• Пожаловаться

Грег Иган: The Nearest

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Грег Иган: The Nearest» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. год выпуска: 2018, категория: Детективная фантастика / Фантастика и фэнтези / short_story / 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:

Грег Иган The Nearest

The Nearest: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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

When a detective, a new mother, is assigned to the case of a horrific triple murder, it appears to be a self-contained domestic tragedy, a terrible event but something that doesn’t affect the rest of the community. But it slowly becomes clear that something much darker may be at play, something that spreads out from the scene of the crime to corrode the closest relationships of everyone it touches.

Грег Иган: другие книги автора


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

The Nearest — 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 «The Nearest», 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

There was no more frenzy here than there had been with Robert: a single wound, positioned with care, had done the job. If not for the improvised weapon, it could almost have been a professional hit. A mother in the grip of psychotic depression was more likely to drown her children, or feed them sedatives—and then join them in the darkness herself. What kind of delusion would it take to make a woman kill the people she loved, and neither soften the act with some degree of faux gentleness, nor explode in uncontrollable rage, but just dispatch them, methodically and efficiently, with whatever tools were to hand?

“Go on,” she told Tim.

The scene in Isabel’s room was almost the same, the modus operandi identical. A bloody handprint had been left on the doorframe; unwrapped by the software, its size was consistent with a woman of Natalie’s stature, which Tim had estimated at around one hundred and forty-five centimeters from wedding photographs on display in the living room. Still, a hypothetical intruder need not have been particularly large or strong, especially if they had an accomplice to help keep Natalie from intervening. If there was no apparent motive for malevolent strangers to do any of this, nor was there one for Natalie herself.

“Any meds visible?” Kate asked.

Tim shook his head. But the drones couldn’t weave their way into every closed drawer and childproof cabinet in the house. “We could go for the sewerage pipes and do a metabolite analysis,” he suggested.

“That’s too slow.” Getting access to the family’s medical records would probably take even longer. Either Natalie was severely ill, and a danger to anyone she encountered, or she’d been abducted and was in danger herself; Kate needed to know which it was. “Can you plot me a route to check the likely places?” Once she set foot in the house, there was nothing she could do to avoid contaminating the scene to some degree, but if she did as she was told it would be easier for the system to subtract her out of the picture.

She put on a plastic suit, gloves, cap and booties, then approached the front door with her notepad in her hand, displaying the path for her to follow.

The door had been left open, wide enough that Kate didn’t need to touch it. She glanced back and saw a smear of blood on the inside handle. She walked straight down the entrance hall, past the living room, and turned into the kitchen. There were four drawers and three cabinets that the swarm had been unable to infiltrate, and one of the cabinets contained an assortment of over-the-counter painkillers, laxatives, antacids and allergy treatments. But there was no prescription medication, let alone antipsychotics.

She followed the path through to the bathroom, but the one unexamined cabinet there held nothing but cosmetics, shampoo and shaving cream.

Suddenly, she heard something slam against the back door of the house, and a dog began barking and whining. Kate spoke into her notepad. “Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a dog out back, going crazy. What’s the best thing I can do?” The drones hadn’t scanned the back yard yet.

“If you think you can calm it down without letting it into the house, that would be better than having it tearing up the lawn.”

“Okay.”

Kate followed her new route on the schematic, walking through the laundry room and up to the back door. It needed no key to open from the inside; she unlatched it, and positioned her body to block access as she came out.

The dog was a golden retriever, waist-high to her. It barked loudly but didn’t attack. As she emerged, closing the door behind her, it started running in circles, making a pitiful sound.

Kate squatted down, put her notepad on the ground and held out her hands. “Shh. Come here, it’s all right!”

The dog approached her, wagging its tail and barking. “It’s all right!” Kate repeated soothingly. The dog was wearing a collar; if she could get hold of it, she was fairly sure she could keep the animal still. “Come here!” She took off her gloves and cap and stuffed them down the front of her suit, hoping she’d look more human.

The dog came right up to her and pressed its head against the side of her body, whimpering. “Shh.” She stroked its head and got her hand around the collar. It struggled for a moment, but then gave up and sat, resting its head on her knee.

Kate was about to call the local animal shelter, but then she had another idea. “Tim?”

“Yes.”

“Can you ask Diane Grimes if she wants to take the dog for a while?”

“Will do.”

Kate looked out across the yard; there was a swing set, an above-ground swimming pool, and in the rear, a veritable forest of fig trees, like some enchanted grove out of a fairy tale. The girls would have been in heaven here.

She started weeping silently. The dog tried to pull away, then changed its mind and jumped up, licking her face. Kate tugged on the collar and dragged it back down, then got herself under control.

Tim said, “Yeah, she’ll take it. Bring it round through the side gate on your right, over the concrete path. That’ll do the least damage.”

2

As Kate pulled into the driveway, she heard Reza enunciating excitedly, “Look who’s home! Look who’s home! Look. Who. Is. Home!

Before she’d opened the car door, he came out onto the porch with Michael, who was peering toward her, unfocused but tentatively smiling. “Say khosh amadi, maamaan!” Reza urged him. “Welcome to our house.”

Kate said, “Now you’re just being sarcastic.”

Reza grinned. “Sorry.” Kate kissed him, then took Michael in her arms; he flapped his own arms excitedly, then beamed at her and started babbling.

“Someone still appreciates me.” Kate kissed her son’s cheek three times, as noisily as she could, and Reza held the door open for her as she walked into the hall.

“Do you want me to take him for a bit while you unwind?” Reza asked her.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Okay, I’ll start cooking.”

Kate sat in the kitchen, gazing into Michael’s face, engrossed by his responses to her monologue of flattering rhetorical questions. “Who is the most beautiful boy? Can you guess who that is?” Sometimes her words seemed to amuse him, sometimes he frowned in puzzlement. But so long as he was content, watching him was like floating in a warm, tranquil pool—and with the scent of herbs frying and the sound of the gentle sizzling of oil, she felt as if she’d been transported into some otherworldly paradise, as remote from the place she’d just left as waking life from a dream.

After a while, Michael closed his eyes, but Kate let him sleep in her arms until dinner was ready, then she put him down in his cot and joined Reza to eat.

“I’m glad you could get home before he slept,” Reza said. “Have things quietened down at all?”

“Yes, though not in a good way. We still haven’t found the missing woman.” Kate didn’t want to talk about the case, or even think about it for the next twelve hours if she could help it. “How was the bundle of joy today?” she asked.

“Joyous as ever. I think it’s going to take some serious teething before he can be bothered losing his cool.”

“I don’t know where he gets that equanimity from,” Kate marveled.

Reza frowned. “There’s only one possibility, surely?”

Kate wiped her plate clean with the last piece of bread and leaned back in her chair. “That was delicious. Thank you.”

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Nearest»

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


Отзывы о книге «The Nearest»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Nearest» 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.