She pretended to consider. She had already made up her mind. Though Quirke had offered to buy her an air ticket, she would pay for it herself. She always paid for herself. She had her own money, left to her by her grandfather. She had spent hardly a penny of it. It sat in the bank, increasing year by year. She never thought about it, sometimes forgot it was there. It was only money, and besides, it was tainted with the darkness of the time out of which it had come to her.

She straightened her back, and held her head upright. ‘I will go, yes,’ she said.

Chief Superintendent Hackett hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat and rocked himself back and forth slowly, with his lips stuck out. The rain flung a final handful of drops against the window and abruptly ceased. The  shadow of another cloud skimmed the rooftops, swift as a bird. Phoebe put the cigarette case into her handbag and made to rise. Hackett lifted a hand.

‘Hang on there a second,’ he said. He picked up the receiver of the big black phone on his desk, dialled a single digit, waited. ‘Hello, Strafford? Come up here a minute, will you? Yes, now. What?’ He winked at Phoebe. ‘You’re going to go on a little holiday. What?’ He winked again, enjoying himself. ‘Abroad, my lad. Abroad.’

Chapter 27

Detective Inspector Strafford entered the room and closed the door gently behind him. His manner was abstracted, as if he had wandered in by accident and hadn’t quite realised yet where he was. Phoebe regarded him with candid interest. He was thin to the point of gauntness, with pale, bony wrists and peculiar, pale soft hair. His face was so narrow it seemed that if he turned sideways it would collapse into two dimensions and become a fine, straight line. He wore a three-piece tweed suit. The chain of a fob watch was looped across his concave midriff. He didn’t look in the least like a policeman. He might have been a university don, or an unfrocked priest.

Hackett introduced him. ‘And this is Miss Phoebe Griffin.’

Strafford’s handshake was unexpectedly firm, and his hand was smooth and cool. Phoebe couldn’t begin to guess his age – he could be anywhere between twenty-five and fifty.

‘Miss Griffin,’ he said. ‘How do you do?’

His accent was another small surprise. Protestant, Phoebe knew at once, landed gentry, though come down in the world – why else would he have joined the Garda? Hackett was watching her with eager amusement.

‘You’ll no doubt know her father,’ he said to Strafford. ‘Doctor Quirke, State Pathologist – he used to be at the Hospital of the Holy Family.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Strafford murmured, nodding. ‘Doctor Quirke. Yes, of course.’