Not just a right-angled corner, an acute-angled corner, like New York’s Flatiron building, like a ship’s prow. The restaurant had plate-glass windows which had been curved to accommodate the narrow angle and had miraculously survived a decade of Saturday night drunks leaving The Merry Monk next door – the Jubilee’s alternative to the Red, White and Blue. Dryden always took a table in the apex of the prow: with views back down two streets, and ahead down one which led out of the estate to the water meadows by the river, where wild horses grazed. He looked at his plate: a celebration meal, marking publication of The Crow, and the end of the working week – usually sesame prawn toast, spring rolls, crispy duck, pancakes, plum sauce. But not today. The visit to the morgue had left an indelible image. He’d ordered egg fried rice, vegetable spring rolls, crackers. And beer: Chinese beer in iced cans. No crispy duck. The restaurant had been Dryden’s oasis since those first few weeks after Laura’s crash.
