The Kings of Eternity by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

“Isn’t it wonderful when you come across work by a colleague, a fellow writer, artist, whatever, which you can be wholly enthusiastic about?” He gestured around the exhibition. “They’re not only beautiful and technically accomplished, they contain a life and an optimism that touches something in here,” he touched his chest. “They’re truly staggering.”
    “I’m blushing.”
    He smiled. “Sometimes, you come across accomplished work by someone in another field. You wish that you had their skill. It’s as if... you know your own discipline so well, its tricks and short-cuts, that you just want to start again in a field you know nothing about, so that you can perhaps achieve an innocence of vision... I’m babbling.”
    “No, no,” she said, dragging on his arm. “I know what you mean. I felt like that when I discovered your books.”
    He stopped walking and looked at her. “You never said you’d read them.”
    “Well, you never asked.”
    They had come full circle, and in a bid to change the subject, he gestured at the painting entitled, Contemplating the Future .
    “My favourite.”
    She was silent, regarding it, and when he looked at her he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.
    Someone called her name from across the hall, and she turned and replied in fluent Greek. “Damn, Daniel. I’m wanted. What are you doing later? Say, in an hour?”
    “In an hour? Nothing planned.”
    “Then I’ll meet you outside on the steps, okay? There’s a lovely, quiet bar by the harbour. We’ll have a sedate night-cap.”
    “Sounds wonderful.”
    She squeezed his arm and hurried away.
    He watched her go, aware of the beating of his damnable, maddening heart, and then returned his attention to the paintings.
    He picked up a pamphlet about the artist and her work, in both Greek and English. It told him little more than she had told him during their first meeting, but he did learn that she was born in 1960, had attended art college in Leeds, and had had an exhibition in New York. He would have to ask her about that.
    So he could relax and take Caroline Platt at face value; she was not, it seemed, an investigative journalist - or anything else, for that matter. He wondered how he could have suspected her of being anything other than an attractive, warm-hearted human being?
    He took another turn around the exhibition, finding new things to see in each painting. He would have to come here with Caroline when it was quieter, and she could talk him through the paintings at her leisure.
    He saw the fat Englishman before he actually noticed him; the man was an awkward blur of beige in the periphery of his vision, somehow spoiling the composition of the exhibition like a fly trapped in the tesserae of a kaleidoscope.
    He caught another glance of the man, and at that second his brain registered his presence and alerted him.
    Langham felt at once angry at the man and annoyed at himself for feeling this unwarranted anger. The man was dogging his steps, and he had no right to invade this private showing. He would have to ask Caroline if she had invited him.
    Worse, the creep was not taking much notice of the paintings, but talking to people: no harm in that, except that he was less talking to them than questioning them. He was clutching a spiral-bound note-book and taking down what they said in the rapid shorthand of a seasoned reporter.
    The man did not make the mistake of glancing at Langham - but the couple he was interviewing, with no need for duplicity, looked across at him and nodded at something the Englishman was saying. Langham knew the couple: they owned the hotel in town where he had stayed on arriving on the island. The bastard was scraping the bottom of the barrel for copy about the famous writer. Let him try!
    The Englishman moved on, introducing himself and engaging locals in conversation. His Greek seemed to be up to the task.
    Langham manoeuvred himself through the crowd and caught the eye of Alexis, the