MR. MALACHY GRIFFIN WAS CONDUCTING HIS AFTERNOON ROUNDS OF the obstetrics wing. In three-piece pin-striped suit and red bow tie he swept from ward to ward, stiff-backed, erect, his narrow head held aloft, a gaggle of students shuffling dutifully in his wake. On the threshold of each room he would pause theatrically for a second and call out, “Good afternoon, ladies, and how are we today?” and glance about with a broad, bright, faintly desperate smile. The bigbellied women, torpid on their beds, would stir themselves in shy expectancy, straightening the collars of their bed jackets and patting their hairstyles, thrusting hastily under pillows the powder compacts and the hand mirrors that had been brought out in anticipation of his visit. He was the most sought-after baby doctor in the city. There was about him a certain tentativeness, despite his great reputation, that appealed to all these mothers-soon-to-be. Husbands at visiting time sighed when their wives began to speak of Mr. Griffin, and many a boychild born here at the Holy Family Hospital was obliged to venture out upon the obstacle course of life bearing what Quirke was sure would be the not inconsiderable handicap of being called Malachy.
“Well now, ladies, you’re grand, grand-all grand!”
Quirke hung back at the end of the corridor, watching with sour amusement Mal making his stately progress through his domain. Quirke sniffed the air. Strange to be up here, where it smelled of the living, and of the newborn living, at that. Mal, coming out of the last ward, saw him and frowned.
“Have a word?” Quirke said.
“As you see, I’m on my rounds.”
“Just a word.”
Mal sighed and waved his students on. They walked a little way off and stopped, hands in the pockets of their white coats, more than one of them suppressing a smirk: the love that was not lost between Quirke and Mr. Griffin was well known.
Quirke handed Mal the fountain pen. “You left this behind you.”
“Oh, did I?” Mal said neutrally. “Thanks.”
He stowed the pen in the inside breast pocket of his suit; how judiciously, Quirke thought, Mal performed the smallest actions, with what weighty deliberation did he address life’s trivia.
“This girl, Christine Falls,” Quirke said.
Mal blinked and glanced in the direction of the waiting students, then turned back to Quirke, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose.
“Yes?” he said.
“I read the file, the one you had out last night. Was there a problem?”
Mal pinched his lower lip between a finger and thumb; it was another thing he did, had always done, since childhood, along with the fingering of the spectacles, the twitching of the nostrils, the loud cracking of the knuckles. He was, Quirke reflected, a living caricature of himself.
“I was checking some details of the case,” he said, trying to sound offhand.
Quirke lifted his eyebrows exaggeratedly. “The case?” he said.
Mal shrugged impatiently. “What’s your interest?”
“Well, she’s gone, for a start. Her corpse was-”
“I don’t know anything about that. Look, Quirke, I have a busy afternoon-do you mind?”
He made to turn away but Quirke put a hand on his arm. “The department is my responsibility, Mal. Stay out of it, all right?”
He released Mal’s arm and Mal turned, expressionless, and strode away. Quirke watched him quickening his step, drawing the students into his wake like goslings. Then Quirke turned too and walked down the absurdly grand staircase to the basement and went to his office, where he was aware of Sinclair’s speculative eye upon him, and sat at his desk and opened Christine Falls’s file again. As he did so the telephone, squatting toadlike by his elbow, rang, startling him with its imperious belling, as it never failed to do. When he heard the voice that was on the line his expression softened. He listened for a moment, then said, “Half five?” and put down the receiver.
THE GREENISH AIR OF EVENING WAS SOFTLY WARM. HE STOOD ON THE broad pavement under the trees, smoking the last of a cigarette and looking across the road at the girl on the steps of the Shelbourne Hotel. She wore a white summer dress with red polka dots and a jaunty little white hat with a feather. Her face was turned to the right as she gazed off towards the corner of Kildare Street. A stray breeze swayed the hem of her dress. He liked the way she stood, alert and self-possessed, head and shoulders back, her feet in their slim shoes set neatly side by side, her hands at her waist holding her handbag and her gloves. She reminded him so much of Delia. An olive-green dray went past, drawn by a chocolate-colored Clydes-dale. Quirke lifted his head and breathed in the late-summer smells: dust, horse, foliage, diesel fumes, perhaps even, fancifully, a hint of the girl’s perfume.
He crossed the street, dodging a green double-decker bus that parped its horn at him. The girl turned her head and watched him without expression as he approached, stepping over the street’s dappled sunlight and shade, his raincoat on his arm and a hand thrust stiffly into a pocket of his double-breasted jacket and his brown hat at a perilous tilt. She noted his frown of concentration, the way he seemed to have difficulty walking on those improbably tiny feet of his. She came down the steps to meet him.
“Do you make a habit of spying on girls like that?” she said.
Quirke stopped before her, one foot on the edge of the pavement.
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like a gangster casing a bank.”
“Depends on the girl. Have you anything worth robbing?”
“Depends what you’re after.”
They were silent a moment, watching each other; then the girl smiled.
“Hello, Nuncle,” she said.
“Hello, Phoebe. What’s wrong?”
She gave a grimacing shrug.
“What’s right?”
THEY SAT IN THE HOTEL LOUNGE IN LITTLE GILT CHAIRS AND HAD TEA and plates of tiny sandwiches and tiny cakes on a tiered cake stand. The high, ornate room was busy. The Friday evening horsey crowd was up from the country, all tweeds and sensible shoes and braying, overbearing voices; they made Quirke feel on edge, and when he squirmed the curved arms of the gilt chair seemed to tighten their grip on him. It was obvious that Phoebe loved it here, loved the opportunity it afforded her of playing the poised young lady, Mr. Griffin the consultant’s daughter from Rathgar. Quirke watched her over the rim of his teacup, enjoying her enjoyment. She had taken off her hat and set it beside her plate; it looked like a table ornament, its feather languidly adroop. Her hair was so black the waves of it showed a bluish sheen in their hollows. She had her mother’s vivid blue eyes. He thought she was wearing too much makeup-that lipstick was altogether too garish for a girl her age-but he made no remark. From an opposite corner of the room an elderly fellow of military bearing, with polished bald pate and a monocle, appeared to be regarding him with a fixed, affronted glare. Phoebe popped a miniature éclair whole into her mouth and munched it, widening her eyes, laughing at herself.
“How’s the boyfriend?” Quirke said.
She shrugged, and swallowed mightily. “He’s all right.”
“Still at the law?”
“He’ll be called to the Bar next year.”
“Will he, now. Well, that’s simply spiffing.”
She threw a cake crumb at him, and he sensed an outraged flash of that monocle come flying at them from across the room.
“Don’t be sarcastic,” she said. “You’re so sarcastic.” Her face darkened and she looked into her cup. “They’re trying to make me give him up. That’s why I phoned you.”
He nodded, keeping a level look. “Who’s they?”
She tossed her head, her permed waves bouncing.