Chapters (49)
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Also by Graham Hurley
- LIMELIGHT
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- AFTERWARDS
Evelyn gets the same treatment. The pair of us settle at a table in the corner of the bar, while I try yet again to get hold of my errant son. Is he really getting married, as Sylvester seems to believe? And if so, when? His number rings and rings, and in the end I have to leave a message that’s more curt than I’d like. Married already? Ring me.
I reach for my glass, returning to the business in hand. Mitch is already working the room, towed from introduction to introduction by the tireless Nathan. This is fascinating. Mitch is clearly an outsider, a virus in Budleigh’s body politic. Nathan, on the other hand, has an almost imperial presence, touching arm after arm, ignoring the archest of glances and side looks at Mitch, encouraging conversations, validating his guest’s abrupt appearance in this most familiar of settings. A friend of mine, he seems to be saying. Talk to him. Lower your guard. Make him feel at home. In a bygone age, yonks ago, Nathan might have been walking in front of one of those early steam engines, carrying a red flag. Take care, but give thanks. This new creature in all our lives won’t hurt you. Au contraire.
I’ve never seen Nathan like this, performing with such guile, and as I watch I begin to understand what must have made him such a successful QC. He has, after all, got the common touch. He’s also a superb salesman. Mitch’s boots? Mitch’s beard? The way he bends into a new conversation, immediately engaged, listening, nodding, filing everything away in that giant brain of his? No problem. For a day or two, after the cliff fall, this is the way life’s going to be. This is one of our brighter scribblers. Enjoy the man. Talk to him.
And they do. Evelyn’s aware of it, as well. In a whispered aside she confesses that this is the first time she’s been to the golf club, but scanning the bar, she identifies face after face. A leading neurologist, recently retired, with a handsome spread in the same avenue as Bill. The new owner of the loveliest address in East Terrace, a rumoured financial wizard who recently sold his Mayfair-based hedge fund for untold trillions and acquired a trophy American wife after the briefest dalliance on the Aspen ski slopes. A rag trade entrepreneur, absurdly young-looking, who apparently made a fortune in high-end sportswear.