Chaos Clock Read Online Free Page B

been you. I’m glad we’re still here though.” His gaze drifted to a framed photograph on the mantelpiece, the last one of them as a family, taken on some beach on the west coast when he was four and a half. “It’s where Mum is.”
    They both looked at the photo without speaking, then Alastair got up from the computer. “Let’s have some supper and I’ll thrash you at chess.”

THE ROUND ROOM
    Saturday morning was bright and chilly – autumn arriving properly at last, said Ruth when David arrived at Kate’s house.
    It was the noise he always noticed when he was there. There were only four of them, but they seemed to make an incredible din. Even when not all of them were there, it hardly made any difference. Ben made the most noise and Robert, Kate’s dad, the least, but people were always talking at once and interrupting. Trying to get a word in was like trying to find a gap in the traffic to dodge across Princes Street.
    Kate’s dad wasn’t there this morning. He ran a decorating business, which – although in theory he didn’t do any of the painting and papering himself – seemed to always require his presence to get some job completed by the deadline.
    “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here fast,” said Kate.
    “Why?”
    “Ben’s expecting some friends over to play. Trust me, you don’t want to be trapped in here with three four-year-olds.”
    “No way. Let’s go.”
    They walked down through the sloping grassy park called The Meadows, where the inevitable group of people was involved in a rag-tag game of football.
    ***
    Kate and her dad were avid Hearts fans; not a happy interest the way the league had gone last season. David, who’d never been that keen a supporter, although he liked to play, had developed a taste for American football during his stay in Houston, which he was maintaining via satellite TV. He was trying to convince Kate of the superiority of the American game and getting nowhere.
    “At least come round and watch a match with me and see what you think then.”
    It was the fourth time they’d had this conversation.
    “Okay, I’ll watch it, but it won’t be a patch on real football,” Kate sighed.
    They were almost there now, coming up Middle Meadow Walk. They bought sweets at the newsagent to sustain them until lunchtime and were on the steps outside the museum in time to see an attendant unlock the doors at ten o’clock.
    One and a half hours later they decided they were finished. Kate gathered up their papers while David put the last touches to a sketch he had done for a picture of a hill fort.
    “Good morning, Kate.”
    Kate looked up, surprised; she hadn’t thought there was anyone else near them. She smiled when she saw who it was. “Hello, Mr Flowerdew. How are you?”
    “Very well, my dear. And you and the family also I hope? Ah, David, good morning to you. Is that a picture for the project?”
    How did he know about it?
, David thought again, but all he said was, “Yes, just a sketch. I’m going to work on it at home.”
    “May I see it?”
    David opened his sketch pad.
    “Ah, yes. A good choice of subject. Plenty of detail to be included if you wish, but it won’t suffer if you leave it out. What about the Pictish Stones? You could draw them beautifully.”
    Kate and David looked blank.
    “Don’t you know them? The carved stones in the little circular room?”
    “I don’t think we’ve ever seen them,” said Kate.
    “They’re just across the hall. Come along, I’ll show you.”
    They followed Mr Flowerdew around display cases through the gallery and into the hallway where the metal men stalked. Mr Flowerdew walked briskly past them to a corridor that sloped gently downwards. Glass cases, set into the white walls at shoulder height, held coins and jewellery – much the same as they had seen elsewhere.
    The corridor opened out into a circular room. In a case at the entrance was a crudely carved wooden figure about a metre high, with pebbles for