The Harper's Quine

Начало книги

At the May Day dancing at Glasgow Cross, Gilbert Cunningham saw not only the woman who was going to be murdered, but her murderer as well.

Strictly speaking, he should not have been there. Instead he should have been with his colleagues in the cathedral library, formulating a petition for annulment on grounds which were quite possibly spurious, but shortly after noon he had abandoned that, tidied his books into a neat stack in his carrel, with Hay on Marriage on the top, and walked out. A few heads turned as he went, but nobody spoke.

Descending the wheel stair, past the silent chambers of the diocesan court, he stepped out into the warm day enjoying the feeling of playing truant and closed the heavy door without stopping to read the notices nailed to it. The kirkyard was busy with people playing May-games, running, catching, shrieking with laughter. Gil went out, past the wall of the Archbishop’s castle, and jumped the Girth Burn ignoring the stepping stones. From here, already, he could hear the thud, thud of the big drum, like the muffled beat for a hanging.

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