The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit Read Online Free PDF

yards, the poor beasts advanced two or three. Tony kept up an excitable commentary, but I doubted whether all the animals would complete the course. They seemed to know it too well, and every time they stopped, they tried to munch the parched grass. One of the ladies was in danger of falling, to the wicked merriment of the crowd. I stood aside, watching with a mixture of humor and disbelief, when I felt something tickling the little finger of my left hand.
    A ladybug had alighted there.
    Bright red with black spots, a seven-spot variety as wecalled them as children. I don’t know why but of all the bugs in creation the ladybug is the only one that doesn’t make most people want to shudder or swat it. Maybe it’s because it’s known as the gardener’s friend. I don’t know. I lifted it toward the blue sky to look at it in relief. It was like a bead, a jewel, a drop of blood on my tanned finger. I pursed my lips and was just about to blow it away when someone gently touched the back of my hand to stop me.
    It was Terri. Terri the cleaner, the mop-and-bucket singer, the wife of Vlad the Impaler. “No,” she said. “You have to say the rhyme:
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone
.” And then she blew gently on my finger and the ladybug took flight.
    “Flown,” I said. “We say ‘flown’ where I come from. Not ‘gone.’ ”
    “Well, you’re wrong where you come from.”
    “No, we’re not.”
    “Argumentative, ain’cha? Did you make a wish?”
    It was the first time I’d seen a smile on her lips. Her eyes swam at me; she made them squeeze slightly. I hadn’t made a wish at first, but I did now. “I heard you singing.”
    She made a little snort. Not even a snort, just a release of air beneath her nostrils, as if in dismissal.
    “You’re a great singer.”
    She narrowed her eyes at me again, as if to see if I was mocking her. There were very tiny trace wrinkles at the corners of those eyes, whether from laughing or crying too much I didn’t know. I had a sudden impulse and I couldn’t stop myself looking round, scanning the crowd of people laughing at the slow progress of this last race.
    “He’s not here. He’s gone into town.”
    “Who?” I knew perfectly well who she meant.
    “My husband.”
    “Oh, I wasn’t,” I said.
    “No, you weren’t,” she said. She blinked at me and I felt as though she could see right through me, and I felt stupid and young and naïve beyond belief. Then she said, “Next time a ladybug lands on you, you’ll know what to say, won’t you?”
    She turned and went without looking back. And I thought, dumbly, is she talking about ladybugs?
    I was pulled out of my reveries by a sharp tug on my blazer.
    “Hey,” said Nikki, and I knew she’d seen me talking to Terri. She gave me
the look
.
    “What?”
    “Just hey,” she said.

3
    OF COURSE ONE HAD HEARD SPEAK OF DANTE
    That evening I met the top of the bill, but not before I was accosted on my way over to the Golden Wheel nightclub. It was sometime after last orders had been called in the bars. I knew that I should have phoned home to let the folks know things were okay, but it was too late and it was as I was passing through the alley leading to the nightclub that a hand reached out of the darkness and roughly grabbed my wrist, whisking me round the corner.
    I gasped. The hand released me and I was face-to-face with Colin the cleaner. He blinked at me, took a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his neat short-sleeved shirt, opened the pack, and offered me one. The next bit is ridiculous because even though I didn’t smoke, I found myself taking one. I mean I’d smoked a few cigarettes here and there, but it was as if the invitation to take one of his cigarettes—they were the short, unfiltered kind—was irresistible. I put it between my lips and he flicked a smart lighter. I dipped the tip of the cigarette into the flame, knowing that he was still