Solomons Seal

Начало книги

It all began so quietly, so very ordinarily — a routine job, something any junior in an estate agent’s office could have handled. The only difference that morning was that my mood did not match the brightness of the day. I was, in fact, in an odd frame of mind when I arrived at the house, the girl I had been living with married to a farmer, myself turned forty, and now the very real prospect of being out of a job.

The instructions to sell the contents of The Passage, River Road, Aldeburgh, had come from Rose, Walker amp; Chandler, a London firm of solicitors based in Chelmsford. They also wanted an indication of the market value of the house itself. I had glanced at their letter briefly, lying on the beach after a swim. The contents of the house were the property of a Mr Timothy Holland, whose family they had acted for over many years. He was now seriously ill and had been moved into a nursing home. During his illness he had apparently been looked after by an unmarried sister, so that I was expecting to be greeted by a faded spinster as I stood there on the doorstep in the blazing sun.

Читать дальше →