Holy Orders A Quirke Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

nostalgic fondness, as if he were not dead but had gone off to some distant country to make a new life for himself, far away from them but not entirely beyond reach.
    “He was the busy one, our James,” Mr. Minor said. “Never stopped, always on the go.” Having spoken he fell back a step, startled, it seemed, by the sound of his own voice, and his wife moved a little apart from him, as if she also felt he had spoken too loudly, or out of turn.
    “Yes,” Hackett said, “he was full of energy, right enough.”
    At this they both looked surprised. “Did you know him?” Mrs. Minor asked.
    “I did indeed, ma’am,” Hackett said. “In the course of my work, you know.” He smiled. “The police and the press are always close.”
    Patrick Minor, Jimmy’s brother, cleared his throat pointedly, a man impatient of small talk. He carried himself like a boxer, twitching his shoulders and flexing his elbows with a flyweight’s intensity and pugnaciousness. He had red hair too, like Jimmy and his father, but not much of it. His manner was brusque, as if he considered this business surrounding his brother’s death to be altogether exaggerated. He treated his parents as though they were the children and he the grown-up, chivvying them, and interrupting them when they dared to speak. He was, Hackett guessed, five or six years older than Jimmy. A solicitor, he was obviously conscious of himself as a person of significance; Hackett, who also hailed from the world beyond the city, knew the type. Now he put a hand on Minor’s arm and drew him aside, and said to him in an undertone that perhaps he should be the one to identify his brother. “Right,” Minor said, and seemed to stop himself just in time from rubbing his hands. “Right. Lead the way.”
    They descended the broad marble staircase, the four of them, and walked along the green-painted corridor. Down here the parents appeared more cowed than ever, and Mr. Minor kept close to his wife, linking his arm in hers, not to lead her but to be himself led. They were, Hackett thought, like a pair of lost and frightened children.
    Patrick Minor was quizzing him on the circumstances in which his brother’s body had been discovered. He was all business, wanting to know everything. It was, the Inspector charitably supposed, his way of dealing with grief. Everybody had a different way of doing that.
    Quirke was waiting for them. His white coat was open, and underneath he was wearing a waistcoat and a checked shirt and a bow tie—Hackett had never seen Quirke in such a tie before—looking every inch the consultant, except for those boozy pouches under his eyes. “Mrs. Minor,” he said, offering his hand, “and Mr. Minor—my condolences.” Hackett introduced Jimmy’s brother, and Quirke shook hands gravely with him as well. It had the atmosphere somehow of a solemn religious occasion; they might have been gathered there for the beatification of a martyr.
    None of the Minors would look at the draped figure on the trolley, though it could clearly be seen through the window of the dissecting room.
    Bolger the porter materialized out of the shadows and Quirke asked him to show Mr. and Mrs. Minor into his office, where there was a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits laid out. Quirke followed them to the door and when they had passed through he shut it and turned back to Hackett and Patrick Minor and nodded towards the dissecting room. “It’ll just take a second,” he said to Minor. “This way.”
    The three of them went through to the starkly lit room. Minor had a gray look now, and a tiny muscle in his jaw was twitching rapidly. “We weren’t close, you know, James and me,” he said.
    He sounded defensive. Quirke merely nodded, and positioned himself beside the trolley. “There’s extensive bruising, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’ll be a shock. Are you ready?”
    Patrick Minor swallowed hard. Quirke lifted back the nylon sheet. “Oh, Lord,” Minor said softly,