“Oh, I don’t know. She’s French, after all. They’re different.”

“What age is the daughter?”

“I don’t know-a child. Must be eight or nine, I suppose.”

Jenkins came round the corner of the stables, whey-faced and shaky-looking still. “Are those fellows done yet?” Hackett asked him. Forensics teams always irritated him, he was not sure why.

“They’re finishing up, Inspector.”

“They never finish, those boys.”

But when the three had climbed the outside stairs to the office, the head chemist and his assistant were packing their things into their square black leather bags and preparing to leave. Morton was the older one’s name, a heavy-set fellow with dewlaps and a mournful eye. “Jesus Christ,” he said disgustedly, “shotguns!”

“Well,” Hackett observed mildly, “they’re quick, that’s for sure.”

Morton’s assistant had a bad stammer and rarely spoke. Hackett had a moment’s trouble remembering his name. Phelps, that was it. Morton and Phelps: sounded like a comedy duo on the wireless. Poor Jenkins was looking everywhere except at what was left of Diamond Dick Jewell.

“You’ll have a report for me by the morning, yes?” Hackett said to Morton, who rolled a moist eye and said nothing. The policeman was not to be put off. “On my desk, by nine?”

“It’ll be ready when it’s ready,” Morton muttered, taking up his bag.

Phelps grinned and bit his lip. The two departed, tramping heavily down the stairs.

“What sort of an outfit is it we’re running at all,” Hackett asked of no one in particular, “with the likes of those two clowns for experts?” He put a hand to his jacket pocket and felt the lumpy sandwich there, warmish still and soft.

Quirke was standing in the middle of the floor with his hands in his pockets and his head inclined to one side, gazing thoughtfully at the body on the desk. “No note,” he said. Hackett turned to him. “No suicide note, or did you find one?” Hackett made no answer, and they continued to regard each other for a long moment. “Not what you’d expect,” Quirke said then, “of the likes of Richard Jewell.”