He crushed out the cigarette and took off his green surgical gown and went out of the office. He paused a moment to watch Sinclair cut into the child's exposed rib cage with the bone cutter that always made Quirke think, incongruously, of silver secateurs. Sinclair was deft and quick; someday, when Quirke was gone, this young man would be in charge of the Department. The thought had not occurred to Quirke before. Where, exactly, would he be gone to when that day came?
Inspector Hackett was standing by the reception desk with his hat in his hands. He was in his accustomed outfit of shiny suit and slightly soiled white shirt and nondescript tie; the knot of the tie, sealed tight and also shiny, looked as if it had not been undone in a long time, only pulled loose at nighttime and tightened again in the morning. Quirke pictured the detective at end of day sitting wearily on the side of a big bed in angled lamplight, his shoes off and his hair on end, absently widening the loop of the tie with both hands and lifting it over his head, like a would-be suicide having second thoughts.
"I hope I'm not taking you away from your important work," Hackett said in his flat, Midlands accent, smiling. He had a way of making even the most bland of pleasantries sound laden with skepticism and sly amusement.
"My work can always wait," Quirke answered.
The inspector chuckled. "I suppose so-your clients are not going anywhere."
They left the hospital and walked out into the morning's smoky sunlight. Hackett ran a hand over his oiled, blue-black hair and set his hat in place, giving the brim an expert downwards brush with an index finger. They turned in the direction of the river, which announced itself with its usual greenish stench. An urchin in rags scampered by, almost colliding with them, and Quirke thought again of the child's corpse on the slab, the pinched, bloodless face and the rickety legs stretched out.
"That was a decent thing to do," the inspector said, "sparing the feelings of the relatives of that young woman-what was her name?"
"Hunt," Quirke said. "Deirdre Hunt."
"That's right-Hunt." As if he would have forgotten. He pulled at an earlobe with a finger and thumb, screwing his face into a thoughtful grimace. "Why, do you think, would she do a thing like that, fine young woman as she was?"
"A thing like what?"
"Why, do away with herself."
They came to the river and crossed to the embankment and strolled in the direction of the park. The smoke of the streets did not reach over the water and the high air there shone bluely. An unladen post office delivery wagon thundered past, the big Clydesdale high-stepping haughtily, its mane flying, its huge, fringed hoofs ringing on the roadway as if they were made of heavy, hollow steel.
"The coroner's verdict," Quirke said measuredly, "was accidental drowning."
"Oh, I know, I know-I know what the verdict was. Wasn't I there to hear it?" He chuckled again. "'A verdict in accordance with the evidence,' isn't that what the papers say?"
"Do you doubt it?"
"Well now, Mr. Quirke, I do. I mean to say, it's hard to think that a young woman would drive out to Sandycove at dead of night and take off every stitch of her clothes and leave them folded on the ground and then let herself fall by accident into the sea."
"A midnight swim," Quirke said. "It's summer. It was a warm night."
"The only ones that swim out there are men, at the Forty Foot-no women allowed."
"Maybe she did it for a lark. It was nighttime, there would be no one to see. Women do that kind of thing, when the moon is full."
"Oh, aye," the policeman said, "a midnight lark."
"People are odd, Inspector. They get up to the oddest things-no doubt you've noticed that in your line of work."
Hackett nodded and closed his eyes briefly, acknowledging the irony.
They came level with Ryan's pub on Parkgate Street. The policeman gestured towards it. "You must miss the company," he said, "of an evening."
Quirke chose not to understand. "The company?"
"Being a strict teetotaler now, as you tell me. What do you do with yourself after dark?"
It was Phoebe's question again. He had no answer. Instead he asked, in a tone almost of impatience: "Are you investigating Deirdre Hunt's death?"
The inspector stopped short with exaggerated surprise. "Investigating? Oh, no. No, not at all. I'm just curious, like. It's an occupational hazard that I think we both share." He glanced quickly sideways at Quirke with a sort of leer. They walked on. It was noon now and the sunshine was very hot, and the policeman took off his jacket and carried it slung it over his shoulder. "I had a nose round to find out where she came from, Deirdre Hunt. Lourdes Mansions, no less. The Wards-that was her maiden name-are a tough crowd. Father worked on the coal boats, retired now-emphysema. Hasn't stopped him boozing and throwing his weight around. The mother I surmise might have been on the game, in her younger days. There's a brother, Mikey Ward, well known to the local constabulary-breaking and entering, that kind of thing. Another brother ran away to sea when he was fourteen, hasn't been heard of since. Oh, a tough lot."
"I suppose that's why she went into the beauty business," Quirke said.
"No doubt. Intent on bettering herself." The policeman sighed. "Aye-it's a shame." They crossed again and walked up the steep slope to the gates of the park. Before them, the trees on either side of the avenue stood throbbing against a hot, bleached sky. "Do you know the fellow she was running it with?"
"What?"
"The beauty shop."
"No."
"Fellow by the name of White. Bit of a wide boy, I'm reliably informed. Had a hairdresser's in the premises in Anne Street before they opened the shop."
"Why is he a wide boy?"
"Takes risks-financial. The wife had to step in a couple of years back to keep his name out of Stubbs's. Then the hairdresser's failed."
"She has money?"
"The wife? Must have. She's in business herself, runs a sweatshop on Capel Street, high-class fashion work at tuppence an hour."
Now it was Quirke's turn to chuckle. "I must say, Inspector, for a man who isn't conducting an investigation you seem to know a great deal about these people."
The inspector treated this as a compliment, and pretended to be embarrassed. "Arragh," he said, "that's the kind of stuff you'd pick up by standing on a street corner listening to the wind." Off to their left a herd of deer stood in the long grass amidst a shimmer of heat; a stag lifted its elaborately horned head and eyed them sideways with truculent suspicion.
"Look, Inspector," Quirke said, "what does it matter, any of this? The woman is dead."
The inspector nodded but might as well have been shaking his head. "But that's just when it does matter, to me-when someone is dead and it's not clear how they came to be that way. Do you see what I mean, Mr. Quirke? And by the way," he added, smiling, "it was you that brought poor Deirdre Hunt to my attention in the first place-have you forgotten that?"
Quirke had no answer.
They turned back then, and boarded a bus outside the Phoenix Park gates and stood on the open platform at the back, clinging to the handrail and swaying in awkward unison as the bus plunged and wallowed its way along the quays. The inspector took off his hat and held it over his breast in the attitude of a mourner at a funeral. Quirke studied the man's flat, peasant's profile. He knew nothing of Hackett, he realized, other than what he saw, and what he saw was what Hackett chose to let him see. At times the policeman gave off a whiff of something-it was as tangible as a smell, chalky and gray-that hinted of institutions. Was there perhaps a Carricklea in his far past, too? Were they both borstal boys? Quirke did not care to ask.
He got off at the Four Courts, stepping down from the platform while the bus was still moving. A wild-haired drunk was sprawled on the pavement by the court gates, unconscious but holding tight to his bottle of sherry. Quirke sometimes pictured himself like this, lost to the world, ragged and sodden, slumped in some litter-strewn corner, his only possession a bottle in a brown paper bag.