"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 01 - The Family Trade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

newspaper pages too, you know. It caused quite a stir." Miriam made a face. "I
know you're not interested," Iris said placatingly. "Humour me. There's a box."
"A box."
"A pink and green shoebox. Sitting on the second shelf of your father's bureau
in the guest bedroom upstairs. Do me a favour and fetch it down, will you?"
"Just for you."
Miriam found the box easily enough. It rattled when she picked it up and carried
it, smelling of mothballs, down to the living room. Iris had picked up her
crochet again and
was pulling knots with an expression of fierce concentration. "Dr. Hare told me
to work on it," she said without looking up. "It helps preserve hand-eye
coordination."
"I see." Miriam put the box down on the sofa. "What's this one?"
"A Klein-bottle cosy." Iris looked up defensively at Miriam's snort. "You should
laugh! In this crazy inside-out world, we must take our comforts from crazy
inside-out places."
"You and Dad." Miriam waved it off. "Both crazy inside-out sorts of people."
"Bleeding hearts, you mean," Iris echoed ominously. "People who refuse to bottle
it all up, who live life on the outside, whoтАФ" she glanced aroundтАФ "end up
growing old disgracefully." She sniffed. "Stop me before I reminisce again. Open
the box!"
Miriam obeyed. It was half-full of yellowing, carefully folded newsprint and
elderly photocopies of newspaper stories. Then there was a paper bag and some
certificates and pieces of formal paperwork made up the rest of its contents.
"The bag contained stuff that was found with your birth-mother by the police,"
Iris explained. "Personal effects. They had to keep the clothing as evidence,
but nobody ever came forward and after a while they passed the effects on to
Morris for safekeeping. There's a locket of your mother's in thereтАФI think you
ought to keep it in a safe place for now; I think it's probably quite valuable.
The papersтАФit was a terrible thing. Terrible."
Miriam unfolded the uppermost sheet; it crackled slightly with age as she read
it. unknown woman found stabbed, baby taken into custody. It gave her a most
peculiar feeling. She'd known about it for many years, of course, but this was
like seeing it for the first time in a history book, written down in black and
white. "They still don't know who she was?" Miriam asked.
"Why should they?" Iris looked at her oddly. "Sometimes they can reopen the case
when new evidence comes to light, or do DNA testing, but after thirty-two years
most of the
witnesses will have moved away or died. The police officers who first looked
into it will have retired. Probably nothing happens unless a new lead comes up.
Say, they find another body or someone confesses years later. It's just one of
those terrible things that sometimes happen to people. The only unusual thing
about it was you." She looked at Miriam fondly.
"Why they let two radicals, one of them a resident alien and both of them into
antiwar protests and stuff like that, adopt a babyтАФ" Miriam shook her head. Then
she grinned. "Did they think I would slow you down or something?"
"Possibly, possibly. But I don't remember being asked any questions about our
politics when we went to the adoption agencyтАФit was much easier to adopt in
those days. They didn't ask much about our background except whether we were
married. We didn't save the newspapers at the time, by the way. Morris bought