Phoebe is worried that she has not seen her friend April Latimer for some weeks and persuades Quirke, still coming to terms with Sarah's death, to help find her. April's brother Oscar, a doctor, tells them that April's wild behaviour has caused her estrangement from the family for some years and indeed neither her icy widowed mother Celia or her uncle Bill, a government minister, seem especially concerned. Quirke learns that April had a visit from another doctor Patrick Ojukwu, whom, it was assumed, was one of the many men in her life but blood stains at her flat lead to the revelation that Patrick was carrying out an abortion and that the family would have been disgraced if the news were made public.
—don @ minifie-1