- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
The first a speculative detective series set in Lisbon.
The Murder
In the Gare do Oriente, a body sits, slumped, in a stationary train. A high-profile man appears to have died by throwing himself repeatedly against the glass. But according to witnesses, he may not have done this of his own accord.
The City
Lisbon 2021. A small percentage of the population are diagnosed as Gifted. Along with the power comes stigma and suspicion.
The Detective
In a prejudiced city, Gifted Inspector Isabel Reis is hiding her own secrets while putting her life on the line to stop an ingenious killer.
A violent and mysterious crime. Suspected Gifted involvement. A city baying for blood. And a killer who has only just begun . . .
(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Release date: June 17, 2021
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Print pages: 384
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Author updates
The Colours of Death
Patricia Marques
The first time Isabel heard a voice in her head, she’d tried to talk back.
It’d been different back then; the voices hadn’t been as clear.
Now, Isabel stares down at the still body on the slab. The chill of the room seeps through her skin to settle in her bones and she can’t help but wonder what this person’s last thought had been. If Isabel would have heard it.
The emotions would have packed a hell of a punch.
The body is that of a woman, leached of colour in death, lips together and arms limp at her side. There’s a jagged scar, cleaned and sewn in a crude line from the bottom of her left eye to the corner of her mouth. There’s another like it on the right side. The half of her that Isabel can see above the sheet is covered in more of those neatly stitched lines. The knife had punched through her chest several times and the woman had felt every single one of them.
Yes, Isabel thinks, I would’ve heard this woman.
With one last sweep of the wounds, she turns her back on the body and nods to the medical examiner, who’s tucked away in the corner of the room, clipboard in hand, only his eyes visible above the mask.
‘Thanks,’ Isabel says and walks out.
It’s warmer out in the hallway. The morgue has seen better days and could do with money, but the floor is pristine, the piercing smell of antiseptic permeating the air. Coupled with the lighting that sucks the colour from the walls, it makes for a grim practice.
Isabel’s steps are loud in the silent hallway, accompanied by the ticking of the clock on the wall at the end of the long room. It reads 8.15 a.m.
She signs out of the morgue with a nod to the man at the front desk, slides her sunglasses onto her face and steps outside. The fleece is soft against her neck as she tugs the collar up around her throat. The sun is bright, cold and cutting. It’s the coldest winter they’ve had in a while, though up until a few weeks ago the temperature had been mild enough that all she’d needed was a scarf and a blazer.
Lisbon’s weather had turned vicious as winter began to settle.
Her hair hasn’t quite dried from the quick shower she’d taken earlier that morning. It sticks to the nape of her neck beneath the coat’s collar and the rest has started curling around her face. It’s like a magnet, making the iciness more acute, and she grimaces. Her car’s parked half off, half on the kerb and she rushes to it, sliding in gratefully and starting the engine as soon as she’s slammed the door behind her.
The heat is beginning to blast into the car when her phone starts vibrating against her hip. ‘Merda,’ she mutters, leaning her head back on the headrest and closing her eyes. As usual Isabel hadn’t got much sleep the night before. Opening her eyes at the sound of her alarm had felt like a particular type of torture. Remembering how bad the pain had been has her rubbing her temples.
Isabel shifts on to her other hip and tugs her phone out. CHIEF flashes up at her on the screen.
‘Reis,’ she answers, voice still raspy from the remnants of a bad cold. In front of her car, a man stops on the street corner with his stand, huge bags of chestnuts leaning up against the cart. His hat is pulled down over his ears and air puffs out of his mouth in little white clouds as he gets ready to start serving.
‘I want you at Gare do Oriente terminal, ASAP.’
In her mind’s eye, Isabel is already adjusting her route. ‘Okay, what do I need to know?’ she asks. She puts the phone on speaker and tosses it onto the passenger seat.
‘Possible Gifted murder.’
Shit.
‘All right, should be there in twenty. What about my Jane Doe?’
‘I’ll put someone else on the case for now. If it turns out that this really has Gifted involvement, then I want my most competent inspector on it.’
‘And it won’t hurt that I’m Gifted myself,’ Isabel says, wry.
‘Exactly. Your new partner will be meeting you there.’
Isabel glances down at the phone as if she’ll be able to see the Chief’s expression on the other end. ‘New partner,’ she repeats.
‘You knew this was coming,’ the Chief says. ‘Oh. And Reis. HR are on my case about your retesting. Get it done.’
‘I will.’
Chapter 10
Instead of calling, Isabel texts her sister. Rita messages her back asking her to please come to dinner because she has ‘important news’. Isabel replies, agreeing to go, and doesn’t check her phone again until she’s out of the shower and settling down to a bowl of hot bean soup and buttered toast. She really needs to go and buy some food for the house. She pulls the booted-up laptop onto her lap and types Gil’s name into the search page.
Most links that come up are related to scientific journals and studies and papers. As one of the heads of NTI, he has weighed in on a lot of things related to Gifted history and evolution. There are reams of pages of that, and some YouTube videos of him speaking that Isabel watches a couple of minutes of before clicking back out when it doesn’t turn up anything too important.
Ah. There.
An article on a joint project between NTI and the university, involving Professor Julio Soares. Isabel clicks on it.
It’s about a study to determine whether the ability to reduce or increase a Gifted’s level would be beneficial to the control and mental and emotional well-being of Gifted individuals.
Isabel arches a brow at that and scans the rest of the page.
They’re working with a new trial drug and documenting the results, with the aim of modifying Gifted classifications. According to the article, they think that the difficulties experienced by Gifted individuals are because anything below or above a number five classification creates an imbalance in brain activity, which can lead to mental and emotional complications. They use the components of the S3 pill as their starting point.
S3 – Isabel’s own regular not-so-miracle pill, designed to suppress someone’s Gift.
The idea makes Isabel’s skin crawl. Interesting that not one of the people heading the project is a Gifted individual themselves.
She comes off that page and searches for Gil and events.
She gets a couple of talks and lectures, a science convention that he’d been due to attend as a speaker. There are a few other things, some charities and funding parties. Nothing that brings up where he might’ve been going this morning. Not that Isabel had expected to find that online. They’ll have to check if he has any other computers or laptops he used, speak to his colleagues and to Mrs dos Santos, see if the computer is a company asset. He might have another one that’s personal.
Isabel makes a mental note to check on all of that tomorrow.
She watches a bit more of another video of Gil talking. He hadn’t been the best speaker but clearly knew his stuff. She’d heard him on the news a couple of times and it had always left her cold listening to him talking about Gifted as subjects rather than people. Although Gil dos Santos claimed to have their best interests at heart, he had treated Gifted more as a problem that needed to be fixed.
Isabel finishes her soup and toast, sets it aside and sits for a while before going at the search again.
Aleksandr Voronov.
She stares at the headlines that fill the screen. They’re all from three years ago.
Ah. So, that’s where she’d recognised it from.
Aleksandr Voronov testifies against Gifted partner!
Criminals infiltrate the PJ: Gifted Police Officer turns back on PJ as his role in organised crime ring is exposed by partner.
In one article, there’s a picture of the courthouse, crowded with journalists and police officers trying to hold them off. That might be the back of Voronov’s head going into the courthouse. She can’t tell for sure. Too many other people in the photo.
Aleksandr Voronov had been a celebrated name by the Regulars in society when the news had broken. A Gifted officer, Mario Seles, had been turned in and, after an investigation by the Internal Investigations Unit, was found guilty. All the evidence had been provided by Voronov.
It had been big news at the time. Isabel had been in her first year as Inspector. She remembers she’d felt grateful for having already passed her exam. The board of examiners have since used Seles’ case as a point of reference for all Gifted.
There’s a picture of Voronov coming out of the courthouse on the day he’d been in to give evidence.
What isn’t mentioned is the rumour that had spread like wildfire through all the Lisbon departments, a rumour that the evidence had been bullshit and Voronov had turned on Seles for being Gifted, that it had all been yet another thing done to discredit the Gifted community.
Isabel sits back and stares at the article until it blurs.
What she knows for certain is that the Chief isn’t a bigot and fights tooth and nail for the people who work under her, no matter who or what they are. But no one is right all the time. And now Isabel’s going to be stuck with a partner she can’t trust.
It’d be easy for Isabel to get her back up and put Voronov in his place. But fair is fair, and since there’s a chance that Voronov isn’t a rat, then Isabel is going to do her best to make sure they work well together. She’s going to have to be smart about it and watch her own back until she knows one way or the other.
She glances back at the screen. There are no mentions of him in anything else. Not for the past three years, nothing after the case that ended with his partner being put away.
Isabel closes her eyes and lets her head fall back. It feels like the blood is pumping through her head in time with the headache, throbbing badly at her temples. It hasn’t improved. She hasn’t even had the smallest reprieve. Normally it abates by the time the pill’s effects begin to run out but this time it remains, steady and rhythmic, until Isabel feels like hitting her head against a wall a couple of times might be a great alternative.
She kneads at her right temple, where the worst of the pain is collecting, and forces herself to open her reports folder. She still needs to finish off the report for the case she was working on before Gil dos Santos died and set in motion a series of events that Isabel isn’t feeling particularly eager about seeing through.
Nothing good can come of a case where the son of a right-wing politician who has made his contempt for Gifted well known gets thrown into the ring of the investigation.
Chapter 11
THEN
Isabel watches the other children waiting just like her.
The sterile smell of the reception area isn’t nice; it makes her stomach swoop down and she has to swallow over and over as her mouth fills up with saliva. She feels like she’s going to be sick. But she doesn’t want to do that. Her dad is still inside the room with the doctor lady who had taken Isabel through her tests and Isabel doesn’t want to make a mess.
The others are sitting with their parents and waiting to be called in by one of the doctors. They are all here for the test results.
Her mum hadn’t been able to come because Rita’s sick, and Sebastião, their brother, had exams this week, so Tia Simone hadn’t let him come either. But that’s okay; Isabel told him it was fine because she’s strong. And she is. That’s what Dad always tells her.
Isabel looks at the table in the middle of the room. It’s covered with kids’ books and magazines and, on one side of it, colouring-in pencils with broken leads and felt tips with missing lids. There are a lot of yellow pencils and some of the markers have had their tips squashed. Isabel hates it when that happens. It’s why she doesn’t like Rita playing with her pens at home; she always presses too hard and breaks everything.
The door opens and Isabel looks up.
Her dad shakes hands with the doctor lady. Dr Carvalho, she’d told Isabel her name was. She looks over at Isabel, giving her a gentle smile and a wave.
Isabel doesn’t smile but she waves back. She hopes they can go home now. The tests had been long and scary. And she’s hungry. It’s been so long since they were last given a snack. She hadn’t been allowed anything else because they said it could ruin the tests.
Something odd happens to her dad’s face when he turns to look at Isabel. It’s like his face breaks for a second, and Isabel stands, hands fisting at her sides, because it looks like Dad is going to cry.
Isabel swallows again and rubs her hands over her jeans. Her mum had said she was allowed to wear her favourite clothes for this, so the jeans she’s wearing are her best ones. They have flowers on the pockets and her top has a picture of her favourite sailor moon.
But then Dad smiles and walks over to her. Dr Carvalho calls out the next patient’s name.
‘You okay? We didn’t take too long did we?’ Dad asks, patting her head and picking up her bag. They’d asked them to bring comfortable clothes for the test and Mum had packed up Isabel’s favourites for that too. Her dad takes her hand.
Isabel shakes her head. ‘Did she say something bad?’ she asks. She holds Dad’s hand tighter. Her heart is beating so fast and it scares her.
Dad kneels in front of her, smiling and shaking his head. Isabel loves it when her dad smiles like that.
He brushes her curls away from her face.
‘You did fine. The doctor was just explaining to me what the results mean.’
‘Is it bad?’
‘No,’ he says, ‘but remember what we talked about?’
Isabel nods. ‘Yes. You said we needed to know where the voices were coming from. If I was special.’
He nods. Dad has dimples. Sebastião and Rita have them too. Isabel doesn’t, but she doesn’t mind. Mum says Isabel has Dad’s eyes. Isabel thinks she’s right. When Isabel looks in the mirror they’re big and soft brown just like his.
‘Okay.’ He takes out a paper from his pocket and unfolds it. It’s pale green and when he opens it up Isabel sees the same symbol on the top of the page that she’d seen on top of the building when they’d walked in yesterday morning. ‘This says that you’re Gifted.’
Isabel feels her whole body flush cold and then hot. She stares hard at her dad, can’t even open her mouth. She squeezes his hand tight.
Because she hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted that. No one wanted to be Gifted. She doesn’t want to think about what her friends will say.
‘Dad,’ she says and her voice is weird. Her throat hurts. It feels too tight.
Dad takes her other hand and rises so that he can take the seat next to hers.
‘Então, Isa,’ he says, voice gentle, ‘you don’t have to be scared. Okay?’
She can’t look at her dad then, she’s so scared. She’s so scared and her heart won’t stop beating so hard.
‘People don’t like Gifted,’ she says. ‘They don’t like them.’
Her dad ducks his head a little to look at her. ‘Do you not like people who have different Gifts?’
‘Everyone at school said it. And Mãe sometimes . . . when they talk about it on TV.’ Isabel’s mouth feels so dry and her chest hurts. ‘Mãe – is Mãe going to be upset?’
Her dad sighs and then hugs her. He’s warm and smells nice. Sebastião had taken Isabel with him on Father’s Day and they’d picked a cologne for their dad together. Dad wears it all the time.
‘It’ll be okay. You’ve just been given a gift, that’s all,’ her dad says, ‘it’s going to be fine. We’re going to learn more about it together, okay? I bet you’re going to think it’s really cool once you know how to use it properly. I promise I’ll help, okay?’
She nods against his shoulder, doesn’t want to look up yet.
‘You’re a gift to me Isabel, understand? You’re a wonderful gift to me.’
But then seven months later her dad is dead, and Isabel’s best gift is taken away from her.
Chapter 12
Portugal’s NTI headquarters is situated on the outskirts of Lisbon. Every Gifted who’s been registered and has received their classification has passed through here. That is its main function.
The walls surrounding the building need a new coat of paint. The graffiti stands out, words in bright pink and blue bubble writing, caricatures of politicians, contorted in angry expressions and waving their fingers in the air. Whoever threw up the graffiti is amazingly talented. Isabel’s not so impressed by what’s in the speech bubbles though: We don’t endorse abominations!
Isabel looks away, rolls the stiffness out of her shoulders and fixes her gaze straight ahead as Voronov drives through.
They’re met at reception by Célia Armindas herself.
Célia Armindas, now the only head of the NTI, is a tall woman with elegant wrists poking from the sleeves of her pristine lab coat, wavy white hair parted in the middle and sensible shoes. A gold watch dangles from her wrist when she shakes Isabel’s hand.
‘Inspectors,’ she says, shaking Voronov’s hand as well, ‘you won’t mind if I ask to see your badges.’
‘Of course,’ Voronov says. Armindas’ eyes flicker over his behind the wire rims of her glasses. She then takes Isabel’s in hers, focusing on the classification printed there.
She gives Isabel a tight smile. ‘Inspector Reis, you’ve spent more time inside our walls than your partner here.’
Isabel smiles back, polite, even if her teeth are gritted and she’s not sure if it comes off looking like a grimace. ‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Of course. Would you like to follow me to my office? I’ve had some refreshments sent up for us.’ Her smile falters. ‘Though I understand this isn’t exactly a social call. Please.’ She turns on her heel and leads them in.
Isabel wants to turn right around and walk back out but follows, walking a little behind Voronov and forcing herself to look around.
It hasn’t changed much. More security measures in place, but the smell is the exact same and it makes the sandwich Isabel ate for breakfast turn in her stomach.
She remembers it too well. Her first glimpse of it. She’d been on a school trip. They’d taken a coach and she remembers the long ride, the wrapped sandwiches her mother had made, the stickiness of the peach juice she’d spilled on the way over. The second they had walked into the reception area, led by their teachers, the place had smelled like everything had been washed in antiseptic from top to bottom. It had left her feeling off.
Of course, they hadn’t got to see anything important then. They’d been taken into a cool room that had shown them an animated explanation of the differences between Gifted and Regulars, and about the test. They’d made it sound so non-threatening.
It’s what comes after classification that they don’t tell you about. The video didn’t cover that part.
Isabel’s second time in this building had been for the test. There weren’t as many test centres back then and the bulk of them took place right here at NTI.
They call it a test as if it’s just the one thing, but there are three stages. The first one determines whether a person has an ability and, if they test positive, they get put through the second test. Officially, there are two categories that Gifted fall into, telekinesis or telepathy. Officially, because the whispers that there might be other categories have never been proven. Just urban legend, according to scientists.
As soon as they know an individual’s classification, they take the subject into the third round to determine their level.
Isabel had tested as a five. The first time.
She prefers not to think about those hours. They aren’t her best memories.
Dr dos Santos hadn’t been the head of NTI at the time of her test, but he’d risen to the position soon after. He’d also produced a lot of research on suggested treatments for Gifted who couldn’t control their powers, and for those Gifted who belong to the higher classification, eight through to ten.
Higher-classification Gifted are few in number. Most think that’s a good thing. They don’t get to stay out in general society for long enough to alarm the public before they’re taken away by Monitoring. For many years it was a flawless system.
Then Colombo happened. The Gifted girl in question had been seventeen at the time and was apprehended a few days later, neutralised with tranqs like an animal and hauled away. The trials had been kept out of the public eye. No one had seen or heard of the girl since the day of her arrest.
The building is huge and quiet. The route they take to Armindas’ office is the tourist version. Not the one Isabel had seen when she was younger.
In no time, they’re sitting in a plush office with a gorgeous view and a sofa area for guests. As promised, there’s coffee at the ready, a tall jug of water, and cakes that some poor soul had been sent to get.
The sofa Isabel and Voronov sit on is a bit on the small side and Isabel tucks herself closer to the arm. Voronov, like most men, seems to take up more room than necessary. She feels the weight of the headache, a shadow of a thing tucked in tight behind her eyes.
‘Coffee or water? I can have something else brought in if—’
‘No, thank you,’ Isabel says. She doesn’t glance at the offerings. Doesn’t consider it, doesn’t trust it. Voronov also declines.
‘Oh, well, please help yourselves if you change your mind,’ Armindas says and pours herself a coffee, leaves it black and cradles the delicate cup in both hands. A thick gold band on her left thumb winks in the light. ‘Forgive me but I feel like I need a bit of extra energy.’ She drains it in one before setting it down and pouring another. ‘Your colleague explained your visit over the phone. Are you sure it’s Gil?’
Well, that’s to the point.
‘We believe so, yes,’ Voronov says. ‘You two were close?’
Isabel forces herself to concentrate as the headache builds. She finds herself squinting at the other woman. It’s a bright, spacious room and, despite the dark sky outside, the overhead lights are strong enough that it’s starting to feel like sharp little pinpricks are jabbing at her eyes.
‘We’ve worked together for a long time,’ Armindas says and tucks her wavy white strands behind her ear, ‘a very long time. We both started working here in the same year, for the same team. I made head first, if you can believe it. Gil followed shortly after. Gil was an extremely intelligent man; he did great things in his time here.’ There’s a pause. She takes another sip of her coffee. ‘He was certainly a good friend.’
There.
Isabel tilts her head, like a dog catching a scent of something. Something not quite right. But she can’t pinpoint what it is with the constant pulse of the headache muddying everything for her.
‘Can you tell me what happened to him?’ Armindas asks.
‘I’m afraid we can’t disclose that at this time. We’re trying to find out a bit more about Gil, about his life, if there’s anything that may have happened recently that may have caused him to feel under pressure maybe?’
Armindas is quiet for a moment. Isabel can see the wheels turning.
‘No. I can’t say that there’s been anything that has stood out. It’s that time of year when we start prepping for the January tests, there’s a lot to get done and it can get stressful. A lot of administrative work and of course, implementing changes to the tests as we evolve. There have always been some adjustments to make and countless reviews of the changes to make sure they’re safe to go through with.’ Armindas sighs. ‘After Colombo last year, the whole system has had new regulations implemented.’
‘You’re referring to the young Gifted woman who lost control at the Colombo Shopping Centre?’ Voronov asks.
‘Yes. It was a great tragedy. The government were keen for us to look into preventative measures.’
Isabel keeps her face blank even as she feels those words crawl under her skin and leave a bad taste in her mouth. ‘Preventative measures and new regulations, you say. What kind?’
‘Just in regard to classification levels,’ Armindas quickly moves on, waving the question away, and Isabel has to physically keep herself from grinding her teeth at the dismissal.
‘But aside from that,’ Armindas continues, ‘there weren’t any issues that I know of, or that he’s discussed with me.’
‘Personal projects? Things that he might have been working on outside of the scope of NTI?’
‘No. Not that I know of.’
‘When did you speak to him last?’ Isabel asks.
‘Day before yesterday. He had a meeting the next morning, and we had a call scheduled to go over some of the data.’
‘Who was the meeting with?’
‘The European Gifted Union. We meet and present to them any major findings or incidents that have occurred. It’s a standard thing, happens twice a year.’
‘And he sounded normal, nothing out of the ordinary that you could tell?’
Armindas shakes her head. ‘No. We went over everything and made the necessary changes to his delivery but it was all fine. I’m sure he told me he’d be having an early night because he was getting the first morning train to make sure he arrived on time. It was a normal conversation, there was nothing wrong that stood out to me.’
‘And around what time was this?’ Voronov asks.
‘I was still in my office and left around eleven thirty that night. We were on the phone for a while. I think we finished our call around eleven ten?’
Voronov nods and notes it down. ‘You said he was working on something with you over the phone, do each of you have company assets that you take home? Computers, tablets etc?’
‘Yes, we do. We each have a laptop to work from home on NTI matters; our tech team has ensured secure servers. We deal with a lot of sensitive information, so we’re not really allowed to use anything else.’ After a pause, Armindas licks her lips, a small nervous tic. ‘Inspectors, I’m sorry, but these questions . . .’ She spreads her hands, ‘they’re making it seem like maybe there’s more to this. That you don’t think this is an accident.’
‘We’re investigating all possibilities, that’s all, Ms Armindas,’ Voronov says, ‘at the moment this is as much as we’re able to give you.’ He glances at Isabel, eyebrows lifting. ‘We saw that in Gil’s diary there was an entry marked under yesterday’s date that said “HSL”. Do you know what that could be? Do you know if Gil had any other work or personal engagements after his presentation?’
‘No.’ She frowns. It calls attention to how wide and thin her mouth is. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘One more thing,’ Isabel says, ‘what can you tell us about Julio Soares? Do you work closely with him?’
Isabel feels the uptick of something from Armindas, a feeling that’s instantly caught and tamped down before she can identify what it is.
Armindas works her shoulders in a small circle, head tilting with the movement as if trying to work a crick in her neck. ‘Yes. He’s a long-time contributor to our studies here at NTI. He has one of the sharpest minds I’ve seen in a long time.’
‘According to Mrs dos Santos, he and Gil were having some issues. Would you know anything about that?’
‘No, Inspector, I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that,’ she says, and there’s a touch of defiance in the uptilt of her chin.
‘Hmm. Thank you. In that case, could you take us to Gil’s office? We’d like have a quick look.’
Armindas sits back in her chair, twisting the ring on her thumb round and round. ‘You won’t be able to take anything.’
Isabel arches an eyebrow at that. ‘We weren’t planning on it, Ms Armindas. But rest assured, should we need anything from his office we’ll be sure to get a warrant first.’ Isabel stands and motions ahead of her. ‘Shall we?’
She wants to get into that office and get out. She needs cool air and a dark space to get control of this thing. Then she’ll have to figure out what it is about this case that has sent her stress level spiralling enough to trigger a reaction of this nature.
The blinds in Gil’s office are drawn. They block out all but slivers of pale white that cut through the room, wall to wall in perfectly even lines.
Isabel scans the wall for a light switch as Voronov strides into the room.
Armindas’ assistant hovers outside, hands clasped in front of her. She’s been put on watch duty. If the intent was to make Isabel and Voronov feel uncomfortable then Armindas is going to be disappointed.
Isabel finds the switch and flicks it on.
Voronov stops in the middle of the room and looks around. He looks over at Isabel, as if to say ‘well?’ Isabel shrugs and turns her attention to their surroundings.
The room itself is smaller than Armindas’, not as grandiose, but it’s super-sleek. It smells of air freshener and the worn scent of coffee. The entire left wall is floor-to-ceiling shelving, packed tight with books.
No seating areas. Just two chairs on the other side of Gil’s desk. A lamp hovers over the computer monitor, and when Isabel rounds the desk, there are Post-its stuck along the bottom of the screen. She ducks her head to read over the scrawled notes. Gil had a doctor’s handwriting. Which is to say, very beautiful but near illegible.
Post-its aside, Gil’s desk is neat. Everything in its place, pencils clustered together and sharpened to tidy points, black pens together, blue together. Everything has its place and even the mug that’s on the desk is washed and set upside down, gleaming under the light.
‘Tidy,’
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...