Read Online The Sword of Straw by Amanda Hemingway - Free Book Online Page B

pretended to be Rianna Sardou. You never heard any more about her, did you?” She herself knew the truth quite as well as Bartlemy, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you could explain to a policeman. It occurred to her that it was unkind to mention it, but in view of Pobjoy’s record she decided she didn’t care.
    “We’re still looking,” he said, privately annoyed because he knew they weren’t, and the fugitive would never be found. He felt he had lost control of the conversation, and told himself it had been a mistake to come in, succumbing to the urge to see her again. “I wondered…It was a terrible experience for you. I hope you were able to get over the shock.”
    “Shock?” Annie echoed blankly.
    “Discovering the corpse. I’ve seen a few—I’m used to it—but it wasn’t pretty.”
    “I was all right,” Annie said. “I’m tough.”
    She didn’t look tough, he thought, with her slight, compact figure, her soft short curls, the muted shades of her skin and hair. But there was a vein of strength under the softness, a core of something hidden—his detective instincts could sense it, even though it was out of reach.
    He said awkwardly: “I just wanted to be sure. You can get help with these things, but…I should’ve come sooner.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Annie responded, confused by the pointlessness of the exchange. “It was nice of you to bother. Er…about the burglary at Thornyhill: do
you
believe there was something behind it?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe. Could be just teenage youths going off the rails as usual. At that age, they think they can get away with anything.”
    “Really?” Annie said, her hostility reviving. She assumed he was alluding to Nathan. “I’ve always thought kids were a lot like adults, both good and bad, only braver—more reckless—more generous. Life hasn’t yet taught them to be careful, to hold back, do nothing. Children are trusting and confident where people like me—and you—are cynical and afraid.”
    “I didn’t mean…” He wanted to apologize, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he said: “I don’t think you’re afraid of very much.”
    She stared at him, surprised and disconcerted. Before she could find something to say, another customer came in, and Pobjoy, with a mumbled goodbye, had gone. Annie, feeling the encounter had been oddly unfinished, returned to her computer screen.
    But the wildflower dictionary was proving elusive and her mind wandered. She studied the latest customer, idly, conscious that she had come across him somewhere before though she didn’t think it was here. He was a heavily built man who looked as if he had once been heavier: his skin had that ill-fitting sag that occurs when someone has lost too much weight too quickly, and his jacket flapped around his midriff. His hair was thinning above an anxious frown; possibly he was unused to secondhand-bookshops. Annie’s routine “Can I help you?” made him turn, and suddenly she remembered.
    “I’ve seen you before,” she said. “At Ffylde. It must have been the carol service last Christmas.”
    “Yes.” He didn’t appear to consider it a talking point.
    There was a short pause. “What are you looking for?” Annie asked.
    “A—a book. A book on pagan customs, magic rituals…A grimoire.”
    Annie suppressed a jolt of shock. After all, someone who wasn’t traumatized by a dead body shouldn’t be jolted by a request for a book, particularly in a bookshop. “At the back in the left-hand corner,” she said. “Under Arch and Anth.”
    As he moved away Annie opened the drawer, glanced down at the sketch, closed it again. Presently the man came back to the desk carrying an old book with a stained cover, which Annie had bought in a job lot several months ago and never looked at properly. He gave her the money, clutching his purchase as if afraid somebody might take it from him, and refused her offer of a bag. She thanked him, making no further