Midnight Fugue Read Online Free PDF

days. Then you can tell me what it is Mick would have told me if I’d answered my phone.’
    She sat by his side. Though not quite recovered to his full fighting weight, his flesh still overspread the limits of the chair and he could feel the warmth of her thigh against his. She was wearing a perfume that would probably have got her burned during the Reformation.
    He raised his eyes not in supplication but simply to focus his mind away from these distractions. His gaze met that of the little marble dog who was peering over the end of the tomb as if in hope that after so many centuries of immobility at last someone was going to cry, ‘Walkies!’
    ‘OK,’ said Dalziel. ‘We’re in the right place. Confession time!’
     
    09.00–09.20
     
    David Gidman the Third awoke.
    It was Sunday. That was something being brought up in England did for you. Maybe it was some ancient race-memory, maybe all those church bells set up a vibration of the air even when you were well out of ear-shot; whatever it was, physical or metaphysical, it was strong enough to make itself felt no matter how many supermarkets were open, no matter how many football matches were being played.
    You woke, you knew it was Sunday. And that was good.
    He rolled over and came up against naked flesh.
    He felt it cautiously. A woman.
    That was even better.
    She responded to his touch by saying sleepily, ‘Hi, Dave.’
    He grunted, not risking more till he was certain who it was.
    Like a blind man reading Braille, his fingers traced round her nipples and spelt out her name. He gave her a gentle tweak and breathed, ‘Hi, Sophie.’
    She turned to him and they kissed.
    This was better and better.
    ‘So how shall we spend today?’ she murmured.
    The bedside phone rang before he could answer.
    He rolled away and grabbed the receiver.
    ‘Hello,’ he said.
    He knew who it was before he heard the voice. Like Sunday, his PA, Maggie Pinchbeck, created her own vibes.
    ‘Just checking you’re awake and functioning. I’ll be round in an hour.’
    ‘An hour?’
    ‘To go over the timetable. Then at half ten I’ll drive you to St Osith’s. OK?’
    ‘Oh shit.’
    ‘You haven’t forgotten?’
    ‘Of course I haven’t bloody well forgotten.’
    He put the phone down and turned back to the woman. An hour. Long enough, but he was no longer in the mood and anyway she was regarding him with suspicion.
    ‘What haven’t you forgotten?’ she demanded.
    No point poncing around.
    ‘I’m opening a community centre this lunchtime,’ he said.
    ‘You’re what? I’ve cleared the whole day, remember? George is in Liverpool; a.m. in the cathedral, p.m. at a footie match.’
    ‘I know. Looking to get the credit if they win, eh?’
    Her husband, George Harbott MP, known familiarly as Holy George, was the Labour spokesman on religious affairs.
    He saw at once his joke had fallen on stony ground.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘And I’m really sorry about today. Early Alzheimer’s.’
    He began to get out of bed.
    ‘What’s the hurry anyway?’ she queried. ‘Lunchtime’s hours away. And you could always ring them up and cancel, tell them you’ve got a cold or something. Come here and I’ll persuade you.’
    ‘I don’t doubt you could,’ he said, standing up out of her reach. ‘But no way I can cancel. This is my granpappy’s memorial community centre I’m opening.’
    ‘So? Your father’s still alive, if we can believe the Tory major contributors list. Why jump a generation? Let him open it.’
    ‘He says it’s a good vote-catcher for me,’ he replied. ‘And it’s not just lunchtime. I’ve got to go to church first.’
    ‘
Church
?
You
? Whose idea was that?’
    ‘Holy George’s, in a way. He rattles on so much about Christian values and getting back to the good old-fashioned Sabbath that Cameron’s getting edgy. What with your lot wallowing in Catholic converts and Scottish Presbyterianism, he feels he can’t rely on the old religious vote any more.