Nemesis Read Free Page A

down his shiny cape, tossed the beret into a litter bin while keeping his eye firmly on the glistening rush-hour traffic.
    Baltimore, Maryland. Midnight
    The warm ocean which powered the Atlantic storm was also dumping its energy into the far north of the planet; here the air, turned away from the sun, was exposed to interplanetary cold; here, it responded to the Earth’s ancient rotation, and circulated anticlockwise around the Arctic Ocean: a hugeblizzard howled out over the pack ice and the seals, the killer whales and the sunless wastelands.
    The blizzard rampaged over the pole, down through Alaska and the North West Territories, passed over a thousand miles of Baffin Island, and howled through a few Inuit hunting groups who knew it as the Chinook, a hostile force which drove itself up nostrils and winkled out tiny gaps in snow goggles. The blizzard was still a blizzard over Quebec Province and New York State but, far from the oceanic heat engine, it was beginning to die. Even so, swirling along Broadway and Times Square, the dying snowstorm could still send late evening theatre crowds scurrying into warm bars, and traffic cops into a state of sullen paranoia.
    Passing over the Great Lakes, the wind went into a rapid decline until, in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, it finally died, leaving only snowflakes drifting down on sleeping houses: a traditional Christmas, all Bing Crosby, Silent Night, and Christmas trees glittering from a million dark windows.
    In at least one Maryland suburban home, however, the night was neither still nor silent, and the owner barely heard the chime of the doorbell above the party hilarity and the raucous dance music. Reluctantly, Hilary Sacheverell detached herself from her white-haired, tall dancing partner, and weaved a path through the party. In the hallway she stepped over a young couple sitting together on the floor, backs to the wall. She opened the door, a smile half-formed on her face in expectation of late arrivals. A gust of freezing night air wafted around her exposed shoulders and she shivered.
    Two men, in their thirties, one white, one black. Strangers. Snow sprinkled their heads and dark coats like tinsel decoration. A black Buick convertible had somehow snaked its way through the Mercs and Dodges which cluttered the driveway. A third man, in the Buick, just discernible through its dark windscreen. The woman was suddenly alert.
    “Mrs. Sacheverell?” the black man asked.
    She nodded uneasily.
    “Is your son here?”
    “Which one?”
    “We’re looking for Doctor Herbert Sacheverell, ma’am.”
    “Herby is here,” she said. “Is there a problem?”
    “If we could just have a word with him.”
    A hardness about the eyes; a professional alertness. Some instinct prevented her from inviting them in from the bitter cold. “Wait a moment, please.”
    It was a full minute before she found a skeletally thin, middle-aged man with thick spectacles and red, spiky hair seated at the kitchen table with the Ellis woman. A near-empty bottle of Jim Beam stood between them. The girl had her elbows on the table and was resting her head in cupped hands, staring into Sacheverell’s blue eyes with open admiration. Sacheverell, thus encouraged, was extolling the merits of legalizing cannabis, itemizing the points with the aid of his bony fingers.
    “Herby, two men for you,” Mrs. Sacheverell said, looking through the Ellis female. “They look sort of official. Have you been naughty?”
    Herby shook his head in bewilderment. He stood up carefully, oriented himself towards the open kitchen door and navigated towards it with exaggerated steadiness.
    “Enjoying the party?” Mrs. Sacheverell asked.
    “Oh yes, Mrs. S. Herby is really good to me.”
    “Tell me, have you tried anything for that big spot on your chin?” Mrs. Sacheverell asked, curling her lips into a smile.
    The smile was returned. “I’m using a cream. It’s supposed to be good for wrinkles too—I’ll hand it in