5/21/2023 0 Comments Cormoran strike 4th book“You him?” said the burning-eyed man, as his hand touched nose and chest again. He was one of those ill and desperate people you saw in the capital who were always somebody else’s problem, like the traveller on the Tube everybody tried to avoid making eye contact with and the ranting woman on the street corner whom people crossed the street to avoid, fragments of shattered humanity who were too common to trouble the imagination for long. Nose, chest, hand at his side nose, chest, hand at his side the mechanical movement was distressing to watch, and the more so as he seemed barely conscious that he was doing it. It was as though he had forgotten how to cross himself, or had simplified the action for speed’s sake. Almost immediately, his hand would fly to the tip of his nose again. Every ten seconds or so, in what seemed to be an uncontrollable tic, he touched first the end of his nose, which had grown red with repeated tapping, then, with a faint hollow thud, the middle of his thin sternum, then let his hand drop to his side. That the stranger was mentally ill could be in no doubt.
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