Tefuga (31 page)

“We're on firm ground again,” said Jackland. “All that is in the inquiry papers.”

“There's a doctor at my hospital,” said Miss Tressider. “He's nuts on my tick—he adores it. He says it gets born and mates and climbs a bit of grass and then goes into a sort of coma. It can wait for years like that, till a warm-blooded animal comes by. Then it jumps and clings and sucks its meal of blood and falls off and lays its eggs and dies. That's all it's there for.”

She looked flushed, as if back in her fever, and spoke of the mystic moment in a dreamy whisper. On the screen the office stood dead centre. With the sound still low they could not hear the shot, but could tell the instant from the flurry of green doves (supposedly feeding among the trees beyond but in fact trapped by local bird-catchers and then released by Trevor Fish crouching out of sight with the cage) as they rose all together and whirred away across the river.

About the Author

P
eter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of 
Punch
, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.

The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children's literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for two books running:
Skin Deep
 (1968) and 
A Pride of Heroes
 (1969).

A collection of Dickinson's poetry, 
The Weir
, was published in 2007. His latest book, 
In the Palace of the Khans
, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.

Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1986 by Peter Dickinson

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-5040-0491-6

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com