Vengeance: A Novel (Quirke) Page 23

  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 responsibility of being the one nearest to her?

  He turned away. In his mind he saw again Mona Delahaye standing at the door of the drawing room in Northumberland Road, in her green blouse and her little girl’s puffed-out skirt. That recent afternoon, in her shadowed bedroom, he had held her in his arms and she had pressed her mouth against his shoulder to stifle her moans and he had thought himself in love. Now he cursed himself for a fool.

  The bedroom door opened and Phoebe appeared, in her stockinged feet, blear-eyed, with a hand to her forehead. “I heard voices,” she said dazedly. She saw Sinclair and frowned. “David? Why are you here?”

  “I rang him,” Quirke said.

  She stood blinking. “I must have—I must have passed out. I feel really peculiar.”

  “I’ll make some tea,” Quirke said. “Tea will be good for you.”

  He went into the kitchen and boiled the kettle and set out cups and saucers on a tray. When he returned to the living room Sinclair and Phoebe were sitting close beside each other on the sofa, and Sinclair was holding her right hand in both of his.

  Phoebe looked at Quirke as he poured out the tea for her. “They invited me for a drink,” she said. “Why did I go?” She looked about herself helplessly. “My head feels as if it’s stuffed with wet wool.”

  “Do you remember taking anything?” Quirke asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tablets, pills—anything like that?”

  “No.” She frowned, trying to concentrate. She shook her head. “No, there wasn’t anything. We drank gin. I don’t know what I was thinking of.” She put her other hand on top of Sinclair’s hands. “I’m sorry,” she said, and suddenly it seemed she might cry. “I’m so sorry.”

  Sinclair looked up at Quirke and said nothing.

  “Drink your tea,” Quirke said.

  She looked at the cup and saucer balanced on the arm of the sofa beside her. “He told me I was his alibi,” she said. Both men watched her, waiting. She shook her head again and gave an incredulous laugh. “He sang it,” she said.

  Again the two men exchanged glances.

  “Sang what?” Sinclair asked.

  “About my being his alibi. He said the Guards had questioned him”—she looked to Quirke—“your friend Inspector Hackett brought both twins in to ask them about the night when that man died, that Clancy man. So Jonas said. I think he’s mad.” She looked from one of them to the other. “I really think he is mad. They both are, both the twins.”

  Quirke drew up a chair and set it in front of the sofa and sat down and leaned forward with his hands clasped. “Which one was it that spoke about an alibi?”

  “Jonas.” She turned to Sinclair. “He was talking about the party at Breen’s house, you remember? We saw them there, the twins. Only—”

  She stopped.

  “Only what?” Quirke said.

  “Only I noticed something. You know they have a joke that Jonas wears a ring on his little finger and that’s the only way people can tell them apart. But that night, at the party, they were both wearing rings, I saw them. Jonas met us when we arrived, remember, he was with Tanya Somers? And then, later, we saw James upstairs, talking to that girl in the doorway. But they both had the identical signet ring on the little fingers of their left hands.”

  Sinclair was frowning. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  Quirke watched Phoebe. “How were they dressed?” he asked.

  “One of them had on a black blazer, the other was wearing—I don’t know—something pale, a linen suit, or jacket.”

  “And Tanya Somers was there, with one of them?”

  “Yes.”

  The room had grown very quiet. Distantly in the city an Angelus bell was dully tolling.

  “There was only one of them,” Quirke said. “They pretended they were two, but there was only the one.”

  “But why?” Phoebe said. “They would have had to switch clothes. And Tanya Somers would have had to go along with the pretense.”

  Quirke stood up. “One of them needed to be somewhere else,” he said. “That was the reason for the trick. That’s why you, and whoever else was at the party that knew them, would be their alibi. There was only one twin, masquerading as two.”

  He walked to the mantelpiece and took ano
ther cigarette from the silver box and lit it, and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. Phoebe and Sinclair sat and watched him.

  “I still don’t see it,” Sinclair said.

  Quirke turned, and stood with his back to the fireplace, wreathed in cigarette smoke that gave him for a moment the look of a magician about to make himself disappear. “Phoebe said it. That night, the night of the party, was the night Jack Clancy died. The night he was murdered.”

  * * *

  The lights shining down from the big windows on the ground floor seemed to darken the twilight beyond their reach, and in the front garden, behind the railings, shadows congregated among the flowerbeds and under the boughs of the big beech reaching towards the house like tentacles from the road. At the gate Quirke hesitated. What would he say to the twins if they were there? What would he say to Mona Delahaye? Should he not have called Hackett, and told him Phoebe’s story of the signet ring?

  But he knew that none of this was why he was here, loitering at dusk in front of a dead man’s house. He took off his hat and held it in front of him, against his breast, as if it were a shield to ward off something.

  She was surprised to see him. “Back so soon?” she said, with her sly smile. She was wearing a dark green kimono—green again—and her slender pale feet were bare. Without shoes she seemed slighter and more delicate than ever, and the top of her head was barely level with his chin. In the lamplight her hair had the texture of hammered bronze. “Come through to the kitchen,” she said. “I was making myself a nice hot drink.” He walked behind her down the hall. It was plain to see that she was naked under the kimono. “Maid’s night off,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m all on my little ownsome.” And she laughed.

  “What about the twins?”

  “Oh, they’ve gone off,” she said lightly. “And so has my father-in-law. He’s in the hospital, in fact. He had another stroke this evening. Quite serious, it seems, this time.”

  In the kitchen there was the throat-catching bittersweet smell of warm chocolate. A small saucepan was simmering on the stove. “Want some?” she asked. “I make it with real chocolate, not that awful powdered stuff.” She took up a wooden spoon and stirred the pot, peering into the steam.

  “My daughter has recovered, by the way,” Quirke said. “In case you were wondering.”

  “She must have quite a hangover.” She went to a cupboard and took down two white mugs. “A girl of her age had better steer clear of the gin. I should know.”

  “It must have been more than gin.”

  She glanced at him, then turned back to concentrate on pouring the hot chocolate into the mugs. “The boys were just playing, as usual. Your daughter isn’t used to that kind of thing, I imagine. Very straitlaced, isn’t she? She dresses like a nun. They tell me she has a boyfriend?”

  “Yes. My assistant.”

  “Hmm. A Jew, isn’t he?” She sniffed. “Anyway, I’m sure she’ll always be Daddy’s girl. You mustn’t let the Hebrews make her one of theirs.” She came and handed him one of the mugs, and clinked hers against it. “Here’s to fun.”

  “What kind of drug did they give her?” he asked.

  “Did they give her a drug? I told you, I only saw her drinking gin.”

  He looked at the steaming umber stuff in the mug. “She’s had a lot of trouble in her life.”

  “Yes. I could tell.”

  “I have to protect her.”

  She smiled. “Not doing a very good job, by the look of it. Aren’t you going to drink your chocolate? It’s very soothing. I think you need soothing.” She was standing very close to him. Behind the heavy fragrance of the chocolate he could smell her hair.

  “Tell me what was in the note your husband left,” he said.

  She sighed irritably. “Oh, there was no note.” She walked back to the stove and poured herself another go of chocolate and took a drink of it, clasping the mug in both hands. “I just said that to humor you, since you seemed so pleased with yourself playing the detective.”

  “Were you having an affair with Jack Clancy?”

  “With Jack? Certainly not.” She chuckled. “Jack Clancy—my God, what do you think I am? Not Jack, no.”

  He caught something in her voice. “Who, then?”

  She gave him a measuring look, thinking. “Why do you want to know?” He said nothing. She put her mug down on the draining board. “Give me a cigarette,” she said. “You know”—she leaned down to the flame of his lighter—“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Victor died. Well, you can imagine. He was such a torment to himself, I wonder if he’s not better off gone. Do you think I’m terrible, to say such a thing?” She went and leaned against the sink, crossing one arm under her breasts and holding the cigarette level with her mouth. In the opening of the kimono her right leg was bared to the thigh. “People didn’t know him. They took at face value the image he had of himself—the successful businessman, the expert sailor, the loving husband and responsible father. But really he was a mess. It took me a while to see that. Deep down he disgusted himself. He knew what he was, you see.”

  “And what was he?”

  She considered. “Weak. Spineless.”

  “He had enough courage to kill himself.”

  This seemed to interest her. “Do you think it takes courage to do that?” she asked. “I think it was cowardice.” She shook her head sadly. “Such a mess,” she murmured.

  Quirke set the mug down on the table. He had not tasted the chocolate. “Could I have a drink?” he said.

  They passed through to the drawing room. Mona lit lamps, and went to the sideboard and poured whiskey into a tumbler. Quirke looked at the garden’s velvet darkness pressing itself against the window.

  “Are you an alcoholic?” Mona asked, in a tone of mild inquiry.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He took the glass and drank off the whiskey in one gulp and gave her back the glass to refill. “Probably.”

  She seemed to find his reply amusing. She smiled at him, arching an eyebrow, and turned and picked up the whiskey bottle.

  “You slept with me once,” he said.

  “Yes, I did. Like you, I’m curious.”

  “You were curious, about me?”

  “I was. Now I’m not anymore.” She moved to the sofa and sat down and crossed her legs. The wings of the kimono fell back on both sides to reveal one bare, glossy knee. “Remember how I said to you before that people think I’m a dimwit? They do. I mean them to.” She lifted a hand and pushed her bronzen hair back from her face at the side. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I used to lie on the floor and pretend to be asleep, but I’d have my eyes open just the tiniest crack, so I could watch people, my parents, my brothers, my sister that I hated, without them knowing. Now I’m a big girl and I do the same thing, only instead of pretending to be asleep I pretend to be stupid.”

  Quirke sipped his whiskey. “Why have you let me in on your secret?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose because you’re pretending, too.”

  “And what am I pretending to be?”

  She studied him for a moment, cocking her head to one side, like a blackbird. “You’re pretending to be human, I think. Wouldn’t you say?”

  He lit a cigarette. The flame of the lighter flickered, he noticed, for his hand was not entirely steady. “Did you know,” he said, “that Jack Clancy was planning to take over the business from your husband?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Victor told me.”

  “When did he find out?”

  “The day before he killed himself.”

  He looked at her without speaking. She held his gaze calmly.

  “Was that why he killed himself?” he asked.

  “Partly.”

  He set his glass down slowly on the sideboard, next to the whiskey bottle. He would pour himself another drink, but not just yet.

  “What else had he found out?” he asked.

  “Oh!” She waved a hand. “He was impossible. So jealous.�
�

  He waited. She regarded him with a slightly swollen look, as if struggling to keep herself from laughing.

  “Who was it?” he said.

  “Who was who?”

  “Who was he jealous of?”

  “Don’t you know?” Now she did laugh, giving an odd sharp little whoop. “Not Jack Clancy,” she said. “But you were warm.”

  He was silent for a long moment, gazing at her. Then he took up the whiskey bottle and half filled the tumbler. He turned back to her. “The boy, then,” he said. “What’s his name?”

  “Davy. And he’s not a boy, though he’s as pretty as one—don’t you think? And so—so energetic, with that kind of youthful vigor that gladdens a girl’s heart, I can tell you.”

  Quirke sipped his whiskey. The glass knocked against one of his front teeth. “Are you still—seeing him?” he asked, surprised at how steady his voice was.

  “For goodness’ sake!” she said, and gave another laugh. “I’m the grieving widow—I can hardly go about sleeping with people.”

  “You slept with me.”

  “I told you,” she said, with a sulky pout, “I was curious.”

  He felt exhausted suddenly. He shut his eyes and kneaded the flesh at the bridge of his nose between a thumb and two fingers. He had a tearing sensation in his chest, as if there were an animal in there, raking at him with its claws.

  He opened his eyes. “Jack Clancy’s death,” he said.

  “What about it?” she asked. “I assume, since his scheme to take over from Victor had been found out, he decided to follow Victor’s example. Rivals to the end.”

  Quirke shook his head. “No,” he said, hearing the weariness in his voice. “Jack Clancy didn’t kill himself.” She waited. “Don’t you know?” he said. “Haven’t you figured it out?”

  She put a finger to her chin and looked upwards, mimicking a schoolgirl who has been asked a hard question. “Someone did it for him?” she said.

  “Yes. Someone did it for him.”

  “Not”—she sat bolt upright and slapped a hand on her bared knee and laughed—“not Maverley? Not that white rabbit? He adored Victor, I know, but I can’t imagine him killing someone in revenge for his death.”