The River House Read Online Free PDF Page B

a high wire fence, like
     an exercise yard in a prison. But over all this there’s a wide washed sky, and a light that makes distant things seem near,
     so you feel you could see forever. Birds fly over, gray geese like in Amber’s poem, wafting their wings together: six of them,
     in a black ragged V, against the shining sky. I watch them ’til they’re out of sight and their creaking cries have faded in
     the distance. I feel the day’s irritations start to seep away.
    As I study my map on a street corner, I see that my route will take me near to Fairfield Street. And something perhaps can
     be retrieved from the general mess of my day.

C HAPTER 6
    T HE DESK SERGEANT IS YOUNG AND ANGULAR , with gelled hair.
    “Is it possible to speak to Detective Inspector Hampden?”
    “It should be. Who shall I say it is?”
    I tell him. “I did try ringing earlier. I just wanted some information about a case.”
    “I’ll see what I can do,” he says. He speaks into his phone. “He isn’t answering,” he says, “but I know he’s somewhere around.”
    Suddenly I wonder why I’m here.
    “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “Not if he’s busy. I can ring him. I just dropped in on the off chance. You know, as I was passing
     …”
    “You might as well see him now you’re here,” he says. “I’m sure I can get hold of him. Why don’t you sit down for a moment,
     Mrs. Holmes.”
    In the waiting area there are metal seats fixed to the wall. The only other person waiting is an elderly woman. A faint smell
     of urine hangs about her, and she has three bulging Kwik Save bags and many large safety pins fixed to the front of her coat.
     A voice crackles over an intercom; it sounds like traffic information. The woman inches sideways toward me, catching her capacious
     skirts in the space at the back of the seats.
    She reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. “You’re pretty, aren’t you?” she says. Her voice is surprisingly cultured. There’s
     a fierce scent of spirits on her breath.
    “Mrs. Holmes,” says the desk sergeant. I get up, go to him. “Let me take you through,” he says. “I’m sure he won’t be long.”
    He takes me down a corridor; through the open doors on either side, you can hear phones shrilling and cut-off scraps of conversation.
     He shows me into an empty office, which smells of tuna and cigarette smoke.
    “I thought you might prefer to wait in here,” he says. “Maureen does go on a bit.”
    “Thanks,” I say.
    He closes the door behind him.
    It’s a cluttered, disorderly office: on the desk a computer, a litter of papers, a heap of blue three-ring binders—and the
     more personal stuff, framed photos, a mug with pens and highlighters in. My eye is drawn to the photographs—a little blond
     boy, rather serious; a woman with a fall of straight dark hair. I think idly of something I once read in a novel by Milan
     Kundera, that I thought to be rather wise: that women aren’t essentially drawn to the most beautiful men—that the men we desire
     are the ones who have slept with beautiful women. There’s a half-drunk cup of coffee on the desktop and discarded sandwich
     wrappings in the bin.
    The phone on the desk rings, and I have a quick, instinctive urge to answer it. The voice over the intercom makes a new announcement,
     giving the number of a car that’s been abandoned, and inside it the body of an unidentified male. Above the sounds of phones
     and footsteps from the corridor, I can hear shouting, a man’s voice harsh with anger. I can only make out certain phrases—“for
     fuck’s sake,” repeated several times—and then a softer voice, a woman, seeking to placate. The anger in the first voice makes
     my pulse race. I sit there for what feels like an age in the smells of smoke and tuna, hearing the distant shouting.
    The shouting stops; there are rapid footsteps along the corridor. The door bangs as it is pushed back. He comes into the room,
     then stops quite suddenly