ection id="uce6a4910-054a-5ba5-b9dc-e3a597767d6e">
MARK BURNELL
THE THIRD WOMAN
HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers 2005
Copyright © Mark Burnell 2005
Mark Burnell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780008339203
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN 9780007369904
Version: 2019-07-24
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
For Greta with love
The true religion of America
has always been America.
NORMAN MAILER
Most people are other people. Their thoughts
are someone else’s opinions, their lives a
mimicry, their passions a quotation.
OSCAR WILDE
Contents
He loved the ritual. It was as essential to his enjoyment of the countryside as the open space or clean air. A final stroll around the property before bed, the last of a cigar to smoke, the glowing embers of a good cognac warming his stomach. His only regret was that he didn’t come here often enough. Otto Heilmann stepped out of his dacha onto brittle grass; five below zero, he estimated, perhaps even ten.
His guests had
