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Genus - Jonathan Trigell
Genus - Jonathan Trigell
Genus - Jonathan Trigell
Boy A,
his first novel, was written as the thesis for an MA in creative
writing at Manchester University. It won the Waverton Award
for best first novel of 2004, the inaugural World Book Day
Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Boy A was filmed in
2007 and went on to win a total of four Bafta awards in 2008.
His second novel, Cham, shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker
Prize, is set in the death-sport capital of the world – Chamonix
Mont Blanc, in France – where the author himself now lives,
pursuing his passion for the mountains.
ISBN 978-1-84901-678-0
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Again the angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven and
said: ‘I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted
as you did in not withholding from sacrifice your beloved son,
your only son, I will bless you abundantly and make your
descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of
the seashore.’
Genesis
I t’s been an hour since he told her about Jesus, and she
has now sobbed herself to exhaustion. She looks old when
she cries, which is usually only when someone close to her
dies violently. Holman has only seen it a few times. The tears
have dissolved into her make-up and drained it into the
struggle-carved gutters of her face. He would like to paint
her like this, maybe he will when he gets home. He tries to
feel for her pain, he attempts to comfort her, but he can’t
help being fascinated by her. He can’t stop himself thinking
about how he could do something with oil or charcoal, to
recreate what those streaked cheek creases say about her
world. Even as he holds her heaving head and breathes in the
longed-for, but rarely received, smells of woman, he feels
detached. Like he is watching himself doing it. As if he is a
tourist in the land of his own life.
The air in the studio apartment is stale, like the sheets of
the drooping double bed on which they both sit. So he hauls
himself by his cane and shuffles over to the stained-glass
window, where the panes depict a grey-bearded saint. The
arthritic creak as the window frame is forced open could
have come from the stained-glass-saint’s old bones.
Holman puts his head outside. It’s no cooler out there
and no fresher, with mopeds guffing out bacterial bio fumes
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‘T
yours?’
ell me, Professor,’ Ilse shouts, ‘tell me why my
children shouldn’t have the same chances in life as
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The Regan has gone when Holman emerges from his booth
and hobbles out into the sharp sunlight. There are roadworks
going on outside the Dead Rat. Mopeds and scooters are being
forced to file through rat-run slots either side of a big hole in
the ground. No workmen are in the hole and there is no
evidence of its purpose, but concrete dust floats in the static
air, coating Holman’s black suit jacket in a powdery film.
On impulse, he hails a moped taxi to go to his mother’s,
without first checking to see if she’s in. The guy he normally
uses, Florian, isn’t loitering in the usual spot. This driver
tries to look casual, but discomfort is visible in his blond-
framed face at his passenger’s inept attempts to climb on.
Holman sits as far back as he can, so as not to make the
driver any more uneasy, and holds the pillion handle behind.
As soon as they lurch away he regrets the decision. If Adele
Nicole isn’t home, he will barely have enough money to get
back again. The worry stops him enjoying the journey as
much as normal. Like on a bar stool, he is almost the same
height as everyone else when on the back of a bike. And he
goes at the same speed; not fast, in traffic like this, but
enough to create a cooling wind against his rudded skin.
There is a feeling of liberation on a bike. But Holman’s legs
are not strong enough to support one when stationary, so he
will never know what it is like to own one; to travel when
and where he pleases. An almost god-like power of whim.
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Norris, the plump pathology lab guy, arrives not long after
Gunt, wearing an anti-contamination jumpsuit. Looking
like a chemical warfare trooper from the Third Caliphate
War. As if they’d let someone like Norris in the army. Who
knows how he got this job. He puts on spectacles, black
plastic frames, blue lenses, stares at the corpse through them
for a while. Gunt’s seen the glasses countless times before of
course: ultraviolet and infrared: show urine and semen and
other secretions, as well as heat variations.
Norris gets out his DNA kit, puts the spectacles down
on his metal case. Gunt picks them up and puts them on.
He doesn’t see any traces of heat remaining, no lingering
footprints on the baked-hard wasteland, but how would
he, in this stinking summer? Only the corpse still glows a
little redder than the dirt and bleached scrub it lies on. It
will be hours yet before its core will cool in this sun. The
body is criss-crossed with erratic rat piss, a visible pale
blue, but no sign of human stains. Somehow the glasses
make him focus his other senses too: Gunt starts to sniff,
head winding side to side like a snake tasting the air. But he
can’t smell anything save the stench of dumped trash,
which belongs here, and the scents of a body already
starting the journey to decomposition: bacteria eating into
putrid cells, rotting under the sun.
Norris starts swabbing the body under the fingernails,
the most probable deposit points for the perpetrator’s DNA.
Gunt wonders if it’s a waste of time. Two murders so similar
in one week; maybe they were hits, and most hits are carried
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FLORIAN PETZINGER
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SINGLE
NO CRIMINAL RECORD
NO MILITARY RECORD
NO EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
LICENCE TO RIDE MOTOR CYCLES INCL. PILLION
PASSENGERS
REGISTERED KEEPER OF VEHICLE K148 BRH
TAX BAND: D – VARIABLE
BLOOD: AB
EYES: BROWN
HAIR: BLOND
ALLERGIES: PENICILLIN
IMMUNITIES: NO IMMUNITIES
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The barmaid looks on. Rigid. Hand shaking as she pours out
the last of her synth. The bottle and her glass rattle together.
Her eyes dodge between the smashed pumpkin that used to
be Frank and his interrogator.
Frank’s talking while he bleeds now. Frank says that he
found the man dead in the toilet. Doesn’t know who did it.
Says that he fronts this place for the Regans and they told
him to dump the body. Says they will kill him for talking.
But clearly finds this abstract future fear less pressing than
his new-found fear of Gunt.
Gunt’s fine with that.
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