A Death in Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

head off, you don’t end up cradling the weapon in your hands.”
    Sinclair was watching him. It came to Quirke, with a sudden small shock, that his assistant despised him for his unsought and, even in his own judgment, unwarranted reputation as an amateur sleuth. Quirke had got involved, more or less by accident—mainly through his daughter, in fact—in two or three cases that had also brought in Inspector Hackett. In the two latest of these affairs Quirke’s name had got into the papers, and on each occasion he had suffered a brief notoriety. That was in the past now, but Sinclair, he could see, had not forgotten. Did the young man think him a publicity seeker? It was all nonsense—he had been hardly more than a close bystander during certain occasions of menace and violence, although in one instance he had been badly beaten up, and still had the trace of a limp. There had been nothing he could do to avoid involvement, however accidental, or incidental. But his assistant, he understood now, did not believe that for a moment. Well, he thought, maybe this time he will find out himself what it is to be suddenly brought smack up against humankind’s propensity for wickedness; maybe he too will be taken back along the dark and tortuous route by which that cadaver had arrived in this place, under this pitiless light.
    “So he was murdered?” Sinclair said. He sounded skeptical.
    “That’s what it looks like. Unless he did do it himself and someone found him and for some reason put the gun in his hands. Forensics are checking for prints but Morton is pretty sure there weren’t any except Jewell’s. Anyway, it’s not easy to shoot yourself with a shotgun.”
    “What does Hackett think?”
    “Oh, God knows—you know Hackett.”
    Sinclair came to the desk and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. His face was a blank mask. “And Dannie?” he asked. “Was she there?”
    “She was out riding, came back and heard the news.”
    “Did you see her? How was she?”
    “Composed to begin with, then not so much. She and Jewell’s missus put on a show together for Hackett and me.”
    “A show?”
    “Gin and tonics and smart repartee. I don’t know why they thought they had to seem not to care—one of them had lost a husband, the other one a brother, no matter how much of a bastard he may have been.”
    Sinclair had gone to the steel cabinet by the wall and found a pair of rubber gloves and was pulling them on. “You want me to get started?”
    “I’m coming.”
    They went together into the dissecting room. There was the usual low hum from the big fluorescent lamps in the ceiling. Sinclair drew back the nylon sheet and gave a low whistle.
    “The blast left most of his head on the window in front of him,” Quirke said.
    Sinclair nodded. “Close range—that’s a powder burn on his throat, isn’t it?” He drew the sheet all the way off the corpse. They saw that Richard Jewell had been circumcised. They made no comment. “Did Dannie see him like this?” Sinclair asked.
    “I don’t think so. His wife would have kept her away. A cool customer, Madame Jewell.”
    “I never met her.”
    “French. And tough.”
    Sinclair was still gazing at the place where Jewell’s head had been. “Poor Dannie,” he said. “As if she doesn’t have enough troubles.”
    Quirke waited, and after a moment said, “Troubles?” Sinclair shook his head: he was not ready to speak of Dannie Jewell. Quirke took a scalpel from a steel tray of instruments. “Well,” he said, “let’s open him up.”
    *   *   *
     
    When the postmortem was done Quirke ordered a taxi into town and offered Sinclair a lift, and to his surprise Sinclair accepted. They sat at opposite sides of the back seat, turned away from each other and looking out of their windows, saying nothing. It was nine o’clock and the sky was a luminous shade of deep violet around its edges, though at the zenith it was still light. They went to the Horseshoe Bar in