Benjamin Black - A Death in Summer

“Why two doors?” Quirke asked, as they stepped out.

“What?”

“Why did he keep the two front doors, your husband, when he was putting the four apartments into one?”

She looked at him. “I don’t know. He was like that, he had to keep everything.”

“Even you.”

She turned away, searching for her key.

Once inside, she went off to check on the child, and then came back. “I have told Maria that she can sleep in the guest room,” she said. “Shall I get you a drink?”

“Whiskey,” Quirke said. “Have you got whiskey?”

She found a bottle in a cupboard and poured a measure into a crystal goblet. She poured nothing for herself. Quirke felt a stabbing pain under his ribs on the right side, and was glad of it. He would be glad, now, of anything that was real.

Francoise handed him the goblet, and he drank.

“You did sleep with Sumner, didn’t you,” he said, “when he made that pass at you, here?”

She had been turning away from him and now turned back. She thought for a moment. “Yes,” she said calmly, “yes, I did.” She smiled. “I’m sorry, have I hurt you? You have that ‘how could you?’ look that men take on.”

“And you didn’t tell your husband,” Quirke went on. “He found out. Is that why he threw Sumner out? Is that why they fought at that meeting in Roundwood?”

Her smile had turned pitying. “You think you know so much,” she said, “but really, you know so little. I asked them to go. It had become-inconvenient. Sumner, too; he is another little boy refusing to give up the toy he has stolen. You are all the same.”

He nodded, gazing at her.

“You knew I knew, didn’t you,” he said. “You knew I knew you had shot your husband.”

She stared at him. “No,” she said, her voice hardening, “of course not.”

“But you were worried that I might guess. That’s why you took me into your bed, in the hope that it would keep me from suspecting.”

“How can you say such a thing!”

They were standing in the middle of the floor, facing each other, Quirke with the glass in his hand and Francoise d’Aubigny in her robe of Roman purple staring at him, her fists clenched in anger at her sides.

“I made a fool of myself for you,” Quirke said. He felt calm; cold, and quite calm. The pain in his side had stopped; he wished it would come back. “I made a fool of myself for you,” he said again. “I insulted my conscience.”

The woman’s face twitched, as if she might be about to laugh. “Your conscience,” she said. “Please, do not lie. Lie to me if you like, but not to yourself.”

He sighed, and walked away from her and sat down on a complicated little chair made of stainless steel and white leather. He sat there, looking at her.

“You shot him,” he said, “but you didn’t forget. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“I told you, it was because of Giselle-”

“I know that, I know. I don’t even blame you. But what you said to me, I say back to you: don’t lie. You shot him, and you took your handkerchief and you wiped the gun all over, and put it in his hands to make it look like suicide, and went back and told Dannie what you had done. Then you called the Guards, and wouldn’t give your name. And then you took the Land Rover and drove away, and stayed away, and then came back, as if you hadn’t been there at all. Didn’t you.”

She was smiling, but still there was that faint twitch along her cheek.

“We could have been happy, you and I,” she said. “You could have come to live with me, among the grown-ups. But you prefer your little life, don’t you.”

He stood up from the chair-he felt so tired, so tired-and went to the counter and put the empty glass there. He picked up the snow globe and cupped the cool weight of it in his hand. A few flakes of snow fluttered up, and one or two settled on the slanted roof of the chateau. A tiny world, perfect and changeless.

“Dundrum, that hospital,” he said. “It is a terrible place.”

She gave him a quizzical look; it seemed to him she was almost smiling. “But you won’t let them send her there,” she said, “will you, Dr. Quirke?”

He put the glass globe into his pocket, and turned away.

In Dublin it was raining, and the air felt like steam. By the time Quirke got to the flat he was soaked through to the skin, and his shoes made a squelching sound. He shook as much water from his hat as he could and to keep its shape shoved it down onto the head of a life-sized plaster bust of Socrates that someone had given him once for a joke. The only room he had been able to find in Nice the night before was in a fleapit up a lane run by an Arab with black teeth and a scar. He had not slept, only dozed fitfully, worried that someone would come in to rob him and slit his throat. At dawn he had walked on the front, looking at the sea which was already blue although the sun was hardly up, and had stopped at a cafe, and drunk three cups of bitter coffee, and had felt sick. And now he was home.

Home.

He did not phone, but went straight to Pearse Street. Hackett looked at him, and nodded, and said, “I can see you’ve been through the wars.”

They went up to Hackett’s office and Hackett summoned Sergeant Jenkins and told him to fetch a pot of tea. When the young man had gone he sat back on the chair and lifted his feet in their big boots and perched them on a corner of his desk. Behind him the grimed window wept. Quirke flexed his shoulders, and the bentwood chair on which he sat sent up a cry of protest. He had never in his life been so weary as he was now.

“So,” Hackett said, “you’re back from your travels. Did you see all you went to see?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“I spoke to her.”

“You spoke to her.”

Quirke closed his eyes and gouged his fingers into them, pressing them until they pained. “What about Sumner?” he asked.

“Sumner the father or Sumner the son?”

“Whichever. Both.”

The air in the room was blued from the smoke of Hackett’s cigarette. He shifted his boots on the desk and wriggled his backside deeper into the sagging seat of his swivel chair.

“Young Sumner,” he said, “will get a suspended sentence, and his daddy will ship him off to Canada, for good, this time.”

Quirke was studying him, that big pallid smugly smiling face. “You did a deal,” he said, “didn’t you.”

“I did a deal. Teddy gave me Costigan and the Duffy brothers who cut off your assistant’s finger, and I gave him Canada. A fair exchange.”

“And Costigan, what will he get?”

“Oh, that’s for the court to decide,” the detective said, putting on a pious look.

“What does that mean?”

“Every man is innocent until proved guilty.”

“Are you telling me he’ll get off?”

Hackett had his hands clasped behind his head and was considering the ceiling. “As you will remember from our previous dealings with Mr. Costigan,” he said, “the man has powerful friends in this town. But we’ll do our best, Dr. Quirke, we’ll do our best.”

“And St. Christopher’s?”

“Father Ambrose is to be transferred, I believe.”

“Transferred.”

“That’s right. Up north, somewhere. The Archbishop himself gave the order.”

“And of course there’s no question of the place being closed down.”

Hackett widened his eyes. “And what would become of all those unfortunate orphans, if that were to happen?”

“And the Friends of St. Christopher’s, what about them?”

Hackett took his feet off the desk and leaned forward, suddenly brisk, and scrabbled through the chaos of papers on his desk. Quirke knew this ploy of old. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me the worst.”