Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

body.
    “Poor bugger,” the lockkeeper said.
    No one had thought to send for an ambulance. How were they going to get the body out of here? Jenkins thrust a fist into the pocket of his overcoat and clenched it in anger. He had no one but himself to blame; that, he reflected bitterly, was what it was to be in charge. Hendricks went to the squad car for the walkie-talkie, but it was being temperamental and would produce only a loud crackling noise and now and then a harsh squawk. “There’s no use shaking the fucking thing,” Quinlan said with amused disdain, but Hendricks pretended not to hear. He kept putting the machine to his ear and talking loudly into the mouthpiece—“Hello, Pearse Street, come in Pearse Street!”—then holding it away from himself and glaring at it in disgust, as if it were a pet that was refusing to perform a simple trick he had spent time and energy teaching it.
    Jenkins turned to the girl sitting on the bench. “Where was that phone box?”
    She was still in a state of shock, and it took her a moment to understand him. “Away down there,” she said, pointing along Mespil Road. “Opposite Parson’s bookshop. The one on Leeson Street is broken, as usual.”
    “Christ,” Jenkins said under his breath. He turned back and spoke to Quinlan. “Go over there along Wilton Terrace and have a look, there might be one nearer.”
    Quinlan scowled. His expression made it clear that he did not relish taking orders.
    “I’ll go,” Hendricks said. He shook the walkie-talkie again. “This yoke is useless.”
    Jenkins dithered. He had given a direct order to Quinlan; it should have been obeyed, and Hendricks should have kept out of it. He felt giddy for a moment. Getting people to acknowledge your authority was no easy thing, though Inspector Hackett did it seemingly without effort. Was it just a matter of experience, or did you have to be born with the knack?
    “Right,” he said to Hendricks gruffly, although Hendricks had already set off. Should he call him back, make him salute or something? He was pretty sure a fellow on the beat was supposed to salute a detective sergeant. He wished now he had phoned Hackett in the first place and risked the old bugger’s wrath.
    Walsh or Wallace, who was showing no sign at all now of his earlier eagerness to be gone, went up to Quinlan and began to talk to him about a match that was set for Croke Park on Sunday. How was it that sporting types always recognized each other straight off? They were both smoking, Quinlan cupping the cigarette in his palm—officers were not supposed to smoke on duty, Jenkins was certain of that. Should he reprimand him, tell him to put that fag out at once? He decided to pretend he had not seen him light up. He realized he was sweating, and ran a finger around the inside of his shirt collar.
    The girl on the bench called softly to the man—“Alfie, will we go?”—but he ignored her. He was bareheaded as well as being without his jacket, and though he must have been freezing by now, he appeared not to mind.
    Jenkins looked at the body lying on the grass beside the towpath. The water had drained from the hair, which seemed to be red, though it was hard to be sure in the stark glow of the streetlight. Jenkins felt himself shiver. What must it be like, being dead? Like nothing, he supposed, unless there really was a heaven and a hell, all that, which he doubted, despite what the priests and everyone else had spent years earnestly assuring him was the case.
    At last Hendricks came back. He had found a phone box. The Holy Family was the hospital on duty tonight. The ambulance was out but they would send it as soon as it came in. “Have they only the one?” Jenkins asked incredulously.
    “Seems like it,” Hendricks said.
    “A fine player, that lad,” Wallace or Walsh was saying. “Dirty, though.”
    “Oh, a tough bollocks,” Quinlan agreed, and chuckled. He took a drag of his cigarette, throwing a glance of lazy insolence in Jenkins’s direction as he did so. “I seen him in the quarterfinal against Kerry,” he said and laughed again. “I’m telling you, if that little fucker got his elbow in your ribs you’d know all about it.”
    The girl stood up from the bench. “I’m going,” she said to the man’s back. He flapped a hand at her placatingly, and Quinlan said something under his breath and the man gave a loud guffaw. The girl moved irresolutely towards the cinder track that led up to the road. When