Quirke now was startled to notice, from the corner of his eye, that there was another person present, a woman, in her mid-twenties, reclining on a sofa in front of one of the windows, with her head back and her long legs extended sideways and crossed at the ankles. She wore jodhpurs and gleaming black riding boots and a moss-green shirt; a kerchief, knotted loosely at her throat, was the same shade of old gold as the upholstery of the sofa where she sat. She was regarding Quirke and the policeman with an expression of the scantest interest. A misted cut-glass tumbler of what must be gin and tonic, with ice cubes and a wedge of lime, was balanced beside her on the arm of the sofa. Not a hundred yards from this room and these svelte, poised women, Quirke was thinking, Richard Jewell is sprawled across a desk with his head blown off.

“This is my husband’s sister, Denise,” Mrs. Jewell said. “We call her Dannie.”

Quirke went forward, offering his hand, with Hackett hard behind him. They were like a pair of clumsy courtiers, Quirke thought, stumbling on each other’s heels in the presence of the queen and the crown princess. Dannie Jewell was as slim as her brother’s wife, but fair where she was dark. She had short reddish-blond hair and a face, broad at the brow and tapered at the chin, that showed a strong, even a jarring resemblance, Quirke noted, to what he remembered of the man lying dead in his office across the cobbled yard. She hardly lifted her head from the sofa back as she took Quirke’s hand and then the Inspector’s, unsmiling. She said something but so softly it was inaudible, which made both men lean forward intently. Dannie Jewell cleared her throat.

“I’m his half sister,” she said, in a tone almost of defiance. “We had different mothers.”

The two men turned as one from the young woman and looked to Francoise d’Aubigny. “My father-in-law,” she said, “was married twice, but both wives died. So sad.”