Read Online The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus by Jon Courtenay Grimwood - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Ads: Link
mother was already married.”
Lady Nafisa made no pretence of scanning the paper. “My informant says not… Your real name is Ashraf al-Mansur. Under Ottoman law you hold the rank of bey, which entitles you to a senior post in the Public Service.” She glanced up. “We’ll talk about that later. You have carte blanche anywhere in Ottoman North Africa from Tunis to Stambul and you have diplomatic immunity everywhere else in the world, for any crime except murder…”
Raf pushed his empty coffee cup aside and prepared to stand, but the moment he began to ease back his chair a waiter materialized at his side and shifted it for him. Seconds later the patron himself appeared.
“Will we be seeing Your Excellency soon?”
“Monday morning, I would imagine,” said Raf and the small man smiled.
“I’ll reserve your table.” He glanced at the English-language newspaper Ashraf had downloaded from a stall. “And I’ll have a copy of The Alexandrian waiting…”
A sluggish breeze rolling lazily off the sea faded as Raf headed inland. Away from the Corniche the hot midday air was muggy, with humidity high enough to merit a warning on the local newsfeed. Common sense said grab the nearest air-conditioned taxi, but Raf ignored the sweat beginning to build under his thick beard and headed south on foot towards Lady Nafisa’s house.
Between Le Trianon and Rue Abu Dadrda, Raf found one boulevard, four rues and a quiet tree-lined place named al-Mansur, historical detritus of the family to which he now belonged.
And Raf was more than halfway across the place before he finally realized why Nafisa’s roofed-over garden inspired in him such hatred.
CHAPTER 12
Seattle
Out at Huntsville the rain did more than merely drum on glass: it fell like buckshot. But before there could be Huntsville, the city of Seattle had to exist—and the fox blamed that on a man called Asa Mercer.
On 16 January 1866, Mercer left New York with thirty-four unmarried girls bound for a new settlement at Puget Sound on the Pacific coast. He’d hoped to bring more than 700 but, all the same, it was an improvement on his first expedition to collect marriageable women. Then he had persuaded only eleven to make the dangerous trip. Maybe it had been the rumours of rain that put them off, maybe it had been the distance, or the fact that the war was only recently over… Whatever, that had been then and this was later.
It still rained though, because in Seattle this was what the weather did—even ZeeZee knew that. And the rain drummed off city sidewalks, or beat on sun canopies raised in hope over empty tables outside cafés.
But out at Huntsville the rain did more than merely drum, its buckshot fell on the glass roof of the jail, twenty-four/seven. At least, that was what it felt like to ZeeZee those first few months he was there. Until the snow came and with it silence.
A masterpiece of nineteenth-century iron and glass, built twenty-five years after Paxton first led the way by using prefabricated sections for London’s famous Crystal Palace, Huntsville Penitentiary was a monument to man’s ingenuity—and stupidity.
Not the stupidity of the convicts who ended up there but of the architects, philanthropists and politicians of Washington State. Men who wanted their names immortalized in a correctional glass cathedral that turned out, in practice, to function as little more than an ice house.
Two riots in three winters went some way towards convincing the governor that the design was not as humane as he’d been led to believe. But since five identical penitentiaries had already been built in other states to the same plan, and all had been unsuccessful, this didn’t come as a surprise to his critics.
By 1930, nearly sixty years later, all were ruins except Huntsville. In 1979 Huntsville was finally decommissioned. And then, in the final year of the twentieth century , Californian therapist Dr Anthony Millbank published his revolutionary work
Lady Nafisa made no pretence of scanning the paper. “My informant says not… Your real name is Ashraf al-Mansur. Under Ottoman law you hold the rank of bey, which entitles you to a senior post in the Public Service.” She glanced up. “We’ll talk about that later. You have carte blanche anywhere in Ottoman North Africa from Tunis to Stambul and you have diplomatic immunity everywhere else in the world, for any crime except murder…”
Raf pushed his empty coffee cup aside and prepared to stand, but the moment he began to ease back his chair a waiter materialized at his side and shifted it for him. Seconds later the patron himself appeared.
“Will we be seeing Your Excellency soon?”
“Monday morning, I would imagine,” said Raf and the small man smiled.
“I’ll reserve your table.” He glanced at the English-language newspaper Ashraf had downloaded from a stall. “And I’ll have a copy of The Alexandrian waiting…”
A sluggish breeze rolling lazily off the sea faded as Raf headed inland. Away from the Corniche the hot midday air was muggy, with humidity high enough to merit a warning on the local newsfeed. Common sense said grab the nearest air-conditioned taxi, but Raf ignored the sweat beginning to build under his thick beard and headed south on foot towards Lady Nafisa’s house.
Between Le Trianon and Rue Abu Dadrda, Raf found one boulevard, four rues and a quiet tree-lined place named al-Mansur, historical detritus of the family to which he now belonged.
And Raf was more than halfway across the place before he finally realized why Nafisa’s roofed-over garden inspired in him such hatred.
CHAPTER 12
Seattle
Out at Huntsville the rain did more than merely drum on glass: it fell like buckshot. But before there could be Huntsville, the city of Seattle had to exist—and the fox blamed that on a man called Asa Mercer.
On 16 January 1866, Mercer left New York with thirty-four unmarried girls bound for a new settlement at Puget Sound on the Pacific coast. He’d hoped to bring more than 700 but, all the same, it was an improvement on his first expedition to collect marriageable women. Then he had persuaded only eleven to make the dangerous trip. Maybe it had been the rumours of rain that put them off, maybe it had been the distance, or the fact that the war was only recently over… Whatever, that had been then and this was later.
It still rained though, because in Seattle this was what the weather did—even ZeeZee knew that. And the rain drummed off city sidewalks, or beat on sun canopies raised in hope over empty tables outside cafés.
But out at Huntsville the rain did more than merely drum, its buckshot fell on the glass roof of the jail, twenty-four/seven. At least, that was what it felt like to ZeeZee those first few months he was there. Until the snow came and with it silence.
A masterpiece of nineteenth-century iron and glass, built twenty-five years after Paxton first led the way by using prefabricated sections for London’s famous Crystal Palace, Huntsville Penitentiary was a monument to man’s ingenuity—and stupidity.
Not the stupidity of the convicts who ended up there but of the architects, philanthropists and politicians of Washington State. Men who wanted their names immortalized in a correctional glass cathedral that turned out, in practice, to function as little more than an ice house.
Two riots in three winters went some way towards convincing the governor that the design was not as humane as he’d been led to believe. But since five identical penitentiaries had already been built in other states to the same plan, and all had been unsuccessful, this didn’t come as a surprise to his critics.
By 1930, nearly sixty years later, all were ruins except Huntsville. In 1979 Huntsville was finally decommissioned. And then, in the final year of the twentieth century , Californian therapist Dr Anthony Millbank published his revolutionary work
Similar Books
