The Devil's Moon Read Online Free

scrumpy cider and looked at a pleasure boat chugging past the pub heading west towards Hampton Court. He was in Ye Old White Hart by Barnes Bridge. It was his father’s old local. Well, one of them.
    People on the boat waved at him – he was the only one on the balcony – and he half raised his arm in a self-conscious gesture of acknowledgement.
    The river was high. He’d been unable to do his riverside run earlier that day because the towpaths on both sides of the river were flooded.
    London hadn’t had the deluge as badly as Sussex but it had been raining pretty steadily and it seemed the Thames was in flood whether it was high or low tide. He looked up at the sky. Black, brooding clouds hung low.
    He’d brought the Aleister Crowley book down with him and a paperback biography of the black magician he’d found elsewhere on his father’s shelves.
    On a whim he telephoned Oliver Daubney, his father’s elderly literary agent. While the number was ringing he looked at his watch. Daubney was old-style publishing; he was probably at lunch.
    But Watts was wrong. Daubney himself answered on the fifth ring.
    â€˜Expected you to be lunching,’ Watts said.
    â€˜Everybody else is out at lunch,’ Daubney said in his pleasant voice. ‘I’m manning the phones and eating sandwiches.’
    Daubney always reminded Watts of an old Hollywood actor called Louis Calhern. Watts had seen him in some black and white movies on late-night TV. Same relaxed charm and affability, same timbre to his voice.
    â€˜I assume with a glass of decent red,’ he said.
    â€˜I did manage to find something quaffable in the back of my drinks cabinet. How can I help you, Robert?’
    â€˜Was my father good friends with Dennis Wheatley, Colin Pearson and Aleister Crowley?’
    Daubney chuckled. ‘There’s an unholy trio. He did know the first two, yes. Crowley is a bit before my time – he died in the late forties, didn’t he?’
    â€˜Cremated in Brighton, 1947.’
    â€˜Ah. As always, all roads lead to Brighton.’
    Watts heard Daubney take a glug of his wine. He could picture him at his desk, white linen napkin tucked into his shirt collar. (‘Never seen the point of putting the napkin in your lap – too many other things for your sauce or wine to stain on the way down.’)
    â€˜I can root through my files, ask around, if it’s important to you.’
    â€˜Would you mind? It’s only curiosity but . . .’ Watts tailed off.
    â€˜I’ll get on it after lunch. Not much doing at the moment. I deal with more dead authors than live ones these days. In fact I need to talk to you about your father’s literary estate sometime soon.’
    â€˜How soon? Tomorrow?’
    â€˜Tomorrow? And it’s only curiosity you say?’
    Watts laughed but said nothing.
    â€˜How would the British Museum suit? I’ve got a meeting with Faber and Faber nearby. I haven’t had a chance to see the Picasso prints yet. We could see those and then, after, we could lunch in the restaurant up in the rafters in the Great Courtyard.’
    â€˜I didn’t know there was one.’
    â€˜Not bad. Decent wine list.’ Daubney laughed. ‘You feel somehow more cultured just breathing in the atmosphere.’
    They arranged to meet at noon in the Print Rooms and Watts hung up.
    Frankly, he was at a loose end. For years he’d thrived on getting things done but since he’d lost his job he’d found it hard to find an outlet for his energy. Hence his almost obsessive interest in his father’s secretive, complicated life.
    A man in a paint-splattered jumper came on to the balcony at the far end. He looked like an artist rather than a decorator. In a vaguely fastidious way he took off his jumper and folded it neatly on the chair. Before he picked up his pint he laid out on the table in front of him an asthma inhaler, a mobile phone and a