The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,105
He removed Sivart’s hat from his head and peered at the man’s eyelids. They were purple and bruised-looking. “Wake up,” he said quietly. “Wake up.”
Miss Greenwood already had hold of the detective’s ankles. “You get his wrists,” she said.
They lifted Sivart off the bed and carried him across the clearing, where they leaned him against the trunk of an oak tree. Unwin put the detective’s hat back on his head, then returned to the bed. The sheets were still warm from Sivart’s body. He settled into the pillow and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the rain on the umbrellas above.
“Four hours and a half,” Miss Greenwood said. “You’ll be able to keep track of the time?”
“I’m more worried about falling asleep,” he said. “I should be tired, but I’m not.”
Miss Greenwood leaned close and whispered something into Unwin’s ear. The words fit like a key into a lock he had not known was there, and he fell asleep so quickly he had forgotten what the words were by the time he started dreaming.
EIGHTEEN
On Dream Detection
Among the many dangers associated with this technique—
if it may be so characterized—is the possibility that its
practitioner, upon waking, may wonder whether
everything he has seen was real or simply a construct
of his own fancy. Indeed, the author of this manual
cannot claim with certainty that the technique
described in these pages actually exists.
Unwin dreamed that he woke in his own bed, that he got up and put on his robe. He dreamed himself a nice hot shower (no time for a bath), and because he was a meticulous dreamer, he took care to tie the right tie this morning and to turn off the stove before his oatmeal burned. He did not want to be late. He carried his shoes to the door and put them on in the hall, just as he always did. He almost picked up his umbrella, then remembered that he had dreamed the sun out and the clouds gone.
Outside, the streetlights were still on, and the only vehicles moving were delivery trucks bringing bottles of milk and soda water. The bakery across the street had its door open, and he could smell the bread on the cool air.
Everything was pretty much the way it was supposed to be, but his bicycle was still at the Cat & Tonic, so he walked. At the corner he felt for a moment that someone was watching him. Had he glimpsed a figure standing in the bakery door? He tried to recall what advice The Manual of Detection had for those who suspected they were being tailed. Something, he thought, about being friendly to your shadow. Well, it hardly mattered—he was going only a few blocks.
At Central Terminal there was no line at the breakfast cart, but he did not need a cup of coffee. If someone asked him why he came to Central Terminal, he would tell the truth—that he was taking the first train out of town, all the way to the end of the line.
The old schedule was still in his pocket. He checked it against the four-faced clock above the information booth. His train would board in just a few minutes.
He dreamed he still had the ticket he purchased the morning he first saw the woman in the plaid coat, then dreamed he sat at the front of the train. As the conductor punched his ticket, he turned in his seat, fighting the feeling that someone was watching him. He was one of only a few passengers in the car, and everyone else was either reading a newspaper or napping.
The train began to move. Unwin settled back in his seat as it emerged from the tunnels into a brightening morning. The city rose up on either side of the tracks, then gradually thinned. They passed under a bridge and veered north along the river. In the valley the leaves on all the trees had turned red and yellow. The colors reflected on the surface of the water made him dizzy. He closed his eyes against them and dozed.
He took the train as far into the country as it would go. The terminal at the other end of the line was small and made of red brick, with a door painted green. Seeing it all reminded him again of that game he had played with the other children.
Hide-and-seek: that is what the game was called. It had been somebody’s birthday, he thought.