CHAPTER : 19The headlights of Fish Finlay’s taxi caught the blue-and-white insignia on the back of the car turning down Nantucket Avenue as the taxi turned into it at the other end of the serpentine wall. Dr. McNair had been to Enniskerry and was leaving it. The tension holding Fish forward on the seat broke with a relief so intense that he could taste the sudden gall-bitter irony of the fact that an equal tension had broken in the silent woman beside him. Alla Emlyn stirred in the seat. The movement of her body, the sound of her breath quieting, as she relaxed, had a quality of resignation so tangible and so extraordinary that it had a macabre humor. If she had not actually and overtly hoped for what he’d feared, she’d been waiting for it and could have borne it with fortitude, as an act
