All this, most of it, was a lie. He had not mentioned Mona Delahaye. She had tried to call him at the hospital and the woman on the switchboard had put it through to the pathology lab and Sinclair had answered, and then Sinclair had phoned him. Phoebe was at the Delahayes’ house and was unwell, it seemed, and needed to be collected-Sinclair was working late, he was in the middle of a postmortem, he could not get away. Quirke would have to go. Sinclair gave the address. Yes, Quirke said, he knew the house. Then there had been a silence on the line. How much did Sinclair know about Quirke and Mona Delahaye? Sinclair had an uncanny knack of getting wind of things that no one else knew about. Quirke watched until the taxi with Isabel in it was out of sight, then climbed into the next car in the row.
It was Mona who opened the front door to him. “Oh, hello,” she said, as if his sudden appearance were an unexpected and mildly pleasant surprise.
“I’ve come for Phoebe,” he said.
“Yes, of course you have.”
She stood there with her hand on the door, looking him slowly up and down, in that way she did, as if measuring him for something, some garment into which he might have to be fitted. She smiled. “You’re the very picture of paternal concern,” she said.
He took a step forward. “Where is she?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Oh, she drank too much gin, that’s all.” Still she had not taken her hand from the door, and seemed indeed to be considering whether or not to let him come in. Then she shrugged and stood aside. “For God’s sake keep your voice down,” she said. “My father-in-law is on the warpath.”
She led him to the drawing room. Phoebe was lying full-length on the white sofa, her head propped on a cushion, and with another cushion under her feet. Her hands were crossed on her breast. In her black dress and white blouse with the white lace collar she looked alarmingly like the corpse of a maiden saint laid out on a bier. He went and lifted her wrist and took her pulse. It was slow. He smelled her breath.
As he leaned over her she suddenly opened wide her eyes and stared at him in a sort of happy disbelief. “Daddy,” she said softly, and her eyelids fluttered shut again. She had never called him Daddy before. She must think he was someone else.
He turned to Mona, who was standing in the doorway with her shoulder against the doorjamb and her ankles crossed, smoking a cigarette and watching him with a sardonic smile. “What happened?” he asked again.
“I told you-she drank too much and passed out.”
“What was she drinking?”
“Gin. I already said. Don’t you listen?”
He glanced about the room, saw the empty glasses, the open lid of the radiogram. “Who was here?”
“I was.”
“Who else?”
“The twins. Honestly, Quirke, you look terribly fierce-you’ll have me frightened of you in a minute.”
Quirke made a dismissive gesture, chopping at the air with the side of his hand. “Why was she here?” he asked. “What was she doing?”
Mona gave an exasperated sigh, expelling hasty cigarette smoke. “ I don’t know. I arrived and here she was, knocking back gin by the bucketful and dancing. It was quite a party.”
“A party? Were there others?”
“What others?”
“ Any others.”
“The twins-I told you!”
“And that’s all? You and those two and Phoebe? What was going on?”
“Will you stop asking that? You sound like a broken record.”
“My daughter was in your house, comatose, and I was called to come and collect her. You made the call. I think you owe me an explanation.”
She sighed again and was silent for a moment, giving him a level look and shaking her head slightly from side to side. “I know what it is about you,” she said. “You think you’re living in the movies.” She put on a heavy voice, mimicking him. “ My daughter, in your house, what’s going on? Can’t young people have a little party now and then?”
“If they harmed her in any way…”
He did not go on, and Mona laughed. “You mean,” she said, “if they ‘dishonored her’? If they ‘ruined’ her? Now you’re playing the Victorian father-you should have mustaches to twirl.”
He shook his head, as if he were being bothered by some flying thing. “Will you call a taxi for me, please?”
“I could drive you somewhere-anywhere, in fact.”
“A taxi would be best. If you show me the phone I’ll call one myself.”
She was smiling at him with a wry expression. “You’re really being a bore,” she said. “Nothing happened. There were some drinks, we danced, she got dizzy.”
“A taxi,” he said.
She looked to heaven and turned and sauntered out, and a moment later he heard her in the hall, dialing. Then she came back, and stood where she had stood before, with her cigarette.
“Like a drink?” she asked.
On the sofa, Phoebe moaned faintly.
He took her to his flat in Mount Street. It required some effort to get her up the stairs: her legs were not working very well, and kept crossing and threatening to buckle. Once they were in the flat he walked her to the bedroom and put her to lie on his bed and drew the curtains. She spoke some unintelligible words and gave a burbling little laugh and then lapsed back into unconsciousness.
He went out to the kitchen and poured himself a whiskey-he had a bottle hidden at the back of one of the cupboards-and took it into the living room and lit a cigarette and sat down on the window seat. Late sunlight was dividing the street into halves of light and shadow. Lines of cars were parked at the curbs along both pavements, ranked side by side in two neat shoals, their roofs gleaming like the backs of dolphins. He sat there for a long time, thinking, then went to the telephone and called Sinclair.
He had finished his drink and wanted another, but instead he filled the coffee percolator and put it on the gas and watched it as it came slowly to the boil. He wondered what it was that Phoebe had taken, apart from the gin. There had been no smell of a drug on her breath. Some barbiturate, he supposed-Luminal? They would have put it in her drink and she would not have noticed. That would be their idea of fun. A nerve began to jump at the corner of his right eye.
He was at the window in the living room again, drinking a second cup of coffee, when Sinclair arrived. Quirke told of how he had found Phoebe unconscious at the Delahayes’. He said the twins had been there, and then was sorry that he had. Of Mona Delahaye he made no mention.
“What was going on?” Sinclair said, frowning in bafflement.
“I don’t know,” Quirke answered.
“What was she doing there, at that house, drinking?”
For a moment Quirke was silent. He was angry with Sinclair, he was not sure why. “She needs looking after, you know,” he said.
Sinclair considered the toecaps of his shoes. “She’s not a child,” he said mildly.
“In some ways she is.”
“She wouldn’t thank you for saying it.”
“I don’t ask for thanks.”
There was another silence. Quirke fetched a silver cigarette box from the mantelpiece and they lit up and stood smoking, looking at anything save each other.
“I don’t know what I could have done,” Sinclair said. “The woman on the phone, Mrs. Delahaye, seemed to think the whole thing was funny. I didn’t realize.”
You could marry her, Quirke thought, surprising himself. Did he want to see Phoebe married? Did he not have doubts about Sinclair? To whose benefit would it be if his daughter were to marry-hers, or his own? Was it not just his own peace of mind he was thinking of? Was it simply that he wanted to be rid of his daughter, rid of the
