Dusk at Dawn

Начало книги

The railway station was a bedlam. Around him, people were rushing in every direction, bumping and colliding like automata following separate sets of instructions. The colours, still khaki and black, lent the scene the muted aspect of an oddly animated Flemish canvas. A Bruegel, was it? He couldn’t remember. What wasn’t muted was the noise. It was shattering. Pushing his way towards the platform, the uproar struck him like a wave. The clank of engines… the hiss of steam… the bellowed orders of NCOs trying to get the right body of men in the right place… The noise enveloped him. And, overlaying it all was the cacophonous din of carriage doors slamming and the shrill piercing discordance of guards’ whistles.

The July evening was warm and Paul Ross felt hot and conspicuous in the greatcoat. He had been carrying it earlier, but when he got the man in the cap’s blood on his jacket he had no choice but to put the thing on. He’d managed to wipe his hands clean although he could still feel an unpleasant stickiness between his fingers. But there hadn’t been much he could do about his jacket. And after that damned woman started screaming all he had time to do was make a run for it. He was two streets away when he heard the first police whistle and had stopped only long enough to pull on the heavy coat to hide the bloodstains.

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