Free The Lemur by Benjamin Black

crowded room at her back, she appeared to shine, in her blue blouse, a living, bloodwarm creature. It seemed to him he had never noticed her ears before, these intricate, whorled, funny and lovable things attached at either side of her dear face. He wanted to reach across the table and touch her. He wanted to hold her head, that frail and delicate egg, between his palms and kiss her and tell her he loved her. Tears were welling in his eyes and the back of his throat was swollen. He felt ridiculous and happy. He was alive, and here, with his girl, in the midst of the cheerful clamor of midday, and it was spring, and he would live forever.
    “By the way,” she said, “do you know someone called Cleaver?”
    He blinked. “What? No. Who?”
    She gave him a frowning smile that made her nose wrinkle at the bridge. “Cleaver,” she said. “Wilson Cleaver.” She shook her head. “What a name.”
    He was having some difficulty with his breathing. “Who is he?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
    “He’s a journalist, I think. A reporter. He telephoned me yesterday, just after you did. He wanted to talk to you. I thought it was odd.”
    He stared at her. The tipsy euphoria of a minute ago had evaporated entirely. “How did he get your number?”
    “I think he knows that fellow you were talking about yesterday. What’s his name? Someone Dylan? No—Dylan someone.”
    “Riley.”
    “That’s it. Dylan Riley. What was it you called him?”
    “The Lemur.”

8
     
    THE SHEEPFOLD
     
    They had arranged to meet by the Boathouse in the Park. On the telephone Glass had listened intently to Wilson Cleaver’s voice but had not learned a great deal from it. Black, he thought, from the jivey bounce in the tone and the way he dealt with certain sibilants. Self-confident, too, with an overlay of easy, almost languid, amusement. If he had been a friend of Dylan Riley’s he certainly did not seem to be in mourning. “Good of you to call, Mr. Glass,” he had said, with a lordly, laughing air. “I know your stuff, of course. Been a fan of yours for years.” There had been no mention of Riley or his death. All very businesslike. The Boathouse, noon. “See you there, Mr. Glass. Look forward to it.”
    At twelve on the stroke he came striding along by the water, smiling and with a hand thrust out while he was still five yards off. “Mr. Glass, I presume?” he said. “Cleaver. Howdy do?” He was a young man, thin and tall with a sharp face and a big, exaggerated smile. His hair was cut close and he sported a sort of beard that was just two narrow black lines running down past his ears and along the jawline to meet underneath the notched chin. He wore a striped seersucker jacket tightly buttoned and a blue bow tie with red polka dots. Glass noticed his shoes, impossibly long and narrow patent-leather sheaths, the laces knotted into stiff and perfectly formed figure eights. There was something about him of the professional performer, but one from another age, a sixties stand-up comedian, maybe, or even one of those old-time zootsuited jazzmen with a horn in one hand and a reefer in the other. He was all movement, flexing his knees and shooting his cuffs and tugging at his tie, as if he were controlled by an internal clockwork mechanism, oiled and intricate. Having shaken hands with Glass he smoothed the wings of his sleek pencil moustache rapidly downward with the tips of a thumb and forefinger. “Let’s walk,” he said.
    The day had a bluey-green tinge and the coming of spring was everywhere in evidence. The trees quivered and there were fresh gusts of wind among the budding boughs, and the lake water shone like a knife blade. Glass loved this park, so grand, so generous, and so unexpected. Today, as always, there were joggers everywhere, and young mothers airing their children, or perhaps they were not mothers but minders, and the usual complement of crazy people and shuffling