“They think she’s wild, and disreputable, and they don’t want to have anything to do with her. So they say, and I’ve no reason not to believe them.”
It came to him suddenly, with something of a mild shock, that he did not know what April Latimer looked like, that he had not even seen a photograph of her. All along she had been someone that other people talked about, worried about, someone that other people loved and, perhaps, hated, too. Now, though, suddenly, talking to this peculiar and unappetizing little man, it was as if the wraith he had been following through the fog had stepped out into the clear light of day, but still at such a distance that he could make out the form of it only, not the features. How far and for how long would he have to press on before he saw April Latimer clear?
“Tell me,” he said, “do you know this other friend of April’s, the Nigerian, Patrick Ojukwu?”
The young man’s expression altered, grew dark and sullen. “Of course,” he said shortly. “We all know him.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“We call him the Prince. His father is some kind of headman of his tribe. They have their version of aristocrats, it seems.” He snickered. “Big shots in the jungle.”
“Were they more than friends, he and April?”
“You mean, did they have an affair? I wouldn’t be surprised.” He gave his mouth a sour twist. “As I say, April had strange tastes in men. She liked a bit of spice, if you know what I mean.”
He was jealous, Quirke saw. “Was she promiscuous?”
Jimmy Minor laughed again nastily. “How would I know? She was never promiscuous in my direction, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Quirke gazed at hi m. “ Where does he live, this Nigerian chap? “ he asked.
“He has a flat in Castle Street. Phoebe, I’m sure, can tell you where.” He smiled again, this time showing the point of a sharp tooth.
Quirke stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I have a busy afternoon ahead of me.”
Minor, surprised, stubbed out his cigarette and slowly got to his feet. “Thanks for your time,” he said, with smiling sarcasm. Quirke steered him towards the door. At the dissecting room window he paused and glanced in again at the draped corpse on the slab. “I’ve never seen a postmortem,” he said, a little sulkily, as if it were a treat that had been willfully denied him.
“Come round someday,” Quirke said. “We’re always happy to accommodate the gentlemen of the press.”
WHEN MINOR HAD GONE QUIRKE SAT DOWN AGAIN AND LOOKED AT the telephone for a while, tapping out a tattoo with his fingers on the desktop. He saw Sinclair come into the dissecting room- they gave each other the usual, faintly derisory wave through the glass- then he picked up the phone and dialed Celia Latimer’s number. The maid answered, and said that Mrs. Latimer was not available at the moment. “Tell her it’s Dr. Quirke,” he said. “She expecting a call from me.” It occurred to him to wonder if Sinclair might have known April Latimer. The younger doctors in the hospital that he had asked had said that April kept herself to herself, and it seemed she did not socialize much, among the staff, anyway. He had the impression she was disliked, or resented, at least, for her standoff ishness. She might have made common cause with the cynical and jadedly laconic Sinclair, if their paths had crossed.
“Thank you for calling, Dr. Quirke,” Celia Latimer’s cold, sharp voice said in his ear. “As I told you, I’d like to have a word. Do you think you could come out to the house?”
“Yes,” he said, “I can come out. I have to see someone this afternoon.”
“Shall we say five o’clock? Would that suit you?”
Her voice was tense and tremulous, as if she were having difficulty holding something back. He did not want to go out to that house but knew he would.
“Yes,” he said, “five o’clock, I’ll be there.”
He put down the phone slowly, thinking, then rose and went into the next room. Sinclair had drawn back the sheet from the corpse- an emaciated young man with sunken cheeks and a stubbled chin- and was gazing down on it in his usual stony manner. “The Guards stumbled on him in the early hours in a lane behind Parnell Street,” he said. “Hypothermia, by the look of it.” He sniffed, nodding. “Somebody’s son.”
Quirke leaned against the stainless steel sink and lit a cigarette. “April Latimer,” he said. “A junior here. Do you know her?”
Sinclair was still eyeing the corpse, measuring it up. “I’ve seen her about,” he said. “Not recently, though.”
“No, she’s been out sick.” He tapped his cigarette over the sink and heard the tiny hiss as the flakes of ash tumbled into the drain. “What’s she like?”
Sinclair turned and leaned in a slouch against the dissecting table and pushed back the wings of his white coat and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “No idea. I don’t think I’ve spoken to her more than once or twice.”
“What’s the word on her?”
“The word?”
“You know what I mean. What do the other juniors- the men- what do they say about her?”
Sinclair studied his shoes, then shrugged. “Not much, that I’ve heard. Is she supposed to- is she supposed to have a reputation?”
“That’s what I was hoping you would tell me. She’s a niece of Bill Latimer.”
“Is she? I didn’t know that.”
Quirke could see him wanting to ask what was his interest in April but not quite knowing if he should. Quirke said, “It seems she may not be so much sick as- well, missing.”
“Oh?” Sinclair prided himself on never showing surprise. “Missing how? As in, presumed dead?”
“No, no one is presuming that. She hasn’t been seen or heard from for a few weeks.” He waited, then asked, “Patrick Ojukwu… know him?”
Sinclair frowned, a triangular knot forming above the dark promontory of his nose. “Patrick who?”
“African. Studying at the College of Surgeons.”
“Ah.” The young man took on a look of faint, sardonic amusement. “Is he the reason she’s missing?”
Quirke was trying to press the spent butt of his cigarette through the grating in the sink drain. “Not so far as I know,” he said. “Why do you think that?”
“The black boys up there at Surgeons, they have a reputation.”
“There can’t be many of them.”
“Probably just as well.”
“It seems he’s a friend of hers, of April Latimer’s.”
“Which kind of friend?”
“A friend friend, so I’m told. My daughter knows them both.”
Sinclair was still looking at his shoes. In the years they had worked together they had never allowed themselves to develop anything like a regard for each other, and would not now. Quirke knew his assistant did not trust him, and Quirke was wary of him, in return. Sinclair wanted his job and would get it, sooner or later.
The fluorescent lamps in the ceiling were shedding a harsh glare on the corpse on the table, and the dry, gray skin seemed to shimmer and seethe, as if the light were picking out the very molecules of which it was made.
“And your daughter,” Sinclair said, “what does she think has become of her friend?”
“She’s worried about her. Which is more, it seems, than her family are.”
“The Minister, that is?”
“And her mother. Her brother, too… Oscar Latimer.”
“The Holy Father?” Sinclair laughed coldly. “He’ll be offering Masses for her safe return.”
“Is that what they call him, the Holy Father?” Quirke was thinking again of that bottle of whiskey in his desk. His hangover began to drum again in his head. He thought of Isabel Galloway. “Do you know him?” he asked.
“His Holiness?” Sinclair said. He produced a packet of Gold-Flake and put a cigarette between his lips but did not light it. “I went to one or two of his lectures,” he said.