Hour of the Wolf Read Online Free PDF

have been a girlfriend lying dazed . . . No, not a girlfriend: he’d read in the paper that the boy’s girlfriend had stayed behind in town. More likely a friend, or somebody he’d just met, walking in the same direction . . . Lying there unconscious, hidden in the darkness. Or in a state of shock, and scared stiff by the sight of the dead boy and the man holding his body in his arms, with blood dripping down into the boy’s hood . . .
    It was an horrific scenario, of course, and even if he managed to convince himself eventually that it wasn’t all that likely, it kept on recurring. He made a purely clinical effort to erase this macabre variation – this unlikely possibility – since it was of no consequence, no matter what. Irrelevant. It didn’t matter who it was who’d seen him that fateful night, nor exactly how the person concerned had found out what had happened. It was the other questions that demanded his attention and concentration.
    And resolve.
    So, could he be sure that this would be all that was demanded?
    Ten thousand. That he would be able to pay that off, then not need to worry about it any more?
    Aye, there’s the rub. What guarantee did the letter-writer intend to give, proving that when he (she?) had collected and vanished with the cash, there wouldn’t be a demand for a bit more after a month or so? Or a year?
    Or that the blackmailer wouldn’t simply go to the police and report him in any case?
    Would any guarantee be given? What could such a guarantee be like?
    Or – and this was of course the most important question – should he not accept that the situation was impossible? Should he not realize that the game was up, and it was time to hand himself in to the police?
    Was it time to surrender?
    By Sunday evening he still hadn’t answered any of these questions. The fact that on Friday he’d slunk into the Savings Bank and withdrawn eleven thousand from his account could not necessarily be regarded as a decision.
    Merely as a sign that he was still keeping all doors open.
    He also had in the back of his mind the conversation they’d had on Saturday.
    ‘Your husband?’ he’d asked as they came back to the car after their stroll along the beach. ‘Have you told him?’
    ‘No,’ she’d said, letting her hair hang loose after having it tucked away inside her woolly hat. Ran her hands through it and shook it in a movement he thought she was exaggerating in order to give herself time to think. ‘I didn’t know how serious things were going to become with you . . . Not to start with, that is. Now I know. But I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet. It sort of needs time and space.’
    ‘Are you quite sure?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘That you want to divorce him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why haven’t you got any children?’
    ‘Because I chose not to have any.’
    ‘With your husband, or at all?’
    She made a vague gesture with her head. He gathered she’d rather not talk about it. They stood in silence for a while, watching the choppy sea.
    ‘We’ve only been married for three years. It was a mistake from the very beginning. It was idiotic, in fact.’
    He nodded.
    ‘What’s his job?’
    ‘He’s unemployed at the moment. Used to work for Zinders. But they closed down.’
    ‘That sounds sad.’
    ‘I’ve never said it was especially funny.’
    She laughed. He put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her close.
    ‘Are you sure you’re not wavering?’
    ‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to live with him, I’ve known that all the time.’
    ‘Why did you marry him in the first place?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Marry me instead.’
    It slipped out before he could stop himself, but he realized immediately that he actually meant it.
    ‘Wow,’ she said, and burst out laughing. ‘We’ve been together a couple of times, and at long last you ask me to marry you. Shouldn’t we go home and have a bite to eat first, as we’d planned to do?’
    He thought it over.
    ‘I