Bleak Spring Read Online Free Page A

married?”
    â€œDivorced.”
    â€œHow long were you married?”
    â€œEighteen months.”
    â€œ Not long enough. You’ll learn, Carl. About wives, I mean.”
    He left Ellsworth and walked across to his car. He leant on the roof, cold as ice under the wind, and looked at the scene, at the silver Volvo at the centre of it. For the next few days, maybe weeks, this was where his attention and effort would be focused. As the officer in charge of Homicide, Regional Crime Squad, South Region, he would be supervising other murders, but this one would be his major concern. On the other side of the world an empire was falling apart; putty-faced old men had attempted to turn the clock back in a last-minute coup, only to find the clock had no works; hundreds of thousands of people were filling the squares of Moscow and Leningrad and Kiev, filling the world’s television screens: the century was going out as it had begun, in turmoil. The murder of Will Rockne would not be marked as history, but it had to be witnessed, recorded, and, maybe, solved.
    He got into the Commodore and drove towards home, where the effects of history were peripheral.
    III
    He went to early Mass, dragged there by Claire, who didn’t want her day delayed by late church-going. On the way home he told her of Will Rockne’s murder—“Oh no, Dad! Jason’s father ?”
    On the way to Mass he had debated with himself when he should tell her; he had put it off because, he had told himself, she was not yet wide awake enough to take in the dreadful news. She took it in now, slumping sideways in the seat. “Oh God, poor Jay and Shelley!”
    â€œPoor Mrs. Rockne.”
    â€œYes, her too. Are you on the case?” He nodded. “Can’t you let someone else do it? Uncle Russ. for instance?”
    â€œWhy ?”
    â€œI dunno, it’s just—well, you’re going to bring it home every night.”
    â€œI’ve never done that before. You know I never discuss a case in front of you kids.”
    â€œI know that. But . . . will you tell me how it’s going if I ask you?”
    â€œ No.”
    She looked at him with Lisa’s eyes. “Does being a Homicide detective wear you down?”
    They had pulled up at an intersection; he looked at the red traffic light, a warning sign. But he had to tell her the truth: “Yes.”
    â€œThen why do you keep on with it?”
    â€œI ask myself that at least a dozen times a year.” The light turned green. “I think it’s because I feel I’d be deserting the victim if I walked away from it. Do you understand that?”
    â€œOf course,” she said, and he realized his elder daughter had grown up, almost.
    When he reached home Lisa was up, getting ready to go over and collect Tom and Maureen. Claire went out to make breakfast for herself and her father, while Malone leaned in the bedroom door and watched his wife dress. After seventeen years of marriage he still got delight watching her first thing in the morning, it was the proper start to a day. She still had her figure, a little fuller now than when they had first married, and, as with some women, the beauty of her face had increased as she had got older. She was forty now and he hoped her beauty would last till the grave, an end that didn’t bear thinking about. For her, not for himself: he was not afraid of death, though he would not welcome it, not if it meant leaving her and the children alone.
    â€œI wonder if Will Rockne looked at Olive every morning like I look at you?”
    â€œI doubt it.” She pulled on her skirt, a tan twill. “He wasn’t the sort to appreciate what he had.”
    She had been shocked when he came home last night and told her who had been murdered. But this morning she seemed to have accepted the fact. A certain callousness was necessary for a Homicide detective, but he hoped none of his was beginning to rub off on