Sonata of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

clouds, its landing gear down as it made an approach.
    ‘Nice picture,’ I said. ‘Some contrast.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Sweater Dress. Her voice carried that uniform media pitch, eager and bubbly but at the same time seen-it-all. ‘I took that at Heathrow. Last flight in before they closed the runway for an hour. Massive storm.’
    ‘Right place, right time,’ I said.
    ‘That’s what photography’s all about.’
    Trouser Suit demurred. ‘Well, you say that, but you have to make your own luck too,’ she said. Her voice was tartan-edged. Glasgow, I reckoned. She picked up her glass of Prosecco. The blood-red ghost of her lips grinned on its rim.
    ‘I suppose it depends what kind of photography you go in for,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much luck in following a starving African kid around while a vulture waits for it to die, but Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer, didn’t he?’
    ‘You know he killed himself because he was haunted by his work?’
    I thought of the bodies I’d seen over the past few years. I could buy that. ‘There’s a photography club here,’ I said.
    ‘Yes,’ said Trouser Suit. ‘We’ve just been. You a photographer?’
    ‘Not to any great standard,’ I said. ‘Not to
any
standard, I should clarify. Is it good fun?’
    ‘It’s all right, isn’t it, Cass?’ Trouser Suit said.
    Cass nodded. Her hand was rotating her half of black lager. ‘There’s a good mix of ability levels. People who just want to take better holiday snaps and those who know all about f-stops and white balance. A couple of semi-pros. Everyone chips in with feedback. There are no prima donnas.’
    ‘Is there a Sarah that goes along?’ It was hard to keep the desperation from my voice.
    ‘Not that I know of,’ Cass said. ‘But I’ve only been three or four times. Loz?’
    Loz was looking at me as if I might not be as random a stranger as they’d thought. Guardedly she said: ‘There’s a girl who turns up occasionally, but only to give one of the others a lift home. She’s not a member or anything. Why?’
    I couldn’t make anything up. And I realised I didn’t have to. Sometimes it was okay to just tell it straight.
    ‘She’s my daughter,’ I said. ‘I’ve been trying to find her for years.’
    Loz and Cass traded looks. Cass said: ‘I thought you reminded me of someone.’
    I could hardly breathe. ‘Thanks, but she resembles her mother more than me. Was she here tonight?’
    ‘No,’ said Loz. ‘But then neither was Martin. That’s her… well, I think he’s her…’
    ‘Squeeze? It’s okay. I guessed that might be the case. I know Martin Gower.’
    ‘Martin’s always here,’ said Loz. ‘I’ve been coming for a year and he never misses a session.’
    ‘Martin’s dead,’ I said.
    I was getting used to being the bearer of bad news. It was becoming a doddle. Loz and Cass traded looks again, this time with larger eyes and paler skin.
    ‘You’re police,’ Loz said.
    ‘No, but sometimes my work sails me close to what they do.’
    ‘And what? You think your daughter’s involved?’
    The question took me aback. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so. I haven’t thought about it.’ I felt sullied, as if someone had offered me a box of chocolates that had turned out to be frosted cat turds. ‘I just want to find her.’
    ‘Why did you lose contact?’ Cass asked.
    ‘Problems at home,’ I said, and then, to cut off any more prying, I did some of my own. ‘These photography classes… anything else go on there, other than feedback?’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘I mean, like artists sometimes do life drawings…’
    ‘There’s no mucky stuff goes on here,’ Loz said. Her body language had all changed. Where previously she had been open, now she was half-turned away, her legs locked against each other, her arms folded across her chest. Her mouth had shrivelled like a salted slug.
    ‘That you know about?’ I asked.
    ‘At all,’ said Cass. ‘If we do any