"Barker, Clive - Books of Blood 06" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

back to the widow.
'I'd like you to stay with him,' she said. 'Corpse-sit,
if you will. Just until all the legal formalities are dealt
with and I can make arrangements for his cremation. It
shouldn't take them long. I've got a lawyer working on
it now.'
'Again: why me?'
She avoided his gaze. 'As he says in the letter, he was
never superstitious. But I am. I believe in omens. And
there was an odd atmosphere about the place in the days
before he died. As if we were watched.'
'You think he was murdered?'
She mused on this, then said: 'I don't believe it was
an accident.'
'These enemies he talks about..."
'He was a great man. Much envied.'
'Professional jealousy? Is that a motive for murder?'
'Anything can be a motive, can't it?' she said.
'People get killed for the colour of their eyes, don't
they?'
Harry was impressed. It had taken him twenty years
to learn how arbitrary things were. She spoke it as
conventional wisdom.
'Where is your husband?' he asked her.
'Upstairs,' she said. 'I had the body brought back
here, where I could look after him. I can't pretend I
understand what's going on, but I'm not going to risk
ignoring his instructions.'
Harry nodded.

12
'Swann was my life,' she added softly, apropos of
nothing; and everything.
She took him upstairs. The perfume that had met
him at the door intensified. The master bedroom had
been turned into a Chapel of Rest, knee-deep in sprays
and wreaths of every shape and variety; their mingled
scents verged on the hallucinogenic. In the midst of
this abundance, the casket - an elaborate affair in black
and silver - was mounted on trestles. The upper half
of the lid stood open, the plush overlay folded back.
At Dorothea's invitation he waded through the tributes
to view the deceased. He liked Swann's face; it had
humour, and a certain guile; it was even handsome in its
weary way. More: it had inspired the love of Dorothea;
a face could have few better recommendations. Harry
stood waist-high in flowers and, absurd as it was, felt
a twinge of envy for the love this man must have
enjoyed.
'Will you help me, Mr D'Amour?'