suspended above him in the darkness, and felt guilty, and then resentful, since there was nothing he was guilty of, or nothing of substance, anyway. Or not yet, as a small voice whispered in his head.
“Yes,” he said now, “grief is strange.”
“Ah-you seem to know how it feels?”
“My wife died. It was a long time ago.” She said nothing to that. Again there was a silence on the line. “And your daughter,” he asked, “how is she coping?”
“Not badly. She is a very brave little girl. She’s called Giselle.” Now it was his turn not to know what to say. “She refused to go to the funeral.”
“What age is she?”
“Nine. Very young, and yet old enough to know her own mind. I can remember what it was like to be that age, and how sharp the pain of things was then.”
Yet again that silence on the line, hollow, slightly unsettling.
“Would you like to meet?” Quirke heard himself ask.
Her reply was instant. “Yes,” she said, “I would.”
They met for lunch in the Hibernian. There was the usual lunchtime bustle, and as the glass front door kept opening and shutting it threw a repeated flash of reflected sunlight along the length of the marble floor, among the feet of the people coming and going. She was already at the table when he arrived, sitting up very straight with her shoulders back and her eye fixed expectantly on the door. She wore a thin pale-blue summer dress with polka dots and a tiny scrap of a hat, stuck with a feather and a pin, that he suspected she might have bought in the Maison des Chapeaux, where his daughter worked-perhaps, indeed, Phoebe had sold it to her. She extended a hand palm down, as if for him to kiss, but he only shook it, and felt clumsy. “I’m a little sorry,” she said, glancing about, “that I suggested this place-Richard used to lunch here all the time. In fact, I think I have had one or two disapproving glances. Should I be wearing black, at least?”
She ordered a salad and a glass of ice water. Quirke wistfully considered a half bottle of wine, but thought better of it. He scanned the menu uncertainly and settled for an omelette.
“Yes,” Francoise d’Aubigny said, “Richard loved it here. He used to joke that it was his answer to the Kildare Street Club, where of course he would not have been welcome.” She looked at Quirke with a searching glint. “You know the family is Jewish. It is not something they speak of.”
Had he known it? He was not sure. There was the fact of Jewell’s having been circumcised, but that was never conclusive evidence. He did not know what to think of this aspect of things, or what its relevance might be. And what of her? Was d’Aubigny a Jewish name? He could ask Sinclair, who might know. “I doubt the chaps at Kildare Street would have me, either,” he said, but did not meet her eye. He thought about wine again; maybe just a glass?
She was still watching him, smiling a little. “I think, Dr. Quirke, you are not entirely at ease?”
He experienced a sudden flash of impatience, of annoyance, even. She was right: they should not have come here for lunch; probably they should not have met at all. “The thing is, Mrs. Jewell, I’m not sure exactly what is happening-I mean, why we are here like this.” She was so lovely it almost pained him to look at her.
She lowered her gaze as if to hide her smile. “Yes, as I said, perhaps this was not a good idea.” Now she looked up again, and did smile. “But if I recall correctly it was you who issued the invitation.”
Their food arrived. Quirke asked the waiter to bring him a glass of Chablis. To his surprise, Francoise d’Aubigny said she would have one too. Perhaps she was as nervous as he was, for all her air of coolness and poise.
“That detective,” she said when the waiter had gone, “what is his name?”
“Hackett.”
“Yes. Hackett. All the policemen here, are they like him?”
Quirke was glad of a reason to laugh. He leaned back in his chair. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so. But he’s not as dim as he seems.”
“Dim?”
“Dull. Slow.”
“Ah, no-he did not seem like that to me. On the contrary.”
“Yes, he’s a sly dog, is Hackett.” He was watching the waiter weaving towards them among the tables, bearing aloft a tray with two glasses on it.
“I thought at first that you must be the detective from the city,” she said, “and that he was-I don’t know. Someone local, maybe, down there. I do not know much about Kildare, although we have been at Brooklands for many years.”
The waiter set down their glasses. Twin stars of light from some far window glowed in their straw-colored depths. Quirke did not pick up the glass, but began counting to ten, slowly, in his head.
“He’s not very adept on the social side of things,” he said, “which is why, I think, he brings me with him.” He had been thinking of the wine and not of what he was saying. Now he caught her eye and felt his forehead redden. “Not that I’m so very sophisticated.” He lifted his glass. He noted the faint tremor in his hand. He drank. Ah!
“Do you believe as he does,” Francoise d’Aubigny was saying, “I mean, that my husband did not kill himself?”
Quirke, turning the stem of the glass in his fingers, was trying not to smile for simple happiness. The euphoria that blossomed as the alcohol spread its filaments through him like the roots of a burning bush was irresistible. He must be careful now, he told himself, he must watch his words. “Mrs. Jewell,” he said, “I think it is beyond question that your husband was murdered.”
She blinked, and he saw her swallowing. “What did you find,” she said, “when you-when you did whatever it is you do?”
“The postmortem, you mean? It was hardly more than a formality. You saw how it was at the scene that day, the way your husband was lying across the desk, with the shotgun in his hands.”
“Yes?”
She waited, watching him, and he shifted his weight uneasily on the chair. Surely she could not be in doubt, surely she was just clutching at the hope that-that what? Would she really think it preferable that he should have killed himself?
“This is very difficult to talk about, Mrs. Jewell.”
Her look hardened. “Difficult for you, or for me?”
“For you, of course, but for me, also.”
They were silent, she with her black-eyed gaze fixed on him and he casting about uncomfortably. She had not tasted her salad, or the wine.
“Mrs. Jewell,” he said, hunching forward over the table with the air of starting again to explain in still simpler terms something that was already obvious, “it’s not easy to kill yourself with a shotgun. Think of the length of the barrel, and the awkwardness of getting the gun in position. Certainly your husband couldn’t have done it and ended up with the gun held across his chest, as you saw it was-”
“What did I see?” she snapped, and the couple at the next table stopped in the midst of their conversation and looked at her, startled. “What do you think I saw? My husband lying there in that terrible way-what was I supposed to do, take a note of everything, as if I were someone like you?” Her eyes were fairly glittering. “Do you think I am a monster entirely, that I have no feelings, that I am incapable of being shocked?”
“Of course not-”
“Then please do not speak to me like that, as if you were discussing the matter with your Inspector Hackett.”
She stopped, and they both looked down into their wine glasses, hers still full and his nearly empty.
“Please forgive me, Mrs. Jewell,” he said. “You asked me what I had found, and I tried to explain.”
“Yes yes yes,” she said, her voice hissing, “of course, I am the one who should say I am sorry.” She gave an apologetic shrug and forced the flicker of a smile. “Please, go on.”
He opened his hands to show her how empty they were. “What else is there for me to say? Your husband did not kill himself, Mrs. Jewell. Inspector Hackett told you that already, and he’s right. This was a murder. I’m
