Voices in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

and now we had nothing left to rest our hope on. Leo examined it half-heartedly. A yellow watermark ran halfway up the spine, and the words were obscured by stains. He turned over the title page. ‘It’s only two years old,’ he said. ‘And published herein the city. Look at the figures here – this one is a first edition. First and last, I suppose.’
    ‘I have never heard of Harlan Smith,’ I said.
    Leo shook his head. ‘You can tell they hardly printed any copies of this. Look at the way it is bound. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was printed privately. Seven Sisters Press. John Worthy, Printers and Bookbinders. Have you heard of either of those?’
    ‘No.’
    I went on watching him. He was absorbed in the first page now, leaning close to the lamplight. I finished sweeping the floor and washed up the plates that lay about the back room. When I came back into the shop, Leo was still studying the book. ‘Anselm,’ he said, touching my arm. ‘Listen to this.’
    ‘What?’ I said.
    He read quietly, so I had to stand very still to catch all the words. ‘“Midnight,”’ he began,‘“and still no one came. And outside the window of his cell, in the restless darkness, voices rose up and spoke to Jean-Michel. The voices of everyone he had ever lost and everyone he loved. These voices haunted him. It is a fact not well known among the rulers of this world, that the darkness speaks to the lonely.”’
    The silence hummed. ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘It sounds like something, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Leo was still studying the first page of the book. In the square, the church clock chimed twelve. ‘Go to bed, Anselm,’ he said, and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s late. I will come up in a minute.’
    I went upstairs, but I sat awake for more than an hourand did not hear him come up after me. Eventually I blew out the lamp and slept.
    When I went down to the bathroom, somewhere near dawn, Leo was still there at the counter. His face was grey with too little sleep, and he was on the last pages of the book. ‘Anselm,’ he said hoarsely.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’
    ‘I think it means something,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell what, but it does.’
    ‘What kind of thing?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ He coughed and rested his head against his hand. ‘It’s the first time,’ he said. ‘It’s the first time in years that I’ve read a book and it’s said anything to me. I mean, here.’ He put his fist against his heart. ‘Do you understand that?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘I don’t think Aldebaran is gone,’ said Leo. ‘I think that’s what he’s trying to say. Either that or …’
    ‘Or what?’
    He closed the book and opened it again, then ran his hand backwards through his hair so that it stood up untidily. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy,’ he said. ‘If I tell you, you won’t know what to say.’
    ‘Tell me anyway.’
    ‘It sounds like Harold North,’ he said. ‘It’s like he could have written it.’
    There was a long silence, in which all the antique clocks on the walls of the shop ticked out of time with each other. Then he pushed the book across the counter towards me.
    ‘Should I read it?’ I said.
    ‘Just a few pages.’
    I turned to the beginning. Leo leaned across the counter,and I could see his hands trembling. All the time that I was reading, they went on shaking. Eventually he reached across and touched my arm, and I looked up. ‘Well?’ he said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s like him.’
    ‘A lonely man,’ Leo said. ‘A journey. Politics. There is even a ruined church, like in
The Sins of Judas
.’
    ‘Or
The Shattered Wheel
. You know, when they get lost out on the moor and they come to the hermitage. That’s what it reminds me of.’
    ‘It’s something about the way he tells it.’
    In the dim light, our eyes met. Leo had spent half my childhood searching the city for Harold North’s books, looking for copies that had not