The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [0]
A 44 Scotland Street Novel
Alexander McCall Smith
Hachette Digital
www.littlebrown.co.uk
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over sixty books on a wide array of subjects. For many years he was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and served on national and international bioethics bodies. Then in 1999 he achieved global recognition for his award-winning No.1 Ladies’Detective Agency series, and thereafter devoted his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street, Sunday Philosophy Club and Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. His books have been translated into forty-two languages. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife Elizabeth, a doctor.
Praise for Alexander McCall Smith’s writing:
‘Perfect escapist fiction’
The Times
‘There is a timelessness to the tales, yet they are also of the moment . . . His talent is to see the god in small things’
Sunday Times Scotland
‘Simple, elegantly written and gently insightful’
Good Book Guide
‘Highly amusing, intelligent and heart-warming’
Scotsman
‘A treasure of a writer whose books deserve immediate devouring’ Marcel Berlins,
Guardian
‘It is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging . . . his novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think of them without smiling’ Craig Brown,
Mail on Sunday
‘Alexander McCall Smith’s stories are subtle, gentle works of art’
Daily Telegraph
‘Delicious, light-hearted stuff and I love it – my only criticism is that these books are just not long enough’
The Lady
Also by Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Sunday Philosophy Club Series
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
The Right Attitude to Rain
The Careful Use of Compliments
The 44 Scotland Street Series
44 Scotland Street
Espresso Tales
Love Over Scotland
The World According to Bertie
The von Igelfeld novels
The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom
Audio editions are available
from Hachette Digital
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BERTIE
A 44 Scotland Street Novel
Alexander McCall Smith
Hachette Digital
www.littlebrown.co.uk
Published by Hachette Digital 2008
Copyright © Alexander McCall Smith 2007
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Lines by W.H. Auden reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of W.H. Auden.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Librar.
ISBN 978 0 7481 1073 5
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
Hachette Digital
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
An Hachette Livre UK Company
This book is for Derek and Dilly Emslie
1. Your Distressed-oatmeal Sweater
Pat saw Bruce at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, or at least that is when she thought she saw him. An element of doubt there certainly was. This centred not on the time of the sighting, but on the identity of the person sighted; for this was one of those occasions when one wonders whether the eye, or even the memory, has played a trick. And such tricks can be extraordinary, as when one is convinced that one has seen the late General de Gaulle coming out of a cinema,