Read Online Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville - Free Book Online Page A

entrance, brushing dust from her hands. Her hair was tied back but it escaped in wisps of black and gray. She stepped into the red light of the tent so McCulloch could see her face.
    Nicola Gilroy was a few years younger than he. She regarded him with sullen and mournful courtesy. Her eyebrows were raised, her head tilted back, emphasizing craggy features, a Roman nose. She was covered in dirt.
    “Prof,” said Sophia. “I hope it’s OK, I just—”
    “It’s fine.” She made an effort to smile. Her voice was thin enough to be a surprise. “I gather one has you to thank for the crisps.”
    “I’m McCulloch,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind me stopping. I’ve lived here donkey’s years and I didn’t know there was a dig.”
    “Yes, well. This is recent,” Gilroy said. “Trowels on the ground cross-referenced with satellite images.”
    “When’d you find it?” McCulloch said.
    “I didn’t. They brought me in. New methods for a new find.”
    McCulloch wanted to turn and stare at what she’d brought out of the earth.
    “Was this a temple or what?”
    “We don’t know yet.”
    “It’s beautiful. The statue.”
    “It isn’t quite a statue,” she said.
    “Fair play. You looking for something specific?” he said.
    Gilroy did not answer. As if he didn’t know.
    Cheevers met McCulloch at the cheaper of Elam’s two cinemas. The program had changed from the one advertised, and neither wanted to see the detective movie now showing. They went instead for tapas across the way.
    McCulloch told Cheevers what he had seen.
    “Did some googling,” he said. “Turns out she’s not the first to try resin. There’s a Lady of Oplontis in Pompeii. You can make out bones and whatnot in her, clumped at the bottom. But she’s like wax or dirty amber or something. This one was completely clear.”
    “So why’s Paddick still using plaster?” Cheevers said. “Assuming he is. Why’s anyone?”
    “He is. Everyone is. That’s what that kid Charlotte told me. Gilroy’s stuff’s experimental.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “Plus plaster’s cheaper.”
    “Terra incognita,” Cheevers said. “Although, the terra ’s always cognita enough, I suppose. What isn’t is the lost body. The perdidi corpus ? It’s the hole that’s unknown. Cavus incognita ?”
    McCulloch snorted.
    For the first few years of his island life he had not known Cheevers. Given Elam’s size, and that Cheevers was hardly unobtrusive, this later came to seem surprising to him. Their association began when McCulloch tried to buy property, a small lockup in the town’s outskirts, and discovered that local laws meant he might have to disclose his criminal record.
    His crimes had been those of a rough London youth, not shocking, though they had not been trivial. There was a possibility that his application might be declined. This was what troubled him, more than shame. He did not believe he wanted secrets for their own sakes, but he did not want to lose the opaque past he’d granted himself.
    He’d found Cheevers in the phone book. McCulloch never cared what loopholes Cheevers had maneuvered, but he had been able to buy his property in the end. Even now, only those to whom he’d chosen to disclose it knew his record.
    Two weeks after the conclusion of their business, he’d met Cheevers again by chance, in a bar. McCulloch bought him a drink and told Cheevers that his non-judgmental, cheerful glee in the information he’d disclosed had initially horrified and now interested him.
    “This isle is full of secrets as well as noises,” Cheevers said. McCulloch responded with, “Sweet airs.” It was obvious that Cheevers didn’t expect him to get the reference, that he’d made it only for his own pleasure, but he was delighted when McCulloch surprised him.
    What they later came to agree was that the isle was full of noisy secrets. They bantered and played at gossip. A complicated game.
    There was no one to whom McCulloch