The Glimpses of the Moon by Edmund Crispin Read Free Book Online Page A

mellifluousness had managed to wring such hideous noises from his orchestra that he was at once assumed to have a flair for dissonance, if not a positive love of it. Ever since then he had accordingly found himself occupied three or four times a year with stakes driven through hearts, foot-loose mummies, giant centipedes aswarm in the Palace of Westminster and other such grim eventualities, a programme which had earned him quite a lot of money without, however, doing anything to enliven an already somewhat morose, complaining temperament. A bachelor of forty-six, he existed in an aura of inveterate despondency, lamenting his wasted life, various real or imagined defects in the luxurious large bungalow he had built himself, the slugs among his peas, his receding hair-line, taxes, the impossibility of getting decent bread delivered, the Rector, jet aircraft, the deterioration in the taste of Plymouth Gin (‘It’s a grain spirit now, you see’) and a whole manifest of aches and pains, some of them notional, others the inevitable consequence of smoking too much, a sedentary life, mild obesity, not being young any longer. In spite of his tales of woe he was quite well liked in the neighbourhood, possibly because his depressive phases were relieved on occasion by manic ones, during which he could be amusing company. His single state was accounted for locally by the theory that on his visits to film studios he seduced starlets, a breed which no one realized had long since become extinct.
    The monster music suddenly transformed itself into the last two phrases of
Pop Goes the Weasel,
then ceased altogether. Thouless appeared in the doorway of his hut, caught sight of Fen over the hedge, and waved.
    â€˜Come in and have a drink,’ he called. The recording isn’t till Monday week, and the only section I’ve got left to do is where they fail to destroy it with an H-bomb.
    â€˜Though why they want music over that, God alone knows,’ he went on, crossing to the hedge. He was short and plump, with untidy hair and horn-rimmed bifocals, and like most men who have spared themselves the strain of supporting a wife and family, looked younger than his age. The effects track’s going to be so noisy that no one’ll hear a note of
that
section, I can tell you. Still, good for one’s performing rights, I suppose, that’s ifthey leave it in, which they probably won’t. And performing rights aren’t what they used to be, anyway. Do you know how many cinemas close down in this country every year? It runs into hundreds. I’m in a dying industry except for the telly stuff, and the pop boys have taken over all that, Grainer and that lot. I ought to try and strike out on a new line, but I’m not young enough, haven’t got the adaptability any longer. In the end I expect I shall have to sell the bungalow, and even then I shan’t get anything like what I paid for it, particularly if you include those fantastic fees the architect and the quantity surveyor mulcted me for, and the money I had to spend making the garden.’
    Fen said that he was sorry, he couldn’t stop for a drink at the moment.
    Thouless nodded gloomily, a cram-full pin-cushion for life’s darts into which, unbelievably, yet another spicule has successfully been inserted. He peered at Fen’s sack.
    â€˜That your pig’s head?’ he inquired, and when Fen had agreed that it was, ‘Brawn, I never liked brawn. Try not to salt it too much, or it’ll be like getting a wave in your mouth when you’re bathing. I must go and find myself some lunch, if there’s anything in the house worth eating. Do look in and see me sometime, no one ever seems to visit me nowadays. You going to the Fete this afternoon?’
    â€˜Oh yes, I think so.’
    â€˜Radio Three gave rain,’ said Thouless. Suddenly he produced from his trousers pocket a fistful of crumpled pound notes, which he thrust at Fen