A Death in Summer by Black Benjamin

Author:Black, Benjamin [Black, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2011-07-04T20:00:00+00:00

A leaden dawn was struggling to break when the telephone on Quirke’s bedside table rang. He reared up in fright, fighting an arm free from the tangle of sheets, his heart pounding. In his haste he knocked the receiver off its stand and had to fumble for it on the floor. He feared and hated telephones. It was Isabel Galloway, he knew it was she almost before she spoke. “You bastard,” she said breathily—her lips must have been pushed against the mouthpiece—and immediately hung up. He kept the receiver to his ear, listening to the hollow hum inside it, his head hanging and his eyes shut tight. Dear God.

The room was hot and airless and smelled of himself. He found his cigarettes on the table, lit one. He got out of bed and drew the curtains all the way open. Three floors below, the long narrow garden that no one ever tended was a riot of sullen green under the gray light of day. The cigarette smoke made him cough; he doubled over, hacking and wheezing. He needed a drink—what he would not give for a drink, right now, despite the hour and his cotton-wool morning mouth. He sat down on the side of the bed and dialed her number. Engaged—she would have left it off the hook. He pictured her, in her silk tea gown with the big flowers printed on it, lying across the bed with her face in the pillows, sobbing, and cursing him between sobs.

How did she know? How had she found out?

* * *

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