The Fall Read Online Free PDF

you claim to be unable to control the Plague? Well, maybe I erred,’ he muttered. ‘I will find one of your students. Someone should be willing to do what I ask.’
    ‘You can choose to walk through life and pay people for the opinion you want to hear. Truth exists nonetheless.’
    ‘Interesting theory,’ he answered, now walking faster.  
    He started hunching a little, with his left shoulder pulled up more than his right. When we had supper together, he had held the fork in his right hand. His handwriting also looked as though he were right handed, but I had seen him using his left hand for most other tasks. He must have been born left-handed and I wondered whether little James Moriarty had complied quietly, or whether they had to break the boy to make him behave “normally”.  
    I scrunched along the walkway and did not see it coming. Moriarty wheeled around. His pupils were pinpricks, and spittle sprayed onto my cheeks as he hissed, ‘Be very careful. Your choice of words may one day cost you your life.’
    He turned and walked stiffly back towards the house. I noticed how much more crooked he suddenly appeared.  
    Walking up the stairs towards the entrance, I considered what I had witnessed. He was controlling and possessive; I had learned that two days ago. Curiously, though, a sign of opposition appeared to cause his muscles to clench, as though his mind were bending his body. Wondering whether I had found his weak spot already, I stepped into the house.
    ‘Come here!’ his voice shot through the hall. I saw him walk through a door opposite the dining room, and I followed. It was large, its walls covered with bookshelves. The massive desk bore piles of books and papers. He sat down, rubbing his neck, blinking often. I wondered how severe his headache was. He did not invite me to sit, so I remained standing, feeling the rage ooze off him like a rabid dog’s saliva.
    ‘Is it not true that the Black Death would be the most dangerous weapon to hold in one’s hand?’ he asked, his half-closed eyes directed at the desk.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So why do you think you know better? Or is it that women are generally incapable of murder? The weak sex? The ones who faint when an inappropriate word is uttered?’
    ‘Interesting. You seem to know nothing about me after all,’ I replied.
    A moment of harsh silence later, I continued. ‘In the 14th century, the Tartars catapulted thousands of corpses — their own soldiers — over the walls of Caffa. The bodies carried the bubonic plague. Imagine mountains of plague-infested flesh enclosed by a city wall, Professor. It was the stench of rotting cadavers and the fear of the disease that drove the people out of Caffa. They took the Black Death with them; onto trading routes and into Mediterranean ports. This is the first historical account of using the bubonic plague as a weapon, and it resulted in the greatest health disaster in the history of mankind. Twenty-five million victims. Half the European population.’

    The Black Death, Europe, 14 th century. (2)

    Silence fell yet again. The tension was sharply visible, straining the space between him and me and driving itself into the flesh between his shoulders.
    ‘You chose me because I am a skilled bacteriologist and a thinking one,’ I added quietly. ‘Developing germ warfare is a creative process. You don’t want a soldier-type who indiscriminately does what you command. You want a scientist who has her own mind and uses it continuously.’ He did not move, but his rage and resistance seemed to dampen a little. ‘I need access to a library, to study historical accounts of germ warfare. I haven’t been reading any scientific publications for several months now. There must be an alternative.’
    Irritated, he jerked his chin down and waved me away.
    I exited to find Durham waiting in the hall. He led me to my chamber, where, exhausted, I undressed and got ready for the night. I took my pillow and blanket and sat next