Chapter Thirty-Two

THIRTY-TWO

Theo had killed with the stroke of a pen many times. Over the course of a few thousand pages of fiction, he had stabbed, shot, and eviscerated people, he had hanged them from makeshift gallows, he had battered them to death with a sharp rock held in the palm of a small hand. And he had contemplated worse (oh, the things he had considered!) as he wondered what we (he, anyone) might be capable of in extremis.

The notebook was gone, fed to the fire. The old woman was back on her feet but flustered and frightened; she’d not expected him to react so quickly, as strongly as he had. As he watched her, it occurred to him how little it would take: they were so fragile at that age, and she was already unsteady on her feet; she’d drunk that glass of sherry very fast. Now she swayed a little in front of him, her eyes full of tears. She stood on the edge of a rug whose corner had ruched up when she’d been scrabbling around on the floor, almost exactly midway between the sharp-cornered stone hearth and his clean-lined coffee table in glass and bronze.

Were he writing this scene, he’d be spoiled for choice.