Читать книгу Maxwell's Demon онлайн

44 страница из 77

I stood dead still, the red bill in my hand still hovering above its pile on the counter.

A small, simple, handwritten envelope had emerged from the mass-produced, plastic-windowed heap. My name and address appeared in small, neat black capitals, and the whole thing was finished off with a perfectly aligned first-class stamp.

I knew the letter was from Andrew Black the moment I saw it.

‘Oh,’ I said, for a second time.

I thought I’d never see that neat black writing again.

The story was a fairly famous one. I knew it as well as anyone, probably better than most:

Six years ago, Andrew Black abandoned his writing career, Cupid’s Engine, and everything else. He released one massive bestseller, and then he vanished. Even the few people who knew him, who had worked with him on his novel, never heard from him again. If you’d pushed me for a reason as to why he’d do such a thing, I might’ve told you that certain circumstances led to this decision, prompting him to sever whatever ties he had with the world, and his literary ties especially, but none of those things were down to me. I’d have said we were acquaintances – friends would be too much of a stretch – for a while after my father died, but even so, I assumed – I assumed that I’d hear something from him when things finally settled down. Or, at least, I assumed that somebody would hear something. But, as far as I knew, no one ever had.