“Like everybody else here, they know what goes on but also manage not to know. It’s a knack they share with many of our German friends.”
Hackett chuckled. “So what about Maguire?” he asked. “Is there a connection?”
“With Dick Jewell’s killing, you mean? I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t fit.”
“Another piece?”
Quirke’s cigarette was finished; he took a fresh one and lit it from the butt, a thing he did, Hackett had often noticed, when he was thinking hard. “This business with Sinclair,” he said, “that’s another conundrum.”
“You think there’s a connection there?”
“I don’t see how there can’t be,” Quirke said. He looked at the ceiling far above. “His finger that they cut off, they sent it to me.”
This time Hackett did whistle, very softly, making a sound like that of a draft sighing under a door. “They sent it to you,” he said.
“I came home and it was in an envelope tied to the door knocker in Mount Street.”
“You knew whose it was?”
“No. I didn’t know whose it was until I called you, last night. But I knew what it represented, after Costigan had his little chat with me.”
“And what was it?”
“A warning. A pretty crude one, this time-not Costigan’s style at all, I would have thought.”
Hackett was stirring his tea again, though he seemed unaware of it. “Should I have a chat myself with Mr. Costigan?”
“I don’t see the point. When he accosted me he covered himself well, never used a threatening word, the smile never faltered throughout. As an enforcer he’s very practiced, and covers his tracks-you found that out, didn’t you, last time? No”-he had finished his second cigarette and was reaching for a third-“Costigan is irrelevant. What matters is, who’s behind him.”
“Well? Who?”
The waitress came, a wizened personage with steely curls showing under her bonnet, and asked them if they wanted anything more, and Hackett requested a fresh pot of tea, and she tottered off, talking to herself under her breath.
“There was something the priest, Father Ambrose, said to me at St. Christopher’s,” Quirke said. “It’s been nagging at me ever since.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that Dick Jewell wasn’t the only benefactor they have, that Carlton Sumner, too, is involved.”
“How, involved?”
“In funding the place, I suppose. Or helping to fund it-it’s notionally a state institution, but by the look of the carpets on the floor and the sheen on the lawn, there’s a lot more money going into it than the government’s annual seven and sixpence.”
Hackett leaned back and massaged his belly thoughtfully with the palm of a large square hand. “Are we still talking,” he inquired, “about the demise of Mr. Richard Jewell?”
“I think we are,” Quirke said. “That is, we’re talking about it, but I’m not sure what we’re saying.”
“What you’re saying, you mean,” Hackett said. “I’m only trotting along behind you in the dark.” He took a sighting at his cup with one eye shut. “Why didn’t you tell me about them sending you that poor young lad’s finger?”
“I don’t know,” Quirke answered. “Really, I don’t. We’re both stumbling in the dark here.”
“Are we?”
Quirke lifted his eyes and they looked at each other in stillness for a moment.
“What do you mean?” Quirke said.
The detective heaved a slow and ample sigh. “I have the impression, Dr. Quirke, that you know a thing or two more than I do about this business. I suspect, for instance, you’ve been talking to the widow-am I right?”
Quirke felt his forehead flushing pink. Had he imagined Hackett would not know by now that he had doing far more than talking to Francoise d’Aubigny? “Conversing with Mrs. Jewell,” he said carefully, “is not necessarily an enlightening process. She tends to be somewhat opaque.”
“ Opaque, now, that’s a grand word. And what about the other one-the sister?”
“To Miss Jewell,” Quirke said with sardonic emphasis, “I do not talk. Sinclair knows her, as I’ve said, and so, I believe, does my daughter. I gather she’s something of an enigma, and not without problems, even before her brother met his messy end. Trouble”-he touched a finger to his temple-“upstairs.”
The elderly waitress came quakingly with their new pot of tea. Hackett asked for a clean cup, but either she did not hear or chose to ignore him, and wandered off. A woman laden with parcels entered and sat down at a nearby table, and Quirke stared at her, for she had something of the look of Isabel Galloway. Isabel was still much on his mind. He knew that he must telephone her, and would, one of these days.
Hackett poured the dregs from his cup into an empty water glass, refilled from the new pot, added milk and sugar, tasted, and winced at the unexpected hotness. “So,” he said, gingerly smacking his scalded lips, “where are we?”
“Lost in the wilderness,” Quirke promptly answered. “Lost in the bloody wilderness.”
Dannie Jewell now saw what she had to do. She must make a true act of contrition. When she was little she was sent to school to the Presentation Convent, where unknown to her mother-her father would not have cared-she pretended that she was a Catholic like all the other girls and took religious instruction and learned about confession, absolution, and redemption. We are all sinners, she was assured, but even the blackest sins would be forgiven if the sinner showed to God that she was truly sorry for having offended Him and made a firm resolve never to sin again. She was not sure that she believed in God anymore-she did not give the matter much thought-but those profound early lessons had left a lasting impression on her. She had felt guilty all her life, or for as much of it as she could remember. Things that befell her, and even things that befell those around her and for which it did not seem she could be responsible, were, she knew, her fault, at the deepest level, for secretly she had been the cause of them, by a process so subtly wicked that it was not visible to the ordinary eye. If they had happened, she must have willed them to happen, for things did not happen unless someone wanted them to. That buried sense of being the cause of so much wickedness and the shame that followed on it were the twin roots of all her troubles. Because of all this she found herself, simply, disgusting, a soul besmirched.
How could she have thought that she could have David Sinclair for a friend? Had she not known that her mere presence in his life, the mere fact of her existence in relation to him, would inevitably cause him damage? Everyone she came in contact with was made to suffer in some way. When she heard the story of Typhoid Mary, who passed on the disease to others while she remained immune, she recognized herself in it at once. For she did not suffer, not really, or not enough, at any rate, as a result of the calamities for which she was responsible, as a result of the injuries of which she was guilty. Others suffered. Because of her silence, others were condemned to endure years of misery and abuse; because of her prattling, someone was knocked down in the street and had his finger hacked off, just as someone had to substitute for her and be tainted for life, because she had grown up and stopped being a child. Meanwhile she was pampered and protected, had money and freedom, nice places to live in, a financially secure future-she was even beautiful! And the others suffered. That would have to end; at least one of the many wrongs of which she was the cause would have to be set right.
She did not know why David had been attacked. She knew how it had come about, but not the reason for it. Not that the reason mattered. It was a part of the pattern, of course, she knew that, the pattern that had been in place forever, so it seemed; she thought of it as a huge hidden thing propagating itself endlessly, throwing off millions and millions of spores, like a growth of mushrooms, unstoppably. All she could do was lop off one strand of it, the strand that had wrapped itself around the people who had the misfortune to be close to her.
Yes, a firm act of contrition, that was what was required of her now.
