Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12 - Derek Landy страница 3
Название: Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12
Автор: Derek Landy
Издательство: HarperCollins
isbn: 9780008318215
isbn:
Stephanie passed the shelves which housed the first editions of Gordon’s novels and approached the desk. She looked at the chair where he’d died, trying to imagine him there, how he must have slumped. And then, a voice so smooth it could have been made of velvet:
“At least he died doing what he loved.”
She turned, surprised, to see the man from the funeral in the overcoat and hat standing in the doorway. The scarf was still wrapped, the sunglasses still on, the fuzzy hair still poking out. His hands were gloved.
“Yes,” Stephanie said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “At least there’s that.”
“You’re one of his nieces then?” the man asked. “You’re not stealing anything, you’re not breaking anything, so I’d guess you’re Stephanie.” She nodded and took the opportunity to look at him more closely. She couldn’t see even the tiniest bit of his face beneath the scarf and sunglasses.
“Were you a friend of his?” she asked. He was tall, this man, tall and thin, though his coat made it difficult to judge.
“I was,” he answered with a move of his head. This slight movement made her realise that the rest of his body was unnaturally still. “I’ve known him for years, met him outside a bar in New York when I was over there, back when he had just published his first novel.”
Stephanie couldn’t see anything behind the sunglasses – they were black as pitch. “Are you a writer too?”
“Me? No, I wouldn’t know where to start. But I got to live out my writer fantasies through Gordon.”
“You had writer fantasies?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Oh. Then that would make me seem kind of odd, wouldn’t it?”
“Well,” Stephanie answered. “It would help.”
“Gordon used to talk about you all the time, boast about his little niece. He was an individual of character, your uncle. It seems that you are too.”
“You say that like you know me.”
“Strong-willed, intelligent, sharp-tongued, doesn’t suffer fools gladly… remind you of anyone?”
“Yes. Gordon.”
“Interesting,” said the man. “Because those are the exact words he used to describe you.” His gloved fingers dipped into his waistcoat and brought out an ornate pocket watch on a delicate gold chain.
“Good luck in whatever you decide to do with your life.”
“Thank you,” Stephanie said, a little dumbly. “You too.”
She felt the man smile, though she could see no mouth, and he turned from the doorway and left her there. Stephanie found she couldn’t take her eyes off where he had been. Who was he? She hadn’t even got his name.
She crossed over to the door and stepped out, wondering how he had vanished from sight so quickly. She hurried down the stairs and reached the large hall without seeing him. She opened the front door just as a big black car turned out on to the road. She watched him drive away, stayed there for a few moments, then reluctantly rejoined her extended family in the living room, just in time to see Fergus slip a silver ashtray into his breast pocket.
THE WILL
Her first year of secondary school had just come to a close and she was looking forward to the summer break. Stephanie didn’t like school. She found it difficult to get along with her classmates – not because they weren’t nice people, but simply because she had nothing in common with them. And she didn’t like teachers. She didn’t like the way they demanded respect they hadn’t earned. Stephanie had no problem doing what she was told, just so long as she was given a good reason why she should.
She had spent the first few days of the summer helping out her father, answering phones and sorting through the files in his office. Gladys, his secretary of seven years, had decided she’d had enough of the construction business and wanted to try her hand as a performance artist. Stephanie found it vaguely discomfiting whenever she passed her on the street, this forty-three-year-old woman doing a modern dance interpretation of Faust. Gladys had made herself a costume to go with the act, a costume, she said, that symbolised the internal struggle Faust was going through, and apparently she refused to be seen in public without it. Stephanie did her best to avoid catching Gladys’s eye.
If Stephanie wasn’t helping out in the office, she was either down at the beach, swimming, or locked in her room listening to music. She was in her room, trying to find the charger for her mobile phone, when her mother knocked on the door and stepped in. She was still dressed in the sombre clothes she had worn to the funeral, though Stephanie had tied back her long dark hair and changed into her usual jeans and trainers within two minutes of returning to the house.
“We got a call from Gordon’s solicitor,” her mother said, sounding a little surprised. “They want us at the reading of the will.”
“Oh,” Stephanie responded. “What do you think he left you?”
“Well, we’ll find out tomorrow. You too, because you’re coming with us.”
“I am?” Stephanie said with a slight frown.
“Your name’s on the list, that’s all I know. We’re leaving at ten, OK?”
“I’m supposed to be helping Dad in the morning.”
“He called Gladys, asked her to fill in for a few hours, as a favour. She said yes, as long as she could wear the peanut suit.”
They left for the solicitor’s at a quarter past ten the next morning, fifteen minutes later than planned thanks to Stephanie’s father’s casual disregard for punctuality. He ambled through the house, looking like there was something he’d forgotten and he was just waiting for it to occur to him again. He nodded and smiled whenever his wife told him to hurry up, said “Yes, absolutely,” and just before he was due to join them in the car, he meandered off again, looking around with a dazed expression.
“He does this on purpose,” Stephanie’s mother said as they sat in the car, seatbelts on and ready to go. They watched him appear at the front door, shrug into his jacket, tuck in his shirt, go СКАЧАТЬ