Concert of Ghosts Page 25

  In early spring he decided to plant his first seeds: corn, green beans, peas. He cleared an overgrown plot of land at the back of the house, hacking away diligently at weeds and nettles. He pricked his fingers; blood ran down the palm of his hand. He placed the tips of his fingers in his mouth, tasted his own blood, felt a quick sharp jab of pain. He was thinking of the girl, that forlorn face imprisoned behind the window of the bus, dark eyes, short black hair. It was perhaps somebody he’d dreamed, or somebody he’d met once. He wasn’t sure. He felt a jab of loneliness.

  He sat down on a grassy bank and surveyed the soil he’d just turned over. The dog came from the house and stood alongside him. I have to find her a name, he thought. The bright yellow sun lay flat on the landscape, the sky was cloudless. He picked up a stick, thinking he’d throw it for the dog to fetch—the Dane hadn’t learned to play this game—but instead, forced by an impulse he didn’t understand, he inscribed a couple of lines in the earth, two diagonal lines that formed the sides of an incomplete triangle connected one to the other by a short bridge. He looked at what he’d done. The letter A.

  It signified nothing. He erased it with his foot.

  About the Author

  Campbell Armstrong (1944–2013) was an international bestselling author best known for his thriller series featuring British counterterrorism agent Frank Pagan, and his quartet of Glasgow Novels, featuring detective Lou Perlman. Two of these, White Rage and Butcher, were nominated for France’s Prix du Polar. Armstrong’s novels Assassins & Victims and The Punctual Rape won Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Awards.

  Born in Glasgow and educated at the University of Sussex, Armstrong worked as a book editor in London and taught creative writing at universities in the United States.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1993 by Campbell Armstrong

  Cover design by Angela Goddard

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-0406-0

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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