A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black Read Free Book Online Page A

it’s not your own but God’s. Yet I don’t see where the mortal body comes into the equation—surely that’s not worth much and should be left to you to dispose of as you please. There’s the sin of despair, of course, but couldn’t it also be looked at that a chap was in so much of a hurry to get to heaven he might very well put an end to himself and have done with the delay?” He stopped on the pavement and turned to Quirke. “What do you think, Doctor? You’re an educated man—what’s your opinion in the matter?”
    Quirke knew of old the policeman’s habit of circling round a subject in elaborate arabesques.
    “I think you’re right, Inspector, I think it doesn’t make much sense.”
    “Do you mean the act itself, now, or the way it’s looked on?”
    “Oh, I can see it making sense to put an end to everything.”
    Hackett was gazing at him quizzically, his big shapeless head on one side, the little eyes bright and sharp as a blackbird’s. “Do you mind if I ask, but did you ever contemplate it yourself?”
    Quirke looked away quickly from that searching gaze. “Doesn’t everyone, at some time or other?” he said quietly.
    “Do you think so?” Hackett said, in a tone of large surprise. “God, I can’t say I’ve ever looked, myself, into that particular hole in the ground. I think I wouldn’t trust myself not to go toppling in headfirst. And then what would the missus do, not to mention my two lads over in America? They’d be heartbroken. At least”—he grinned, his thin froggy mouth turning up at either corner—“I hope they would be.”
    Quirke knew that he was being mildly mocked; Hackett often used him as a sort of straight man. They walked on.
    “But then,” Quirke said, “Richard Jewell didn’t kill himself, did he.”
    “Are you sure of that?” Again the policeman struck a note of surprise, but whether it was real or feigned Quirke could not tell.
    “You saw the gun, the way he was holding it.”
    “Do you not think someone might have found him and picked up the gun and put it into his hands?”
    “I thought of that—but why? Why would anyone do that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. To make everything neat and tidy, maybe?” He gave a little laugh. “People do the queerest things when they come upon a dead body all of a sudden—have you not found that yourself, in the course of your work?”
    On O’Connell Bridge the photographer in his greasy leather hat was taking a picture of a woman in a white dress and sandals who was holding by the hand a small boy wearing a toy cowboy gun strapped to his hip; the mother was smiling self-consciously while the boy frowned. Quirke watched them covertly; orphaned early, he had never known his mother, was not even sure who she had been.
    “Anyway,” Inspector Hackett was saying, “it makes no odds to me what they say about it in the papers, or what they speculate might have happened. I have my job to do, same as ever.” He chuckled again. “Like I say, Dr. Quirke, aren’t we a queer pair? Connoisseurs of death, that’s us, you in your way, me in mine.” He pushed his hat farther to the back of his skull. “Will we chance a cup of tea in Bewley’s, do you think?”
    “I have to get to the hospital.”
    “Oh, aye, you’re a busy man—I forgot.”
    *   *   *
     
    Quirke could not understand why, but the dinner with Sinclair and Phoebe was not a success. Sinclair was at his stoniest and hardly spoke a word, while Phoebe throughout looked as if she were trying not to laugh, though not because she was amused. The food was good, as it always was at Jammet’s, and they drank two bottles of a fine Chablis, premier cru —or Quirke drank, while Phoebe took no more than a glass and Sinclair sipped and sniffed at his as if he thought the chalice might be poisoned—but it seemed that nothing could lift the pall that had settled over the table as soon as they sat down. Then Sinclair left early, mumbling something about having to