The Silver Swan (9 page)

 

She went over in her mind what she could recall of the tales and parables he had recounted. The story that had made the strongest impression on her was that of the girl who had been brought back from the dead. This girl had three suitors and could not choose between them. Then one day she fell ill and was dead within the hour. The suitors were heartbroken, and each mourned in his own way. The first would not leave the graveyard, day or night, and ate and slept beside the grave; the second went wandering and became a fakir, or wise man; while the third gave over all of his time to comforting the girl's grieving father. One day on his travels the second suitor, the fakir, learned from another wise man the secret magic charm that would bring the dead back to life. He hurried home and went to the cemetery and said the magic formula to summon the girl out of her grave, and in a moment she appeared, as beautiful as she had ever been. The girl returned to her father's house, and the suitors began to argue among themselves as to who should have her hand. Eventually they went to the girl and each put his case to her. The first said he had not left the graveside for an instant; therefore his grieving had been of the purest. The second, the fakir, pointed out that it was
he who had acquired the knowledge to bring her back from the land of the dead. The third spoke of the consolation and comfort he had brought to her father after she had died. The girl listened to each in turn, and then said to them, "You who discovered the spell to restore my life, you were a humanitarian. You who took care of my father and comforted him, you acted like a son. But you who lay in grief beside my grave, you were a true lover—and you I will marry."

 

It was, she knew, only a story, and even a silly story, at that, yet something in it moved her. She felt that of all that the Doctor had said, this was the one thing meant especially for her. The shape of the fable seemed the shape of a life that would one day be hers. The future, she believed, the future in the unlikely form of Dr. Kreutz, had sent her a message, a prophecy, of survival and of love.

7

 

 

QUIRKE WAS NOT SURPRISED WHEN HE HEARD WHO IT WAS THAT WAS asking to see him. Since the day of the inquest he had been expecting a visit from the inspector. He put down the phone and lit a cigarette and sat thinking—let Hackett cool his heels for five minutes; it would do him good. It was morning, and Quirke was in his office at the hospital. Through the glass panel in the door he could see into the unnatural glare of the dissecting room, where his assistant, Sinclair, dourly handsome with black curls and a thin, down-turned mouth, was at work on the corpse of a little boy who had been run over by a coal lorry in the Coombe that morning. Thinking of the policeman, Quirke experienced a twinge of unease. The years at Carricklea had left him with a lurking fear of all appointed figures of authority that no subsequent accumulation of authority of his own could rid him of.

 

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.

 

As the bus swept away in a miasma of dirty gray exhaust smoke the inspector looked after him, smiling his fish smile, and did that Stan Laurel gesture with his hat again, flapping it on his chest in a mock-mournful, comic gesture that seemed both a farewell and—was it?—a caution.
8

 

 

 

 

 

PHOEBE GRIFFIN—IT HAD NOT OCCURRED TO HER TO CHANGE HER name to Quirke, and if it had she would not have done it—was unaccustomed to taking an interest in other people's lives. It was not that she considered other people entirely uninteresting, of course; she was not so detached as that. Only she was free of the prurience that seemed to be, that, indeed, must be, so she supposed, what drove gossips and journalists and, yes, policemen to delve into the dark crevices where actions tried to hide away their motives. She thought of her life now as a careful stepping along a thin strand of thrumming wire above a dark abyss. Balanced so, she knew she would do well not to look too often or too searchingly from side to side, or down—she should not look down at all. Up here, where she trod her fine line, the air was lighted and cool, a heady yet sustaining air. And this high, illumined place, sparse though it was, was sufficient for her, who had known enough of depths, and darkness. Why should she speculate about the crowd that she was aware of below her, gazing up in envy, awe, and hopeful, spiteful, anticipation?

 

She trusted no one.

 

Yet she found herself thinking, again and again, of Deirdre Hunt, or Laura Swan, and the manner of her death. The woman had been
pleasant enough, in a brittle sort of way. Perhaps it was that very brittleness that had attracted Phoebe's sympathetic interest. But here she checked herself—sympathetic? why sympathetic? Laura Swan, or Deirdre Hunt, had never given her reason to think she was in need of anyone's sympathy. But she must have been in need of something, and in great need, helplessly so, to have ended as she had. Phoebe could not imagine what would have brought her to do such a thing, for even in her lowest times she had never for a moment entertained the possibility of suicide. Not that she did not think it would be good, on the whole, to be gone from this world, but to go in that fashion would be, simply, absurd.

 

Suicide
. The word sounded in her mind now with the ring of a hammer falling on a dull lump of steel. Perhaps the fascination of it, for her, was merely that she had never known anyone personally, or in the flesh, at least—and certainly she had not known Laura Swan in anything other than appearance—who had vanished so comprehensively, who had become non-flesh, as it were, by one sudden, impulsive dive into darkness. Phoebe thought she knew how it would have been for the other woman, knifing through the gleaming black surface with lights sliding on it and plunging deep down, deeper and deeper, into cold and suffocation and oblivion. The diver would have felt impatience, surely, impatience for it all to be over and her to be done with; that, and a strange, desolate sort of joyfulness and satisfaction, the satisfaction of having been, in some paradoxical way, avenged. For Phoebe could not conceive of that young woman going to her death unless someone had driven her to it, wittingly or unwittingly, someone who now was surely suffering the cruel pangs of remorse. Surely.