Benjamin Black - A Death in Summer

Quirke nodded. “I was involved in the case.”

“Were you, now.” He drained the last of his drink. “What do you think? Maybe he’s the one that pulled the gun on old Dickie.” He looked from one of them to the other. “Have you thought of that? Couldn’t take the heat any longer and upped and shot the boss. Though I guess he would have gone for Francoise first.”

“Mr. Sumner, I’d really appreciate it,” Hackett said, “if you’d tell us what the disagreement was that you had with Richard Jewell here that day.”

“I told you-it was business. There’s always fights when business is being done-it’s the nature of the game.” He scratched at his mustache with a forefinger, making a rasping sound. “Okay,” he said then, and sighed. “I own a chunk of his company. I made him an offer of a partnership, he told me to go to hell, things got heated, he left. That was it. If you think I sat here brooding for a week and then went over to his place one morning and blew his head off-well, come on.”

“You didn’t see him again, after that day?” Hackett asked.

“No.” He stood up. “No, I didn’t see him again, or talk to him, or hear from him-nothing. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve really got to take that shower. I’m beginning to steam.”

Hackett was still sitting, with his hat on the floor between his feet. He picked it up and examined the brim. “And I suppose you’ve no idea of who might have wanted him dead.”

“Are you kidding? I could give you a list of names as long as your arm. But listen”-he lifted a hand and laughed-“maybe Francoise did it? Christ knows she hated him.”

Quirke was standing now, and Hackett too got to his feet at last, turning his hat in his hands. “How is your son, Mr. Sumner?” he asked.

Sumner went very still, and lowered his boxy head and glowered out from under his thick black brows. “He’s fine-why?”

The air between the two men seemed to crackle, as if a strong charge of electricity had passed through it. Quirke watched them, looking from one to the other.

“I just wondered,” Hackett said. “He’s in Canada now, is he?”

“No, he’s back.”

“Doing what?”

“Working for me.”

“That’s good,” the detective said. “That’s very good.” He smiled. “Well, we’ll leave you to go and have your wash. Maybe you’d say good-bye to Mrs. Sumner for us.”

But Gloria Sumner was already in the doorway. “These guys are leaving,” Sumner said to her. His mood had turned; all the arrogant brightness had gone and his voice was thick with rancor.

“I’ll show you to the door,” Gloria Sumner said, and led the two men along the low corridor to the glassed-in porch, where the heat hammered. “Goodness,” she said, “your driver will have baked, poor fellow. I could have sent Marie out with a cool drink.”

“How long,” Quirke asked, “has she been with you, the maid?”

“Marie? Funny, I never think of her as ‘the maid.’ Three, four years, I suppose. Why do you ask?”

Quirke did not answer, only shrugged.

“Good day to you now, ma’am,” Hackett said, and put on his hat.

“Good-bye. And good-bye Dr. Quirke. Nice to see you again, after all these years.” She smiled into his face. “You thought I hadn’t remembered you, but I did.”

Jenkins had moved the squad car into the scant shade of a birch tree and had all the windows wide open, but he was sweating and had taken off his jacket and his tie. He greeted Hackett with a wounded look and started up the engine. Gloria Sumner was still standing in the doorway of the porch, and waved one hand slowly as they departed.

“What was that about the son?” Quirke asked.

“Teddy Sumner,” Hackett said. “A bit of a boyo. He has a record. Gave a girl a hiding after a party over at Powerscourt one night. Would have done time if his father wasn’t who he was. They packed him off to the family’s place in Canada. Now, it seems, he’s back.”

They passed through Roundwood village. Among trees off to the right the reservoir was a glint of pewter. Quirke was eyeing the backs of Jenkins’s large pink ears. “Sumner didn’t like being asked about him,” he said.

“No, indeed, I noticed that.”

Quirke waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. “You think there might be a connection, with Dick Jewell?”

“Oh, hardly,” Hackett said, putting on the mild and vacant look that he did when he was doing his hardest thinking. “But I wonder if Teddy was there the day that Jewell and Sumner had their row. I should have asked.”

“Yes,” Quirke said. “You should have.”

Even as it was occurring to Sinclair the idea seemed crazy, and yet it had a peculiar and a nagging appeal. He had gone out a third time with Phoebe, on what he afterwards supposed must have been their first real date, for although she did not invite him in, the evening had ended with a prolonged and serious, indeed, a solemn, kiss on her doorstep, and now he found that the thought of her was never far from his mind. He had come to see her unconventional prettiness-it was in the delicacy of her slim hands, in the slightly feline angle of her jaw, in the almost transparent paleness of her skin. Also he had begun to appreciate her humor, the amused and subtle mockery in her attitude to things, him included, perhaps him especially. She had a bright mind; he wondered how she had ended up working in a hat shop. He could not stop himself imagining her without her clothes, reclining on a bed and turning towards him on the pivot of one braced arm, a lock of hair across her cheek, all her bared flesh agleam like a knife blade. Yes, all that was on his mind, and more. But now the wild thought had occurred to him that he would introduce her to Dannie Jewell, he did not know why. Perhaps he wanted to see what the two of them would make of each other. Or perhaps, a sly voice said in his head, you want to make mischief.

They had arranged a Sunday afternoon outing, Phoebe and he, to go and see the rhododendrons on the slopes behind Howth Castle. They would take a picnic, and a bottle of wine. As the day approached he dithered as to whether he dared ask if Dannie might come with them, and more than once he dialed the number of the telephone in the hallway of the house where Phoebe had her bedsit, but hung up before anyone answered. The idea was crazy, surely. What was it supposed to achieve, what purpose was it supposed to serve? Phoebe would most likely resent Dannie’s presence, and Dannie would not much care to be a gooseberry. Probably Dannie would not come, anyway, even if Phoebe were to say that she could. Finally he worked up the courage and telephoned them both, Phoebe first, then Dannie. They both said yes. And straightaway of course he regretted the whole thing, and cursed himself for his foolishness.

He called for Dannie first, and they walked together to Phoebe’s place. The morning was sunny and hot but a faint fresh breeze was coming down from the mountains and the air had lost some of the heaviness that had weighed on it in recent days. Dannie was hardly recognizable as the girl he had last seen curled forlornly on her bed in a drugged sleep that night after her brother had died and she had phoned him for help. Today she wore a white dress that the breeze made balloon around her, and a light cashmere sweater was draped over her shoulders with the sleeves knotted loosely in front. She had put on lipstick, and wore perfume. When she had answered the door to him she had seen the anxiousness in his eyes and had put a hand reassuringly on his arm and said, “Don’t worry, I’m all right, I won’t break down or anything.” Now they stopped outside the front door of the house where Phoebe lived, and stood smiling at each other vaguely as they waited for her to come down, and the plane trees on the other side of the street rustled their leaves excitedly as if they were discussing these two young people standing there in the midst of a Sunday morning in summer.