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

On a second sheet of scrap paper: Personal. Uncle O mentioned nowhere, no
remote connection; Mother didn't even need that much excuse. Papers evasive on
details of what was done; no pics (not surprising). Surgical knowledge needed?
Artist too, sort of. Maybe approach through doctor.
There was no third sheet, which might have carried such notes as Why am I
doing this? And led into a complicated mire. Peter was happy to have something to
do, something to test his talent against, something outside the fascinating dead-end
of the shop. Working toward truth had to be a virtue, whatever awkward thoughts
came knocking... Some people drove hundreds of miles to gape at seagulls choking
and dying in oil slicks; some crowded about road accidents and pointed out to each
other the interesting red stains on the asphalt; some holidayed in Germany and were
careful not to miss the celebrated resorts -- Buchenwald, Dachau. In his grimy room,
which was at least grimy through use rather than decay, Peter remembered and
recited his mother's charm against idle speculation:


The centipede was happy quite
Until a frog in fun
Said "Pray which leg goes after which?"
This raised its mind to such a pitch that
It lay distracted in the ditch,
Considering how to run.
Local color was the thing. On the Exeter train, he skimmed the only book
about the case, which the library could offer. He Must Be Wicked To Deserve Such
Pain; an essay on enormity. Though the title quotation, which Peter thought might be
Shakespeare, summed up neatly enough that feeling about Quinn, he found the text
disappointing. The aristocratic lady author was more concerned with a generic
"sickness of society," and with how shops like Benson's led inevitably down the
primrose path to this sort of thing, than with the event itself. Like the magazines Peter
sold, she promised more than could ever be delivered. He slapped the book shut in
irritation, in guilty disappointment, on the closing quotation: "Whereof one cannot
speak, thereon one must remain silent."
Local color, he told himself, and wondered if he were telling the truth. One
should be able to sit at ease in north London and read up on anything. But during the
long wait for a bus at Exeter, he had to admit to himself that it would be interesting
to try and reach Dr. Janice Barry, mentioned in the papers as the Lainbertstow GP.
Certain questions might have gone unasked, ten years back, and he wanted to ask
them. The prospect was utterly terrifying; but proper reporters had to ask people
awkward questions and so he supposed he must as well. He wore mirror sunglasses,
which he hoped would give him confidence by making him unreadable.
Coffee on the train had left a sour taint in his mouth, which as the leisurely bus
wobbled through suburbs and lanes gave him an illusion of having recently vomited.
Flies buzzed in the smoky heat of the upper deck, aimless and happy. Peter crushed
one against the window.
Lambertstow was bigger than remembered; defying the clich├й of childhood
haunts seeming absurdly tiny when revisited. The village had grown, or had been
blotted out, its approaches a maze of new estates. Peter rode through layers of
accretion to the old High Street at the heart of it all, and peered uncertainly at
ordinariness. So late, so long after the event, all witnesses scattered or lost in hiding
places ten years deep... The phone directory was the obvious starting point, he