"Christopher Priest - The Prestige" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

"I noticed it was written by someone called Borden."
"Yes. Did she say anything about that?"
"No. I don't think so."
After we had hung up I put the book in my case and stared through the train window at the
passing countryside. The sky was grey, and rain was streaking the glass. I had to concentrate on
the incident I was being sent to investigate. I worked for the _Chronicle_, specifically as a general
features writer, a label which was grander than the reality. The true state of affairs was that Dad
was himself a newspaperman, and had formerly worked for the Manchester _Evening Post_, a
sister paper to the _Chronicle_. It was a matter of pride to him that I had obtained the job, even
though I have always suspected him of pulling strings for me. I am not a fluent journalist, and
have not done well in the training programme I have been following. One of my serious long-term
worries is that one day I am going to have to explain to my father why I have quit what he
considers to be a prestigious job on the greatest British newspaper.
In the meantime, I struggle unwillingly on. Covering the incident I was travelling to was partly
the consequence of another story I had filed several months earlier, about a group of UFO
enthusiasts. Since then Len Wickham, my supervising editor, had assigned me to any story that
involved witches" covens, levitation, spontaneous combustion, crop circles, and other fringe
subjects. In most cases, I had already discovered, once you went into these things properly there
was generally not much to say about them, and remarkably few of the stories I filed were ever
printed. Even so, Wickham continued to send me off to cover them.
There was an extra twist this time. With some relish, Wickham informed me that someone
from the sect had phoned to ask if the _Chronicle_ was planning to cover the story, and if so had
asked for me in person. They had seen some of my earlier articles, thought I showed the right
degree of honest scepticism, and could therefore be relied on for a forthright article. In spite of
this, or perhaps because of it, it seemed likely to prove yet another dud.
A Californian religious sect called the Rapturous Church of Christ Jesus had established a
community in a large country house in a Derbyshire village. One of the women members had
died of natural causes a few days earlier. Her GP was present, as was her daughter. As she lay


4
paralysed, on the point of death, a man had entered the room. He stood beside the bed and
made soothing gestures with his hands. The woman died soon after, and the man immediately
left the room without speaking to the other two. He was not seen afterwards. He had been
recognized by the woman's daughter, and by two members of the sect who had come into the
room while he was there, as the man who had founded the sect. This was Father Patrick
Franklin, and the sect had grown up around him because of his claimed ability to bilocate.
The incident was newsworthy for two reasons. It was the first of Franklin's bilocations to have
been witnessed by non-members of the sect, one of whom happened to be a professional
woman with a local reputation. And the other reason was that Franklin's whereabouts on the day
in question could be firmly established: he was known to be an inmate of the California State
Penitentiary, and as Sonja had just confirmed to me on the phone he was still there.




2


The community was established on the outskirts of the Peak District village of Caldlow, once