“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.”
“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.
