'Not really.'
'Then-'
'I just know.'
Quirke wanted Rose to tell him how she could 'just know' things, about Phoebe or anybody else. He never knew anything until he had dismantled it and examined the parts.
'You're her father,' Rose said. 'You should speak to her. She needs someone's help. I can't do it. Maybe no one can. But you should try.'
He looked down. What could he say to Phoebe? Phoebe would not listen to him. 'Sarah could have done it,' he said.
'Oh, Sarah!' Rose snapped. 'Why you all go on so about Sarah I don't know. She was a nice woman, harmless, did her best to be pleasant. What else was there to her? And don't look at me like that, Quirke, as if I'd kicked your cat. You know me, I say what I mean. I so hate your Irish mealymouthedness, the way you treat your women. You either makes saints of them and put them on a pedestal or they're witches out to torment and destroy you. And you of all people shouldn't do it. I'm sure your wife-what was her name, Delia?-wasn't the Jezebel you pretend she was, either.'
'Why me,' he asked, ''of all people'?' She considered him in silence for a moment.
'I told you before, a long time ago,' she said. 'You and I are the same- cold hearts, hot souls. There aren't many like us.'
'Maybe that's just as well,' Quirke said. Rose only put back her head and smiled at him with narrowed eyes.
Mal joined them. He tapped a fingertip to the bridge of his spectacles. 'Did you get something to eat?' he asked of them both. He looked doubtfully at the tray of wilting sandwiches. 'I'm not sure what Maggie has prepared. She gets more eccentric every day.' He gave a faint, hapless smile. 'But then, what can I expect?'
Rose shot Quirke a look, as if to say,
Mal looked at her in slow astonishment. 'Where would I live?'
'Build something else. Buy an apartment. You don't owe anyone your life, you know.'
It seemed he might protest, but instead he only turned aside, in an almost furtive way, the lenses of his glasses shining, which somehow made him seem to be weeping.
The evening crawled on. Maggie came back and cleared the table, muttering to herself. She appeared not to notice that no one had eaten the sandwiches. They drifted into the garden two by two, Mal with Rose, Quirke with Phoebe, like couples progressing towards a dance.
'Rose says you have a secret,' Quirke said quietly to his daughter.
Phoebe was looking at her shoes. 'Does she? What kind of secret?'
'She doesn't know, only she knows you have one. So she says. When I hear women talking about a secret, I always assume the secret is a man.'
'Well,' Phoebe said, with a cold little smile, 'you would, of course.'
The soft gray air of twilight was dense and grainy. It would rain later, Quirke thought. Rose had stepped away from Mal and now turned about to face the others, and looked askance at the ground, turning the stem of the wine glass slowly on the flattened palm of her hand. 'I suppose,' she said, raising her voice, 'this is as good a moment as any to make my announcement.' She glanced up, smiling oddly. They waited. She touched a hand to her forehead. 'I feel shy, suddenly,' she said, 'isn't that the darnedest thing? Quirke, don't look so alarmed. It's simply that I've decided to move here.'
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.
