Sleepwalker Read Free

man like Peter.
    There had been a time, people said, when Peter had been not entirely right in the head.
    Oliver coughed. He gagged, and tried to speak. Peter turned Oliver’s head, thinking that he needed to vomit. “What happened?” gasped Oliver.
    â€œWhat happened,” said Skip, climbing to his feet, a giant figure of earth, bearded and stout, “what happened was that the bank gave way, that’s what happened.”
    Oliver crawled slowly to his feet, assisted by Jane. “I thought a building had fallen on me.”
    â€œCan you walk?” Peter asked both men.
    â€œIf you call this walking, I can walk,” grunted Skip.
    Dr. Hall at York District Hospital reported both men to be fine. “No evidence of anything but a minor concussion in the case of Mr. Stoughton. Quite lucky, actually.”
    â€œLucky indeed,” said Peter, grimly.
    â€œWhat happened, exactly?” asked the doctor, a slim man with a spray of freckles across his face.
    â€œNobody believed me when I told them we had a problem.”
    Dr. Hall had no expression.
    Nobody ever believes me, Peter nearly said. He said, “We had cheap scaffolding.”
    â€œNot the wisest way to save money,” said the doctor.
    Peter made the thinnest possible smile, and agreed.
    Peter Chambers’s Austin Minor sloshed through puddles up Wigginton Road, and he swerved to avoid a man on a bicycle on Gillygate. “Gate” was an old Norse word for street; many streets in York were called “Something-gate.” Peter usually found this aspect of York charming, but nothing charmed him now.
    Gravel spattered as he swung into the car park. He wrenched open the big wooden door and took the steps three at a time.
    Mrs. Webster gazed at him over her tea and scone. She parted her lips, but did not have the opportunity to speak.
    Peter slammed the door so violently that a page of the Independent on Langton’s desk lifted and took a long moment to fall back. Langton looked up over his half-glasses. His plastic spoon was poised, laden with what looked like lemon yogurt.
    â€œI heard about the trouble in Trench Five,” said Langton.
    â€œDid you.”
    â€œGood work on your part, from what I hear.”
    Peter could not stand still. He paced to the window. York Minster was a slightly different shade of gray every time Peter saw it. Just now it was cigar-ash gray in the mist.
    â€œI warned you about it,” snapped Peter.
    â€œWe’re proud to have a man on the spot like you, Peter.”
    This meant, Peter knew, that they had reservations about him, but that, for the moment, he was the best man they had.
    â€œFor some reason—the reason, I suppose, was money—the Foundation decided to rent equipment from the cheapest business in the North. Don’t interrupt, please, Mr. Langton. Two of my men were nearly killed. To save a pound or two. Pipe bent up like pipe cleaners. I complain, and all I hear is reassurance of the most empty sort. ‘Carry on, old son.’ A wave of the hand. It’s a wonder you give us helmets to wear.”
    The Northeast Archaeological Foundation was a recently privatized institute, overseen by a committee of distinguished scientists and bankers in London. Langton was one of the less distinguished administrators. This is why, Peter supposed, he was here in York, working with the actual men and women doing the grimy labor, and not in London gazing at ledger sheets.
    â€œBut,” Langton was saying, “they were wearing their helmets?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear that. We must have our people wearing their helmets. May have saved a life or two today, unless I’m terribly mistaken.” Langton was not eating yogurt, after all. It was Sainsbury’s Gooseberry Fool.
    Peter strode to the desk and struck it with his fist. A spot of fool sprang from the spoon to a photograph of Princess Anne. Peter could not speak. It was