the list of recommended tyre pressures hanging on the boundary wall of the forecourt. And she went on staring at it as Hewitt climbed into the driver's seat and started away. They exchanged neither word nor glance. For Harry it was a fleeting victory to set against looming defeat.
"Do you rent out videos, mate?" asked the man Harry was supposed to be serving.
"Er .. . yes. Over there." He pointed to the rack.
"Oh, right. Only, I was wondering if they'd brought out the story of your life on video. Sounds like it could be a real corker. Bit of a change from all that sex and violence. Know what I mean?"
ELEVEN
Harry trudged homeward along Scrubs Lane in a mood matched by the sullenness of the slow-moving clouds. This, he supposed, was how it ended: in a creeping acceptance of the inevitable. He would go to the hospital tomorrow afternoon and make his peace with Iris. He would let her decide what was best for David and respect her decision. He would let his resentments and his suspicions die with David. And then? Why then, no doubt, he would get very very drunk.
Unfortunately, the small matter of twenty-four hours lay between him and this pragmatic acceptance of other people's wisdom. Worse still, it was Sunday, which meant the Stonemasons' was not yet open. So, there was nothing for it but to return to the solitude of his flat and wait for seven o'clock. It was just as well, he reflected as he turned into Foxglove Road, that he did not own a cut-throat razor. Otherwise, lying on his bed while Songs of Praise seeped up through the floorboards to a back-beat of next door's reggae music might be just what was needed to tip him over the brink.
Songs of Praise had not in fact started when he entered the house. Harry was not sure whether this was good news or bad, but his consideration of the point was soon replaced by puzzlement. A letter was waiting for him on the hall table, where Mrs. Tandy normally left his post. But this was Sunday. How could there be any? He picked it up and squinted at the handwritten address. It was not from his mother. Or from Zohra. Then who? He did not recognize the hand. And the postmark was too smudged to decipher. He looked into the sitting room and flapped the envelope at Mrs. Tandy, who glanced up reluctantly from the Peter James horror novel her niece had sent her for her birthday.
"Where did this come from, Mrs. T?"
"I don't know, Harry. It arrived just after you left for work. Perhaps a neighbour dropped it round. You know how many wrong deliveries we've had since our regular postman retired."
"Can't say I'd noticed."
That's because you get so little post."
"You mean I should be grateful for small mercies?"
"Perhaps you should. Now, do you mind? I'm in the middle of a decapitation."
Reckoning that might mean he would be spared at least a few hymns, Harry started slowly up the stairs, opening the envelope as he went. There was a newspaper cutting inside, folded in three, but no note or letter to indicate who had sent it. Closing the door of his flat behind him, he propped himself against it and unfolded the cutting. It was The Sunday Times of three weeks ago, the top half of an inner page sporting a four-column headline: Forecasting scientists meet with unforeseen accidents. Eagerly, Harry read the article beneath.
The death last Tuesday of Dr. Marvin Kersey, a Canadian biochemist, brings to three the number of scientists formerly employed by Globescope Inc." the Washington-based forecasting corporation, to have been struck by fatal or near-fatal accidents in recent weeks. The President of Globescope, Byron Lazenby, has dismissed suggestions of a link between the rash of accidents and their victims' work for his organization as 'fanciful nonsense' and so far there is nothing beyond coincidence to connect them.
But the coincidence is nevertheless compelling. On September 13, Dr. David Yenning, an English mathematician, was found in a diabetic coma in his room at the Skyway Hotel,
"Do you rent out videos, mate?" asked the man Harry was supposed to be serving.
"Er .. . yes. Over there." He pointed to the rack.
"Oh, right. Only, I was wondering if they'd brought out the story of your life on video. Sounds like it could be a real corker. Bit of a change from all that sex and violence. Know what I mean?"
ELEVEN
Harry trudged homeward along Scrubs Lane in a mood matched by the sullenness of the slow-moving clouds. This, he supposed, was how it ended: in a creeping acceptance of the inevitable. He would go to the hospital tomorrow afternoon and make his peace with Iris. He would let her decide what was best for David and respect her decision. He would let his resentments and his suspicions die with David. And then? Why then, no doubt, he would get very very drunk.
Unfortunately, the small matter of twenty-four hours lay between him and this pragmatic acceptance of other people's wisdom. Worse still, it was Sunday, which meant the Stonemasons' was not yet open. So, there was nothing for it but to return to the solitude of his flat and wait for seven o'clock. It was just as well, he reflected as he turned into Foxglove Road, that he did not own a cut-throat razor. Otherwise, lying on his bed while Songs of Praise seeped up through the floorboards to a back-beat of next door's reggae music might be just what was needed to tip him over the brink.
Songs of Praise had not in fact started when he entered the house. Harry was not sure whether this was good news or bad, but his consideration of the point was soon replaced by puzzlement. A letter was waiting for him on the hall table, where Mrs. Tandy normally left his post. But this was Sunday. How could there be any? He picked it up and squinted at the handwritten address. It was not from his mother. Or from Zohra. Then who? He did not recognize the hand. And the postmark was too smudged to decipher. He looked into the sitting room and flapped the envelope at Mrs. Tandy, who glanced up reluctantly from the Peter James horror novel her niece had sent her for her birthday.
"Where did this come from, Mrs. T?"
"I don't know, Harry. It arrived just after you left for work. Perhaps a neighbour dropped it round. You know how many wrong deliveries we've had since our regular postman retired."
"Can't say I'd noticed."
That's because you get so little post."
"You mean I should be grateful for small mercies?"
"Perhaps you should. Now, do you mind? I'm in the middle of a decapitation."
Reckoning that might mean he would be spared at least a few hymns, Harry started slowly up the stairs, opening the envelope as he went. There was a newspaper cutting inside, folded in three, but no note or letter to indicate who had sent it. Closing the door of his flat behind him, he propped himself against it and unfolded the cutting. It was The Sunday Times of three weeks ago, the top half of an inner page sporting a four-column headline: Forecasting scientists meet with unforeseen accidents. Eagerly, Harry read the article beneath.
The death last Tuesday of Dr. Marvin Kersey, a Canadian biochemist, brings to three the number of scientists formerly employed by Globescope Inc." the Washington-based forecasting corporation, to have been struck by fatal or near-fatal accidents in recent weeks. The President of Globescope, Byron Lazenby, has dismissed suggestions of a link between the rash of accidents and their victims' work for his organization as 'fanciful nonsense' and so far there is nothing beyond coincidence to connect them.
But the coincidence is nevertheless compelling. On September 13, Dr. David Yenning, an English mathematician, was found in a diabetic coma in his room at the Skyway Hotel,
Similar Books
