“A few months ago. They put her in a place in London, some kind of nursing home. She was there for a long time-weeks. I didn’t know about it until she came back.”

“She hadn’t told you where she was going?”

Sinclair gave him a sideways look. “You don’t know Dannie,” he said. “Even when she was well she did things like that, going off without a word to anyone. Last year she went to Marrakech and no one knew where she was until she came back with a suntan and the look of someone who had been doing things she shouldn’t. She has her own money, inherited from her father. It’s probably not good for her.”

“But she’s better now, yes?” Quirke asked. “I mean in her mind.”

“Yes,” Sinclair said, but his look was troubled. “Yes, she’s better.”

“But you’re wondering how she’ll react to her brother’s death.”

“How did she seem today, when you saw her?”

“I told you, she and Jewell’s wife put on a show of being cool, though in the end she couldn’t hide the fact of how upset she was. Maybe you should call her, go to see her. Where does she live?”

“She has a flat in Pembroke Street,” Sinclair said, in a distracted voice. Quirke waited. “She’s a funny person,” Sinclair went on, “secretive, you know? She won’t talk about things, especially not herself. But there are demons there.” He laughed. “You should see her on the tennis court.”

Quirke had finished his wine and was wondering if he might risk another glass. The taste of it, at once acid and fruitily ripe, had made him feel slightly sick at first, but the alcohol had pierced straight like a gleaming steel needle to some vital place deep inside him, a place that now was clamoring for more.

“What happened when she had the breakdown?” he asked.

“She crashed her brother’s car on the Naas dual carriageway. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it deliberately.”

“Was she injured?”

“No. She ran the car into a tree and walked away without a scratch. She joked about it-‘Trust me,’ she said, ‘smashed up the bloody car and still couldn’t manage to do myself in.’”