Cages by David Mark (acx book reading TXT) 📕

Contents

Cover

Also by David Mark

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part Two

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Part Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Epilogue

Also by David Mark

Novels

THE ZEALOT’S BONES (as D.M. Mark)

THE MAUSOLEUM *

A RUSH OF BLOOD *

BORROWED TIME *

SUSPICIOUS MINDS *

The DS Aector McAvoy series

DARK WINTER

ORIGINAL SKIN

SORROW BOUND

TAKING PITY

A BAD DEATH (eBook only)

DEAD PRETTY

CRUEL MERCY

SCORCHED EARTH

COLD BONES

* available from Severn House

CAGES

David Mark

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021

by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.

Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2022

by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

severnhouse.com

Copyright © David Mark, 2021

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of David Mark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9091-7 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-780-4 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0518-6 (e-book) This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

This eBook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

For Kate L-G

Thanks for putting up with me

Frightened, he runs off to the silent fields

and howls aloud, attempting speech in vain;

foam gathers at the corners of his mouth;

he turns his lust for slaughter on the flocks,

and mangles them, rejoicing still in blood.

His garments now become a shaggy pelt;

his arms turn into legs, and he, to wolf

while still retaining traces of the man:

greyness the same, the same cruel visage,

the same cold eyes and bestial appearance.

The story of King Lycaon from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book I, ll. 321-331

PROLOGUE

Annabeth Harris.

On her knees again.

On her knees and looking up: a penitent receiving communion – staring at the heavens as if holding the gaze of God.

Look at her. Look down …

Nineteen next birthday and already gone to seed.

Careworn. Lived in. Frayed.

She’s all sharp edges, under the bad skin and make-up. It’s as if she’s made up of teeth and elbows; of cheekbones and knees. She’s all spots and burst blood vessels. Bleeding gums, behind the smile. Her mouth, all metal and meat.

Annabeth. Silver hoops and pink nails. Denim skirt and blue leggings. Baggy cardigan over too-tight top. Fox-fur hair in jaunty pigtails. Pinpricks and scabs in the crook of her arm.

Annabeth. In a room with a high roof and crumbling walls. A mottled ceiling rose; bare bulb hanging low. Mauve walls, chopped into rectangles by dado and picture rail. A rotting, unvarnished wooden floor; missing boards here and there, like teeth pulled from rotten gums.

Annabeth.

Breathing in …

Damp wood and dead flowers. Talcum powder. Sex.

She tries to keep clean, does Annabeth. Still has enough pride about her to want to prettify her surroundings. But her benefactor doesn’t like it if she’s too well groomed. Takes it personally if she starts scrubbing at the skirting boards or sponging down the walls. Tells her it makes him feel unappreciated. Tells her that if she thinks she deserves so much better than he provides for her, she can go back to where she was when he found her. And Annabeth doesn’t want that. Even in her very worst moments, she knows she is better in here than out there. She knows herself to be safer in a cage than adrift among the wolves. Better anywhere than out there, where the past is only ever half a step behind.

Annabeth. In her crappy room, at the top of the big old house. Splendid, once upon a time. Opulent, even. Three floors of Victorian grandeur. Double doors and a vestibule. Mosaic hallways and a fireplace fit for Santa. A home for merchants and bankers; their wives and children. Annabeth can picture them, when she tries. Can conceive of herself as a cheerful young nanny, wheeling a great black perambulator across to the gardens in the centre of the square. Can see bonnets, and parasols, and a fat cherub-faced baby with red curls and a cap, who won’t settle for Mummy and will only cease his tantrums when Nanny sings her special song.

Annabeth can spend many an hour lost in such a daydream. When she was small she had dreams of becoming an author. Loved stories. Loved them so much she became a liar. Improved her reality with exaggerations and happy endings, until nobody believed a word she said. Sometimes, she couldn’t tell where the truth ended and her imagination began. It was cute, when she was young. Ugly, by the time she hit her teens. By then, all she wanted was to be believed.

Annabeth still scribbles down the occasional diary entry. There’s a loose