Puppet on a Chain. Alistair MacLean

Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Puppet on a Chain - Alistair MacLean страница 14

Автор:
Жанр:
Серия:
Издательство:
Puppet on a Chain - Alistair MacLean

Скачать книгу

for a bit, smiled again, sat up, held herself at straight arm’s length with her hands on my shoulders, then opened her eyes very wide as a child would do on such a request.

      The huge violet eyes were beautiful, no doubt about that. But they were something else also. They were glazed and vacant and did not seem to reflect the light: they sparkled, a sparkle that would have deceptively highlit any still photograph taken of her, for the sparkle was superficial only: behind lay a strange quality of opacity.

      Still gently, I took her right hand from my shoulder and pushed the sleeve up as far as the elbow. If the rest of her were anything to go by it should have been a beautiful forearm but it wasn’t: it was shockingly mutilated by the punctures left by a countless number of hypodermic needles. Trudi, her lips trembling, looked at me in dismay as if fearful of reproach, snatched down the sleeve of her dress, flung her arms about me, buried her face in my neck and started to cry. She cried as if her heart was breaking. I patted her as soothingly as one can pat anyone who seems bent on choking you and looked over at van Gelder.

      ‘Now I know your reasons,’ I said. ‘For insisting I come here.’

      ‘I’m sorry. Now you know.’

      ‘You make a third point?’

      ‘I make a third point. God alone knows I wish I didn’t have to. But you will understand that in all fairness to my colleagues I must let them know these things.’

      ‘De Graaf knows?’

      ‘Every senior police officer in Amsterdam knows,’ van Gelder said simply. ‘Trudi!’

      Trudi’s only reaction was to cling even more tightly. I was beginning to suffer from anoxia.

      ‘Trudi!’ Van Gelder was more insistent this time. ‘Your afternoon’s sleep. You know what the doctor says. Bed!’

      ‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘No bed.’

      Van Gelder sighed and raised his voice: ‘Herta!’

      Almost as if she had been waiting for her cue – which she probably had been, listening outside the door – a most outlandish creature entered the room. As far as health farms were concerned, she was the challenge to end all challenges. She was a huge and enormously fat waddling woman – to describe her method of locomotion as walking would have been a gross inaccuracy – dressed in exactly the same type of clothes as Trudi’s puppet was wearing. Long blonde pigtails tied with bright ribbon hung down her massive front. Her face was old – she had to be at least over seventy – deeply trenched and had the texture and appearance of cracked brown leather. The contrast between the gaily hued clothes and the blonde pigtails on the one hand and the enormous old hag that wore them on the other, was bizarre, horrible, so grotesque as to be almost obscene, but the contrast appeared to evoke no such responses in either van Gelder or Trudi.

      The old woman crossed the room – for all her bulk and waddling gait she made ground quite quickly – nodded a curt acknowledgment to me and, without saying a word, laid a kindly but firm hand on Trudi’s shoulder. Trudi looked up at once, her tears gone as quickly as they had come, smiled, nodded docilely, disengaged her arms from my neck and rose. She crossed to van Gelder’s chair, recovered her puppet, kissed him, crossed to where I was sitting, kissed me as unaffectedly as a child saying good night, and almost skipped from the room, the waddling Herta close behind. I exhaled a long sigh and just managed to refrain from mopping my brow.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4QwPRXhpZgAATU0AKgAAAAgADAEAAAMAAAABBLgAAAEBAAMAAAABBhcAAAECAAMAAAADAAAA ngEGAAMAAAABAAIAAAESAAMAAAABAAEAAAEVAAMAAAABAAMAAAEaAAUAAAABAAAApAEbAAUAAAAB AAAArAEoAAMAAAABAAIAAAExAAIAAAAeAAAAtAEyAAIAAAAUAAAA0odpAAQAAAABAAAA6AAAASAA CAAIAAgAHoSAAAAnEAAehIAAACcQQWRvYmUgUGhvdG9zaG9wIENTNSBNYWNpbnRvc2gAMjAxMDox MDoyMiAxNTo1MToyMQAAAAAEkAAABwAAAAQwMjIxoAEAAwAAAAH//wAAoAIABAAAAAEAAAJIoAMA BAAAAAEAAALyAAAAAAAAAAYBAwADAAAAAQAGAAABGgAFAAAAAQAAAW4BGwAFAAAAAQAAAXYBKAAD AAAAAQACAAACAQAEAAAAAQAAAX4CAgAEAAAAAQAACokAAAAAAAAASAAAAAEAAABIAAAAAf/Y/+0A DEFkb2JlX0NNAAH/7gAOQWRvYmUAZIAAAAAB/9sAhAAMCAgICQgMCQkMEQsKCxEVDwwMDxUYExMV ExMYEQwMDAwMDBEMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMAQ0LCw0ODRAODhAUDg4OFBQO Dg4OFBEMDAwMDBERDAwMDAwMEQwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAz/wAARCACgAHwD ASIAAhEBAxEB/90ABAAI/8QBPwAAAQUBAQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAwABAgQFBgcICQoLAQABBQEBAQEB AQAAAAAAAAABAAIDBAUGBwgJCgsQAAEEAQMCBAIFBwYIBQMMMwEAAhEDBCESMQVBUWETInGBMgYU kaGxQiMkFVLBYjM0coLRQwclklPw4fFjczUWorKDJkSTVGRFwqN0NhfSVeJl8rOEw9N14/NGJ5Sk hbSVxNTk9KW1xdXl9VZmdoaWprbG1ub2N0dXZ3eHl6e3x9fn9xEAAgIBAgQEAwQFBgcHBgU1AQAC EQMhMRIEQVFhcSITBTKBkRShsUIjwVLR8DMkYuFygpJDUxVjczTxJQYWorKDByY1wtJEk1SjF2RF VTZ0ZeLys4TD03Xj80aUpIW0lcTU5PSltcXV5fVWZnaGlqa2xtbm9ic3R1dnd4eXp7fH/9oADAMB AAIRAxEAPwDzVem/4k/p9a+GL/7tLzJem/4k/p9a+GL/AO7Svcx/Nn6Mcd31JJJJUWRSSSSSlJJJ JKUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJKUkkkkp//Q81Xpv+JP6fWvhi/+7S8yXpv+JP6fWvhi/wDu0r3MfzZ+jHHd 9SSSSVFkUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJKUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJKf/0fNV6b/iT+n1r4Yv/u0vMl6b/iT+n1r4 Yv8A7tK9zH82foxx3fUkkklRZFJJJJKUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJKUkkkkpSSSSSn/9LzrGxr8q4UY7N9 jpIbIGg1cZeWt9q9J/xJ/wA51rtpi/8Au0uE+r1mzqDR6dTnH3Nfa3dtLQY2/T/Od/on2er6Xp+j /PM7v/EoIt62NdPs3PPOXyrucnhkO3CsiNQ+opJJKkvUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJKUkkkkpSSSSSlJJJJ Kf/T4jodz6bLHsx23H2g2Hmse8+zb72et/N2W/4Ov+c/Rru/8Sgi3rYiI+zaeGuXouD6C+wZ7axf bRW/V3o3GgucwF9TfVHs3fS2713n+JT+d63/AOg35ctXM/yz/wAFZHo+ooOZc/Hw772AOfVW97Wu JAJa0uAcRuRkPIoZkY9mO8uDLWlji07XQ4bXbXfmqmvcPp/1sospNnUWfZ2iplzba22WVumh2fk4 7f0X9Iwqq3+q1nqep+i/7UeriY9uz60dDqstrsyS11Ae6ya7IisVvu2P9PZa6uu+q17Kvf6P6X+b U7/q/wBOyMDGwLBZ6GI306Ysc14Ya34jqnWtPqPa/GtfU73ep/hf5/8ASrNyPq1l24vVWh7PtGW5 4wC615bSx9VWEbP5tzq8l1FTt1n6b6f85+mv3pTof85eibWO+0wXvfWKyywWB9bvTsrso2etVZ6h axjLK/0u+v0v5xiL+2+nDDx80veKsxu/HZ6dhteNvre3Gax2R7a273fo1BvQcEWtvIsFxDhe4WO/ TB30m5cbftDWu/mt38yz9BV6eP8AoU46FgjFw8cG0Hp7duLfvPrNaW+i9nrfSc2yn2P3fyLf5+qm 2tKZUdc6Vk5TcXHyG22v+gWhxrd+jqy4ryNv2ex32XIpyNrLf5n9Imv650+nHz8gvc4dMqddksDX B2xrX2b6vUFbbmP9G1ldlbvS9Suyv1P0dijjfV/pmLdVdjsdWaH76mNcQxp9Gvp7W+n9HYz

Скачать книгу