The Memory of Blood Read Online Free PDF

got proofs of my first volume of memoirs. I thought you might like to meet her.’
    May was slightly puzzled by this, as his partner rarely asked him to meet friends. Anna Marquand rose and removed her pink plastic spectacles, shaking their hands with an air of grave formality.
    ‘Anna transcribes for the historians in the Classical Studies department, and freelances for Icarus, the specialist publishing house that has taken the book. Anna, this is my partner at the PCU, John May.’
    ‘You’re younger than I was led to believe,’ Anna remarked as they seated themselves.
    ‘You were doubtless expecting someone more decrepit,’ said May.
    ‘Well, Mr Bryant’s description—’ She stopped awkwardly, then dug into her plastic shopping bag. ‘I have the finished copy, Mr Bryant. They told me it’s not likely to be a big print run, but it’s going to be a nice-looking volume.’
    ‘Hopefully the first of three.’ Bryant beamed, thumbing through the proofs.
    ‘Wait, let me see,’ said May, snatching it away. ‘Where does this go up to?’
    ‘It’s not chronological; rather, it’s a selection of our more eccentric cases,’ said Bryant carefully. ‘I’ve covered the Leicester Square Vampire, that business with the Belles of Westminster, the Deptford Demon, the Shepherd’s Bush blowtorch murders and the hunt for the Odeon Strangler.’
    ‘I’m afraid I had to take out some of the more politically sensitive passages,’ said Anna apologetically. ‘Your boss was very concerned about showing the Home Office in a bad light. Also, I checked with a lawyer and found that three of the sections fell foul of the Official Secrets Act. I excised those, but I couldn’t make all the minor changes you wanted. I mean, you sent me an awful lot of revisions, and many of them contradicted each other. There simply wasn’t time to include them all, and the deadline was so tight—’
    ‘There’s nothing in here that’s going to upset anyone, is there?’ asked May, riffling the pages. His partner had a reputation for being appallingly indiscreet.
    Anna Marquand glanced uncertainly at Bryant. ‘Well, um, there are one or two passages that could be construed—’
    ‘What has he said? Arthur, what did you put in this book?’
    ‘So many sections were blue-pencilled and then reinserted that I don’t honestly remember,’ Bryant admitted. ‘But I think I mentioned Raymond’s wife.’
    ‘What did you say about Leanne Land?’
    ‘I might have pointed out that she was having an affair with her flamenco instructor. But I only did it to explain why Raymond was going bald and was so hopelessly inefficient at work.’
    ‘Mr Land wanted to read it for himself,’ Anna explained, ‘so I mailed him the section on disc.’
    ‘Oh, Arthur,’ May admonished. ‘Did it never occur to you to spare Raymond’s feelings?’
    ‘Not really, no.’
    ‘When did you do this, Anna?’ asked May.
    ‘About a week ago.’
    ‘Then there’s still time to get it back. Raymond’s not good with books. He virtually moves his lips as he reads. He probably hasn’t got around to looking at it. You two stay here. I’ll go back and find it. It was very nice meeting you, Anna.’
    ‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,’ said Anna when May had gone. Bryant looked at her anxious brown eyes and his heart softened. He could see her history laid out before him as neatly as parts in a model aircraft kit. Erudite and quick-witted but nervous and lacking in confidence, afflicted with apology, generous but broke, partnerless, the renter of a one-bedroom flat in Stepney or Bermondsey, a solitary drinker, underpaid and underappreciated, she was probably still dominated by her mother.
    All this could be easily read by anyone with a vaguely Holmesian turn of mind. Anna Marquand’s plastic shopping bag was from a cheap supermarket usually situated in the wrong end of a high street, where the rental prices were lower. In the bag he could see a loaf of white