Out of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mrs. Tandy. He chose his next day off, when, as usual, he accompanied her to Kensal Green Cemetery as flower porter and water carrier. Mrs. Tandy's had been a marriage of cousins, as a result of which her late husband's relatives and her own were inextricably intertwined. And more numerous, it sometimes seemed to Harry, than the weeds that grew between their overgrown plots.
    Recuperating on a bench after a vigorous tour of the scattered outliers as well as the main cluster of Tandy memorials, Harry explained his predicament as noncommittally as he could. He felt Mrs. Tandy should be made aware of the situation. But he was not sure he wanted her to understand how deeply it had affected him. His uncertainty, however, took little account of the keenness of her insight.
    "Quite a shock for you, I imagine. Discovering you're a father so late in life."
    "Only technically a father."
    "But the man who believed he was David's father is dead, isn't he? So perhaps the technicalities are irrelevant."
    "Not according to Iris."
    "Whose need is greater, Harry? David's or his mother's?"
    "David's, of course."
    "Then perhaps you should do something to help him."
    "What do you suggest?"
    "Find out what caused his coma and what can be done to cure it."
    "How?"
    "Speak to his doctor. And to those who know him best. His friends and contemporaries. His fellow mathematicians. Anybody who might understand his state of mind when he booked into that hotel. Or know of any reason why others might have wished him harm."
    "But Iris '
    "Is his mother. What would she know? Have you told your mother, for instance, that she has a grandson?"
    "Of course not. What would be the point?"
    "See what I mean?"
    "But his friends .. . are probably all in America."
    "His ex-wife, for instance?"
    "For certain, I should think."
    "Should you?" She grinned mischievously. "You ought to read more of the newspapers than the racing page, Harry, you really ought. Fetch yesterday's Telegraph from the bin over there, would you?"
    "But I screwed up the dead flowers in it."
    "Then unscrew them. You want page three or five."
    With shrugs and sighs of reluctance, Harry crossed to the bin, fished out the bundle in which he had disposed of the whiffy accumulation of sodden stems, flattened out the paper on the path and tried to separate the damp pages. "What exactly am I looking for, Mrs. T?"
    "Bring it over here."
    Leaving the mess of rotten foliage behind, he carried the paper back to the bench, where Mrs. Tandy had already put on her glasses. She took it from him with a supercilious smile and arched back her head to improve her focus.
    "Let me see, let me see." Two wet-edged pages were carefully parted. "Ah, here we are. There was a film premiere the night before last at the MGM Cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue. I doubt it had the panache of those I attended before the war, but never mind. The point is that one of the stars of Dying Easy is none other than Steve Brancaster, pictured here arriving at the event with his glamorous wife Hope."
    Harry sat down beside her and stared at the photographs. There were three of them in all, the largest showing a young Royal disgorging from a limousine. But one of the accompanying shots was what drew Harry's eyes. As the caption confirmed, the tall faintly lupine figure in tuxedo and open-neck dress shirt was the actor Steve Brancaster. Beside him, blond hair cascading over bare shoulders, a dazzling smile and sparkling eyes competing for attention with a neckline that displayed a truly startling amount of cleavage, stood Hope Brancaster, formerly Yenning, formerly God knows what.
    "I expect they're still here," said Mrs. Tandy. "Premieres can be very exhausting."
    "You think so?"
    "Oh yes." She peered closer. "I should try the Dorchester if I were you."
    SEVEN
    Mrs. Tandy's estimate of the Brancasters' taste in hotels turned out to be spot on. With his fraying blazer and faded tie once more to the fore, Harry strode into the Dorchester late that