Blue Rondo E-Book

John Lawton

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Written by 'a sublimely elegant historical novelist as addictive as crack' (Daily Telegraph), the Inspector Troy series is perfect for fans of Le Carré, Philip Kerr and Alan Furst. 1959. An old flame has returned to Troy's life: Kitty Stilton, now wife of an American presidential hopeful, has come back to London, and with her, an unwelcome guest. Private eye Joey Rork has been hired to make sure Kitty's amorous liaisons don't ruin her husband's political career. But before Rork can dig any dirt, he meets a gruesome end... But he isn't the only one, and with the body-count mounting is it possible that the blood trail leads back to Troy's police force and into his own forgotten past?

Leseprobe

BLUE RONDO

John Lawton is the director of over forty television programmes, author of a dozen screenplays, several children’s books and seven Inspector Troy novels. Lawton’s work has earned him comparisons to John le Carré and Alan Furst. Lawton lives in a remote hilltop village in Derbyshire.

THE INSPECTOR TROY NOVELS

Black Out

Old Flames

A Little White Death

Riptide

Blue Rondo

Second Violin

A Lily of the Field

First published in 2005 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, England

This ebook edition published in 2012 by Grove Press UK, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic Inc.

Copyright ©John Lawton, 2005

The moral right of John Lawton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 61185 988 1

Printed in Great Britain

Grove Press, UKOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.groveatlantic.com

For

AnneMcDermid

(also known as Eira)

That Scottish Canadian Woman

from a valley in Wales

I can understand companionship.

I can understand bought sex in the afternoon.

I cannot understand the love affair.

GORE VIDAL

In my fanciful projections I took red hair to be the mantle of goddesses and priestesses who craved no obedience, like Ayesha, but a siren enjoining flight up into the firmament of life itself. It was the copper-headed helmet of destiny of those who would hurl their challenge against the very centre of creation and, having struck, plummet and explode upon a disbelieving world. It was lifted by the winds from the north-east, breathing like warspite Hotspur. It was the shade of the imagination’s crimson twilight, punitive and cleansing, the colour of communing voluptuaries, of pre-Raphaelites, Renaissance princes, of Medicis and Titians, of Venice and Northumbria, of blood axe and vengeance, Percy and Borgia, of Beatrice – Dante’s and Shakespeare’s – of hot pretenders and virgin monarchs. A red-haired Doris Day was unthinkable.

JOHN OSBORNE

Contents

Prologue

Boys’ Game

§ 1

§ 2

§ 3

§ 4

§ 5

§ 6

§ 7

Blue Rondo

§ 8

§ 9

§ 10

§ 11

§ 12

§ 13

§ 14

§ 15

§ 16

§ 17

§ 18

§ 19

§ 20

§ 21

§ 22

§ 23

§ 24

§ 25

§ 26

§ 27

§ 28

§ 29

§ 30

§ 31

§ 32

§ 33

§ 34

§ 35

§ 36

§ 37

§ 38

§ 39

§ 40

§ 41

§ 42

§ 43

§ 44

§ 45

§ 46

§ 47

§ 48

§ 49

§ 50

§ 51

§ 52

§ 53

§ 54

§ 55

§ 56

§ 57

§ 58

§ 59

§ 60

§ 61

The Life of You

§ 62

§ 63

§ 64

§ 65

§ 66

§ 67

§ 68

§ 69

§ 70

§ 71

§ 72

§ 73

§ 74

§ 75

§ 76

§ 77

§ 78

§ 79

§ 80

§ 81

§ 82

§ 83

§ 84

§ 85

§ 86

§ 87

§ 88

§ 89

§ 90

§ 91

§ 92

§ 93

§ 94

§ 95

§ 96

§ 97

§ 98

§ 99

§ 100

§ 101

§ 102

§ 103

§ 104

§ 105

§ 106

§ 107

§ 108

§ 109

§ 110

§ 111

§ 112

§ 113

§ 114

§ 115

§ 116

§ 117

§ 118

§ 119

§ 120

§ 121

§ 122

§ 123

§ 124

Prologue

A grim prospect greeted Troy and Bonham. Eight small boys ranged across the pavement, all looking expectantly towards Bonham. No one spoke, the expectant looks seemed fixed somewhere between joy and tears. Sgt Bonham held power over the greatest, the most mysterious event in their short lives. Troy looked down at a motley of gabardine mackintoshes, outsized jackets tied up with string, brown boots, pudding basin haircuts, bruised and scabrous kneecaps. Such an amazing array of ill-fitting hand-me-downs that only the peach-fresh faces challenged the image of them as eight assorted dwarves. Out on the end of the line, a grubby redhead, doubtless called Carrots, juggled a smouldering cocoa tin from hand to hand, an improvised portable furnace. Troy wished he had one of his own.

Troy glanced at the boys, wondering how much they heard and how much they understood. Eight cherubic faces, and sixteen hard, ruthless eyes looked back at him. Preserving innocence seemed a fruitless ideal.

‘How would you like to make some money?’ he said.

‘How much?’ said the biggest.

‘A shilling,’ said Troy.

‘Half a crown,’ said the boy.

‘You don’t know what it’s for yet!’

‘It’ll still cost you half a dollar,’ the boy replied.

‘OK, OK,’ said Troy, ‘half a crown to the boy who finds the rest.’

‘Freddie, for God’s sake,’ Bonham cut in. ‘You can’t!’

He gripped Troy by the shoulder and swung him round into a huddled attempt at privacy.

‘Are you off yer chump?’

‘George, can you think of any other way?’

‘For Christ’s sake they’re kids. They should be in school!’

‘Well they clearly have no intention of going. And they don’t exactly look like Freddie Bartholomew do they?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Bonham said again.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Troy.

‘On your own head be it.’

Troy turned back to the boys, ranged in front of him in a wide semicircle.

‘I want you to look for . . .’ he hesitated, uncertain what to call a corpse. ‘For anything to do with what Tub found. OK?’

They nodded as one.

‘And if you find it don’t touch it. You come straight back and tell Mr Bonham, and nobody, I mean nobody, goes near it till he’s seen what you’ve found. Understood?’

‘You know, Freddie,’ Bonham said softly, ‘There are times when I think there’s nothing like a long spell at the Yard for putting iron in the soul.’

1

Boys’ Game