had got into a fight over the awarding of a state haulage contract the previous year. Old men, as some wag at the funeral remarked in a stage whisper, do not forget. The Archbishop, tall and silver-haired and handsome, every inch the Hollywood image of a prelate, intoned the service of the dead in a sonorous singsong, and when he finished a single snowflake appeared out of nowhere and hovered over the mouth of the grave, like the manifestation of a blessing from above being reluctantly bestowed. When the prayers were done there came the little ceremony of the scattering of the clay, which never failed to catch Quirke’s morbid fancy. A miniature silver shovel was produced and Sarah was the first to take it. The earth fell on the coffin with a hollow rattle. When the shovel was offered to the Judge he shook his head and turned away.
The Archbishop put a hand on the old man’s sleeve and spoke to him, inclining his film star’s fine, silvered head.
“Garret, it’s good to see you, even on such a sad occasion.”
“We did our old friend proud today, I think, William.”
“Yes, indeed. A very great man, and a loyal son of the church.”
Sarah and Quirke walked together toward the cars. She was thinner than when he had last seen her, and there was a vehemence in her look that he did not recognize. She asked him if he had talked to Phoebe, and when he looked blank she clicked her tongue at him angrily.
“Did you tell her what I told you?” she said. “For God’s sake, Quirke, you can’t have forgotten!”
“No,” he said, “no, I didn’t forget.”
“Well?”
What could he say? Behind her veil Sarah’s lips tightened to a bitter chevron, and she quickened her pace and walked on, leaving him struggling on his stick in her wake.
AT THE HOUSE THE FAMILY LINGERED IN THE ENTRANCE HALL IN AN uncertain cluster, awaiting the rest of the mourners. Phoebe’s face was blotched from weeping and the Judge looked about him as if he did not know where he was. Sarah and Mal held apart from each other. Sarah took off her hat and stood fingering the veil; she would not look at Quirke. Rose Crawford took his arm and drew him aside.
“You don’t seem the most popular family member today,” she murmured. The cars were arriving in the drive. She sighed. “Will you keep me company, Quirke? It’s going to be a long day.”
But at once she was separated from him as first the Archbishop made his stately entrance and she went forward to greet him. Then the others came in behind him, the clerics and the politicians and the businessmen and their wives, ashen-faced, blue-lipped, muttering to each other of the cold and looking about with covert eagerness, wanting drink and food and warm fires. The red-haired priest from St. Mary’s was there, and Costigan, in his shiny suit and horn-rimmed spectacles, and there were others whom Quirke recognized from the party for the Judge that night at Mal and Sarah’s house. He watched them gathering, and followed them into the drawing room, where the funeral meats were set out, and as he listened to the hubbub of their mingled and clashing voices, a sense almost of physical revulsion welled up in him. These were the people who had killed Christine Falls and her child, who had sent the torturers after Dolly Moran, who had ordered that he be thrown down those slimed steps and kicked and beaten to within an inch of his life. Oh, not all of them; no doubt there were those among them who were innocent, innocent of these particular crimes, at least. And he, how innocent was he? What right did he have to stand upon a height and look down on them, he who had not even found the courage to tell his daughter the truth of who her parents were?
He went to where Mal was standing by one of the tall windows, his hands in the pockets of his buttoned-up suit jacket, looking out at the garden and the gathering snow.
“You should take a drink, Mal,” he said. “It helps.”
Mal turned his head and gave him that look that he had, frog-eyed and blank, then went back to contemplating the garden.
“I don’t recall it helping you much,” he said mildly.
The wind blew a billow of snow against the window; it made a wet, soft sound. Quirke said:
“I know about the child.”
Mal’s features registered the faintest frown but he did not turn. He pushed his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and jingled something there, keys, or coins, or the dog tags of the dead.
“Oh?” he said. “What child is that?”
“The child that Christine Falls was carrying. The one that wasn’t stillborn. Christine was her name, too.”
Mal sighed. For a long moment he was silent, and then said:
“Funny, I don’t remember snow when we were here, all those years ago.” He turned his glance and looked into Quirke’s face in search of something. “Do you, Quirke? Do you remember snow?”
“Yes, there was snow,” Quirke said. “A whole winter of it.”
“So it was.” Mal, facing the window again, was nodding slowly, as if at word of some far-off wonder. He lifted a finger and tapped it on the bridge of his glasses. “I had forgotten that.” The light from the garden was dead white against his face. He cracked his knuckles pensively.
“She was yours, wasn’t she?” Quirke said. “Your child.”
Now Mal dropped his eyes and smiled.
“Oh, Quirke,” he said, as if almost with fondness, “you know nothing, I’ve told you that before.”
Quirke said:
“I know that the child is dead.”
There was another silence. Mal was frowning again, and glancing here and there distractedly, from the garden to the folds of the roped-back drapes to the floor at his feet, as if there were a thing he had lost that might be found anywhere, in any of these places.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said absently. Then of a sudden he turned fully toward Quirke and laid a hand on his shoulder. Quirke looked at the hand; when last had either of them touched the other? “All this business,” Mal said, “why can’t you let it go, Quirke?”
“It won’t let me go.”
Mal considered this for a moment, pursing his lips judiciously. He let his hand fall from Quirke’s shoulder.
“It’s not like you, Quirke,” he said, “this stubbornness to see a thing through.”
“No,” Quirke said, “I suppose it’s not.”
And then all at once he saw it, the entire thing, and how wrong he had been all along, wrong about Mal, and so much else. Mal had turned his head and was watching him again, and when Quirke met his eye he saw what Quirke had suddenly seen, and he nodded once, faintly.
QUIRKE WANDERED THROUGH THE HOUSE. IN JOSH CRAWFORD’S library the fire of pine logs was burning as usual and the light from the window gleamed on the upper cheek of the globe of the world. He went to the table where the drinks were and poured himself half a tumblerful of scotch. Behind him Rose Crawford said, “Goodness, Mr. Quirke, you do look grim.” He turned quickly. She was stretched in an armchair under a tall, potted palm. Her tight black dress was rucked at the hips and she had kicked off one of her shoes. She had a cigarette in one hand and an empty martini glass in the other, tilted at an angle. She was, he could see, a little tipsy. “Do you think,” she said, proffering the glass, “you could fix me another one of these painkillers?”
He went to her and took the glass and returned to the table.
“How are you?” he said.
“How am I?” She considered. “Sad. I miss him already.” He brought her the drink and handed it to her. She fished out the olive with her fingers and munched it ruminatively. “He was funny, you know,” she said, “in his awful way. I mean humorous. He made me laugh.” She spat the olive stone delicately into her fist. “Even in these last days, when he was so ill, we were still laughing. Means a lot to a girl, the occasional chuckle.” She squinted up at him. “I guess you wouldn’t have appreciated his jokes, Mr. Quirke.” She put out her fist and he opened his palm and she dropped the olive stone into it. “Thanks.” She frowned. “Sit down, will you? I hate to be loomed over.”
He went and sat on the sofa that was set back from the fireplace. The snow outside was falling fast now, he fancied he could hear the huge, busy whisper of it as it swamped the air and settled on the already blanketed lawn and on the invisible terraces and stone steps and graveled walkways. He thought of the sea out there beyond the garden, the waves a dark, muddy mauve, swallowing the endless fallings of frail flakes. Rose too was looking toward the windows and the slanted, moving whiteness beyond.
“Coincidence,” she said. “I just realized, he died on our wedding anniversary. Trust him.” She laughed. “He probably planned it. He had powers, you know. It’s true, you think I’m making it up-he could read my mind. Maybe
