Fatal Last Words

Начало книги

‘Up with the bloody lark?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t hear the little bastard among that lot. He’s still sat on the nest, sensible bird that he is.’

She was on the move so early that the dawn chorus was still singing at full volume; robins, blackbirds, wrens, pigeons and even the occasional seagull, all doing their best to wake the elegant old grey city from its slumbers.

Not that Randall Mosley relied on nature for her morning call; like much of the developed world, she set the alarm on her mobile phone to haul her back to life. Back home in Murrayfield, Denzel would be making the most of her absence, grabbing an extra couple of hours’ sleep before switching on his computer and starting work on his project.

The morning was bright and the sky was a very pale blue, promising one of the dry, warm days for which she and her staff had prayed during the second half of August, those seventeen days around which her world had become focused, in what was the first year of her new role. She pressed the button to lock her car. If she had taken the direct route into Charlotte Square, through her basement office at Number 5a, it would have meant cancelling and resetting the alarm system, so instead she headed out of the park, shielding her eyes against the low sun as she turned into St Colme Street, and until she could turn out of its glare into North Charlotte Street. She saw not a single moving vehicle as she walked, only those in the residents’ bays, and the overnighters hoping to stay where they were for free throughout Sunday.

Читать дальше →