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Blood is Dirt. Robert Thomas Wilson
Читать онлайн.Название Blood is Dirt
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007393886
Автор произведения Robert Thomas Wilson
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство HarperCollins
ROBERT WILSON
Blood is Dirt
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This paperback edition 1998
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997
Copyright © Robert Wilson 1997
Robert Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006499756
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007393886
Version: 2019-01-03
For Jane and my mother and in memory of João
Contents
Cotonou, Benin. Friday 16th February.
The sheep stood in the car park looking at its African owner with interest but no concern, which was a mistake. The animal had arrived from the market on a moped lying across the lap of its executioner whose sackful of knives was resting on the sheep’s back. He’d lifted the sheep off with a gentleness normally reserved for sick children. The sheep was no more than dazed at seeing life passing it by a little quicker than usual. The butcher tethered it to the bumper of a Land Rover and arranged his knives on the sack.
A boy arrived in a sweat on a bicycle which he leaned against the wall. He ran into the building. His feet slapped on the tiles in the stairwell. A while later the feet came back down again. And a while after that someone wearing steel tips on their shoes followed. They appeared in the car park.
The sheep looked from the owner to the boy and then to the very tall, athletic Lebanese with the steel tips who was about to be the new owner but with one drastic difference that the sheep had not, as yet, rumbled. The Lebanese inspected the sheep, drumming the fingers of one hand on his washboard stomach and using the other hand to spin his gold chain around his neck. He nodded.