Real Tigers Read Online Free PDF Page A

discussing our colleagues. Like, you know, who sneaks off early when they think no one’s looking, and who leaves their dirty mugs in the sink.”
    â€œEnthralling.”
    â€œAnd who snorts coke.”
    Shirley dropped her pen. “You wouldn’t.”
    â€œWon’t get the opportunity. Not if you’re there too.”
    â€œThat’s blackmail.”
    â€œWhat can I say? Learned from a master.”
    So here she was, here they both were, suffering the company of Roderick Webhead Ho. No wonder she was feeling . . .
    But she didn’t want to use “uptight.”
    Shirley had been at the dentist’s the previous week, and flipping through a lifestyle magazine in the waiting room had encountered one of those diagnostic quizzes, How uptight are you? , and had started mentally checking off answers. Do you get annoyed at queue-jumpers, even when you’re not in a hurry? Well, obviously, because it’s a matter of principle isn’t it? But other questions seemed designed to rile her. You discover your partner met his/her ex for a drink, “for old times’ sake.” She didn’t need to read the rest. This was supposed to show how “uptight” you were? Far as Shirley was concerned it was grading you on common sense . . . She’d hurled the magazine at the door, giving the dental nurse, who was just popping her head round, something of a fright. And who got her own back five minutes later, being over-zealous with the waterpick.
    And yeah, besides that, so she liked the odd toot, but who didn’t? Tell her Marcus never snorted a line of the old marching powder—Marcus had been Tactical, the squad that kicked down doors, and once you’d tasted that adrenalin high, you’d want another boost, right? He said he never, but he would say that. Besides, it wasn’t like Shirley was an habitual user. It was a weekend thing with her, strictly Thursday to Tuesday.
    There was a thump as Roderick Ho sat down. His right cheek was flaming red, and his glasses hung lopsided.
    â€œWhat you do that for?”
    She sighed heavily.
    â€œIt needed doing,” she said, half to herself, and wished she were anywhere else.
    Though maybe, all things considered, not where River Cartwright was.
    River was in a hospital room, standing by a window there was no point attempting to open. It had been painted shut years ago, back when the NHS still ran to the occasional lick of paint, and even if it had opened, the air that would have crawled in would have been thick as soup, with a saltiness that caught the back of the throat, and left you gasping for a glass of water. He tapped the pane, looking down on a covered walkway. The noise was in brief counterpoint to the blipping of one or other of the machines ranged by the bed, on which a gradually diminishing figure lay, making no greater impact on its surroundings than it had done for the past however many months it was.
    â€œYou’re probably wondering what I’ve been up to,” said River. “You know, while you’ve been taking it easy.”
    There was a fan on the bedside shelf, but the barely wavering slip of ribbon tied to its frame revealed how feeble it was. Several times River had attempted to fix it, this taking the form of flicking its switch on and off. DIY skills exhausted, he settled for nudging the visitor’s chair nearer the draught-zone, and slumping onto it.
    â€œWell, it’s fascinating stuff.”
    The shape on the bed didn’t answer, but that was no surprise. On three previous occasions River had sat here, sometimes silent, sometimes making one-sided conversation, and there was no indication that the bed’s occupant was aware of his presence. Indeed, the patient’s own presence was an open question: River wondered, while the body was lying there, where the mind was; whether it was wandering the corridors of its interrupted life, or cast into some nightmare of its own