a scramble, and his right knee bashed her left knee and they both cried out in pain simultaneously.

  When she was able to stand upright at last she limped into the kitchen and f
ound the gin bottle in the cupboard and poured a quarter of a tumblerful and brought it back to him. He took a greedy swig, wincing as the liquor hit his broken lips. She busied herself finding a cushion for his head and helping him to stretch his legs out on the sofa, not only in an effort to make him comfortable but also to avoid having to look directly at his bashed and bleeding face. When she bent over him she could feel the heat from his bruises. He finished the gin and let the glass fall to the carpet, where it rolled in a half circle, drunkenly. She felt that she was about to cry, but stopped herself. Leslie put his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes and lay there breathing with his mouth open. She hoped he would not go to sleep, for she did not want to be alone in the room with him, and for a moment she even considered slapping his face to keep him awake, but she could not bear the thought of even touching those terrible bruises. All sorts of things crowded together in her mind, a jumble of random thoughts, jagged and senseless. She must get control of herself, she must. She rose and went to her handbag for her cigarettes, lit two, and fitted one between Leslie's lips. He mumbled something from the side of his mouth, blowing a bubble of bloodied spittle, but did not open his eyes. She stood over him, smoking nervously, an elbow clutched in a palm.

  After a while he began to speak, with his head thrown back against the cushion and his eyes still closed, and slurring his words. There had been a gang of them, he said, three at least. They had set on him in a laneway beside the College of Surgeons. They must have been following him since he left the Stag's Head, where he had been drinking with a pal. One of them had stuck a solid rubber ball into his mouth to gag him; then he had been hustled into a doorway down the lane and they had gone to work on him with fists and some kind of sticks, or bats. Not a word had been spoken. He did not know who they were, or why they were beating him. But they had known who he was.

  They had known who he was. And at once she thought: Quirke.

  She wanted to ask why he had come to her, and he read her mind and said hers was the nearest place he could think of, and anyway he had been on the way here when his attackers caught up with him. He closed his swollen eyelids. "Christ," he said, "I'm tired," and fell asleep at once.

  She did not believe he had been on his way here. She believed very few of the things he said. But what did it matter, truth or lies-he was so hurt, so hurt.

  She went and sat in an armchair by the fireplace, and for a long time kept a silent vigil there. She recalled the night two years previously when she had been brought to see Quirke in the Mater Hospital; he, too, had been beaten up by people he did not know and for reasons that were, so he claimed, beyond him. He had tried to convince her he had fallen down a set of steps but she had known he was lying. Now she was certain it was he who had set those fellows onto Leslie. Why? To warn him to keep away from her? And it was Quirke, too, who had been watching her, and following her, snooping into her life, she was convinced of it. She looked at her knuckles: they were white. Would that man-she did not permit herself to call Quirke her father, even, or especially, in her own mind-would he never leave her be, would he continue to interfere in her life and what she did, ruining things, blackening things, soiling all he touched? She hated him with passion, and loved him, too, bitterly.

  She must have fallen asleep, for when Leslie spoke-how much time had passed?-she started up in the chair in fright. He said her name, weakly. She went to him and before she knew what she was doing-was she still thinking of Quirke?-she had fallen to her knees beside the sofa and taken his hand in both of hers. The knuckles were horribly grazed; two of the nails were broken and bleeding. His eyes were open and he was looking at her. He licked his dry and swollen lips. "Listen, Phoebe," he said, "I want you to do something for me." He tried to pull himself up against the cushion and grimaced in pain. "There's a man, a doctor. I want you to go to him. He'll give you something for me, some medicine. I need it."

  "Who is he?"

  "His name is Kreutz." He spelled it for her. "He has a place in Adelaide Road, opposite the hospital. There's a plaque on the railing, with his name."

  "Do you want me to go now?"

  "Yes. Now."

  "But it's-I don't know-it's the middle of the night."

  "He'll be there. He lives on the premises." He made a rattling sound in his chest that it took her a moment to recognize as laughter. "He doesn't sleep much, the Doctor. You can take a taxi. Tell him you need the medicine for Leslie. He'll know." His fingers squeezed one of her hands. "Will you do that? Will you do that for me? Leslie's medicine-that's all you need to say. Tell him I said it's the least he can do, that he owes it to me."

  From the other end of the sofa her one-eyed teddy bear regarded them both with a glassy, outraged stare.

  AWAY BEYOND THE GREEN, IN HIS FLAT IN MOUNT STREET, QUIRKE, too, had been called out of sleep. He stood in the darkness of the living room in his drawers, barefoot, holding the receiver to his ear and gazing bleakly before him. He had not bothered to switch on a light. The streetlamp below threw a ghostly image of the window high into the room, half on the wall and half on the ceiling, a crazy, broken, vertiginous shape.

  "It's the Judge," Mal said, his voice down the distance of the line sounding exhausted. "He's gone."

  And so it was that at the junction of Harcourt Street and Adelaide Road the two taxis, Quirke's and Phoebe's, passed in their separate directions, though neither of them saw the other, lost as they were in their own troubled and disordered thoughts.

  TWO

  1

  A SAGGING PALL OF CLOUD HUNG LOW OVER THE AIRPORT, AND A steady summer drizzle was drifting slantways down. For a time it seemed the plane would be diverted because of the poor visibility but in the end it was allowed to land, though more than an hour late. Quirke stood with Phoebe at the observation window and watched the machine come nosing in from the runway, its four big propellers churning in the rain and dragging undulant tunnels of wet air behind them. Two sets of steps were wheeled out by men in yellow sou'westers and the doors were opened from inside and the passengers began disembarking, looking groggy and rumpled even at this distance. Rose Crawford was among the first to appear. She wore a close-fitting black suit and a black hat with a veil-"Mourning becomes her," Quirke observed drily-and carried a black patent-leather valise. She paused at the top of the steps and looked at the rain, then turned back to the cabin and said something, and a moment later one of the stewardesses appeared, opening an umbrella, and under this protective dome Rose descended, stepping with care onto this alien soil.

  "Really, I can't think what they expected to find in my bags," she said, exaggerating her southern drawl, when she came striding out of the Customs hall at last. "Six-shooters, I suppose, seeing I'm a Yank. Quirke, you look ruined-have you been waiting long for me? And I see you still have a limp. But, Phoebe, my dear, you-you're positively radiant. Are you in love?"

  She permitted her cheek to be kissed by both of them in turn. Quirke caught her remembered scent. He took her suitcases, and the three of them walked through the throng of arriving passengers. The taxi rank was busy already. Rose was surprised to learn that Quirke did not drive-"Somehow I saw you behind the wheel of something big and powerful"-and wrinkled her nose at the smell in the taxi of cigarette smoke and sweated-on leather. The rain was heavier now. "My," she said with honeyed insincerity, "Ireland is just as I expected it would be."

  Soon they were on the road into Dublin. In the rain the trees shone, a darker-than-dark green.

  "It's almost gruesome, isn't it?" Rose said to Quirke, who was sitting in the front seat beside the driver. "The first time we met, you were arriving in America for what would turn out to be a funeral-my poor Josh-and now here I am, come to see his great friend Garret buried in his turn. Death does seem to follow you about."

  "An occupational hazard," Quirke said.

  "Of course-I always forget what it is you do." She turned to Phoebe. "But you must tell me everything, my dear, all your news and secrets. Have you been mis
behaving since I saw you last? I hope so. And I bet you're wishing you had stayed with me in North Scituate and not come back to this damp little corner of the globe."

  Rose was the third wife, now widow, of Phoebe's late grandfather Josh Crawford. It was at Rose's house, on the day of the old man's funeral, that Phoebe had found out from Quirke at last the facts of her true parentage. Ever since then Quirke had gone in fear of his daughter, a subdued, constant, and hardly explicable fear.

  "Oh, I'm happy here," Phoebe said. "I have a life."

  Rose, smiling, patted her hand. "I'm sure you have, my dear." She sat back against the upholstery and looked out at the gray, rained-on outskirts passing by and sighed. "Who wouldn't be happy here?"

  From the front seat Quirke said over his shoulder: "Are you tired?"

  "I slept on the flight." She turned her eyes from the window and looked at his profile before her. "How is Mal?"

  "Mal? Oh, Mal is Mal. Surviving, you know."

  "He must be sad, losing his father." She glanced from him to Phoebe, who sat gazing stonily before her at the back of the taxi driver's stubbled neck. Rose smiled faintly; the subject of lost fathers, she noted, was obviously still a delicate one.

  "Yes," Quirke said tonelessly. "We're all sad."

  Again she studied his Roman emperor's profile and smiled her feline smile. "I'm sure."

  At the Shelbourne the doorman in gray top hat and tails came to meet them with his vast black umbrella, beaming. Rose gave him a cold glance and swept on through the revolving glass door. Quirke was about to say something to Phoebe, but she turned from him brusquely and followed quickly after Rose into the hotel lobby. What was the matter with her? She had spoken hardly a word to him since he had picked her up that morning on the way to the airport. She had not even invited him into the flat but had left him standing in the drizzle under the front doorway while she finished getting ready upstairs. She was upset over her Grandfather Griffin's death-she and the old man had been close-but she seemed more angry than sorrowful. But why, Quirke wondered, was it him she was angry at? What had he done? What had he done, that is, that he had not already been punished for, many times over? He tipped the doorman and gave directions for the luggage to be brought in. He was weary of being the object of everyone's blame. The past was tied to him like a tin can to a cat's tail, and even the smallest effort he made to advance produced a shaming din behind him. He sighed and walked on into the hotel, shaking a fine dew of raindrops from his hat.