Turquoiselle Read Free Page B

name? Is it means to be you’re a
sculptoror, you know, carving things – or you carve stuff in stones for dead bodies. Or you’re a butcher? You
carve up meat?” Shut
up Carver answered. Heavy screamed at him on a high metallic note. Carver undid
his eyes, and the alarm clock said 9 a.m. He killed its siren, and went to the
second bathroom along the corridor. It was untouched, it seemed, by anything –
even the towels were dry when he used them after the shower.

Two
     
     
    Silvia Dusa was
standing by the fourth floor annex coffee machine, weeping. In the half-light
through the blind and the tarpaulin that covered the window-glass also on the
outside, her tears shone spectacularly, like mercury.
    Carver
halted. He said and did nothing for a moment.
    But
this was, in the most bizarre way, like a direct piece of continuity, following
somehow instantly, (despite the interval of domestic attendance, sleep, waking,
and the drive back to London) on that other sobbing outcry of Donna’s last
night. They resembled two takes in a movie. Only the actress had changed.
    After
a minute, “Can I help,” he said. A neutral tone.
    No
condemnation, no kindness, no pulsing rush to know or assist.
    “Go
to hell,” she hissed, and turned away.
    He
too turned instantly, but as he did so she said, in a low, crushed voice, “No –
wait. Wait–”
    Dusa
was perhaps, ethnically, if only partly, of Italian origin. But she had a
Spanish glaze to her, her hair thick and coal-black, eyes dark, and everything
clad in a fawn, honeyed skin. Her hot temper was a by-word in the office. Now
she cried mercury tears in a breath-lisping near noiselessness, but with the
passion of a drama by Lorca.
    Carver
stood at the wall, and waited. Obviously, coffee right now was out of the
question. He had not really wanted coffee anyway. He did not either want this.
    “I
must talk to someone,” Dusa muttered, angrily.
    “Yes?”
He spoke warily. One had to remember, almost all the social spaces were open
to Security. You should be careful what, even innocently, you said, did, unless
being careful might itself seem suspicious.
    “It’s
my mother,” said Dusa, now in a strangled tone. “She’s ill.”
    “I’m
sorry.”
    “No
you’re not. Only I am sorry. She is my mother, not yours.” She
shot him one of her laval glances, full of hate, loathing and despair. Some of
them found this sexy. Carver wondered why. She pushed past him, her body
brushing over his. (Neither was this at all arousing.) Her scent remained, it
had a strange theme of musk and oranges; something smoky, another element
acidulous and sharp.
    He
found she had put a piece of paper, half a page torn from a corner-shop
notebook, into his hand. He made himself the unwanted coffee, still holding the
paper, then walked off again, not looking at the note, neither concealing nor
making anything of it, as if forgetting.
    Back
in his room he dropped the note on the table, left it there and sat before the
screen, next activating and running through the current disc-file on Scar.
     
    The Third Scar : Remember, the
curse always has to do with the third one. Take the plot from this point to the
other two possibilities: 1) A mark on the left hand, present since childhood,
or the left arm, perhaps more recent. And 2) The terrain allocated for any
relevant meeting.
     
    Carver cleared
the screen. The second plot point was new. He would need to contact Latham, who
today was on leave. As if catching sight of it and recollecting, he reached out
and idly took up the paper note. Dusa’s pencilled scribble was eccentric but
readable. Long’s
12 .
She had hardly chosen a secluded or private place then, which might indicate
either extreme caution or the genuinely mundane. Carver was inclined in any
case not to go, he had other things to do, and for all Dusa knew could have
another unavoidable date, like the dinner the previous evening. In that event,
however, he might as well visit Long’s and lyingly