The Telling Error by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page B

that. Holland was one of the judges, in the Supernatural/Horror category, of this year’s Books Enhance Lives Awards . The unanimously chosen winner in that category was Reuben Tasker for his novel Craving and Aversion , which begins with the line ‘Every translucent love contains particles of rot-green hate.’ Only if you’re paranormally stoned, I’m afraid, Reuben.
    Tasker’s enduring devotion to cannabis is an open secret in the literary world, as is his belief that the drug expands his imagination. He’s on record as saying he doesn’t think he’d be able to write a book worth anyone’s time without it. Assuming some or all of this year’s other Supernatural/Horror contenders are tediously abstemious on the narcotics front, doesn’t that mean that Tasker’s drug-taking might have given him an unfair edge over the competition? Shouldn’t he have to give back his prize money, arrange a head-hung-in-shame photo-shoot and sob within dampening distance of Piers Morgan?
    Did this dilemma cross Keiran Holland’s mind even for a fleeting instant? Did it occur to him retrospectively, as condemnations of Bryn Gilligan poured forth from his keyboard, that he was one of a panel of judges that awarded a prestigious prize to a law-breaking substance abuser?
    Before everyone jumps down my throat: yes, of course I can see that the two cases are different – cannabis is not as unambiguously performance-enhancing as whatever it was that Gilligan took. One writer’s prose might be boosted by illegal drugs, another’s by instant Nescafé or the sugar rush from a packet of Minstrels. My own reaction to cannabis is to fall asleep within ten seconds of ingesting it, so it wouldn’t do anything for my writing style, whereas a strong cup of brick-coloured tea is all I need in order to be able to produce the seamless brilliance you’re reading now.
    So, yes, it’s different. But is it different in a way that matters, assuming one doesn’t believe rules should be adhered to simply because they’re there? I don’t think it is. I think it’s crazy that sportspeople are subject to such different constraints from writers and artists when it comes to professional competitions. How can the discrepancy be justified? More interestingly, how can Keiran Holland’s hypocrisy be justified?
    ‘ He’s a liar and a cheat .’ Yes, Keiran – you are, aren’t you?

2
Monday 1 July 2013
    ‘Than,’ said DC Simon Waterhouse. He turned away from the red letters on the wall of Damon Blundy’s study. He was sick of looking at them, must have read the words more than a hundred times since arriving at 27 Elmhirst Road earlier in the day: ‘HE IS NO LESS DEAD.’
    ‘Than?’ DS Sam Kombothekra repeated.
    ‘Yeah. It’s the most important word. The silent “than”. You can’t see it.’
    ‘You mean …’ Sam approached the wall to inspect it more closely. ‘Can
you
see it?’
    ‘No.’ Simon smiled at his skipper’s confusion. ‘Because it’s not there.’
    Neither was Damon Blundy’s body, not any more. It had been photographed, examined and removed. Yet the chair beside the desk didn’t feel empty; it still contained the solid idea of a dead man. It was the perfect illustration of murder, Simon thought: someone once present who was now absent. A space where a person ought to be, a perceptible negative. Simon could see the deceased Blundy in his mind as clearly as if he’d still been slumped there.
Parcel tape on his face, the knife taped tight against his mouth …
The picture was as vivid to Simon as the missing ‘than’ on the wall.
    As always, he was more interested in what he could imagine than in what he could see. The props still present in the room – the knife sharpener, the tin of red paint, the brush – no longer held his interest. Even the photograph that the killer had sent to Damon Blundy, the password painted on A4 paper and left beside Blundy’s laptop to ensure the police would find the email