“You’ve read it?”
“Enough of it-as much as I could bear.”
“I see. Then you know.”
She nodded.
“Yes, I know.”
He took a breath, feeling the cold clutch of air on his lungs.
“If I do with this what I think I should do with it,” he said, measuring his words, “you know what the effect will be?”
“No. Do you?”
“I know it will be bad. What about Mal?”
“Oh,” she said, “Mal will survive. He was the least of it, after all.”
“I thought-”
He stopped.
“You thought Mal was the father of that unfortunate young woman’s child. Yes, I knew you did. It’s why I wanted you to talk to him-I thought he would tell you how things really were. But he wouldn’t have, of course. He’s very loyal-to a father who never loved him. Isn’t it ironic?”
They were silent then. He thought that he should kiss her, but knew it was impossible.
“Good-bye, Sarah,” he said.
“Good-bye, Quirke.” She was looking into his face with a faint, quizzical smile. “You were loved, you know,” she said. “Or that’s the point, I suppose-you didn’t.”
EPILOGUE
A FRESH WIND WAS BLOWING IN LIVELY GUSTS, BRINGING TO THE CITY streets the news of far fields and trees and water. It was spring. As Quirke walked along he lifted his blackthorn stick now and then and took an experimental step without its aid. Pain, but not much; a sharp, hot twinge, the metal pin’s reminder.
He was shown into Inspector Hackett’s office, where the sunlight made its way but feebly through the grimed window. Most of the space in the narrow room was taken up by a large ugly wooden desk. Yellowed files sat in stacks on the floor roundabout, and there was a rack of dusty newspapers, and books with torn, illegible spines-what kind of books, Quirke wondered, would Hackett be likely to read?-and the top of the desk was a raft with a jumble of things swimming on it, documents that obviously had not been moved in months, two mugs, one containing pencils and the other the dregs of the Inspector’s morning tea, a shapeless piece of metal which the Inspector said was a souvenir of the wartime German bombing of North Strand, and, lying curled where he had dropped it, Dolly Moran’s diary. The Inspector, in shirtsleeves and wearing his hat, sat leaning far back in his chair with his feet on a corner of the desk and his hands folded across his belly, which was fastened tightly into a bulging blue waistcoat.
Hackett gestured at the jotter on the desk.
“She wasn’t exactly James Joyce, was she, poor Dolly,” he said, and sucked his teeth.
“But will you be able to use it?” Quirke said.
“Oh, sure, I’ll do what I can,” the Inspector said. “But these are powerful people we’re dealing with here, Mr. Quirke-you realize that, I presume. This fellow Costigan alone, he has a lot of clout in this town, the same fellow.”
“But we have clout too,” Quirke said, nodding toward the jotter.
Hackett gave his belly a happy little squeeze.
“God, Mr. Quirke, but you’re a fierce vindictive man!” he said. “Your own family, as good as. Tell me”-he lowered his voice to a confidential tone-“why are you doing it?”
Quirke considered.
“I don’t know, Inspector,” he said at length. “Maybe because I’ve never really done anything before in my life.”
Hackett nodded, then sniffed.
“There’ll be a lot of dust,” he said, “if these particular pillars of society are brought down. A lot of dust, and bricks, and rubble. A body would want to be standing well out of the way.”
“But you’ll do it, all the same.”
Hackett took his feet from the desk and leaned forward and scrabbled among the litter of papers and found a packet of cigarettes and offered it to Quirke and they lit up.
“I’ll try, Mr. Quirke,” the Inspector said. “I’ll try.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to: Jennifer Barth, Peter Beilby, Mary Callery, Joan Egan, Alan Gilsenan, Louise Gough, Roy Heayberd, Robyn Kershaw, Andrew Kidd, Linda Klejus, Sandra Levy, Laura Magahy, Ian Meldon, Jo Pitkin, Maria Rejt, Beatrice von Rezzori, Barry Ruane, John Sterling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Benjamin Black is the pen name of acclaimed author John Banville, who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His novels have won numerous awards, most recently the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea. He lives in Dublin.
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