Killing the Shadows

Начало книги

The haar moves up from the steel-grey waters of the Firth of Forth, a solid wall of mist the colour of cumulus. It swallows the bright lights of the city’s newest playground, the designer hotels and the smart restaurants. It becomes one with the spectres of the sailors from the docks who used to blow their pay on eighty-shilling ale and whores with faces as hard as their clients’ hands. It climbs the hill to the New Town, where the geometric grid of Georgian elegance slices it into blocks before it slides down into the ditch of Princes Street Gardens. The few late revellers staggering home quicken their steps to escape its clammy grip.

By the time it reaches the narrow split-level streets and twisting venn els of the Old Town, the haar has lost its deadening solidity. It has metamorphosed into wraiths of pale fog that turn tourist traps into sinister looming presences. Peeling posters advertising recent Festival Fringe events flit in and out of visibility like garish ghosts. On a night like this it’s easy to see what inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to create The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He may have set the book in London, but it’s unmistakably Edinburgh that comes eerily off the page.

Читать дальше →