Snowstorms in a Hot Climate

by Sarah Dunant

  epilogue

  Summer in the city. The students are long gone and I am adrift on an ocean of time. I have not been well. It was such a long winter. I forsook scholarship for current affairs and spent my life scouring back copies of New York newspapers. It was late May when I came across the following short piece in the New York Post.

  Customs officers investigating a package of books containing two kilos of cocaine sent from England have uncovered a chain of murder and mystery. The books were addressed to Dr. Lenny Ascherson, a New York businessman reported missing from his Westchester home two months ago. Subsequent investigation led the authorities to connect Ascherson with a headless, fingerless corpse found on a Manhattan building site, and further forensic tests confirmed identification. Ascherson is suspected of having run a large-scale drug ring between South America, the United States, and Europe. His brutal murder is the last in a long line of recent underworld killings.

  Poor Lenny. Those sculptured fingers and sleek cheekbones. Such poetic revenge. The image haunts me still. I suppose it was not quite the triumph I had been looking for. So many versions of the truth. Who killed him? Was it Tyler or J.T.? It hardly matters. I have tried explaining that to Elly, but I’m not sure she understands. We don’t spend much time with each other now. I’m having trouble sleeping again. I put my flat on the market. It didn’t seem safe anymore, too many noises in the night. I spend so little time there anyway. I work every day in the London Library, burying myself in the past. But there are shadows there too, and people’s footsteps echo so on the metal floors.

  I have been offered a year’s teaching post in Dublin. The head of my department is very keen for me to take it. He has shown unexpected interest in me recently, hinted that I had been overworking and maybe I should see a doctor. I think there may have been a few complaints. Of course there is nothing really wrong with me. Except perhaps an overactive imagination. And that will fade with time. I might take the Dublin post. There is a girl in the records department at work. She is small and dark and laughs a lot. Reminds me of Elly. Sometimes I find excuses to go and talk to her. Dublin would be good for me. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not dodging the issue. And I’m not sorry for what I did. He deserved to die. That’s what I think. It’s just I need a change of scenery. Somewhere people don’t know me. And I do so like that rush you get when you first arrive at an airport, bound for wherever it is you are going. Don’t you?

  For Margot

  ALSO BY SARAH DUNANT

  The Birth of Venus

  Mapping the Edge

  Transgressions

  Under My Skin

  Fatlands

  Birth Marks

  Sarah Dunant has written seven novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Birth of Venus, and edited two books of essays. She has worked widely in print, television, and radio, and until recently hosted the leading BBC Radio arts program, Night Waves. Now a full-time writer, she is working on her next historical novel, under contract with Random House and set in Renaissance Venice. Dunant has two children and lives in London and Florence.