• Пожаловаться

Barry Maitland: Babel

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Barry Maitland: Babel» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Полицейский детектив / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Barry Maitland Babel

Babel: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Babel»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Barry Maitland: другие книги автора


Кто написал Babel? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Babel — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Babel», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

‘You mean you don’t want me reporting on you to David? I promise. He won’t hear about it from me.’

Kathy appreciated the other woman’s concern, but didn’t tell her that she’d got it wrong. It wasn’t her talent she was worried about, but something altogether more critical. She thought of Bren in the pub, that last time she’d seen them all, and how utterly reliable he had appeared to her. That was what had gone, her reliability. She had lost her nerve, and without it she was as useless to them as a spent battery. They got up to leave, and Kathy glanced again at the photo of Brock in the paper, wondering what it was that had attracted his attention away to the left.

2

T he most striking thing, Brock had thought, when he’d first arrived, was the public nature of the crime. This was no private violence in some dark corner, but a public execution staged before a large audience. The body had lain sprawled theatrically halfway down a monumental flight of steps, the image like a still from The Battleship Potemkin, with a trail of blood leading back up the flight, and clumps of students and police standing in immobilised groups beneath the glare of lights. He turned from his conversation with Bren to look away to his left across the curve of the Thames, towards the Millennium Dome glowing huge in the winter twilight, and at that moment a press cameraman caught him in his flash. They were practically on the newspapers’ doorstep here, and the reporters had arrived quickly, attracted perhaps by this public nature of the death. He gave them a few non-committal comments, then told the uniforms to move the cordon further back.

He hadn’t even heard of this university, the University of Central London East, or UCLE, nor been aware that there was a campus here in this area of the Docklands, and at first there had been confusion with the University of East London, further east in the old Royal Albert Dock. It hadn’t been here long, by the look of it, one among the host of new construction projects that had blossomed eastward along the river in the past few years. The cascade of steps, the flanking cantilevered lecture theatres, the squat curved tower of the central administration, the primary colours and gleaming stainless steel panelling, all seemed to Brock to protest an aggressive claim to identity, as if compelled to compete with the brash office towers of Canary Wharf, glittering Manhattan-like over there to the west. And for a moment, after he’d taken this all in, he’d been tempted to think that the stagey murder scene too might be some kind of pose, a publicity stunt perhaps, and that the old man sprawled so artfully on the steps might at any moment leap to his feet to the cheers of his rapt audience.

But his death was real enough, two shots to the heart, the medical examiner suggested, at very close range, which corresponded with what most of the witnesses thought they’d heard or seen.

‘Inspector! Inspector Gurney!’ The uniformed officer further up the steps was holding back a young woman who appeared to be trying to reach them. Bren loped up and bent to listen to what they were saying. Brock was struck by her pale elfin face, distressed, framed by short-cropped black hair, eyes wide and ringed with dark. He turned away to hear another detective’s report on the assailant’s description, as compiled from the accounts of a dozen students who had seen him: medium height, slim build, probably, but wearing a bulky anorak-style coat with hood covering the head, dark jeans, face obscured by a dark mask or balaclava, description of shoes too variable to be reliable. He was young, they all agreed, because of the agile way he skipped down the steps and ran off along the entry concourse towards the university entrance and the city beyond. And they all said ‘he’, although they couldn’t say for sure why they assumed it was a male. No one could recall seeing the gun, a revolver, the police assumed, since there had been no sign of the spent cartridge cases.

Brock sighed. ‘Put it out. It’s all we’ve got for now. Let’s hope the camera can tell us more.’ He glanced up again at the security camera that scanned the steps. If it had been working properly they should have a complete ringside record of the event.

And there was a curious detail from just one of the witnesses, a young man who had been climbing the steps about ten yards behind the victim. He had been watching the assailant coming down the flight before he reached the old man, because he had noticed the mask beneath the hood and been startled by it. So he had his eyes on the murderer’s face at the moment when he had struck, and he was convinced that he had spoken, had said something to the victim just before he closed in and put his left arm round the old man’s shoulder, quite gently, and raised his right hand to his chest and fired twice, then stepped away to let him tumble back down the steps.

Bren rejoined him, a young man in a sharp suit at his heels. ‘The girl was a student of his, name of Briony Kidd, didn’t witness it, but says she knew him quite well. I said we might want to talk to her later. This bloke insists on having a word, Brock.’

The young man introduced himself as the President’s Executive Officer.

‘President?’ Brock asked.

‘Yes, of the university. The head.’

‘I thought they were called vice-chancellors.’

The young man gave a knowing little smile. ‘Not any more, at least not here. We prefer the American title.

Professor Young sent me down to see if you’d like to meet with him now. You are in charge, I take it?’

Brock looked around at the activity on the steps, then nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

‘And the President did ask if your men could be instructed not to make any statements to the media until you’ve had a chance to discuss things with him.’

Brock looked coolly at him. ‘They won’t be.’

‘Good.’ Then, as if conscious that some note of accommodation might be appropriate, he added, ‘This is quite shocking, isn’t it? We really have no precedent for it. I’m sure we all hope it can be quickly resolved. You’ll have our full cooperation, naturally.’

They walked along the dockside concourse to the foot of the Central Administration Tower and into a lobby of blond wood, stainless steel and recessed lighting, like a rather modish cocktail bar, Brock thought. A lift took them to the top floor, where a secretary led them into a spacious office dominated by a large brushed steel desk whose curved front echoed the curve of the glass wall behind, which, stretching the full width of the room, offered a spectacular night-time panorama of the Thames, from the Millennium Dome on the left to the pyramidal peak of the tower at Canary Wharf on the right. A couple of ships were visible on the black ribbon of the river, and in the distance the lights of Greenwich and South London faded into a bank of mist moving up from the south. A powerfully built man with a thick mop of fair hair rose from his seat behind the desk, and advanced forcefully towards them.

‘Roderick Young,’ he growled softly, fixing Brock with an intent stare and gripping his hand hard.

‘Detective Chief Inspector David Brock.’ The room was warm, and Brock eased off his coat which was immediately swept up by the young Executive Officer, who removed it to a wardrobe disguised behind a panel of blond veneer.

‘Chief Inspector, we are very shocked by this. There really is no precedent for it. I’m sure we all hope it can be resolved quickly, and you can rely on our full cooperation, naturally.’ Brock recognised the exact words the younger man had used earlier, as though over-tutored. The President waved them to seats in front of the desk while he returned to his place with his back to the panorama, as if to say, You may find this spectacular view distracting, but I am entirely focused on more important things.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Babel»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Babel» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Barry Maitland: The Marx Sisters
The Marx Sisters
Barry Maitland
Barry Maitland: Silvermeadow
Silvermeadow
Barry Maitland
Barry Maitland: The verge practice
The verge practice
Barry Maitland
Barry Maitland: No trace
No trace
Barry Maitland
Barry Maitland: The Malcontenta
The Malcontenta
Barry Maitland
Barry Maitland: Bright Air
Bright Air
Barry Maitland
Отзывы о книге «Babel»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Babel» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.