Disappeared by Anthony J. Quinn

Author:Anthony J. Quinn [Quinn, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784088149
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

There were clean sheets on the bed in the room with pale green wall­paper­. A low window framed with lace curtains looked out into the heart of a rainstorm, its heavy clouds pulsing over a vague terrain­ of murky bog and thorny fields. Somehow, the single pane of glass kept the ramming wind and cavorting raindrops at bay. It was a neat, homely room, a room that Daly would have relaxed in with great comfort­ had it not been for the two men dressed in paramilitary uniforms­ standing to attention beside an open coffin.

Daly did not know if the IRA men, whose faces were hidden behind sunglasses and low black berets, knew he was a detective, but they saluted him as he entered the room like any other mourner come to pay his respects. Something about their leather-gloved hands and pistol-bearing holsters told him their presence was more than the usual military sideshow that accompanied the funerals of Republican sympathizers.

Equally serious was the group of old women sitting on the white-sheeted bed, reciting the rosary, their faces a set of masks too—wrinkled, absorbed, pious. Daly felt the room vibrate with their deep concentration.

The women made some space for him, moving by intuition, without breaking the stream of their prayers. Their fingers slaved over black, clicking rosary beads, stacking up the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. He sat among them and briefly closed his eyes, his mind letting the detail of their words blur and slip out of hearing, their voices a variation of the voices that had filled his childhood. As a boy, he had been enraptured by the fervent sounds of the rosary and in private moments lately, he found himself drawn nostalgically back like a recovering patient to the whiff of hospital anesthetic.

There was a pause in the prayers, and he looked up. Through the window, he saw several sheep trying to wriggle through a southward streaming hedge of blackthorn and crooked gorse. From the downstairs kitchen came the private murmur of conversation and more prayers.

The door opened and several mourners entered the room with bowed heads. A few greeted Daly, but the others ignored him. Their voices were low, preoccupied. Oddly, he had yet to detect the slow outpouring of grief that normally filled the air at an Irish wake. People passed one another in the corridor outside the room, their conversations hushed and inhibited.

As if possessing one throat, the old women started praying again, their devout voices trickling through another set of sorrowful mysteries. Daly felt one of the IRA men eyeball him and flex his muscles, inviting him to follow the ripple of his waist down to the heavy black pistol sitting in its holster. If this were a church, Daly thought, all the statues of the Virgin Mary would have fainted to the floor.

The IRA men performed a salute and moved to the side to allow the new batch of mourners a glimpse of the coffin. Daly’s eyes were drawn to the gnarled face of the dead man lying there, gaping out of a creamy white shroud.

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