Holy Orders A Quirke Novel (11 page)

The door was opened by a tiny and very old man in a leather apron and a black suit that was shiny at the elbows and the knees. He was afflicted with curvature of the spine, and was so bent he had to squint up sideways to see them, baring an eyetooth in the effort. Hackett gave his name, and said he was expected. The old man replied with a grunt and shuffled backwards and to the side, drawing the door open wider, and the two men stepped into the hall.

The old man shut the door, pushing the weight of it with both hands. “This way, gents,” he said. His voice was a harsh croak. He turned and set off down the hall. As he walked he swung his right hand back and forth in long slow arcs; it might have been an oar and he the oarsman, paddling himself along. They could hear his labored breathing. The hall had a mingled smell of floor polish and must. All round them in the house a huge and listening silence reigned.

Father Dangerfield’s office was a large cold room with a corniced ceiling and three tall windows looking out on a broad sweep of lawn and, beyond the grass, a stand of stark-looking trees. The carpet had a threadbare pathway worn in it, leading up to an antique oak desk with many drawers and a green leather inlaid top. There was an acrid tobacco smell—Father Dangerfield was evidently a heavy smoker. He was narrow-shouldered, thin to the point of emaciation, with a narrow head and a pale dry gray jaw that had the look of a cuttlefish bone. He wore spectacles with metal rims, in the lenses of which the light from the windows weakly gleamed. He stood up as they entered—he was tall, well over six feet—and smiled with an evident effort, pursing his lips. The bent old man went out crabwise and shut the door soundlessly behind himself.

“Gentlemen,” the priest said. “Please, sit.”

Quirke and Hackett had each to fetch a chair from the far side of the room and set it down before the desk. Hackett was holding his hat as if it were an alien thing that had been thrust into his hands.

Father Dangerfield resumed his seat. Hackett did not much like the look of him, with his raw, bone-dry face and purplish hands, and the shining lenses of his spectacles that magnified his eyes and gave him a look of vexed startlement. The priest leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers and touched the tips of them to his lips. It was a studied pose, practiced, Hackett surmised, over long hours spent in the confessional, listening in judicious silence to the sins of others.
Never jump to conclusions …

“So,” Father Dangerfield said. “What can I do for you?” He had an English accent, precise and slightly prissy.

“We were hoping,” Hackett said, “to speak to Father Honan.”

The priest frowned, his eyes behind the glasses growing wider still. “For what reason, may I ask?”

Hackett smiled easily. “There’s a couple of things we’d like to talk to him about.” At the word “we” Father Dangerfield glanced in Quirke’s direction, as if he were registering him for the first time. “This is Dr. Quirke,” Hackett said, and left it at that, as though merely the name would be enough of an explanation for Quirke’s presence.

The priest turned to Hackett again. “Please tell me, what are these things you wish to discuss with Father Honan?”

“A young man died on Monday night. Name of Minor—you might have read about it in the papers.”

“Why?” the priest asked. Hackett blinked, and the priest gave a faint grimace of impatience. “I mean, why would I have read about it?”

“Well, it was a murder, we think. There was a subsequent report on it in the
Clarion
. Big story, page one.”

Father Dangerfield put the joined tips of his fingers to his lips again and sat very still for a long moment. “Ah,” he said at last, and again seemed somewhat impatient, “in the papers. I see. You must understand, we’re rather”—he smiled his wintry smile—“sequestered here.”

It struck Hackett that the fellow had all the tone and mannerisms of a Jesuit, one of those clever English ones who spend their time in the drawing rooms of great houses, sipping dry sherry and covertly working to convert the upper classes. How had he come to join the Trinitarians, an order not known for subtlety or sophistication? Had there been some misdemeanor, committed in another jurisdiction, that had resulted in him ending up here?

Now the priest spoke again. “Who was the young man? You say his name was Myler?”

“Minor,” Hackett said. “Jimmy Minor. He was a reporter on the
Clarion,
as it happens.”

“And what befell the poor man?”

Befell
. Hackett could not remember having heard anyone use the word before; in the pictures, maybe, but not in real life. “He was beaten to death and left in the Grand Canal at Leeson Street.”

Father Dangerfield nodded. “I see,” he said again. He crossed himself quickly. “May the good Lord have mercy on his soul.” The piety was perfunctory, and seemed feigned. Abruptly he got up, in a flurry of black serge, and strode to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind himself, looking out at the lawn and the bare trees at its far edge. Thin sunlight was on the grass, giving it a lemonish hue. “What I don’t see,” he said without turning, “is the connection there could be between the unfortunate young man’s death and your wanting to see Father Honan.”

“Well, there was a letter,” Hackett said, twisting sideways in his chair, the better to study the priest’s tall, gaunt figure dark against the window’s light. “A letter from you, in fact.”

Now the priest did turn. “From me? To whom?”

“To Jimmy Minor. About Father Honan.”

“Ah.”

Quirke had not said a word since they had come in; Hackett turned his head and glanced at him. He was slumped in his chair with eyes downcast, studying his hands where they lay clasped in his lap.

The priest returned and sat down again.

Quirke produced his cigarette case and held it aloft inquiringly. “Do you mind?”

“Please, go ahead,” the priest said, his tone distracted. He seemed to be thinking hard.

Quirke lit his cigarette. Hackett noticed that the hand holding the lighter trembled slightly. As the smoke drifted across the desk, the priest’s nostrils quivered. From outside came the ratcheting chatter of a magpie, followed by a blackbird’s sentinel pipings.

“When,” Father Dangerfield asked, “did I write to him?”

“The letter was dated last week. The seventeenth.”

“Last week.” The priest looked down at the desktop with its inlay of green leather. Then he lifted his eyes again. “Have you got it, this letter?”

“We have,” Hackett said. He had set his hat on his knees.

“And may I see it?”

Hackett passed over this blandly. “You don’t remember writing it?” he asked.

“Yes yes,” the priest said, “of course, I remember now. I didn’t connect the name. You must understand, a great deal of correspondence crosses my desk. He asked if he could see Father Honan. If he could interview him, I believe.” He was watching Quirke take a second long drag at his cigarette.

“Did he say,” Hackett inquired, “what it was he wanted to interview Father Honan about?”

“What?” The priest dragged his eyes away from Quirke’s cigarette and gazed at Hackett with his big pale eyes, seeming at a loss.

Hackett smiled tolerantly. He brought out a packet of Player’s and offered it across the desk, with the top open. “Would you care for a smoke, Father?” he asked in a kindly tone.

Father Dangerfield shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, with a tense, pained frown. “I’ve given them up.”

“Ah.” The detective began to take a cigarette for himself but thought better of it and closed the packet and put it away. He clasped his fingers together and twiddled his thumbs. “Did Jimmy Minor say,” he asked again, “what it was he wanted to talk to Father Honan about?”

“When he wrote to me, you mean? No, I don’t think so. I can check his letter, if you wish.” He looked down at the desk again, as if the letter might magically appear there.

“That would be helpful,” Hackett said.

Suddenly Quirke stirred and got to his feet, seemingly with a struggle, and stood swaying. The other two men stared at him. “Sorry,” he said, with a wild look. His face was gray and filmed with sweat. “Sorry, I—”

He hurried to the door, but had trouble opening it. Hackett and Father Dangerfield stood up together, as if to rush to his aid. They hovered irresolutely, looking at each other. At last, with a great wrench, Quirke got the door open and plunged through it and was gone.

“Good heavens,” the priest said, and looked at Hackett again. “Is he—?”

Slowly the heavy oak door, impelled by a draft, swung to and shut itself with a sharp click.

*   *   *

It took him a long time to find his way through the house. He stumbled along what he took to be the hallway down which the crippled old man had led him and Hackett after he had first let them in, but instead of arriving at the front door he found himself facing a floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window, or wall, rather. Behind it was a chapel, for he could dimly see through the lurid panes the pinprick ruby-red glow of what must have been the sanctuary lamp. He turned and blundered back the way he had come. The silent building seemed deserted—where could they be, the priests, the people who worked here, the officials, the secretaries, the cleaners, even? Yet how familiar it was, this poised stillness all about him, familiar from long ago, longer than he cared to remember. His heart was beating very fast; it felt as if it had come loose somehow and were joggling about inside his rib cage. It occurred to him that he might be having a heart attack, or suffering a stroke—that he might, in fact, be dying. Far from being frightening, the idea was almost funny, and despite his distressed state he gave a wheezy laugh, which made his pulse beat all the faster and started up a burning sensation in his chest. He put a hand to his face. His cheeks and forehead were chill and stickily moist. The word
infarction
came to him, but for the moment he could not think what it meant, which was absurd—was his memory going, too?

What seemed to be an electric bell was dinning somewhere nearby; he could not decide if it was in his head or if a telephone was ringing. Here, around a corner, was another hallway, or corridor, with heavy-framed paintings on the walls, large, muddy, and very bad portraits of venerable clerics interspersed with martyred saints writhing in picturesque agony. His heart, still hammering, now seemed to be swelling and rising slowly up through his chest, pressing from beneath against his esophagus, robbing him of breath. He stopped and stood still and shut his eyes, pressing the lids together tightly. He told himself he must stay calm. This would pass. It was a seizure of some kind, but he was sure now it would not kill him. In the darkness inside his head great whorls of multicolored light formed and burst, like fireworks going off in silent slow motion. He opened his eyes and stumbled on. Was there no one to help him? Then suddenly there was the front door, at last. Panting, he dragged it open and almost fell through it, onto the stone step outside, gulping mouthfuls of air.

The sky was overcast now, yet the light was as intense as a magnesium flare, and he had to shut his eyes again for a moment. He felt exhausted, as if he had all at once become very old and infirm, and he sat down on the step, slowly and carefully. The granite was comfortingly cool to the touch. Through slitted eyelids—the light was searing still—he peered this way and that about the grounds. The yellow-green grass now had an even more unnaturally acid cast, and the stark branches of the trees looked like so many arms flung upwards in surprise or horror or both. He put a hand to his heart; it was still struggling behind his ribs like a big heavy bird in a too-small cage. Yet he was aware of a calm descending on him, as if a veil of some transparent, gossamer stuff were being laid gently over him from head to foot.
Was
he dying, after all? Was this how it would be, not violence and terror but a calm, slow sinking into oblivion?

A blackbird alighted on the lawn just beyond the ring of gravel and began busily stabbing at the turf with its orange beak, its rounded gleaming blue-black head moving jerkily, like the head of a clockwork toy. He watched it at its delving. The bird seemed to mean something, to be something, something beyond itself. He had a sense of dawning wonderment, as if he had never really looked at the world before, had never before seen it in all its raw vividness.

The door opened and he heard a step behind him. It was the old man with the crooked back. “Ah, Lord, sir, what ails you at all?” he said.

The blackbird flew off, sounding a shrilly urgent, repeated note.

Quirke tried to scramble to his feet but his knees refused to work. They felt as if they were made not of bone but metal, as if they were two hinged metal boxes that the rivets had fallen out of, and he was afraid the loose flanges would tear the skin covering them and break through and bleed and begin to rust in the harsh April air. The old man was bent so far forward that although he was on his feet his face was at the same level as Quirke’s where he sat. The eyes were a whitish-blue color—cataracts, Quirke thought distractedly.

“Felt a bit queer,” Quirke said, his voice sounding unnaturally loud. “Just having a rest here for a minute.”

He tried again to get his legs to work, flexing the muscles gingerly, afraid that those hinges in his knees would come asunder if he put pressure on them. It was a novel sensation—comical, yes—sitting here in a heap on the stone step with the old man’s face in front of him on a horizontal and so close up to his own that he could see the gray stubble on the other’s ancient, wrinkled chin.

“Will I give you a hand?” the old fellow said, speaking with measured distinctness, as if he were addressing a child. Quirke had an image of himself being hauled to his feet and of the two of them tottering together down the steps hand in hand, both of them bent over, with limbs akimbo, like a pair of chimps, the old one leading the younger and hooting soft encouragements. “No no,” he said, “no, I’m fine.”

At last he got himself up and stood swaying. His knees seemed to be all right, after all. The old man squinted up at him, that tawny side tooth bared again. “Come inside and we’ll get you a cup of tea,” he said.