Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

insinuating herself around it and then closing it soundlessly behind herself. Was it that she had instructions to let none of those waiting have even a glimpse into that secret inner place, before their turn came to enter and be told the good news or the bad? She sat down at her desk. Quirke liked the way that women, before sitting down, would run a hand deftly under the seat of their skirts, smoothing them out.
    Isabel. He should have called Isabel. If the news Philbin had for him was bad, it would be all the harder now to break it to her. Yes, he should have called her, should have told her where he was, warned her of what he was waiting for, so she would be prepared.
    The woman with the perm was first in. Sweetman was her name; he heard the receptionist say it. She rose, clutching her handbag, and walked forward towards the white door, starkly smiling. Sweet Mrs. Sweetman. Quirke silently wished her well. He and the young man exchanged a blank look. Frankie the barman! That was who he looked like—the same smooth hair and blue-shadowed chin, the same oily glance, the same cockiness.
    Fifteen minutes past. The second hand swept on, unfaltering.
    He sneezed violently, making the receptionist start and stare at him. His cold was coming along nicely.
    At half past, Mrs. Sweetman emerged from the consulting room. Quirke and the fellow who looked like Frankie scanned her face surreptitiously, searching for a sign. She gave none, and passed them by, leaving a trace of her perfume on the air.
    Quirke sat back on the chair and folded his arms. He had time left; Frankie boy would be next. But he was wrong. The receptionist was looking at him, smiling her polite, frigid smile. She nodded. “Mr. Philbin will see you now, Dr. Quirke,” she said. Mister. Doctor. She knew the hierarchical niceties.
    He rose and stepped forward, leaden-footed, and as he did so he saw in his mind yet again that path by the canal, and the darkness, and the darkly attendant trees, and someone walking towards him, out of the night.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

    Cant, or Shelta in the United States, is the secret language of Irish travelers, who in the 1950s were known universally, and unpejoratively, as tinkers. The origins of this colorful patois are obscure, and travelers are still reluctant, understandably, to reveal a full vocabulary. The word “Cant” probably comes from the Irish word caint, meaning “talk.” “Shelta” may be a corruption of siulta, the Irish word for “walking,” as in Na Daoine Siulta, the “Walking People.”
    Two authoritative sources on Cant are The Secret Languages of Ireland , by R.A.S. Macalister (1937), and Irish Tinkers or “Travellers”: Some Notes on Their Manners and Customs and Their Secret Language or “Cant,” by Pádraig Mac Gréine (Béaloideas, 1931).
    Glossary of Cant words used in the text:

    aras : soft in the head

    cuinne : priest

    gatrin : child

    granen : pregnant

    grit : sick

    mugathawn : fool

    mull : woman

    nyaark : rascal

    Palantus : England

    shade : policeman

    shako : sin

    sharog : redhead

    sramala : robber

    sreentul : friend

    sringan : drink (alcoholic)

    spurk : fornicate

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    My thanks to Olivia O’Leary and, as ever, to Dr. Gregory Page, who knows everything there is to be known about injury, dying, and death.

ALSO BY BENJAMIN BLACK

    Vengeance

    A Death in Summer

    Elegy for April

    The Silver Swan

    Christine Falls

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B ENJAMIN B LACK is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize–winning novelist John Banville. The author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed series of Quirke novels—including Christine Falls, A Death in Summer, and Vengeance —he lives in Dublin.

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    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Black, Benjamin, 1945–
    Holy orders: a Quirke novel / Benjamin Black. — First edition.
    pages cm
    ISBN 978-0-8050-9440-4
    1. Police—Ireland—Dublin—Fiction. 2 Pathologists—Fiction. 3. Catholic Church—Ireland—Dublin—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 5. Dublin (Ireland)—Fiction. 6. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
    PR6052.A57H65 2013
    823'.914—dc23
    2013001589
    First Edition 2013
    This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and