Even the Dead

14

Hackett’s office was stifling — he told himself he must get that bloody window unstuck so he could open it and let in a bit of air. Instead he thought he might venture out for a stroll. It was another unendurably hot day, the sky cloudless and the city lying torpid, like a huge, stranded turtle, under the sun’s relentless glare. He had thought of buying himself a straw hat, like the rakish one Quirke was sporting these days, but he didn’t think he would have the nerve to wear it. And anyway, May would be bound to laugh at him. His wife had a good heart, and loved him, in her way, as he loved her, but she had a merciless eye for his foibles and his foolishnesses and would let none of them pass unremarked. So he took up his old felt trilby and shut the office door behind himself and went down to the street.

He walked up to College Green and along Westmoreland Street. Bewley’s was belching clouds of smoke from the big vat of roasting coffee just inside the open front door. The clock over the offices of the Irish Times told him it was eleven twenty-five exactly, but even as he looked at it, the minute hand moved on with a jerk and a tiny quiver. He kept his eyes averted from the shop windows because he didn’t care to catch sight of his own reflection. May had been on him recently to take up a diet and reduce his potbelly, but he knew he wouldn’t; it was too late for him to try shifting so much fat. He sighed. Life was tricky, that was for sure.

By the time he was halfway along O’Connell Street his shirt was wet under the armpits, the band of his hat seemed to have become welded to his forehead, and he had to keep mopping the back of his neck with a handkerchief that was already sodden and limp. So he crossed the road and jumped onto a bus for Dorset Street just as it was moving off. He didn’t bother to look for a seat, but stayed standing on the platform, holding on to the rail, trading complaints with the conductor about the heat wave that was showing no sign of ending.

When he got to Dorset Street he stood outside the tobacconist’s shop and peered up at Sam Corless’s window. There was nothing to be seen, of course, except grimed glass and a frayed cretonne curtain. Maybe he shouldn’t have come up here, he thought, maybe he should leave the poor man to his grieving. Nevertheless he rang the bell, and after a minute or two Corless came down and opened the door. He was gray and haggard, and seemed to have lost weight even in the short time since his son’s death — his face was so gaunt his spectacles, still with the lump of sticking plaster around the earpiece, looked far too big for him, like an ill-fitting prosthesis.

“Good day to you, Mr. Corless,” Hackett said. “The name is—”

“I remember you,” Corless said. “I’d hardly forget, would I.” His voice, feathery and hollow, seemed to be coming out of an echoing underground cistern. “What do you want?”

“Well, I was just out for a stroll and I thought I’d pay a call and see how you were getting on. If I’m an annoyance to you, say so.”

Corless managed a sort of grin. “Why would I be annoyed,” he said, “by a visit from the police?” He stood back, holding open the door. “Come in, you may as well.”

Hackett followed the stooped and plodding figure up the narrow stairs. In the flat the air was thicker than ever, and there was a dull, brownish smell, the smell of things left long unwashed.

“Sit down,” Corless said. “Throw them books on the floor. Will you have a drink? I’ve no beer. There’s only whiskey.”

“A drop of whiskey would be grand,” Hackett said, looking for somewhere to put his hat down. “They say spirits have a cooling effect, despite what you might think.”

Corless rummaged about under the sink and came up with a bottle of Powers, three-quarters empty. “I should be fairly cool myself, then,” he said. “I’ve drunk enough of the bloody stuff these past couple of days. This is the second bottle, unless it’s the third. I’ve lost count.”

He set two small glasses on the draining board and filled them to the brim.

“Your good health,” Hackett said, lifting the glass to eye level.

Corless, leaning against the sink, did not return the toast. He drank, taking half of the measure in one swallow.

Dance music was playing somewhere, not loud. Corless pointed to the floor. “That bastard below has the wireless going nonstop all day long,” he said. “It always seems to be the same stuff. I think he must be practicing to be a ballroom dancer. And then comedians, and the audience in fits. Furlong is his name. Doesn’t smoke, himself. Imagine that, a tobacconist who doesn’t smoke.”

They listened to the music for a while. Glenn Miller, Joe Loss, one of those — Hackett knew nothing about dance bands, never having been much of a dancer.

“The funeral was yesterday, I saw,” he said. “I’d like to have gone, but I couldn’t. How was it?”

Corless gave a sardonic laugh. “Oh, smashing,” he said. “A great crowd attended, and a fine time was had by all. Talk about dancing — it was round-the-house-and-mind-the-dresser till the small hours of the morning.” He made a sour face and drank off the rest of the whiskey in his glass. “There was me, and my dead wife’s sister, and some old fellow I didn’t know from Adam, who’d strayed into the wrong funeral, if I’m not mistaken. The wife’s sister had to go home and make her husband’s dinner.”

“Sorry,” Hackett said gruffly. “I should have gone.”

“It’s no matter. Burying the dead is best done quickly. I don’t hold with keening and wailing.”

He refilled his glass and offered the bottle wordlessly to Hackett, who shook his head.

“All the same, a sad occasion, a funeral,” Hackett said. “It’s the finality of it. I buried my mother not long ago. It was only when I saw the coffin down in the hole that it dawned on me at last that she was gone.”

Corless, still leaning against the sink, shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “I have the suspicion,” he said, “that you didn’t come here to console me. Have you found out anything?”

Hackett rose from the chair and held out his glass. “Maybe I will take a sup more,” he said.

Corless poured the whiskey. His hand was unsteady. Hackett returned to his chair. The dance band on the wireless below was playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo”; even Hackett recognized that one.

“Tell me, Mr. Corless,” he said, “did your son ever talk to you about his work?”

“Didn’t you ask me that already, the other day?”

“I don’t think so, but of course, the old memory is not what it was.” He took a careful drink from his glass. “Anyway, I’ll ask it again now: did he?”

“I told you, Leon and I didn’t talk very often. He disapproved of me, didn’t like my politics. The feeling was mutual.”

“But you must have seen him, the odd time?”

“Oh, we saw each other for a pint, now and then.” He noticed Hackett’s look, and sighed. “You’re thinking I wasn’t much of a father. Maybe I wasn’t. But I loved him, all the same. I just wasn’t much good at showing it. He understood. He was the same himself. As my old mother used to say, we’re not the kissing kind.”

“Did you ever meet his girlfriend?”

Corless stared. “Did he have a girlfriend? That’s news to me.”

“A girl called Lisa.”

“Lisa who?”

“Smith, she calls herself,” Hackett said, “though we’re not entirely sure that’s really her name. It seems she was there, the night your son died.”

“Was where? Where was she?”

Hackett got out his cigarettes. “Will you smoke a Player’s?”

“No, thanks, I’ll stick to the Woodbines.”

The both lit up. At the first intake of smoke Corless coughed so hard he had to put the whiskey down on the draining board so as not to spill it. “Jesus Christ,” he said, gasping, “one of these days I’ll bring up a lung.” He stood with his head lowered, taking deep breaths, then picked up his glass again and drank. The cigarette was still burning in his fingers.

“It seems,” Hackett said, “this girl, this young woman, Lisa, had been to a party of some kind with your son. They were coming home late and they had a row, and she made Leon stop, and she got out of the car to take a taxi. Next thing she saw was the car in flames, apparently.”

Corless stood motionless, watching him. “And then what did she do?”

“She got into a panic, I think, and went home.”

“She went home? She didn’t try to help Leon, she didn’t call an ambulance, or the Guards?”

“I don’t think there was anything to be done, by that stage,” Hackett said, looking down at his hat where he had put it on top of the pile of books on the floor beside his chair. “Not anything that would have helped your son, anyway.”

Corless’s mouth was set in a thin, bitter line. “Who is she, anyway?” he asked.

“Well, that’s what we don’t know, you see.”

“What do you know?”

Hackett sipped his whiskey.

“It’s a queer sort of a situation,” he said. “You remember Dr. Quirke, that was here with me the other day, the pathologist? It seems the girl, Lisa, knew his daughter from a course they were in together, and came to her and asked for her help, saying she was frightened and needed somewhere to hide.”

“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.