THE AMERICAN BOY & THE SCENT OF DEATH
Andrew Taylor
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
7785 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical fact, are the work of the authors imagination.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780008108618
Version: 2015-01-05
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The American Boy
The Scent of Death
Sneak peek at The Silent Boy
About the Author
By Andrew Taylor
About the Publisher
THE AMERICAN BOY
Andrew Taylor
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
7785 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2003
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
Cover photographs © Sally Mundy / Arcangel Images (iron gate); Getty Images (townhouse); Shutterstock.com (textured background); Mark Owen / Trevillion Images (boy)
Designed by: www.emma-rogers.com
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007380985
Version: 2015-01-05
For Sarah and William. And, as always, for Caroline.
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody
a record of my later years of unspeakable
misery, and unpardonable crime.
From William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
The Wavenhoe Family, 1819
The Narrative of Thomas Shield, 181920
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Appendix, 1862
A Historical Note on Edgar Allan Poe
Acknowledgements
The Wavenhoe Family, 1819:
N.B. The names underlined are of those members of the family who were alive in September 1819
THE NARRATIVE OF THOMAS SHIELD
8th September 1819 23rd May 1820
1
We owe respect to the living, Voltaire tells us in his Première Lettre sur Oedipe, but to the dead we owe only truth. The truth is that there are days when the world changes, and a man does not notice because his mind is on his own affairs.
I first saw Sophia Frant shortly before midday on Wednesday the 8th of September, 1819. She was leaving the house in Stoke Newington, and for a moment she was framed in the doorway as though in a picture. Something in the shadows of the hall behind her had made her pause, a word spoken, perhaps, or an unexpected movement.
What struck me first were the eyes, which were large and blue. Then other details lodged in my memory like burrs on a coat. She was neither tall nor short, with well-shaped, regular features and a pale complexion. She wore an elaborate cottage bonnet, decorated with flowers. Her dress had a white skirt, puffed sleeves and a pale blue bodice, the latter matching the leather slipper peeping beneath the hem of her skirt. In her left hand she carried a pair of white gloves and a small reticule.