Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

said, “and he was young.” She laughed. “ Y ou wouldn’t think it, would you, seeing Patrick now, that he was ever young.”
    Quirke dipped his head and took another quick go from his glass, as if, Phoebe thought, he imagined that if he did it quickly enough no one would notice. “Did he”—he hesitated—“did he take part? I mean, was he active?”
    “No,” Sally said, “I’m sure he wasn’t.”
    Phoebe was looking from one of them to the other. “The IRA?” she said to Sally. “Are you joking?” She turned to Quirke. “They’re not—they’re not serious, are they? I mean, the IRA is just a bunch of hotheads, aren’t they? Crackpots and hotheads?”
    “Well, they take themselves seriously,” Quirke said mildly.
    “I used to think they were a joke,” Sally said quietly, “until they blew up a Customs post a few miles from where we lived. One of their own men died in the explosion—he’s held up as a martyr in the locality, now. But it gave our Patrick the fright he needed, and before we knew it he had packed himself off to Dublin to study for the law.” She laughed coldly. “And now he’s a thoroughly respectable pillar of the community.”
    “I remember that bombing,” Quirke said, “but it’s a long time ago now. Do you really think Jimmy’s death might have been in some way—?”
    “No,” Sally said, “I’m sure it wasn’t. Only, when something as dreadful as that happens, you imagine all sorts of things”—she turned to Phoebe—“don’t you?”
    “I’m sure it’s true,” Phoebe said. Yes, it was true; she knew from experience that it was.
    Sally turned back to Quirke. “What about this priest you mentioned,” she said. “Have the Guards talked to him?”
    “No,” Quirke said, “but he talked to me.”
    Phoebe was startled. “How did that come about?” she asked.
    “He phoned me up. We met in Flynne’s Hotel.”
    This time it was Sally who spoke. “And?” she asked.
    “And nothing. He said he knew nothing about Jimmy, had never met him or spoken to him.”
    “And what about the other one, the tinker, what’s-his-name?”
    “Packie Joyce? A detective I know is going out to Tallaght to talk to him. He’s asked me to come along.”
    His wine glass was empty. He turned again in his chair, lifting a hand to summon the waitress.
    * * *

    The rainstorm was thrilling. In Baggot Street the trees shivered and shook like racehorses waiting for the off, and fresh green leaves torn from their boughs whipped in wild flight down the middle of the road or plastered themselves to the pavements as if hiding their faces in terror. The two young women had to fight their way along, the gale ripping at their clothes and handfuls of rain spattering in their faces. When they tried to speak the wind filled up their mouths, and they had to turn and walk backwards with their arms linked, leaning close against each other so that their temples almost touched.
    Sally thanked Phoebe for introducing her to her father and remarked how good-looking he was. Phoebe did not reply to this. Yes, it was true, she supposed, Quirke was handsome; it was a thing she did not notice anymore. For some time, though, when she still believed he was her uncle, she had been soft on him. It was silly, of course, and would have been even if he had not turned out to be her father. To recall now how she had felt for him in those days made her suddenly frightened, as if she were poised on the very tip of some aerial, intricate structure, the Eiffel Tower, say, or one of the arms of some great bridge, and the force of the feeling surprised her, and shocked her, too. She began to ask herself, as she had done so often in the past, how Quirke could have left her in ignorance for all those years, how he could have been so coldhearted, but then she stopped. It was no good, asking such questions. The past was the past.
    They reached the house on Herbert Place in a flurry of wind and raindrops, and ran up the stairs and burst into the flat, laughing breathlessly and shaking the rain from their hair. “My feet are sopping!” Sally cried happily. “ Y our floor will be ruined.”
    They kicked off their shoes and struggled out of their wet coats, and Phoebe knelt and lit the gas fire, then said she would make something hot for them to drink, tea or coffee, or spiced lemonade, maybe, and went off into the kitchen. When after a little while she came back, carrying a tray with a jug and two glasses on it,