Night Work Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t overshoot the exit.
    He made out the huge factory chimneys from far away. No smoke was rising from them.
    He drove into the city without observing the speed limit. He hoped a policeman would stop him, but hequickly realised that something was wrong here too.
    There were no pedestrians.
    The shops flanking the street were deserted.
    Traffic lights turned red, but he waited in vain for other cars to cross his route.
    He sounded his horn, gunned the engine and slammed on the brakes. His tyres screamed, sending up a stench of burning rubber. He sounded his horn again: three short, three long, three short. He drove along the same stretch several times. Not a door opened, not a car came his way. The air smelt less unpleasant than it had on his last visit, but it was thundery.
    When he pulled up at a chemist’s and got out, he wondered why it felt so exceptionally cold. Having suffered from the heat for weeks, he was now shivering. However, this probably owed more to his cold than to the gathering storm.
    He smashed the plate glass door of the chemist’s and took a packet of aspirin and some throat pastilles from one of the shelves. On the way out he noticed some echinacea and pocketed a small bottle.
    It didn’t take him long to find a pub whose door was unlocked. He called. There was no response, but he hadn’t expected one.
    He noticed nothing out of the ordinary in the bar, which reeked of stale tobacco smoke and rancid fat.
    He called again.
    In the kitchen he put a saucepan of water on the stove and tossed a handful of potatoes into it. He killed time in the bar with a newspaper dated 3 July. People had still been here that day: gravy stains and breadcrumbs on the pages showed that. The newspaper itself was just as unremarkable as those he’d read at the station the day before. Nothing pointed to an event of exceptional magnitude.
    He went outside. The first flashes of lightning could be seen. The wind was getting up. Empty cigarette packets and other bits of rubbish went skittering across the street. He tilted his head back and massaged his shoulders, which were stiff after his drive. Black clouds were massing in the sky. A distant rumble. Another flash of lightning. And another.
    He was about to go back inside when a crash rang out directly overhead. Without looking round he ran to the car and locked himself in. He withdrew the knife from its sheath. Waited for a few minutes. The windscreen misted over.
    He lowered the driver’s window.
    ‘What do you want?’ he yelled.
    Another crash, fainter than before, followed at once by yet another.
    ‘Come out of there!’
    Heavy raindrops came pelting down on the bonnet, on the roadway. More rumbling.
    He looked up as he ran back to the entrance through the rain, but his view was obstructed by trees. He dashed into the bar, opened the door to the stairs and pounded up them, knife in hand. On the first floor was a long, narrow passage almost devoid of light from outside. He failed to find the switch in his haste.
    He came to a door. It wasn’t shut. The wind kept banging it against the jamb with monotonous regularity. He pushed it wide open with the knife held out in front of him.
    The room was completely bare. There wasn’t even any furniture in it. The big casement window was flapping in the wind.
    He turned on the spot a couple of times, knife at the ready, then walked to the window. He looked out, glanced back over his shoulder at the room, looked out again. The window was above the entrance and a little to one side.
    Just as he withdrew his head a gust of wind blew into the room. The window banged against his arm. He shut it and went downstairs again, still with the knife in his hand.
    In the bar he subsided onto a bench. It was a while before his rapid, shallow breathing steadied. He sat staring at the wooden panelling until he remembered the potatoes.
    *
    The thunderstorm ended just as he laid his knife and fork aside. He left the plate on the table and