"Greg Egan - Scatter My Ashes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

bed was a near-forgotten dream. No cars, no distant traffic noises, no
clouds, just a huge night sky and empty, endless streets. It was five to
three when I reached the place. I paced for a while, then walked around the
block, but that only killed three minutes. I chose a direction and resolved
to walk a straight line for seven minutes, then turn around and come back. If
I didn't turn around, if I kept walking, would he catch me? Would he return
to the house and punish me? What if we moved, to another city, another
state? I passed a phone box, an almost blinding slab of solid light. I jingled
my pockets, then remembered that I'd need no coin. I stood outside the booth
for two minutes, I lingered in the half-open doorway for three, and then I
lifted and replaced the handset a dozen times before I finally dialled. When
the operator answered, I slammed the phone down. I needed to defecate, I
needed to lie down. I dialled again, and asked for the police. It was so
easy. I even gave them my true name and address when they asked, without the
least hesitation. I said тАЬthank youтАЭ about six thousand times. I looked at my
watch: thirteen past three. I ran for the corner, camera swinging by the
carrying strap, and made it back in ninety seconds. Someone was climbing out
through a dark window, holding a gagged, struggling child. It wasn't the man
who'd called himself Jack, it wasn't the killer I'd seen on TV when I was
ten. I raised my camera. Drop it and do something, drop it and save the child,
you fool! Me against him? Against that? I'd be slaughtered! The police are
coming, it's their job, isn't it? Just take the pictures. It's what you
really want, it's what you're here to do. Once I'd fired the shutter, once
I'd taken the first shot, it was like flicking through the pages of a
magazine. I was sickened, I was horrified, I was angry, but I wasn't there,
so what could I do? The child was tortured. The child was raped. The child
was mutilated. The child suffered but I heard no cries, and I saw only the
flashgun's frozen tableaux, a sequence of badly made waxworks. The killer and
I arranged each shot with care. He waited patiently while the flash
recharged, and while I changed rolls. He was a consummate model: each pose he
struck appeared completely natural, utterly spontaneous. I didn't notice just
when the child actually died. I only noticed when I ran out of film. It was
then that I looked around at the houses on the street and saw half a dozen
couples, peeking through their bedroom windows and stifling yawns. He sprinted
away when the police arrived. They didn't pursue him in the car; one officer
loped off after him, the other knelt to examine the remains, then walked up
to me. He tipped his head at my camera. тАЬGot it all, did you?тАЭ I nodded.
Accomplice, accomplice, accomplice. How could I ever explain, let alone try
to excuse, my inaction? тАЬFantastic. Well done.тАЭ Two more police cars appeared,
and then the officer who'd gone in pursuit came marching up the street,
pushing the hand-cuffed killer ahead of him. The best of the photographs
were published widely, even shown on TV (тАЬthe following scenes may disturb
some viewersтАЭ). A thousand law-abiding citizens rioted outside the
courthouse, burning and slashing effigies, when he appeared to be placed on
remand. He was killed in his cell a week before the trial was due to start. He
was tortured, raped and mutilated first. He must have been expecting to die,
because he had written out a will: Burn my body and scatter my ashes from a
high place. Only then will I be happy. Only then will I find peace. They did
it for him, too. He has a special place on my wall now, and I never tire of
reviewing it. The whole process can be seen at a glance. How the tabloids