Benjamin Black - A Death in Summer

Teddy considered. He was still at the head of those steep stairs, still teetering there, ready to tumble at any second. How was he supposed to answer these questions? They sounded so mild, yet he knew each one of them was stretched tight like an invisible piano wire that would trip him up. Maybe he should refuse to say anything more. Maybe he should demand a lawyer. That is what people in the pictures did when they were being given the third degree, although always in the end they turned out to be the guilty ones. Should he admit he knew Jewell? If he denied it, Hackett could easily find out that he was lying. Probably Hackett was well aware that he did know him, probably this was just another wire he was stringing across the top of that dark abyss.

“Yes,” Teddy said, “I knew him slightly. He was a friend of my father-used to be a friend of my father.”

“Oh? Was there a falling out?”

“No, no. Or yes, yes there was. There was some business deal that Dick-that Mr. Jewell wouldn’t go along with.”

“So there was a row?”

Teddy felt the beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. He took out his own cigarettes-Marigny, a French brand he had recently discovered-and lit one. The presence of Jug-ears behind him by the door was like an itch that he could not scratch. He dropped the match in the ashtray. “I don’t know what happened,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “Why don’t you ask my father?”

“I could do that,” Hackett said, “I could indeed. But for the moment let’s turn back to you and your friend Miss Jewell, and her friend Dr. Sinclair. By the way”-he leaned forward, cocking an eyebrow-“you do know why you’re here, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” Teddy snapped, and then wished he had bitten his tongue instead.

“Oh,” Hackett said, “I assumed you did, since you didn’t ask, at the start.”

“I tried to tell you I didn’t know why you had called me in like this. You said”-he curled his lip and mimicked Hackett’s accent-“that all would be revealed.”

“So I did-you’re right.” He signaled to the fellow at the door. “Sergeant, I think at this juncture what’s called for is a cup of tea. Or”-turning his attention back to Teddy-“would you prefer coffee? Mind you, I don’t believe we have the facilities for making coffee here at the station-have we, Sergeant?”

“No, Inspector,” the sergeant said, “I don’t believe we have.”

Oh, very droll, Teddy said to himself-they were like a music-hall turn, this pair, Mr. Bones and whatever the other fellow was called.

The sergeant went out, and Hackett leaned back comfortably on his chair and laced his fingers together over his paunch. He was smiling. He seemed to have been smiling without interruption since coming into the room. “Are you enjoying the good weather?” he inquired. “There’s some I’ve heard complaining about the heat wave, but they’re the same ones that’ll be complaining when it comes to an end. There’s no pleasing some people.”

Teddy was asking himself how he could have been such a fool as to think he would get away with the Sinclair business. Why had he done it, anyway? He did not even know Sinclair, had never met him, and had only seen him the one time, with Dannie in Searsons on Baggot Street during the Horse Show last year. He had not liked the look of him, with his swarthy face and his big Jew nose. He had started to go up to them, to say hello to Dannie, but something about Sinclair had put him off. He was, Teddy had recognized, the kind of fellow who would make smart jokes, jokes that did not seem jokes at all, jokes that Teddy would not get, and Dannie would see him not getting them, and the two of them, Sinclair and her, would stand there trying to keep a straight face while he floundered. He had been in that kind of situation with Dannie before, he knew what she could be like when she was with her clever friends, the ones she would not introduce him to. She was a Jew as well, of course. Imagine, a Jew called Jewell! He recalled the nickname they had for Dick at St. Christopher’s, it always made him laugh. He supposed Sinclair too would be circumcised. How would his thing look, with no skin, just the big purple helmet. No, no, it was gross-think of something else. Think of Cullen, the boy at St. Christopher’s, pale as an angel, with his straw-colored hair like a halo and his skin so soft and cool-

“This room,” Hackett said, looking about with a smile of happy nostalgia, his hands still clasped comfortably over his belly, “I wonder how many times I’ve sat in this room, in this very chair, and then, before that, how many times I stood there at the door, like young Jenkins, bored like him and dying for a fag, my poor feet aching and my innards rumbling for want of their dinner.” He paused to light another cigarette. “Did you notice the duty sergeant when you came in, the big fellow with the broken nose? Lugs O’Dowd, he’s called-isn’t that a great name for a Guard?” He chuckled, saying the name over again, to himself, and shaking his head. “Lugs was some man, when he was on the beat. He used to bring fellows down here to question them, he’d shut the door and first thing off he’d give them a good whaling, just to get them in the right mood, as he’d say. The Superintendent, he’d tell them, has his office directly above us here, and when they started to answer his questions he’d keep telling them to speak louder, that the Superintendent couldn’t hear them. ‘Come on,’ he’d shout, and give them another clatter across the jaw, ‘come on, bucko, speak up, the Super can’t hear you!’” He laughed, wheezing. “Yes indeed,” he said, “Lugs was some man, I can tell you.” He paused, and his look turned somber. “Then a young fellow died one night, and Lugs was taken off the beat and put on the desk up there, where he is not happy, no, he is not happy, at all.”

Sergeant Jenkins came back with two big thick gray mugs of thick gray tea and set them down on the table and went back to his post by the door. Teddy swiveled in his chair to look at him but the sergeant stared ahead stonily, his hands behind his back now. Teddy turned to Hackett again. Hackett was stirring his tea pensively. “I believe,” he said, “you and Mr. Jewell used to do good works together.” He looked up. “Is that right? Out at that place in Balbriggan, the orphanage-what do you call it?” Teddy only gazed at him, wide-eyed, as if in fascination. “St. Christopher’s, is that right? I think it is. The Friends of St. Christopher’s, isn’t that what you called yourselves? And Mr. Costigan, he’s another one, isn’t he another Friend of St. Christopher’s. Hmm?”

So he knew about Costigan, too. He must know everything, and all this, this cross-examination or whatever to call it, was just a charade. He was being played with; toyed with. He would have to protect himself, that much was clear.

It was Costigan who had put him in touch with the Duffys. He had not told Costigan what he wanted them for, and Costigan had not asked. Costigan was careful like that, not wanting to know things that might get him in trouble. Then, when he heard what had happened, what the Duffys had done to Sinclair, he went into one of his rants. Teddy did not know why he should be so angry-it was only a prank, after all, and a good one, too; he would tell Pooh Bear about it, someday. Sinclair was a smug bastard and deserved a lesson in what the world could do to you. Costigan did not understand what it was like to be Teddy, always being sneered at and made to feel small, and stupid. All the same, it was Costigan’s idea, when he had cooled down, to send the envelope with Sinclair’s finger in it to Phoebe’s old man. “Quirke can do with a caution,” Costigan had said, and had even laughed that laugh of his-Teddy had pictured him baring his crooked bottom teeth-despite being so annoyed at Teddy.