Long Sonata of the Dead by Andrew Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

automatically turning the pages. A flash of yellow caught my eye. It was a yellow Post-it note that marked the reference in the sources relating to the Youlgreave commission. That too was typical of Adam—he was always leaving markers in other people’s books; I once found a dessicated rasher of streaky bacon in my copy of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.
    There was something written in pencil on the Post-it note. You’re such a complete shit. You won’t get away with it.
    That was the third shock. I recognized the writing, you see, the looping descenders, the slight backward slope, the tendency to turn the dots on the “i”s into tiny but incomplete circles, drawn clockwise, from the left. It had changed significantly over time—for example, the letters were untidier in form and now ran together like a tangle of razor wire on a prison wall.
    But there was no doubt about it. A working knowledge of paleography has its advantages. I knew straightaway that the handwriting was Mary’s.
    Mary was out of my league. She was in the year below mine. I had noticed her around—going to lectures, in the faculty coffee bar and, once, in the saloon bar of the Eagle, sprawled across the lap of a post-graduate student from Harvard who drove a Porsche. As far as I knew she wasn’t even aware of my existence.
    This changed one night in May when I went to a party at someone’s house, taken there by a friend of a friend. We had come on from the pub. Someone was vomiting in the front garden when we arrived. The music was so loud that the windows were rattling in their frames.
    We pushed our way through the crowd in the hall and found the kitchen, where the drinks were. That was packed, too. Someone passed me a joint as I came in. Everyone was shouting to make themselves heard over the music. Twenty minutes later, I realized that the joint had been stronger than I’d thought. I had to get away from all the people, the heat and the noise.
    The back door was open. I stumbled outside. Cool air touched my skin. There was a little garden full of weeds and rusting metal. A couple was making out on an old mattress. Light and music streamed from the house but both were softened and more bearable. I looked up at the sky, hoping to see stars. There was only the dull yellow glow of a city sky at night.
    I sat down on a discarded refrigerator lying on its side against the fence. The dope was still making my thoughts spin but more slowly now, and almost enjoyably. Time passed. The couple on the mattress rustled and groaned in their private world. Then, suddenly, I was not alone.
    A change in the light made me look up. Mary was standing in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing a clinging velvet dress the color of red wine. She had a mass of dark hair. Her face was in shadow. The light behind her made a sort of aura around her.
    I looked away, not wanting her to think that I was staring at her. I heard her footsteps. I caught a hint of her perfume, mingled with her own smell to make something unique.
    “Why do you always look so sad,” she said.
    Startled, I looked up. “What?”
    “Why do you look so sad?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t feel it.”
    “Not sad,” she said. “That’s the wrong word. Like you’re thinking tragic, profound thoughts.”
    “Looks deceive,” I said.
    “Have you got a cigarette?”
    That was an easier question to answer. I found my cigarettes and offered her one. She leant forward when I held up the lighter for her. In the light of the flame I saw the gleam of her eyes, the high cheekbones and the dark, alluring valley between her breasts.
    “Move up,” she said, as I was lighting my own cigarette. “There’s room for two.”
    There was but only just. I shuffled along the refrigerator. She sat down, her thigh nudging against mine. I felt her warmth through my jeans.
    “Christ, it’s cold.”
    “Have my jacket,” I suggested.
    When we had settled ourselves again we smoked in silence for a