The Children of Men (36 page)

He said: “Leave us now,” and, bending, helped the women to their feet. They went out as quietly as they had come in.

Julian looked up at him. For the first time she noticed the ring. She said: “That wasn’t made for your finger.”

For a second, no more, he felt something close to irritation. It must be for him to decide when he would take it off. He said: “It’s useful for the present. I shall take it off in time.”

She seemed for the moment content, and it might have been his imagination that there was a shadow in her eyes.

Then she smiled and said to him: “Christen the baby for me. Please do it now, while we’re alone. It’s what Luke would have wanted. It’s what I want.”

“What do you want him called?”

“Call him after his father and after you.”

“I’ll make you comfortable first.”

The towel between her legs was heavily stained. He removed it without revulsion, almost without thought, and, folding another, put it in place. There was very little water left in the bottle, but he hardly needed it. His tears were falling now over the child’s forehead. From some far childhood memory he recalled the rite. The water had to flow, there were words which had to be said. It was with a thumb wet with his own tears and stained with her blood that he made on the child’s forehead the sign of the cross.

DEVICES AND DESIRES

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland in a converted windmill left to him by his aunt. But he cannot so easily escape murder. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large, getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in the passions and dangerous secrets of the headland community and in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.

Fiction/Mystery/978-1-4000-7624-6

THE LIGHTHOUSE

Combe Island, off the Cornish coast, is a restful haven for the elite. But when one of its distinguished visitors is found hanging from the island’s famous lighthouse in what appears to have been a murder, the peace is shattered. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to handle the sensitive case, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. He is uncertain about his future with his girlfriend Emma Lavenham; his principal detective Kate Miskin is going through an emotional crisis; and the ambitious Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith is not happy about having a female boss. After a second brutal killing, the whole investigation is jeopardized, and Dalgliesh is faced with a danger even more insidious than murder.

Fiction/Mystery/978-0-307-27573-8

THE MURDER ROOM

Commander Dalgliesh is already acquainted with the Dupayne—a museum dedicated to the interwar years, with a room exhibiting the most notorious murders of that time—when he is called to investigate the killing of a family trustee. He soon discovers that the victim was seeking to close the museum against the wishes of his fellow trustees and the Dupayne’s devoted staff. And when it becomes clear that the murderer has been inspired by the real-life crimes from the murder room—and is preparing to kill again—Dalgliesh must get into the mind of a ruthless killer.

Fiction/Mystery/978-1-4000-7609-3

ORIGINAL SIN

Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are confronted with a puzzle of impenetrable complexity. A murder has taken place in the offices of the Peverell Press, a venerable London publishing house located in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames. The victim is Gerard Etienne, the brilliant but ruthless new managing director, who has vowed to restore the firm’s fortunes. Etienne was clearly a man with enemies—a discarded mistress, a rejected and humiliated author, and rebellious colleagues, one of whom apparently killed herself a short time earlier. Yet Etienne’s death, which occured under bizarre circumstances, is for Dalgliesh only the beginning of the mystery, as he desperately pursues the search for a killer prepared to strike and strike again.

Fiction/Mystery/978-0-307-45557-4

THE PRIVATE PATIENT

Cheverell Manor, a lovely old house in Dorset, serves as the renowned plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell’s private clinic. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrives to have a disfiguring facial scar removed she has every expectation of a successful operation and a peaceful week recuperating. But the clinic houses an implacable enemy and within hours of the operation, Rhoda is murdered. Commander Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate a case complicated by old crimes and the dark secrets of the past. But before Rhoda’s murder can be solved, a second horrific death adds to the complexities of what is already one of Dalgliesh’s most perplexing and fascinating cases.

Fiction/Mystery/978-0-307-45528-4

A TASTE FOR DEATH

In the little vestry of St. Matthew’s Church in London, two bodies lie side by side like butchered animals—one a government minister and the other a local derelict. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is head of a special squad at New Scotland Yard set up to investigate sensitive cases, and this gruesome double murder becomes one of the most complicated and demanding of his career, made more difficult by his familiarity with one of the victims.

Fiction/Mystery/978-1-4000-9647-3

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