"David Langford - The Motivation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Langford David)

consider bubbly ornaments in red and gray as something more than inorganic lumps,
more than the polished haematite they called kidney ore; to trace what must have
been done here and here with surgical delicacy; to wonder -- try not to wonder -- just
when in the painstaking process Kenneth Quinn had actually died...
Prints and envelopes spilled to the floor as Peter jerked up from his squatting
position. He made it to the sink in time; the sight of his own thin vomit crawling
across the stained and spotted enamel seemed relatively wholesome, like those
bracing whiffs of outside pollution in the sweaty shop. // I'd seen it in a movie it
would have been all right, a guaranteed fake. The rest was a long anticlimax of
cleaning, tidying, drinking many mugs of water, which rinsed the aftertaste only
partly, from his mouth and not at all from his mind. After which the bus was long
gone and Peter walked two miles to his bed-sitter; for reasons which stayed
persistently cloudy, he took one packet of the photographs with him.


That night and in the shop next day, he resolutely thought of other things; but
from time to time some detail of the material he sold would tweak at his memory and
make him flinch. The hot gloom of the shop was conducive (in idle periods) to
thoughts of Lambertstow and his uncle -- his mother's brother, vaguely isolated from
the family as "not one of our sort," maternal condemnation of one who remained a
mere farmhand while she became a typist and married an accountant.
Peter had enjoyed Uncle Owen: he remembered jokes, erratic conjuring tricks,
and hilarious chases in the woods near Lambertstow. He'd been ten, perhaps
younger. He'd been eleven when the something happened, and that part of life had
gone dark. Uncle Owen had died a few years later but might as well have died then.
Thinking back, Peter saw that mere geographical connection with infamy was enough
to make mother sever all links, a theater nurse rejecting contact with the unsterile. Her
mind worked that way.
He wondered whether he himself had met Quinn in those days of clear air and
sharp colors. No memories presented themselves. He fancied that local kids had
mentioned Quinn as one of their teachers, and that they'd liked him well enough.
Peter at ten had been bored by such chat, impatient to talk about really interesting
teachers like his own.


In the evening, the local library kept late hours. Peter spent some time
searching through aged newspapers. Their dry old smell was very different from that
of the damp room behind the shop, soporific rather than choking. His first guess at
dates hadn't been too far out; in a few months the tragedy and mystery would be a
decade old. He made notes of such scanty details as the papers gave, and for the
fiftieth time began to plan a clever debut in journalism.
Ten years since Lambertstow horror, he wrote.
Motive for ghastly crime never revealed, but Quinn said to be disliked in
neighborhood. Strong feelings in Lambertstow got what he deserved, so reporters
claimed after probing locals. Body at edge of wood, confused footmarks in grass,
several people involved?? Ritual sacrifice etc. etc. hinted as per usual. No evidence.
Filed unsolved (presumably), only Quinn somehow left with bad name. How so?
Graffiti, local mood, anonymous letters. Smear bid, whispering campaign, and
grass-roots stuff. Some called Quinn in parish even changed name, cf. people called
Crippen. Definitely impression Q got just deserts. But what did he do?