I Do Not Sleep Read Online Free PDF

Surely I had spoken to him? But I couldn’t remember how, or what he’d said.

I had to get away from everyone. Danny and Lola were taking Edie to Polperro. Thank God they understood this was still a bridge too far for me. Adam was keen to see a vintage classic car rally at the Talland Bay Hotel. Lunch was included in the ticket price, and he evinced no surprise when I said I didn’t want to go. Cars and me don’t mix, and I think he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to put up with my boredom as he swapped motoring tales with other enthusiasts.

As for me, to my astonishment I realised I had decided to visit Jamaica Inn, the old house on Bodmin Moor made famous by Daphne du Maurier’s novel. I had no idea why. I had been to this over-populated tourist trap many years ago, and vowed never to go back. But when Adam asked me what I was going to do with myself, I found myself blurting my destination before the words even reached my brain. Adam was quizzical. ‘Why on earth do you want to go there?’ he asked. ‘At this time of year it’ll be heaving with coach parties. You’ll hate it, Moll.’

He was right, but I knew I had to go anyway. It was as if, in the night, I’d received a voiceless command I couldn’t ignore.

Danny said he’d drop Adam off at Talland Bay on the way to Polperro, leaving me the Volvo to drive to Bodmin. I sat behind the wheel, disconsolate at the thought of turning up at Jamaica Inn at the height of the tourist season. I didn’t even like the place. But the insistent demand in my head told me that was where I had to go. Resentfully, visualising crowds of day-trippers, I set off.

Bodmin Moor is a forbidding place. Even on a sunny July day, the deeper you travel, the higher you climb, the more hostile the landscape becomes. There’s a sense of utter timelessness up there among the craggy tors; mist creeping around the inky rock pools, the black silent rivers which for thousands of years have wound their way from their moorland genesis, through dark wooded banks until they find their release, joining the pounding seas thrashing the coastline. The purple heather, sorrel, ivy and the golden glint of celandine have been trodden underfoot for millennia. If you walk on the moors, you feel besieged by ancient spirits. How could you not?

I shivered as I continued my impetuous journey to Jamaica Inn. Why was I doing this? I only knew I felt compelled to get to this old hostelry, high up at Bolventor, a house of legend so chillingly remote that even the thought of travelling there at night makes your skin crawl.

But it was broad daylight, even though the sun had retreated, hiding shyly behind a looming cloud-bank. Within minutes the sky was grey, the ever-present mist gathering dankly, swirling round the trees, mobile and ominous as ghosts in a horror film.

I shook myself, stopped the car. I would go back to Coombe, I thought. I would light the fire, put on some music, read a good book. I would have a lunchtime glass of wine and banish all thoughts of spirits, spooks and supernatural encounters. I might even drive over to the Talland Bay Hotel and join Adam for lunch, braving the inevitable stories of heroic trips in classic cars. Anything to shake off the increasingly morbid thoughts that were beginning to immobilise me on my reluctant jaunt to Jamaica Inn.

But I was almost there. And, despite the predictable number of coaches in the car park, I drove the Volvo in and parked as far away from the tour buses as I could get. I stood beside the car, restlessly putting the keys into my handbag and wondering what on earth to do next. My inner voice seemed to have deserted me. The Inn forecourt was swarming with families, all heading into the pub in search of lunch. I wasn’t at all hungry, and wandered aimlessly towards a small meadow to the side of the hotel. This was deserted, unsurprisingly, since the smutty grey cloud already threatened rain, and the untidy patch of ground I’d stepped onto