Helen Grant - Glass Demon

PENGUIN BOOKS

Helen Grant was born in London. She read Classics at St Hughs College, Oxford, and then worked in marketing for ten years in order to fund her love of travelling. In 2001 she and her family moved to Bad Mnstereifel in Germany, and it was exploring the legends of this beautiful town that inspired her to write her first novel. She now lives in Brussels with her husband, her two children and a small German cat.

Praise for The Vanishing of Katharina Linden :

A feast of treats and creeps wonderful Guardian

A richly textured, effortlessly written novel

Sunday Telegraph

For something so chilling, it is terrific entertainment

Sunday Times

An impressive debut from a writer to watch

Daily Mail

Gripping stuff not for the faint-hearted Carousel

Remarkable Independent

Books by Helen Grant

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

The Glass Demon

For Iona

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2010

Text copyright Helen Grant, 2010

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-141-95820-0

HELEN GRANT

PENGUIN BOOKS

If anyone were to ask me, What is the root of all evil? I would say not Money but Food. It was food specifically the lack of it that killed my sister, or at least assisted at the death. And the old man that day in the orchard in Niederburgheim was the only person I have ever seen who died of eating an apple.

He was lying in the long grass, and all we could see of him at first was a checked shirt and the worn knee of a pair of blue overalls. We all thought he was asleep.

Just nip out of the car and ask that man in the grass, said Tuesday.

I think hes asleep, I said doubtfully.

Im sure he wont mind , she replied in a severe voice. And shut the door when you get out, will you? Its windy and I dont want my hair

I slammed the car door, cutting her off in mid-sentence, and waded through the tall grass. It was the end of a long hot summer and the grass was dry and brittle, with a pleasant smell like hay.

Entschuldigen Sie bitte? I called, peering at the recumbent figure.

There was no reply. I could almost feel Tuesdays impatient gaze pecking at my back.

Entschuldigen Sie bitte? I repeated, a little more loudly.

For a moment I thought I saw movement, but it was only the wind ruffling the grass. A fat bumblebee buzzed past close to my face and instinctively I put up a hand to ward it off. I took a step closer to the supine figure in the grass. He was a very sound sleeper, whoever he was; perhaps he had had too much beer with his lunch. I could see part of the lunch lying close to his outstretched hand a large, rosy-looking apple with a bite mark standing out palely against its reddish skin. I took another step closer.

Behind me, the car door opened. What are you doing ? called Tuesday irritably.

I didnt reply. I was standing there with the dry ends of the grass pricking my bare legs and the breeze lifting the ends of my dark hair, my mouth dry and my eyes round with shock. I was looking at the corpse at my feet. At the corpse . Grey-blue eyes iced over with Deaths cataracts, blindly staring at the summer sky. Mouth gaping open, although its owner clearly had nothing to say, ever again. And at the side of the close-cropped head, a dent, an obscene crater in the smooth curve of the skull. Red on the stalks of the yellow grass. Blood. I was nearly standing in it.

There was a clunk as the car door closed again, and I heard Tuesday picking her way towards me, cursing to herself. Vegetation crunched under her feet. As she came up behind me I heard her draw breath to speak and then suddenly hold it. A hand clutched my shoulder; Tuesday was hanging on to me, her other hand clamped over her mouth.

Oh, my God , she squeaked out eventually. Is he dead ?

My throat seemed to have constricted; I tried to speak but no words came. Instead I just nodded.

Should we take his pulse or something? said Tuesday in a choked voice.

I dont think theres much point, I managed to say.

I looked again at the red on the grass, and then down at my bare toes in their sandals. I took a step backwards, Tuesday staggering back with me. Her nails were digging into my shoulder.

What do we do ? she croaked.

Get Dad, I suggested.

I had to resist the temptation to push her off; the nails were hurting. I felt oddly numb looking down at the body. It didnt seem real, more like some sort of strange tableau, an illustration for an accident-prevention poster. An apple tree with a wooden crate sitting underneath it. A ladder pushed up against the tree trunk. The red apple with the scalloped white bite mark on it. And sprawled in the grass, the body. Already my imagination was making patterns out of the scene. The old man he looked about seventy to me had been picking apples. Maybe hed forgotten that he wasnt as young as he used to be. Hed clambered up the ladder and started work, reaching up among the leafy branches to twist the apples off their twigs. Then hed seen that red apple the one now lying on the ground and hadnt been able to resist. Hed plucked it, taken one big bite, and then either because he only had one hand free or because he was savouring the apple too much to look what he was doing he had overbalanced and fallen off the ladder. Thump. Straight on to the hard earth. One clumsy dive on to a log or a hard stone: lights out. So much for the benefits of healthy eating.

Tuesday let go of my shoulder and staggered back towards the car. My father had opened his own door by now and was shouting something to her. I watched her veer from side to side, as though she had had one too many cocktails. She put up a hand as if trying to ward him off. I hoped shed have the good sense to tell him to make Polly and Ru stay in the car.

I glanced back at the man lying in the grass. Again that feeling of unreality swept over me. It seemed so incongruous, him lying there stone dead with the apple just a few centimetres from his outstretched hand, as though he might suddenly sit up and take another bite. My gaze slid reluctantly back to that terrible dent in the side of his head. I thought of the force required to crack someones skull like that, and for a moment I thought I would throw up my service-station sandwiches. I turned my head away, and as I did so something caught the light and winked brightly at the edge of my vision.