Krysalis: Krysalis (56 page)
Albert found himself looking back along the wedge of moonlight to where Gerhard Kleist still lay on the sand in sepulchral immobility. Not a total waste, perhaps …
He pointed. “Here come the Lescombes. What’s that David’s carrying?”
As Anna’s feet touched the deck David slipped a hand through her elbow and she looked at him. Albert heard her say, “You must have learned …”
“Everything.”
“Even about Juliet … at the beginning?”
“Everything, my love,” he said, drawing her close; and Albert suppressed a yawn.
JOHN TRENHAILE
lives in Ashdown Forest, England, with his wife and two children.
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KRYSALIS GONE
He could not believe it. He
refused
to believe it. David stood up. For an instant he staggered, his legs not supporting him. At last he summoned up the strength to go and pick up the phone.
The man he was calling answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“My name’s David Lescombe. I’m deputy head of the department, defense department, FCO.”
“Yes? Could you speak up?”
“My wife’s disappeared.”
This time there was a long pause before the inevitable “Yes?”
“My copy of the New Testament appears to have gone as well.”
“Are you at home?”
“Yes, I’m at—”
“We know where you live. Stay there.”
The line went dead.
III
The reference on page 388 is taken from Corbett Thigpen and Hervey Cleckley,
The Three Faces of Eve,
Chivers Press (Library Association of Great Britain), 1985, page 165, where the authors ascribe it simply to “Bernheim,” without further elucidation.
Anna Lescombe, one of the characters in this novel, is a barrister of some standing. I practiced at the Chancery bar for thirteen years. Past professional colleagues (and, I hope, present friends) who think to find themselves within these pages will be committing the crime of deceit, albeit only of self-deceit.
Anna Lescombe was adopted shortly after her birth, as indeed was I. But members of my immediate family who likewise imagine that I have represented them here will fare even worse than my former colleagues, for they will be making a mistake.
References in this novel to “Five” and “Six” as institutions mean England’s domestic security service, MI5, and her foreign security service, MI6, respectively.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 978-0-062-03251-5
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1990 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
Cover illustration by Peter Thorpe
First HarperPaperbacks printing: February 1992
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