Books of Blood Read Free

premonitions and such; but for the last few days strange thoughts have just crept into my head, and  I have the suspicion that death  is very close to me. If so, so. There's no help for it. Don't waste time trying to puzzle out the whys and wherefores; they're old news now. Just know that I love you, and that I have always loved you in my way. I'm sorry for whatever unhappiness I've caused, or am causing now,
    but it was out of my hands.
    I have some  instructions regarding the disposal of my body. Please adhere to them to the letter. Don't let anybody try to persuade you out of doing as I ask.
    I want you to have my body watched night and day until I'm cremated. Don't try and take my remains back to Europe. Have me cremated here, as soon as possible, then throw the ashes in the East River.
    My  sweet darling, I'm afraid. Not of bad dreams, or of what might happen to me in this life, but of what my enemies may  try to do once I'm dead. You know how critics can be:
    they wait until you can't fight them back, then they start the character assassinations. It's too long a business to try and explain all of this, so I must simply trust you to do as I say.
           
       11Again, I love you, and I hope you never have to read this letter.
    Your adoring,
    Swann.'
    'Some farewell note,' Harry commented when he'd read it through twice. He folded it up and passed it back to the widow.
    'I'd like you to stay with him,' she said. 'Corpse-sit,
    if you will. Just until all the legal formalities are dealt with and I can make arrangements for his cremation. It shouldn't take them long. I've got a lawyer working on it now.'
    'Again: why me?'
    She avoided his gaze. 'As he says in the letter, he was never superstitious. But I am. I believe in omens. And there was an odd atmosphere about the place in the days before he died. As if we were watched.'
    'You think he was murdered?'
    She mused  on this, then said: 'I don't believe it was an accident.'
    'These enemies he talks about...
    'He was a great man. Much envied.'
    'Professional jealousy? Is that a motive for murder?'
    'Anything  can  be a  motive, can't it?' she said.
    'People get killed for the colour of their eyes, don't they?'
    Harry was impressed. It had taken him twenty years to learn how  arbitrary things were. She spoke it as conventional wisdom.
    'Where is your husband?' he asked her.
    'Upstairs,' she said. 'I had the body brought back here, where I could look after him. I can't pretend I understand what's going on, but I'm not going to risk ignoring his instructions.'
    Harry nodded.
                       12'Swann  was my  life,' she added softly, apropos of nothing; and everything.
    She took him upstairs. The perfume that had met him at the door intensified. The master bedroom had been turned into a Chapel of Rest, knee-deep in sprays and wreaths of every shape and variety; their mingled scents verged on the hallucinogenic. In the midst of this abundance, the casket - an elaborate affair in black and silver - was mounted on trestles. The upper half of the lid stood open, the plush overlay folded back.
    At Dorothea's invitation he waded through the tributes to view the deceased. He liked Swann's face; it had humour, and a certain guile; it was even handsome in its weary way. More: it had inspired the love of Dorothea;
    a face could have few better recommendations. Harry stood waist-high in flowers and, absurd as it was, felt a twinge of envy for the love this man must have enjoyed.
    'Will you help me, Mr D'Amour?'
    What  could he say but: 'Yes, of course I'll help.' That,
    and: 'Call me Harry.'
    He would be missed at Wing's Pavilion tonight. He had occupied the best table there every Friday night for the past six and a half years, eating at one sitting enough to compensate for what his diet lacked in excellence and  variety the other six days of  the week.  This feast - the best Chinese cuisine to be had  south of Canal Street - came