Цитаты из книги The Furthest Station

The doors closed and the train whined off in the direction of work and despair.

I blinked at Abigail and wondered where the coffee smell was coming from until I realised that Molly was standing right next to the bed and holding a breakfast tray. Only Molly can make breakfast in bed a sinister experience, but over the years I’ve managed to supress my instinct to leap up screaming. It’s not getting any easier, though.

“Which reminds me, it’s about time we started you on your Greek.” My face must have betrayed my enthusiasm because he quickly added, “I think you’re going to find Marcus Aurelius particularly useful.” “For what?” I asked. Nightingale hesitated. “Quoting, mainly,” he said. “And thus maintaining an air of erudition and authority.”

The woman who answered the door gave a familiar little start when she saw us and hesitated before saying—“Ah. Yes.” We know that reaction well—it is the cry of the guilty middle-class homeowner. This sort of thing always create a dilemma since the scale of guilt you’re dealing with ranges from using a hosepipe during a ban to having just finished cementing your abusive husband into the patio.

It was no use pointing out that we were actually policemen, not just gentlemen, because Nightingale has a very clear idea where one ends and the other begins. One day, I’m hoping, he’ll show me where that line is.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the countryside. In fact, some of my best friends are geographical features. It’s just a tricky place to operate in.

“She’s disruptive,” one of her teachers told me, but floundered when I asked her precisely how this disruption manifested itself. “I don’t know,” wailed the teacher. “She just sits and stares at you and the lesson plan goes out of the window.”

Normally these days we shunt files back and forth as email attachments, but the Folly prefers to do things the old-fashioned way. Just in case someone leaks our emails, and also because only one of us currently lives in the 21st century.

Still, it’s amazing how even on the most crowded Tube train a police uniform can clear a good ten centimetres of personal space all around your body. The other commuters will literally climb into each other’s armpits to avoid touching you. Maybe they think it’s bad luck or something.