The Wench Is Dead

Начало книги

Intermittently, on the Tuesday, he felt sick. Frequently, on the Wednesday, he was sick. On the Thursday, he felt sick frequently, but was actually sick only intermittently. With difficulty, early on the Friday morning – drained, listless, and infinitely weary – he found the energy to drag himself from his bed to the telephone, and seek to apologize to his superiors at Kidlington Police HQ for what was going to be an odds-on non-appearance at the office that late November day.

When he awoke on the Saturday morning, he was happily aware that he was feeling considerably better; and, indeed, as he sat in the kitchen of his bachelor flat in North Oxford, dressed in pyjamas as gaudily striped as a lido deckchair, he was debating whether his stomach could cope with a wafer of Weetabix – when the phone rang.

'Morse here,' he said.

'Good morning, sir.' (A pleasing voice!) 'If you can hold the line a minute, the Superintendent would like a word with you.'

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