Free Holy Orders A Quirke Novel by Benjamin Black Page A

woman in many ways, yet he could not deny that he had found the weeks of her absence restful and undemanding. This made him feel guilty, of course, and now he felt guiltier still as he settled down to savor his last few hours of what he could not but think of as freedom.
    He spotted Hackett as soon as the detective came in the door. He had his hat on, and the shoulders of his gabardine raincoat were splashed with rain.
    “That’s a soft evening,” Hackett said, settling himself on the stool next to Quirke’s. He had struggled out of his raincoat and now he folded it on his knees and set his hat on the bar beside his elbow.
    “What will you have?” Quirke asked.
    “A small port.”
    Quirke stared. “A what?”
    “A small port,” Hackett said again, unruffled. “If it’s all right with you.”
    “Sure. Certainly.” There was a pause. “Since when did you become a port drinker?”
    “I take a glass sometimes. It’s very calming. You should try it.”
    Quirke lifted a finger to Frankie. “A glass of port for my friend here.” He shook his head, watching as the young man took down the dusty bottle of Graham’s from a high shelf. “I suppose next it’ll be Wincarnis tonic wine.”
    “You may mock,” Hackett said complacently. “It doesn’t trouble me.” He glanced at Quirke’s tie of blue and white stripes. “You’re not wearing it today, I see.”
    “Wearing what?”
    “The dickey bow.”
    Frankie set the glass of ruby syrup in front of Hackett. “There you are, Captain,” he said. “One port.” He lifted a hand towards his throat but caught Quirke’s look and left his own bow tie unplucked.
    Hackett sipped his port. “It seems it’s getting very popular, these days,” he said, nodding towards Frankie’s departing back, “the dickey bow.”
    Quirke scowled but said nothing. He glanced towards the phone booth at the end of the bar. Should he call Isabel? She would probably be awake by now.
    “See the Clarion this morning?” Hackett asked.
    “No. Why?”
    From the pocket of his raincoat Hackett pulled out a wadded-up and slightly damp copy of the paper and unfolded it on the bar. Across the top of page 1 the headline read, GIRL SOUGHT IN MINOR CASE. There was a photo of Jimmy Minor. The story had no byline. “Christ almighty,” Quirke said.
    Hackett nodded. “Some splash.”
    “That’ll be Carlton Sumner,” Quirke said. “He thinks he’s William Randolph Hearst. Who is the girl supposed to be?”
    “The one that found the young fellow’s body. She was courting along the canal bank with her fancy man. He happens also to be her boss.”
    “Then what does it mean, ‘girl sought’?”
    “It means nothing,” Hackett said dismissively. “The fellow, Wilson, the girl’s boss, asked to be kept out of it for”—he sucked his teeth—“domestic reasons. He has a wife.” He shifted his backside on the stool. “She’s going to be finding out more than she wants to know, if the Clarion has its way.”
    “And will it? Have its way?”
    The detective lifted his shoulders to the level of his earlobes and let them drop again. “The Clarion won’t have far to seek for ‘the girl,’” he said drily. “Or for Mr. Wilson, either.” He drank his port, pouting his froggy lips and licking them after he had swallowed. “I went around to his place,” he said. “Jimmy Minor, where he lives. Lived.”
    “Oh, yes? And?”
    “Nothing much. I sent Jenkins and a couple of lads up there this morning, to see what they could turn up. I’m awaiting their report. I haven’t a high expectation of results.” He drank again from his glass. Between the rows of bottles behind the bar they could see their fragmented reflections in the speckled mirror; the mirror had an advertisement for Gold Flake emblazoned in gilt on its upper half, a tarnished sunburst. Frankie was energetically polishing a glass with a dirty tea towel and whistling faintly through his teeth.
    “He was a gardener,”