Benjamin Black: A Death in Summer

“Oh, the worst may not be the worst. I’m in-how shall I say?-I’m in delicate negotiations on that matter with the same Mr. Costigan.”

“You’ll do a deal with him, in return for names?”

“Ah. Well. Now.” Hackett found the document he had been pretending to look for and held it close up to his face, as if to read what was written on it, frowning and pouting, and running a hand blindly over the desk in search of his cigarettes. “I’d say,” he said, “the question is rather whether he ’ll do a deal with me. A stubborn sort of a fellow, is our Mr. Costigan.” He peeped at Quirke around the side of the document and winked. “Fear can do that to a man, you know, can make him awful stubborn and uncooperative.” He found the packet of Player’s and took one out and lit it. “As I say, I’ll do my best-” He broke off. “But where, now, in the name of God, is that young clown with our tea?” He pressed an electric bell on his desk, and kept his thumb on it. “My alarm button,” he said scornfully, “that no one pays one whit of attention to.”

“How did Sumner take it,” Quirke asked. “The father, I mean?”

“Shocked, but not so surprised as you’d expect.”

“He knew about Dick Jewell, about St. Christopher’s, all that?”

“He had a fair idea, I believe.”

Quirke looked to the rain-streaked window, nodding. “So that’s what they fought about that day in Roundwood-Sumner must have tackled Jewell for corrupting his son.”

“I’d say that’s a fair guess.”

Quirke was glancing about for his raincoat; Hackett had hung it for him on the back of the door.

“You know,” Quirke said, as if distractedly, “you know Jewell’s sister is determined to confess that she was the one who shot him.”

“Is that so? But sure, we’d pay no attention to that, would we. Didn’t you tell me she has trouble”-he touched a finger to his temple-“upstairs?”

“Then I can take it you won’t be charging her-that you won’t accept the confession she’s so eager to make?”

“Ah, the poor young woman, she can’t be held responsible for herself.”

“And the one who can be held responsible?”

The detective, pretending again to be busy searching for something on his desk, gave no reply.

There was a tap at the door, and Jenkins maneuvered his way in with a tray of tea things. “At last!” Hackett cried, looking up from his mock search. “We were about to succumb from the drought.”

Jenkins, biting his lip and trying not to smile, set the tray on the desk, after Hackett had unceremoniously swept half the papers from it onto the floor.

Quirke stood up. “I must be going,” he said.

The detective looked at him in exaggerated dismay. “Will you not stay and have a cup?”

Jenkins went out, edging sideways past Quirke. His ears were very pink, today.

Quirke took his raincoat from the hook behind the door. “It isn’t much, is it,” he said. “Costigan, and a couple of thugs, and a rotten priest transferred?”

“It’s the times, Dr. Quirke, and the place. We haven’t grown up yet, here on this tight little island. But we do what we can, you and I. That’s all we can do.”

Quirke returned to the desk. “I brought you something,” he said, and reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out the snow globe and laid it on the desk, beside the tea tray.

Hackett frowned at it.

“A present, from France,” Quirke said. “You can use it for a paperweight.”

He turned to the door. Behind him Hackett spoke. “Will she ever come back, do you think?”

Quirke did not reply. How could he? He did not know the answer.