The Slaughter Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

her, desperately capturing her face as it was on those moments under the blue lamp of 27 Savile Row on a cold day in January.
    And I found that, just like all those cameras, I could not look away from her face.
    I heard Whitestone sigh.
    ‘We’re going to need a bigger room,’ she said.
    I awoke with a start in the dead of the night.
    4.10 a.m., warned the clock by my bed.
    Too early to get up. Too late to go back to sleep.
    What had woken me?
    I quickly went into Scout’s bedroom. But she was sleeping peacefully, her school clothes for the morning waiting on an old-fashioned wooden stand, carefully placed there by Mrs Murphy.
    I watched Scout’s sleeping face, marvelling that I had somehow helped to produce the most beautiful little kid in the world. I know that every parent feels that way. What was different about my daughter was that she really was the most beautiful little kid in the world.
    I padded to the kitchen, hearing Stan snoring in the darkness, the old-man wheeze of the short-nosed dog. I made myself coffee and looked at my phone. Edie Wren had left me a message fifteen minutes ago:
    I know why they died.
    As I called her number, I walked to the window of our loft and looked down at the blazing lights of Smithfield meat market.
    Four in the morning and the men were in the middle of their work. It made me feel better, like less of a freak for being awake at this hour. Wren answered immediately, and I sensed that she had not slept at all.
    ‘They had a strong digital presence,’ Wren said. ‘The Woods. Try Googling them, Max.’ I was already turning on my MacBook Air in the kitchen. ‘You get seven million results in just under half a second.’
    ‘Because of Lillehammer,’ I said. ‘Because she was the Ice Virgin, half a lifetime ago. You’re not just famous for fifteen minutes now. It all stays out there forever.’
    ‘Not just that,’ Wren said. ‘Not just the winter Olympics and Mary the Ice Virgin. I mean
now
. This family – they put films online. You know – happy family stuff: Here’s us having fun at Val d’Isère. Here’s us celebrating one of our birthdays. Here’s us on a boat in Barbados. Oh, and here’s us looking gorgeous.’
    There were so many results for the Woods that I didn’t know where to start.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘Sharing their happiness or showing off?’
    ‘Is there a difference?’
    By now I was on YouTube looking at the Woods on their Easter holiday in Geilo, Norway. They looked like a family in an advertisement for something you realise that you desperately need. And under their beautiful smiling faces, I scrolled down the comments section, and I flinched at the spite, the malice and the abuse. Their happiness enraged the great anonymous public.
    ‘I want to turn these comments off, Edie,’ I said. ‘It’s like swimming in a sewer.’
    ‘You can’t turn them off, Max. You can never turn them off.’
    ‘So what’s your theory?’
    ‘It’s not a theory,’ she said. ‘I felt like saying it in MIR-2 but I didn’t have the nerve. Because it sounds stupid.’
    ‘Say it, Edie.’
    ‘Look at those comments, Max. Look at all that filth. Look at how much the world hates the beautiful people, the rich ones, the lucky ones with all the money and love. Look how the world hates the happy ones. Can’t you see it, Max? Somebody killed the Wood family because they were happy.’

4
    We got up early to see the Queen’s horses.
    It was still freezing dark when Stan, Scout and I took our places on the corner of Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Road. As usual, our conversation revolved mostly around our dog.
    ‘Stan doesn’t have one of those happy dog faces, does he?’ Scout said.
    I knew what she meant. He was a beautiful dog but he didn’t have one of those upturned, grinning, ain’t-life-grand? mouths that dogs sometimes have, with tongue lolling and eyes twinkling, the kind of dog face that you see in commercials for pet food.