The Paris Correspondent by Alan Cowell
Author:Alan Cowell [COWELL, ALAN S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC0348000, FIC000000
ISBN: 9781590208809
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc. (Ignition)
Published: 2011-11-01T00:00:00+00:00
Shelbyâs next mystery tour was rather more dramatic and not nearly so spiritual.
The call came on a Monday morning as I pulled out of the stud gates, past my shiny restored Ferguson.
The sky was lightening in the east, toward Paris, and white mist floated over the still dark paddocks and gallops like luminous chiffon or ectoplasm. The early staff was on duty, and before clambering into the car, I paused to sniff the familiar, ripe air and listen to the intimate snuffles, snorts, and whinnies of a horse farm. Stable lads carrying riding helmets nodded respectfully toward me (respectful, of course, because of my association with their boss, my wife) and headed for their tasks, armed with brushes and bridles, saddles and blankets for the early ride out atop their frisky charges.
As usual, at that hour, I had snuck from the conjugal bed to shower and dress on the lower floor. Marie-Claire slumbered on. Our weekend in the Sixteenth had rekindled the physical aspects of our relationship to such an extent that these early starts for the office had become an effort. I brewed coffee and poured a generous measure into a thermos flask for Marie-Claire whenever she rose. The flask reminded me of one Shelbyâs stories and that, in turn, reminded me of our weekend in the Sixteenth and that, in turn, made me wonder who would notice if I goofed off and went back to bed, seeking to redeem the promise of the thermos.
But I resisted. My routines held the line: rise, shower, cuppa joe, drive. The car radio was tuned to a scratchy version of the BBC on AM, offering me my first infusion of news.
The day seemed quiet enough. The suicide bombers had not yet detonated their explosive vests, the F-16 pilots had not yet unleashed their missiles, the CIA drones had not yet splattered some mud hut in Waziristan, the politicians had not yet taken their bullhorns to bend the truthâat least not so far as was known to the armies of stringers and correspondents and editors who formed the chain that ended in those time-honored words â⦠and this news just in.â
Sometimes you had to ask yourself why news was always so noisy: bombs/blasts/explosions that ripped/tore/shattered mosques/ minibuses/markets. The crude language was a code for mayhem, its familiarity easing the pain of actually visualizing and confronting the participantsâ true traumaâdisconnected limbs, blood on baby shawls, blank eyes with the life snuffed out as quickly as you or I might flick a light switch; futures that should have been measured in decades destroyed in a high-decibel nanosecond.
It was no time to be thinking such things and I settled in for a quiet drive.
Then the call came. Unusually, my cell was switched on.
It was Shelby inquiring in his most exaggerated, anglicized accentââold sportââif I might vary my route to drop by a police precinct in the Eighth to stand bail or otherwise extricate him from incarceration so that he might start his shift on time.
âBail?â
I was juggling the phone to switch it to hands-free as I rolled along the highway toward Paris.
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