The Whispering Gallery Read Online Free

information except the fact that Graham Yapp had been forty-eight. As he bashed out the report, Johnny recalled the other dead man’s expression as he had looked down from the gallery. Even from where he was sitting Johnny could tell it had been one of anticipation rather than fear, of anger rather than regret. And yet his last words had been I’m sorry : an apology for breaking the God-botherer’s neck? A believer was unlikely to have chosen such a place to kill himself.
    He handed in his copy to the subs and returned just in time to catch the tea lady. His mother had always said a hot drink was more cooling than a cold one – but only because it encouraged perspiration. He sipped the stewed brew and stared into space. The story was a minor scoop but it had made him a hostage to fortune. If the jumper turned out to have been pushed he would look like an incompetent fool.
    He read his messages – there was nothing that couldn’t wait till Monday morning – then turned his attention to the mail.
    The two envelopes were the same size but there the similarity ended. The first one was cream-coloured and unsealed. The thick weave of the paper felt pleasurably expensive. It contained a postcard of Saint Anastasia. The martyr, golden-haloed, was draped in red robes. She held a book in one hand and a sprig of palm in the other. A look of ecstasy spread across her pale face. There was a single sentence, carefully inscribed in a swooping hand, on the back:
    Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
    There was no signature. He was always getting letters from cranks. To begin with he had kept them in a file along with the threats of grievous bodily harm – or worse – from people who disagreed with what he had written or objected to having their criminal activities exposed in print. Nowadays he just threw them straight in what the public schoolboys, who were everywhere in the City, called the wagger-pagger-bagger. However, he liked the image of the serene saint so he simply put it to one side.
    The second envelope, a cheap white one that could have been bought in any stationer’s, was sealed. Wary of paper cuts, he used a ruler to slit it open. An invitation requested his presence at the re-opening of the much-missed Cave of the Golden Calf in Dark House Lane, EC4 on Friday, 9th July from 10 p.m. onwards. A woman, one arm in the air, danced on the left side of the card. Johnny studied the Vorticist design: the way a straight black line and a few jagged triangles conjured up an image of swirling movement, of sheer abandon, was remarkable.
    Much-missed? He had never heard of the place. Still, it was intriguing. What was the Cave? A new restaurant? Theatre? Nightclub? There was no telephone number or address to RSVP to, so he would have to turn up to find out. Perhaps Stella would like to go.

Chapter Three
    He hung around for as long as he could, willing the telephone to ring. It didn’t.
    Patsel, throwing his considerable weight about as usual, provided a distraction. Bertram Blenkinsopp, a long-serving news correspondent, had written a piece about widespread fears that the groups of Hitler Youth currently on cycling tours of Britain were actually on reconnaissance missions. The smiling teenagers – who looked, at least in the photographs, very smart in their navy blue uniforms of shorts and loose, open-neck tunics – were said to be “spyclists” sent to note down the exact locations of such strategic sites as steelworks and gasworks. Why else would they have visited Sheffield and Glasgow?
    However, Patsel, putting the interests of the Fatherland above those of his adopted country, spiked the article – “Where’s the proof?” – and accused Blenkinsopp of producing anti-Fascist propaganda. A stand-up row ensued. The whole newsroom kept their heads down and pretended not to be listening as the irate reporter lambasted his so-called