He drove as fast as he dared through the town and out on to the Ballyglass road. His pulse was racing, and his palms were moist on the steering wheel. There was a nightmare he had, it recurred with awful frequency, of being trapped in the dark in what seemed to be a sort of fish tank, filled not with water but some heavy, viscous liquid. To escape from the tank he had to clamber up the side, his fingers and toes squeaking on the glass, and heave himself over the rim and squirm off into the darkness over a smooth, slimed floor.
The snow was falling heavily, coming down in big flabby flakes the size of Communion wafers and lodging in icy clumps around the edges of the windscreen and making the wipers groan against the glass. The frozen mist was thicker now, so that he had to press his face close to the windscreen, squinting and blinking, until his chin was almost resting on the top of the steering wheel.
When he looked at the dashboard clock, he was surprised to see that it was only a little after eleven. Since his arrival the previous day in Ballyglass, time had become a different medium, moving not in a seamless flow, but jerkily, now speeding up, now slowing to an underwater pace. It was as if he had strayed on to another plane, on to another planet, where the familiar, earthbound rules had all been suspended.
He thought of telephoning Hackett and asking to be taken off the case, this case in which he was floundering, and in the slime of which he might drown.
The priest’s death had seemed at first just another crime, much like any other, except more violent than most. It had not been long before he realised how mistaken that first impression had been. Everything was upended, everything swayed and wallowed. He was in the tank again, up to his neck, and each time he managed to get himself out and flop on to the floor he was scooped up by invisible hands and tossed back in.
He arrived at last at the Sheaf of Barley. He went into the bar. The place was empty, and had the mysteriously dishevelled air that bars always have at that time of day. He should phone Hackett and ask his advice. Hackett would help him, would bring him to his senses, those senses he felt he was in danger of losing.
The encounter with Rosemary Lawless had shaken him, in a way he didn’t quite understand. He had felt, in that cold stone house, and then out on the cold hillside, the touch of something that was new to him, something impalpable that yet was vividly there, like a freezing fog. Was it evil he had encountered, at last? He had never believed in evil as a force in itself – there was no evil, he always insisted, there were only evil deeds. But was he mistaken?
He went up to his room and lay down on the unmade bed, still in his overcoat. Going down that morning for breakfast he had left the window open a crack, to air the room, and now it was so cold he could see his breath, rising above him like billows of thin, quickly moving smoke.
He had slipped into a restless doze when he heard the door opening, and he jerked upright as if he had been pulled by a string. For a second he didn’t know where he was – why was there all this white light around him? – but then he turned and saw Peggy in the doorway, looking at him in surprise and seeming about to laugh. She had a stack of folded linen over her arm, and was carrying a bucket and a mop.
‘Oh, pardon me,’ she said in a tone of mock accusation. ‘I thought you were gone out.’
He rubbed a hand roughly over his face, grimacing. Then he rolled off the mattress – the bed was uncommonly high – and set his feet unsteadily on the floor. He felt distanced from himself. This, he imagined, must be what it would be like to be drunk.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice slurring. ‘I did go out, but now I’m back.’
Peggy snorted. ‘Well, I can see that for myself!’
She dumped the linen on the bed and put down the mop and the pail. He felt shy and slightly ridiculous in her presence. She had a way of tucking in her chin and looking at him with a teasingly humorous light in her eyes.
‘Do you sleep here?’ he asked, and went on quickly, ‘I mean, have you a room here, that you stay in?’
She pointed a finger towards the ceiling. ‘Up there. And I’d hardly call it a room – more a cupboard with a cot in it.’ She gave a throaty chuckle. ‘You should come up and see it some time. I only stay there when I’m working late. I live over at Otterbridge, with my Ma and Da.’
‘So you slept here the night before last?’
‘I did.’
‘I wonder if you heard anyone going out, late? It would have been long after midnight.’
She shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘I never hear anyone or anything – I sleep like the dead. Anyway, who would have been going out in the middle of the night, in this weather?’
‘I thought Mr Harbison might have had somewhere he needed to go to.’
Peggy snorted again. ‘Him? Most nights he’s so far gone in drink he can hardly get up the stairs, and certainly not back down them again. And I’d say we won’t be seeing much of him today, either. He’s a terrible man for the booze.’ She sat down on the bed, with her hands on her knees. ‘Were you comfortable last night?’
‘What?’
‘Is it all right for you, here? Is the bed all right? There’s two more rooms that are empty, if you want to look at them.’
‘No, no, thank you.’ He had retreated to the window, from where he watched her out of the corner of his eye. ‘Mrs Reck put a hot-water bottle in the bed for me.’
‘No she didn’t – I did.’
‘Oh, it was you, was it? Well, thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
Strafford looked out of the window. The snow had stopped again, and an icy miasma hung over the fields. There was no wind. There hadn’t been any wind for days, he realised. It was as if the world had come to a gelid standstill.
‘I wish I could talk like you,’ Peggy said.
He looked at her over his shoulder in surprise. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve always wanted to have a nice accent, like yours. I sound like a tinker half the time.’
‘But you don’t!’ he protested. ‘You don’t at all!’
‘Yes I do. You’re only being nice.’
‘No, I mean it.’
‘Oh, go on! You’re such a fibber.’
She smiled at him. She had spread her palms on the mattress, and was leaning back a little, with her elbows straight and her shoulders lifted, swinging one foot. He folded his arms and set a shoulder against the window frame.
‘What about Mr Harbison,’ he asked teasingly, ‘do you like his accent? I’m sure he speaks much the way I do, no?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said dismissively, ‘I never listen to him. I keep away from him. He’s always after me – anything in a skirt.’ She paused. ‘What happened to the priest – I mean, what really happened to him?’
He drew back his head, startled by the sudden change of subject.
‘Don’t you know?’ he asked.
‘It said in the paper he fell down the stairs. Did he?’
‘I’m not sure that he fell.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Did someone push him?’
‘We’re trying to find out what happened, exactly.’
She nodded, still swinging her foot. ‘You don’t give much away, do you?’
To this he only smiled.
‘What age are you, Peggy?’ he asked.
‘Twenty-one.’
‘You must have lots of boyfriends.’
She made a sour face. ‘Oh, sure! They’re queueing up. Anyway, there are no fellas worth a second glance in this hopeless bloody place.’ She looked him up and down with her lips pursed. ‘Where do you live in Dublin?’
‘I have a flat.’
‘Yes, but where?’
‘Baggot Street. It’s over a shop. Very small, just a living room, bedroom, bathroom. It’s a bit like a prison cell, I always think.’
She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh, that’s a good one! The detective who lives in jail!’ She grew wistful. ‘God, I’d love to have a flat in the city. I suppose you’re always out in restaurants and pubs, and going to dances, and concerts, and – oh, I don’t know – all sorts of things.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a dancer, and I’ve a tin ear when it comes to music.’
‘You must have a girlfriend, though.’
‘No. I had one.’
‘But you haven’t now?’
‘No. She broke up with me.’
‘She must have been mad.’
Her directness made him smile. She said whatever came into her head. He envied her.
‘We still see each other, now and then.’ He hadn’t thought about Marguerite in a long time. He didn’t like her name. The moment he admitted it to himself was the moment when he knew there would be no future for him with her. They had gone out together for three years, and had slept together twice. Then one night she arrived unannounced at the flat, pale and trembling, to present him with an ultimatum. Either he would marry her, or it was over. There was a fight. Or at least she had fought, while he perched on the edge of a sofa, twisted around himself like a corkscrew. In the end she threw a wine glass at him and walked out. He hadn’t seen her since that night. Why had he lied? Now he heard himself lie again. ‘Her name is Sylvia,’ he said.
‘Oh? Same as Mrs Osborne.’
‘Yes, yes it is. Coincidence. I hadn’t realised.’
But he had.
They were silent, then she exclaimed, ‘Look at me, sitting on a guest’s bed! At least it’s in the middle of the day. Mind you, if Mrs Reck saw me I’d get my marching orders on the spot.’
Yet she made no attempt to rise, only sat there, looking at him. Her nether lip glistened.
‘You have another job here in the town, Mr Reck tells me?’ Strafford said.
The atmosphere in the room had thickened noticeably.
‘At the Boolavogue Arms. I’m going to give it up. The men that stay there, commercial travellers mostly, they’re worse than here, always pawing at me and making smutty remarks.’
She was pretty, he thought, with those red-gold curls, and those freckles, and that generous mouth. If he were to walk over to her now and put his hands on her shoulders and kiss her, she wouldn’t resist – quite the opposite, to judge by the look she was giving him. But ah, it would be a mistake, he knew that. He thought of the wine stain on the wall in his flat, beside the fireplace, where Marguerite’s glass had struck. He had tried to wash it off, but wine was stubborn stuff, he discovered, and a discernible trace of it remained, shaped like the faded map of a lost continent.
‘I’ll leave you to your work,’ he said, clearing his throat and moving away from the window.
‘Where are you off to now?’ she asked. ‘You’ve only just come back – I heard your old jalopy of a car.’
‘I’m going over to Ballyglass House.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘To see Sylvia.’
His eyes skittered away from hers. He was blushing. How did women know so many things?
He brushed past her with a muttered word and hurried from the room. In the corridor he stopped, and through the open doorway he heard the girl sigh, and a moment later there was an ill-tempered clatter as she took up her mop and pail.
Down the stairs he plunged, taking them two at a time. Oh yes, he thought, run away, yet again. Peggy should have thrown the bucket at him, much better than a wine glass.
He was opening the door of the Morris Minor – his jalopy, Peggy was right – when Matty Moran appeared at his shoulder, seemingly out of nowhere.
‘Are you going over to the House?’ he asked. At least, that was what Strafford thought he had said, for Matty hadn’t got his dentures in, and when he spoke his lips made a noise like that of a loose tent flap blowing in a high wind. Now he said something else, of which the only word Strafford could be sure of was ‘lift’.
‘You need a lift, do you?’ Strafford sighed. ‘Yes, well, all right, get in.’
Despite the weather, Matty wore no overcoat, and had on only his threadbare pinstriped suit and a collarless shirt. He didn’t seem to notice the cold, although his nose was a shade of purplish-red, and there was a blue sheen on the back of his hands.
In the confines of the car, he smelled to Strafford, mysteriously, of soot, the solid kind that gathers on the inside of a chimney.
Matty spoke again. He was talking about the weather, it seemed, for Strafford was sure he had caught the word ‘snow’.
‘Matty,’ he said, ‘would you mind putting in your teeth?’
‘Righ’, righ’,’ Matty mumbled, and brought out his dentures. He picked off some pieces of fluff that had stuck to them, and fitted them into his mouth, gagging and slurping as he did so.
They went on a mile or two in silence. Matty, it was clear, wasn’t accustomed to travelling by motor car. He sat with his back very straight and his palms clamped on his splayed knees, craning forward with his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the road ahead. At every bend he drew his shoulders up and made a sucking sound with his lips, convinced a catastrophe awaited them and it was only a matter of time before it occurred.
Suddenly, he spoke.
‘I seen you talking last night to your man Harbison.’
‘Yes,’ Strafford answered. ‘He was looking for someone to get drunk with him, but he chose the wrong man.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I don’t drink. Well, not the way he does.’
‘Umm,’ Matty said, making a muffled clacking sound with his dentures. ‘He had a skinful himself, all right. He’d drink whiskey off a sore leg, that fellow would.’
‘Do you see him, ever, at Ballyglass House?’
‘Oho, no.’ Matty was greatly amused by this. ‘The boss barred him from the place, years ago.’
‘Colonel Osborne?’
Matty didn’t deem this worthy of reply. After all, how many bosses could there be in Ballyglass?
They went another mile, Matty keeping his eyes unwaveringly on the road.
‘A right whoremaster, too, that man,’ he said.
‘Colonel Osborne?’ Strafford said, startled.
‘No!’ Matty returned scornfully. ‘Harbison. He was at it again, last night – no, the night before last.’
Strafford had for an instant a clear image of Peggy, sitting on the side of his bed. But she had said she kept away from Harbison, when she could. Had she been lying?
‘The roads were very bad, that night, weren’t they?’
‘They were,’ Matty said. ‘But when I was on my way home, Harbison passed me by at the crossroads, down along here at Ballysaggart, in that big car of his, going hell for leather.’
‘I see,’ Strafford said slowly. ‘And what time would that have been?’
‘I don’t know – I’ve no watch, ever since the one I had broke last year. I was on the bike, when he comes roaring up behind me, flashing his lights and skidding in the snow. Bloody madman, and him full of drink.’
Strafford was frowning at the windscreen. ‘About what time would you say that was, approximately? Two o’clock? Three?’
‘Around three, I’d imagine. It was awful cold, but it wasn’t snowing, and the stars were out.’
‘Which direction was he going in?’
‘He was headed for the town, by the look of it. He have a lady friend there that he goes to see.’
‘Has he?’
‘Aye – Maisie Busher. She works in Pierce’s, the hardware. She leaves the key at the front door, on a string inside the letter box. Harbison is not the only lad who comes calling on Maisie of a night.’
‘And you think that’s where he was going, when you saw him?’
‘It’s where he usually goes when he’s in the vicinity, and has a few on him.’
‘You don’t think he could have been on his way to Ballyglass House?’
Matty turned his head and looked at him. It was the first time he had taken his eyes off the road.
‘Didn’t I tell you he’s barred out there?’ he said, in a tone of exasperation. Plainly he believed he was dealing with an idiot.
‘All the same—’ Strafford let his voice trail away.
They were approaching a crossroads. ‘This’ll do,’ Matty said, ‘let me off here.’
Strafford, bringing the car cautiously to a halt on the icy verge, peered up at a snow-clad signpost. ‘Is this where he overtook you?’
‘That’s right. This is Ballysaggart.’
‘Did he turn off, to left or right, or did he drive straight on?’
Matty was uncoiling himself, sloth-like, from his seat. ‘Straight on, he went, looking neither right nor left. He’ll wrap that car of his around a tree one of these nights, so he will.’
He slammed the door behind him and was gone. Strafford sat motionless for some moments, thinking. The road led not only to the town, but also, beyond it, to Ballyglass House.
*
When Strafford arrived at the house, Mrs Duffy let him in at the front door. She pointed to a note on the hall table, addressed to him.
‘There was a telephone call for you,’ she said. ‘Colonel Osborne took down the name.’
He picked up the note. Detective Chief Superintendent Haggard telephoned. He asked if you would call him back. Osborne.
The telephone, an ancient one, with an earpiece and a horn to speak into, was kept on a little table in an alcove off the hall, behind a curtain of moth-eaten black velvet, as if it were a thing of dubious taste and must be kept discreetly out of sight. Strafford squeezed into the alcove, took up the receiver and wound the metal handle, which made the bell inside the machine tinkle faintly. The operator came on. Strafford hesitated, then said he was sorry, that he had made a mistake. He hung up.
He didn’t feel up to dealing with Hackett, just now.
Instead, he went in search of Jenkins.