Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

This close, Adam can see the crow’s feet marking the edges of her eyes. This woman has gone to great lengths to try and appear much younger than she is, he thinks. He studies her for a few moments longer, trying to make up his mind about whether to go with her. He doesn’t like the way she beholds him, as if he is a piece of ripe fruit that she might devour. But then he finds himself examining her shawl again. It’s draped loosely across her skinny shoulders, and shifts with the light; sometimes a burnt ochre, sometimes a deep wine red, and sometimes a fiery orange, as if all the colours of sunset are present in the rich layers of fur.

“Your flowers,” he says, eventually.

This seems to take the woman by surprise. She touches her crown. “Lovely, aren’t they? My husband and I dabble in botany.”

“They’re all out of season.”

Ada Sinclair’s smile broadens, as if Adam has confirmed something to her. “Yes,” she says. “Yes they are. Come with me and I’ll show you why.”

* * *

The back of Ada Sinclair’s car is spacious, but she chooses to sit beside Adam with one of her legs pressed against his. The out-of-season crown of flowers rests on the seat opposite, a symbol for something that Adam doesn’t yet understand. Ada keeps one hand on his wrist, and whispers sweet words to him, and her breath smells of fruit and faint rot. The only thing keeping Adam where he is is the feel of her fur shawl as it brushes against his neck – the luxurious softness of it is soothing, somehow. The car’s driver is a hunched and elderly black man in an ill-fitting suit, who keeps glancing at Adam in the rear-view mirror with an expression he is unable to read. Adam ignores the driver, and ignores Ada, and ignores the crown. He stares out of the car window at the grey sky as it clears, revealing patches of blue and a silver crescent moon. He is uncomfortable seeing the moon during the day; it looks wrong, he thinks. He catches himself reflexively raising his hand to the window, as if he might push that moon back below the horizon where it belongs.

Adam loses track of the car’s route, but it eventually rumbles down a long road between high hills and into a deep basin. A broad and mighty river must have formed this valley, Adam thinks, but there’s no sign of it now. Instead, the basin is agleam with greenhouses. There are so many of them reflecting the shifting sky that they are difficult to look at. The greenhouses hum with artificial light, and sump pools glisten oily between them, and beyond the panes are endless neat rows of green shrubs with gemstone-like fruits gleaming from their branches.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” breathes Ada Sinclair, and her eyes are like those fruits: glassy gems. “The market is ripe for this kind of agriculture. People want local produce, but they also want apples in the dead of winter, and blackberries in spring. Something we’re happy to provide, at a premium.” She runs her fingers up his arm.

The car passes among the endless greenhouses, and as they flash past Adam finds himself wishing for the return of the river that carved this valley. It would be better that all of this were washed away, he thinks. Yet, eventually, there is a break in the greenhouses, where there is a wilting meadow and a set of stables. A pair of horses watch the car pass, munching at hay. “One of my husband’s hobbies,” whispers Ada into Adam’s ear. “We keep stables, and kennels as well. Perhaps you might like to join him on a ride sometime? He would be pleased to have you, I’m sure.”

There are larger greenhouses along the track, containing entire orchards which glisten with moisture and heat, wavering beneath the lamps that sustain them. Adam tries to focus on the moon again, but as he attempts to locate it in the sky he notices a new building at the edge of his vision. It looks like another greenhouse, but grown out of all proportion, large enough to contain an entire forest; it bristles with spires, and its panes are uneven shatter-shards, and its jagged tiers scrape at the grey sky.

“What is that?”

“Our little pet project.” Ada Sinclair licks her lips. As the car passes the orchards and mounts the rise that leads up the house, the spined greenhouse comes fully into view. It has been built at the rear of a grand mansion, but utterly dwarfs it – it could be a collection of glass knives, Adam thinks, aimed at the sky. “My husband will be inside,” she says. “It is my absolute pleasure to be able to take you on a tour.” There is a flash of yellow, and Adam notices that the enormous shatter-pane greenhouse is still being worked on. There are men in high-visibility jackets operating machines with tracks to the rear of it, manoeuvring more uneven shards of glass into place.

The car’s elderly driver pulls up at the mansion’s entrance, and opens the rear doors for them. Adam steps out into the shadow of a yacht, resting shining and white on a trailer. Horses, and hounds, and yachts, and endless greenhouses, he thinks, watching as the driver helps Ada Sinclair to her feet. He’s not sure what any of this has to do with Magpie yet, but there is a lot of money here. The mansion looks as if it’s the oldest building in the valley, and Adam is willing to bet that the Sinclairs have been here for a while. A few generations, maybe.

“Come, Adam.” Ada ushers him out of the yacht’s shadow and into the house.

The mansion might as well just be a reliquary, Adam thinks. There are statues, and paintings, and artefacts in cases everywhere. As Ada meanders from treasure to treasure, he finds himself distracted by an