A Thing of Blood Read Online Free

your troubles, Will. I hope you don’t mind.’
    ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it would cheer him up, take his mind off the bombs.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I tried to make it amusing.’
    Only the fact that her eyes suddenly filled with tears prevented me from expressing my irritation that the most traumatic incidents of my life had been turned into comedy for the amusement of my little brother.
    I retired to my old room. It had been repainted and redecorated, and there was no evidence that I had occupied this space until the age of twenty-two. I lay in the dark, but I couldn’t sleep. Not unreasonably, I was troubled by the lie I had told Paul Clutterbuck regarding my credentials. He had hired me to investigate some matter on the understanding that I was in fact competent to do so. Well, I thought, how difficult can it be? Perhaps he wants me to follow someone. Any fool could do that. He was obviously a respectable man, so whatever it was I doubted it was criminal in nature. No. As I began to doze I settled on the idea that it was most likely to be of a delicate, personal nature. Cherchez la femme were the last words that ran through my mind before sleep finally overtook me.
    The next sound I heard was the cliché of a piercing scream, followed by the inevitable crash of tumbling chinaware. Let me assure you, though, that the real thing can make your hair stand on end, cliché or not. I pitched into the darkness of the hall and heard Brian yelling from the top of the stairs, ‘Darlene! Darlene!’, and in such an hysterical, chilling manner that my heart almost stopped. I suddenly felt very cold. I followed him downstairs — he fell down them rather than ran down them — and entered the kitchen a few seconds behind him. I switched on the light. Brian was standing, wearing only his pyjama bottoms, his mouth agape. Broken plates and cups lay strewn on the floor and a smear of blood headed out the open back door. Mother came into the kitchen.
    ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, her voice taut.
    Brian numbly replied, ‘Darlene came down to get some milk’ — as if this explained anything.
    I ran out the back door. There was very little moonlight but it was obvious that nobody was in the garden. The gate which gave access to the cobbled lane behind the house was ajar, but there was no sign of anyone to the left or right. I returned to the kitchen to find Brian sitting at the table, his head in his hands, and with our mother standing behind him. He looked at me, his face contorted by panic.
    ‘Darlene’s been kidnapped,’ he said.
    ‘Why would anyone kidnap Darlene?’
    Brian, with despair yowling in every syllable, said, ‘That letter you got on the train. It wasn’t meant for you. It was meant for me.’
    ‘You’re fucking joking.’
    ‘Please don’t swear, Will,’ my mother said.

Chapter Three
    a fine mess

    THE CLOSEST POLICE STATION was only a few blocks away in Fenwick Street, but after alerting the coppers to what had happened it was three quarters of an hour before an officer knocked on the door. While we were waiting, Mother and I heard a confession from a severely, almost catatonically, agitated Brian that was so bizarre and unexpected that I couldn’t marry it with the brother I thought I knew. At first Brian sat in silence — not sullen silence, but stunned silence. I suppose that he was aware that when he began speaking nothing would ever be the same for him again.
    ‘So the letter was meant for you,’ I said.
    He nodded.
    ‘And the person who hit you? That wasn’t a case of mistaken identity?’
    He shook his head.
    I folded my arms and allowed a small rush of self-righteousness to wash away the anxiety I should have been feeling about Darlene’s safety. Just for a delicious moment. Our mother, with practised acuity, said, ‘You had an affair with someone in Maryborough.’
    Brian looked at her as if she were clairvoyant.
    ‘Yes,’ he said.
    ‘Was it a man or a