There was a startled pause; then Quirke said, "To Dublin?"
Rose nodded. "Yes. To Dublin." She laughed briefly. "Maybe it's the biggest mistake I've ever made, and the good Lord knows I've made many. But there it is, I've decided. I have"-she looked at Quirke-"no illusions as to what to expect of life in Ireland. But I suppose I feel some kind of-I don't know, some kind of responsibility to Josh. Perhaps it's my duty to bring his millions back to the land of his birth." This time she turned to Mal, almost pleadingly. "Does that seem crazy?"
"No," Mal said, "no, it doesn't."
Rose laughed again. "I can tell you, no one is more surprised than I am." She seemed to falter, and cast her eyes down again. "I guess the dead keep a hold on us even after they've passed on."
And at that, as if at her summoning, Sarah's voice spoke in Quirke's head, saying his name. He turned without a word and walked into the house. In the past long months of sobriety he had never wanted a drink so badly as he did at that moment.
HE WALKED WITH PHOEBE ALONG THE TOWPATH BY THE CANAL. NIGHT had fallen and the smell of coming rain was unmistakable now; he even fancied he could feel a breath of dampness against his face. Beside them the water shone blackly, like oil. They passed by courting couples huddled in pools of darkness under the trees. A bearded tramp was asleep on a bench, lying on his side in a nest of newspapers with a hand under his cheek. Neither Quirke nor Phoebe had spoken since they had left the house in Rathgar. The shock at Rose's announcement had lingered, and the party, such as it was, had come to an abrupt end. Rose had taken a taxi back to the Shelbourne, and had offered Quirke and Phoebe a lift, but they had preferred to walk. Quirke was still feeling the effect of Sarah's sudden presence, after Rose's words had somehow conjured her for him in that moment in the twilit garden, under the willow tree that she had planted. He said now: "A man was killed today. Murdered."
For the space of half a dozen paces Phoebe gave no response, then only asked, "Who?"
"A man called Kreutz. Dr. Kreutz, he called himself."
"What happened to him?"
In the light of a streetlamp a bat flickered crazily in a ragged circle about the crown of a tree and was gone.
"He had a place not far from here, in Adelaide Road. He was a healer of some sort-a quack, I'm sure. And someone beat him to death." He glanced sidelong at her, but she had her head bent and he could not make out her expression in the darkness. "He knew Deirdre Hunt-Laura Swan-and her business partner, Leslie White." He paused. The sound of their footsteps startled a moorhen and it scrambled away from them, making the dry reeds rattle. "And you've been with him, haven't you, Leslie White?"
She showed no surprise. "Why do you say that?"
"I saw you together one day, in Duke Street, near where Laura Swan had her beauty salon. It was by chance, I just happened to be there. I guessed you'd been with him, in a pub."
She made an impatient gesture, flicking a hand sideways in a chopping motion. "Yes, I know, I remember."
They came to the bridge at Ranelagh and crossed over. Below, the reflection of a streetlight in the water crossed with them.
"Is he your secret," Quirke asked, "Leslie White?"
It was again a long time before she answered. "I don't think," she said at last, "that's any of your business." He made to speak but she prevented him. "You have no rights over me, Quirke," she said evenly, in a low, hard, calm voice, looking straight before her along the deserted roadway. "Whatever right you might have had, whatever authority, you forfeited years ago."
"You're my daughter," he said.
"Am I? You hid that fact from me for so long, and now you expect me to accept it?" She still spoke in that level, almost detached tone, without rancor, it might be, despite the force of the words. "You're not my father, Quirke. I have no father."
They turned the corner and walked down Harcourt Street. The darkness seemed more dense here in this canyon between the high terraces of houses on either side.
"I worry about you," Quirke said.
Phoebe stopped, and turned to him. "There's no need for that," she said, suddenly fierce. "I forbid you. It's not fair."
A low-slung sports car, painted green but seeming black in the dim light, was parked on the opposite side of the road. Neither of them noticed it.
"I'm sorry," Quirke said. "But I think Leslie White is a dangerous man. I think he killed Deirdre Hunt. I think he killed this fellow Kreutz, too."
Phoebe's eyes glittered in the shadows. She was smiling almost savagely, and he could see the tips of her teeth. "Good," she said. "Maybe he'll kill me, too."
She turned then and walked swiftly away. He stood on the pavement, watching as she went. She stopped at the house and found her key and climbed the steps and let herself in at the front door and shut it behind her without a backwards glance.
He lingered awhile, and then went on, in the direction of the Green. At the junction he paused at the traffic lights, and heard behind him the flurried cry and the brief, winglike rushing in the air and then the clang and crunch and he turned and in the streetlights' sulfurous glow saw the man in the white suit impaled through the chest on the spears of the black railings, his arms and legs still weakly moving and his long, silver hair hanging down.
SHE HAD FELT THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG FROM THE MOMENT SHE shut the front door behind her, and as she climbed the stairs the feeling grew stronger with every step. She supposed she should have been frightened but instead she was strangely calm, and curious as well, curious to know what it was that awaited her. On the second landing she stopped and stood a moment, listening. It was a quiet house at all times. The other tenants were an elderly spinster on the ground floor who kept cats, the smell of which permeated the hall, and on the first floor an elusive couple she suspected of living in sin; an artist had her studio in the second-floor flat but was rarely there, and never at night, and the third-floor flat had been empty for months. Now she could hear nothing, not a sound of any life, strain as she would. A faulty cistern above her gurgled, and from away off somewhere in the streets there came the wail of an ambulance siren. She looked up through the well of the stairs, into the upper dark. There was someone up there, she was sure of it. She went on, avoiding those places where she knew the stairs would creak.
On the third floor she pressed the switch that lit the yellow-shaded light on the landing above, outside her door. She paused again, and again looked up, but saw no one. Outside her flat, to the right, there was a dark alcove where a small door gave onto the attic stairs. She did not look into the alcove. She could feel the small hairs prickling at the nape of her neck. She was trying to remember the name of a girl she had known at school who had walked out of her parents' house one morning in her school uniform and was never seen or heard of again. There had been stories that she had eloped. Her schoolbag had been found discarded in a front garden in the next street.
She opened the door to the flat.
The first thing to strike her was how odd it was that Quirke should somehow have managed to get into the house in front of her and hurry up the stairs to hide in the alcove. It seemed impossible, but there he was, rushing past her in the doorway, just as Leslie White came out to meet her from the living room, with a cigarette dangling between his middle and third fingers, saying something. When he saw Quirke he put up both hands, still holding the cigarette, and retreated the way he had come. Quirke rushed at him, head down, like a rugby player charging into a scrum. Leslie gave a squeak of alarm and the two of them disappeared into the room, Leslie going backwards with Quirke's arms thrown round him and Quirke bent double. She had trouble getting her key out of the lock-she was trying to pull it out at a bias-and she abandoned the struggle and hurried after the two men. She heard Leslie cry out again, much more piercingly this time. When she came into the room there was only one man there, leaning out of the wide-open window with his hands braced on the window seat.