“So the child was yours,” Quirke said.
Behind them Phoebe made a small, sharp sound and put a hand to her mouth. Latimer turned to her again.
“Are you shocked, Miss Griffin?” he asked. “Well, I suppose it is shocking. But there you are. God allows certain things to happen, seems even to want them to happen, and who are we, mere mortals, to deny a divine wish?”
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Quirke asked. He was leaning forward, peering hard past the clicking windscreen wipers into the snow.
“No,” Latimer said, “I didn’t know, but I can hardly say I was surprised, given my training. I could have done something to prevent it, I suppose, but somehow one doesn’t think clearly in the throes of such passion. Do I feel guilty? you’ll ask me. Guilt is not the word. There is no word for it. That was the thing, with April and me, there were no words adequate enough- ah, here were are!” They had gained the summit and pulled into the parking place. The dusty ground was whitened here and there with frost, and before them and on two sides the sea stretched away, pockmarked and pistol-gray. “You can stop here,” Latimer said. “This will do- no, leave the car facing that way, the view is so nice.”
Quirke brought the car to a stop and did not switch off the engine. Phoebe suddenly needed very badly to pee. She said nothing, only cowered back farther into the corner of the seat, her hands clasped in her lap and her elbows pressed to her sides. She shut her eyes; she thought she might scream but knew that she must not.
Quirke turned to Latimer. “What now?”
Latimer seemed not to have heard; he was gazing down the hillside, nodding to himself. “This is where I brought her, that night,” he said. “I stopped the car just here and lifted her out of the backseat, wrapped in a blanket. She felt so light, so light, as if all the blood she lost was half her weight. You’ll laugh at me, I know, Quirke, but the moment had a strong sense of the religious, of the sacramental, though in a pagan sort of way; I suppose I was thinking of Queen Maeve and the thunder on the stones and all that. Silly, I suppose, but then I can hardly have been in my right mind, can I, given all that had happened in the previous few hours- all that had happened, indeed, in all those years when April and I had only each other, and when it was enough.”
When he stopped speaking they could hear the wind outside, a faint, vague moaning.
Quirke said, “You went back and mopped up the blood, made the bed.”
“Yes. That too was a religious ceremony. I felt April’s presence very close-s he was with me- she’s with me still.”
“It was you who was watching my window, wasn’t it?” Phoebe said.
Latimer glanced at her, frowning. “Your window, my dear? Now, why would I do that? Anyway, enough questions, enough talk.” He lifted the pistol and pointed it at Quirke and then at Phoebe, waggling the barrel playfully. “Get out now, please,” he said, “both of you.”
“Latimer,” Quirke began, “you can’t-”
“Oh, shut up, Quirke,” Latimer said wearily. “You have nothing to say to me- nothing.”
They got out of the car, all three. Latimer held the gun down at his side to conceal it, though the place was deserted, except for, way off down the hill, a man in a duffle coat and cap, plodding along with a white dog at his heels. Quirke took Phoebe by an elbow and drew her in behind him, so that she was shielded by his bulk.
“Are you going to tell us what you did with the body?” he said. “Tell us that, at least.”
Latimer waggled the gun again limp-wristedly. “Stand over there, by those bushes,” he said. “Go on, go on.”
Quirke did not move. He said: “You didn’t bring her out here at all, did you? This is not where you left her. I know you’re lying.”
Latimer, still pointing the gun in their general direction, had opened the door on the driver’s side and was climbing in behind the wheel. He paused, and smiled, making a rabbit face and twitching that ridiculous mustache. “Obviously I can’t fool you, Quirke,” he said, shaking his head in rueful, mock admiration. “No, you’re right, I didn’t bring her here. In fact, I’m not going to tell you where she is. Let her be gone into the air, like dust, like- incense.”
“No!” Phoebe cried, stepping out from behind Quirke’s sheltering back and freeing her elbow from his grip. “You can’t do that,” she said. “It’s the last insult to her. Let her have a grave, or a place, at least, someplace where we can come and- and remember her.”
For the first time Latimer’s look hardened, and his mouth compressed itself into a narrow, bloodless line. “How dare you,” he said softly. He was behind the wheel now, with the door still open and one foot on the ground. “You think I’ll let her be anywhere, for you and the rest of her so-called friends to come and pretend to mourn her? She was mine, and she’ll stay mine. You were the ones who tried to take her from me, you and that Hottentot, and the guttersnipe reporter, and that other slut. But you couldn’t take her, and you can’t. She’s mine forever now.”
He drew in his foot and slammed the door, then rolled down the window. He was smiling again. “Really, this is such a nice car, Quirke,” he said. “I hope you aren’t too attached to it.” He winked then and turned to face the windscreen, and the engine roared as he trod on the accelerator and the great car leapt forward, over the frozen dust and through the gap in the low wall there. They walked forward, father and daughter, to the wall and stopped there and watched the Alvis bump and roll its way down the steep, slanting track. Then they heard the flat crack of a gunshot, and the car wallowed drunkenly to the right and the wheels on the driver’s side sank into the heather and the machine reared up sideways and seemed to hang for a long moment before pitching over on its roof and then turning in clumsy, lateral somersaults down the long, uneven slope, until they could see it no more. There were cliffs down there, and they waited, as if they might hear, from all that distance, the terrible splash of the car going into the sea, but there was nothing, only the gulls crying and the man’s white dog way off there in the bracken, barking.
IT WAS HARD GOING ON THE HILLSIDE, AND QUIRKE AND INSPECTOR Hackett had scrambled only halfway down when they had to give up. The heather was slippery under the slushy snow, and there were hidden rocks that they knocked their ankles on and loose stones on which they slipped and slid. “Ah, let them young fellows at it,” Hackett said, stopping and lifting his hat to scratch his head. A long way down in front of them three young Guards in climbing gear and stout boots were negotiating the last steep stretch before the cliffs fell sheer away into the sea. The cuffs of Quirke’s trousers were soaked, and his shoes were wet through. Hackett sat down suddenly in the heather, his hat on the back of his head, and planted his elbows on his knees. There were flakes of snow in his eyebrows. “By God, Dr. Quirke,” he said, “this is a queer thing altogether.”
There were two Garda cars and a jeep parked above them, behind the low wall. Quirke had taken Phoebe down the hill road on the other side, to a cafй there. It was shut at this still early hour, but he had banged his fist on the door until a woman came and let them in. Quirke told her there had been an accident, that a car had gone over the cliffs, and he would have to telephone the Guards. His daughter was in shock, he said, and needed something hot to drink. The woman stared at them, then bade Phoebe to follow her out to the kitchen, where she would make tea for her and give her something to eat, she said. Phoebe, dull-eyed, did as she was told. At the door to the kitchen she stopped and turned to look back at Quirke, and he made himself smile, and nodded, and told her it would be all right, that everything would be all right. Then he went back up the hill to wait for Hackett and his men.