Hive Monkey Read Online Free PDF

him, and the sheets had the reassuring hotel roughness of cotton that had been washed and boiled a thousand times. Four days of amphetamine-charged wakefulness pressed down on his eyes; they felt like two peeled onions stuffed into the crevices of his face. He needed to sleep, to recharge his mental and physical batteries, yet he felt his heart jump at every unfamiliar creak and bang. The Tereshkova had her own soundtrack: a constant accompaniment made up of the hum of the engines and the purr of the air-conditioning units; the buffeting of the wind; the clank and gurgle of the water pipes; and the knock and slam of cabin doors up and down the corridor. He could even hear snatches of dance music from the passenger lounge.
    He kicked off his shoes and turned on his side. Fleeing here had been instinct: simple self-preservation. Now, he had to work out his next move. According to her schedule, the Tereshkova was bound for Mumbai, by way of Paris, Prague, Istanbul, Cairo, and Dubai. If he kept his head down and his nose clean, he could ride her all the way to India, and after that, who knew? Perhaps he’d find passage to Hong Kong and Tokyo, and then across the Pacific to San Francisco, and the whole North American continent.
    Or, he realised, he could alight at any one of those stops, and claim sanctuary on another skyliner, headed somewhere else. With a bit of planning and forethought, he could switch from one ship to another, criss-crossing the globe until his trail became too tangled to trace. He had his passport, and he had his notebook. He could work on his novel during his off-duty hours, without Max or Stella breathing down his neck. Or he could tear it all up and write something else. The Lincoln Mendelblatt books had made his name and attracted him a readership, but he was sick of the character. The Jewish private eye stories were set in a fictional world in which the UK and France had never merged, and England now stood on the edge of a federal Europe; a world of financial chaos and Middle Eastern oil wars, in which Westminster’s loyalties leaned closer to Washington than Paris.
    Stupid.
    During the nuclear crisis, he’d had an epiphany; a moment of clarity in which he’d realised he didn’t want to go to his grave remembered only for a series of trashy sci-fi detective novels. That realisation was, he admitted to himself, the real reason he was a month overdue on the latest instalment. He’d lost all enthusiasm for the setting. In the grip of real world events, his invented globe seemed paltry and irrelevant. Now, he wanted to be remembered for something nobler and more worthy. He had higher aspirations—aspirations that had become buried under the accumulated silt of convenience and expediency. He was tired of being passed over for awards and accolades, and tired of people’s eyes glazing over when he told them what he wrote. He wanted to go mainstream and write serious literature. He wanted to write a book so searing and heartfelt that, one day, a girl in a library somewhere would read it and it would make her cry, and fall in love with him. If he had to depart this life, why not take a stab at literary immortality? Why not leave his mark on the world, once and for all?
    He owed it to himself. Five years ago, when he’d hopped that first skyliner from Dayton to Liverpool, and then caught a freezing train south to Bristol, his plan had been to set up home with Marie and write the Great Transatlantic Novel. He’d been an overweight middle-aged man in love, but what great plans he’d harboured, what ambitions!
    Lying on his back, staring up at the underside of the chef’s bunk, he felt something harden inside him. He owed it to himself, and he owed it to Marie. She’d died believing he could do it, believing he could reach for the rarefied literary heights and escape the sweaty backstreets of pulp. When he’d started out, he’d been young and callow, with nothing original to say about the human