Free A Hovering of Vultures by Robert Barnard

appearance of pastry being made: only he knew that if he touched it, it would not turn out to be pastry. Nor would the fire in the range turn out to be a real fire, so that the kettle on the hob beside it would never boil. There was not enough dirt, not enough muddle. The floors should be gritty and muddy, not swept clean.
    As the thought struck him his eye was caught by something. He squatted down on his haunches. If all around was vaguely bogus, here was reality! Charlie knew a bloodstain when he saw one, though he did not recall seeing one as old as this. Was it here that?—
    There were legs standing beside him, and looking up he saw the curator—Mrs Marsden, was it?—looking down at him.
    â€œSorry,” he said, raising himself upright. “Morbid. I suppose you were hoping nobody was going to notice that.”
    She smiled tolerantly.
    â€œWe always knew there would be some as would ask. Now you’ve noticed it, you’ll have been seen noticing it, so everyone will, and tell people in the other groups who come in later. It’s natural, all part of the story—the sad part.”
    â€œSo that is—”
    â€œOh yes. That’s where she was found. Fallen by a chair just like this one here, that she’d been sitting on. Well, not so much fallen as felled. He came up from behind. They say in the village that’s one thing he didn’t botch up. They say it must have been a quick death.”
    â€œHe’d have been used to killing animals, I suppose.”
    â€œOh yes, he’d have done that.”
    Charlie nodded his thanks and moved on. His eyes were now fully accustomed to the lack of light. He saw Lettie standing stiffly by a small table with a typewriter and piles of paper beside it, her forehead furrowed. She stood there for some time, then moved painfully on towards the old sofa under the small window that admitted the sun so begrudgingly. Charlie moved towards the table himself, but the Japanese lady was there before him, peering at the little framed card on the wall beside it.
    â€œAh! Susannah Sneddon’s lighting desk!” she said, looking enthusiastically at Charlie.
    It was indeed, or something that could stand in for it. The typewriter was an ancient machine, a real bonecruncher, that looked as if it would require special finger-strengthening exercises to operate with comfort. There were pencils, a stubby fountain pen and a bottle of Waterman’s blue-black ink. The pile of typescript was on thin paper, brown with age and curling at the edges, though lower down the pile, apparently, the pages became photocopies. Peering close with the Japanese lady Charlie recognised a torrid love scene from Susannah’s best-known novel.
    â€œAh— The Ballen Fields !” the lady said, pleased with herself for recognising it.
    Charlie nodded. He thought to himself that this, the little table and all the apparatus of writing, seemed the most authentic things—or at least the most convincing things—he had seen so far. Perhaps this was because Susannah Sneddon, whatever her merits, was undoubtedly a writer. She was never more than marginally a housewife. He longed to type “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” on her machine, but he caught Gerald Suzman’s eye on him, and he smiled and desisted. “There’s a quick brown fox” he thought to himself, with reference to Gerald Suzman. Charlie knew quite a lot more about Mr Suzman than anyone else in the room.
    Gradually the tour party was moving towards the stairs and up to the first floor. Charlie moved over to Lettie and offered her his arm, and she gratefully accepted it. The stairs were wooden, rickety and uncarpeted.
    â€œBeastly things!” said Lettie.
    They separated when they got to the top. Charlie thought that the bedrooms had more of a “feel” to them than the big room downstairs. Perhaps this was because there was lessneed to suggest a