Both of us remembered, all too well, Wim’s last words to us when he said he’d kill himself. But his leg might have got better, might have been completely mended, strong again and supple. Liv (or so we thought then) might have found him or he her. Silver set himself the task of searching for Smiths or Van de Smiths in London electoral registers, but the former were legion and the latter nonexistent.

We tell ourselves that someday we’ll find him. We refuse to believe in his death. Perhaps, if he sees my advertisements or reads Silver’s name in a Famaid story, he’ll find us. But I’ll have no news of him for Silver when his taxi arrives, any minute now, and he comes up to me in the lift.

I’m looking down now from my roof garden. The taxi has just turned in. Before he pays the driver or starts to get his bags out, he looks up straight into the sun to wave to me. And I wave back and run to open the front door.

Also by Barbara Vine

Also by Barbara Vine

A Dark-Adapted Eye
A Fatal Inversion
The House of Stairs
Gallowglass
King Solomon’s Carpet
Anna’s Book
No Night Is Too Long
The Brimstone Wedding
The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy

About the Author

BARBARA VINE

GRASSHOPPER

The author of numerous novels, including A Dark-Adapted Eye, Anna’s Book, and The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy, Barbara Vine is a pen name of Ruth Rendell. Rendell has won many awards, including three Edgars and four Gold Daggers. She lives in London, England.

Copyright Page

FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JUNE 2002

Copyright © 2000 by Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd.

Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of
Random House, Inc.

Stephen Spender’s “The Pylons” is taken from Collected Poems, 1928–1985, Faber & Faber Ltd. The
extract on page 47 is reproduced by permission of the publisher.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Harmony edition as follows:
Vine, Barbara.
Grasshopper / Barbara Vine.—1st American ed.
1. London (England)—Fiction. 2. Climbing specialists—Fiction. 3. Young women—
Fiction. I. Title.
PR6068.E63 G72 2000
823’.914—dc21

eISBN: 978-0-307-42609-3

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