Read The Face Of Death (Barney Thomson) for Free Online

the only way to get up in the morning and face your breakfast cereal with added vitamins and low fat milk, is in full cognisance of le néant , until you've worked the whole thing out for yourself. Still, ever the mute hunchback's place to be considered an idiot.
    Barney drained his glass, looked around the table – Strathcaln had no opinion on Kierkegaard, other than to wonder if he was the bloke who won the men's downhill at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1984; Soo Yin had studied all the great Danish philosophers, Kierkegaard, Schmeichel, Maersk Line, Holsten Pils, but knew better than to open her mouth in public – nodded at the assembled company, and slowly rose from his seat.
    As Barney stood up, he once again caught the eye of Lara Cameron, currently side-tracked into a discussion on whether Marino would've won a Superbowl ring had he been with anyone but the Dolphins. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then once again it was Barney who broke eye contact, and quickly turned and walked away through the bar, into the reception area, under the dead stag, and on up the stairs. And he wondered with every step, why it was that he was drawn to this woman who would surely suspect him of the murder of the four tourists if she were to find out his true identity.
    *
    E arly morning in Strathpeffer, still bitterly cold and consumed by darkness. 0430hrs, the town, for the most part, still sleeping an untroubled sleep. Not until the following afternoon would the brutalised body of the Reverend Wilson be discovered.
    Barney Thomson slept a very troubled sleep, because that's what he did these days. This night he dreamed a strange dream involving an enormous spider, three tonnes of West African-style cement, a bottle of Miller Lite and a prostitute called Epiphany with fifty-six inch hips and no breasts, who continually announced, 'Hi, I'm Epiphany, my family left Scotland in a boat.' And so he tossed and turned, his eyes roaming continuously, pushing against the lids, his mouth open, his breath uneven.
    At this time Damien Crow finally returned to the hotel, let himself in, passed beneath the dead stag – who was a little put out at being woken in the middle of the night – and walked up to the room. Lara Cameron, who was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, her room illuminated by the light from the streets, heard him enter his room next door. She looked at the clock, made a mental note of the time, then turned over and closed her eyes.
    Luke McGowan was fast asleep. Igor slept in the room next to his, in the small flat above the shop. He lay awake, as usual – Igor never slept – staring at the large map of the world above his bed. And he imagined all the places he was going to go when he was finally able to leave Strathpeffer, and of all the strange and exotic countries in the world where people would accept him for who he was, rather than for the hump on his back, and for the fact that no matter what he tried to say in life, it always only ever came out as arf .
    Theodore Wolf slept the sleep of the marketing consultant. Easy and confident, in the knowledge that tomorrow would bring even more money than today. Bastard.
    Strathcaln lay on his side, back turned to Soo Yin, trying to sleep. His mind was troubled, however, and sleep would not come to ease him. Soo Yin had long since given in to her subconscious, and was breathing heavily beside him. A change from the early days of the marriage, when she had lain awake at night, feeling the cold and missing her friends and the bustle and excitement of Bangkok.
    Detective Sergeant McLeod dreamt about the feet of Lara Cameron, whose family had left Scotland in 1643.
    Bobby the Barman slept deeply, and dreamt of nothing.

6
Sausages
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    T he morning dawned cold and frosty, the sky unusually blue. The town had come to life during the hours of darkness, as is the way of the Highlands during the winter, what with it not getting light until well into the