After Hannibal Read Online Free PDF Page A

of form. An earth mother, he thought, that’s what you are. To coin a phrase.

    The Greens’ house was well above the road, at the end of a rocky driveway. Some way beyond, Blemish saw the roof of another house. Newly laid tiles, he noticed. He had heard that an English couple named Chapman had bought it. Foreigners buying houses all over Umbria now, excellent for business.
    The track went round in a curve, climbed fairly steeply for a few yards, leveled off as it neared the house. Both the Greens, having heard him approach, appeared at the top of the external steps that went from ground level to the upper floor—the ground floor was not yet fit for habitation, having long been used, as customary with Umbrian farmhouses, for keeping pigs and cows in. As he opened the car door, Blemish looked up and saw the couple standing side by side, both silver-haired, both the same height, both wearing smiles that seemed closely similar, slightly peering and bemused. There was a symmetrical, emblematic, fairy-tale quality about this, as if the Greens were waiting for the disguised benefactor who would recognizetheir worth and grant them a wish. Blemish was not a benefactor but he was superstitious in his way and he sensed in that moment that the occasion was auspicious.
    He unwound his long-legged frame from the Vauxhall, called up a cheery good morning and took the steps at a fast pace. Shaking hands at the top, the couple were full of apologies for the state of chaos within. Tall and narrow-shouldered and long-necked, Blemish towered above them, blinked soft brown eyes, murmured quite so, quite so, only to be expected.
    The interior was indeed cluttered. The Greens had left their furniture in storage in Michigan and were making do for the time being with the bits and pieces left by the previous owners. But their clothes and books and smaller possessions were still half in and half out of the various packing cases they had arrived in. They were like elderly castaways, beached up here. There were extensive stains of damp on the walls. “The water is getting in from somewhere,” Mrs. Green said.
    They offered him coffee but Blemish explained that he had a hernia and coffee was not good for it. This was quite untrue but Blemish often had an impulse to falsehood, and especially with prospective clients. A successful lie put you ahead psychologically, gave you the moral ascendancy you needed, right from the word go. It belonged to the same order as the briefcase he carried, the tweed jacket, the neat collar and tie.
    Herb tea then. They had bought some orange blossom tea, Mrs. Green said. They had got it at a wonderful little shop in Perugia, in the Via dei Priori. It was a shop that had just about everykind of dried flower and herb that a body could possibly imagine. “The scents from it just kind of wash over the street,” Mrs. Green said. “You don’t find shops like that back home.”
    “This is back home now, honey.” Mr. Green went to a carton of groceries still lying on the floor, took a jar and unscrewed the top. “Just you smell this.” He held out the jar. He had very bright blue eyes, wide and undefended now in the pleasure of imparting something to their visitor. Mrs. Green was smiling in full approval.
    Blemish declined his long neck and sniffed. “Wonderful.” He experienced a deep, malignant throb of hostility toward these people. They were condescending to him, treating him as a hireling, someone who could be subjected to random odors on a whim. A professional man like himself. Well, he thought, he who laughs last … “A real scent of the south, that is,” he said.
    While the tea was being made and while it was being drunk the Greens explained their situation. They were in quite a mess with the house, it seemed. “We got to know about you quite by chance,” Mrs. Green said. “A friend of our daughter’s, who is teaching in London, saw your advertisement in the Sunday
Times
, where you offer expert advice