Darkhouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

startling silhouette against the bright sun. He began to shake violently. His stomach flipped, then lurched and he threw up all over his trainers.
    ‘Hah! Pukey Dukey!’ said Ashley Ames as she skipped past him and ran ahead, jumping into her daddy’s arms.
    Duke walked back from his Uncle Bill’s with a smile on his face. He had never seen the hawks before, let alone held them. He loved hanging out with Uncle Bill. No-one got hurt at Uncle Bill’s house. Except that poor quail. Bam! Bam! Dead! He could think of a few people he’d like to do that to. And as he turned the corner up to his house, one of them was standing there, waiting for him, combing back his thin brown hair with taut fingers. He was in his early thirties with a soft, boyish face. He took everything in, his blue eyes sliding back and forth across the yard behind black lenses. Everything else was still. His hands were firm on his hips, his feet rooted in polished black shoes, his shirt and pants neat and closefitting. Duke stopped and cocked his head to one side to watch him. He shivered. This guy was a total freak.
    Duke called him Boo-hoo – during his first visits, he always tried to stop his tears. Only the name remained. The tears had dried up long ago.

THREE
    Anna was sitting on the sofa with a book on Irish lighthouses open on her lap; almost two thousand miles of coastline and eighty major lighthouses to guard them. She turned to Joe.
    ‘You know, the motto of the Commissioners of Irish Lights is in salutem omnium , for the safety of all. It’s funny, I look at our little lighthouse and I feel safe. I can’t imagine how intense it feels when you’re out at sea in a storm, thrown up on massive waves and your whole life depends on that flashing light.’
    ‘You’ve gotta admire those keepers.’
    ‘Sam has some great stories. Some of the keepers used to play poker with the locals and used Morse code to tap out their hands.’ The phone rang and she jumped up to take it in the kitchen.
    ‘Oh hi, Chloe,’ she said. She listened for a minute and then she was pacing, stretching theyellow cord across the room. Joe followed her in. He saw her frown.
    ‘No. I need someone who’s not going to come over here and get traditional. Greg’s work on Iceland was three Björks by an igloo. Not good enough. I was thinking of this Irish guy, Brendan—’
    She rolled her eyes up to Joe at the interruption.
    ‘No, no, listen! I’ve seen his work, it is completely different. And he’ll avoid all those terrible clichés. I’ve made a few calls and apparently he’s amazing—’
    She stopped again.
    ‘I didn’t say I wanted Irish models! We’ll use American or French girls, that’s fine. But this is an interiors spread, Chloe. They should not be the focus.’
    She held the phone away from her ear, then brought it back when Chloe stopped.
    ‘OK, OK. I’ll call him, get him to send you his book and the spread I saw in the Irish magazine. Then you make your informed decision.’ She hung up.
    Joe looked at her, amazed. Miles away from the office, she was still secure enough to stamp her feet.
    ‘What’s for lunch then?’ he said, teasing.
    ‘Chloe is so stupid,’ said Anna as she walked to the fridge. ‘Meatball sandwiches with barbecue sauce.’
    He squeezed her tightly, wrapping his arms around her from behind. ‘I love your balls.’
    She laughed in spite of herself. ‘ Tragique . Oh, by the way, the doors should be here today,’ she said.
    ‘If they were still together and Jim Morrison wasn’t dead.’
    Anna simply shook her head.
    ‘Come on, you love the bad ones,’ said Joe.
    She stared at him. ‘ Quel curieux caractère .’ He recognised the quote, from the French version of Toy Story . In the English version it was ‘You sad, strange little man.’
    After lunch, Ray’s van bumped up the stony drive. Anna waved him towards the lighthouse. He took a left and drove down the sloping grass as close as he could get to the steps.