The Reader on the 6.27 Read Online Free PDF Page A

far from all the world’s Brunners and Kowalskis. Before even removing his jacket, Guylain went over and gave a pinch of food to Rouget de Lisle, the goldfish who shared his life, whose bowl stood on the bedside table.
    ‘Sorry I’m a bit late but the 18.48 should have been called the 19.02. I’m knackered. You don’t know how lucky you are, my friend. Sometimes I’d give anything to change places with you.’
    He had caught himself talking to his fish more and more often. Guylain liked to think that Rouget de Lisle listened to him, suspended in the middle of his sphere, gills flapping, eager to hear about his day. Having a goldfish for a confidant meant expecting nothing from him other than to listen in passive silence, although Guylain sometimes thought he discerned in the stream of bubbles coming from the fish’s mouth the beginnings of a reply to his questions. Rouget de Lisle greeted him with a lap of honour then gulped down the food flakes floating on the surface of the water. All the lights on the telephone were winking. As he expected, Giuseppe’s voice erupted from the speaker as he listened to his answerphone messages:
    ‘Listen, kiddo!’ The old fellow’s elated tone at once swept away any shame that overcame Guylain at deceiving his old friend, as he was doing at present. After a long silence, beneath which he could hear the breathing of a Guiseppe almost fainting with emotion, the gravelly voice resumed:
    ‘Albert’s just called. We’ve got one! Call me as soon as you get in.’ The command brooked no evasion. Giuseppe picked up before the end of the first ring. Guylain smiled. The old boy was waiting for his call. He pictured him bundled up in the light-green blanket he always had wrapped around him, the telephone resting on what remained of his legs, his hand clenching the receiver.
    ‘How many is it now, Giuseppe?’
    ‘ Sette cento cinquantanove! ’
    His mother tongue rose to the surface when he was overcome with anger or an immense joy, as he was now. Seven hundred and fifty-nine – that took them up to where? wondered Guylain. Above the ankles? Mid-calf?
    ‘No, I meant how long since the last one?’ fibbed Guylain, who remembered perfectly well the date circled in red on the wall calendar hanging next to the fridge.
    ‘Three months and seventeen days. It was the twenty-second of November last year. That time it had been one of his contacts who works at the waste recycling centre in Livry-Gargan who’d found it. It was sitting on top of the pile in the waste-paper skip. It was the colour that had attracted his attention. He said it was a good thing I’d taken a photo to give to all the lads. That’s how he recognized it: from the colour. There aren’t any other books like it, he said. It’s exactly the same as the colour of the old missals when he was a choirboy. Jesus, just think! What’s more, it’s in excellent condition, he says, apart from a faint grease stain on the top right-hand corner of the back cover.’
    Guylain congratulated himself once again for having chosen the second-hand bookseller as an ally in carrying out his campaign of deceit, even though he feared that one day Albert, the legendary bouquiniste of Quai de la Tournelle, famous for his mischievous humour, would arouse the old boy’s suspicions by saying too much. Make a grease stain on the back of the book – Guylain made a mental note. ‘Tomorrow, Giuseppe. I’ll go and pick it up tomorrow, I promise. I’m too worn out tonight, and anyway, it’s a bit late to catch the last train back. Tomorrow’s Saturday and I’ll have plenty of time.’
    ‘All right, kiddo, tomorrow. In any case, Albert’s holding on to it. He’s expecting you.’
    Guylain nibbled gingerly at a plate of rice. Lying, over and over again. He fell asleep watching Rouget de Lisle digest his food. On the TV, a reporter was talking about a revolution in a far-off country and about a population being wiped out.

9
    Gross negligence –