Point Blank Read Online Free PDF Page B

cut so short that he almost looked like a skinhead, and his right ear had been pierced. He could still feel it throbbing underneath the temporary stud that had been put in to keep the hole from closing.
    The car had reached a set of wrought iron gates, which opened automatically to receive it.
    And there was Haverstock Hall, a great mansion with stone figures on the terrace and seven figures in the price. Sir David’s family had lived here for generations, Mrs. Jones had told him.
    They also seemed to own half the Lancashire countryside. The grounds stretched for miles in every direction, with sheep dotted across the hills on one side and three horses watching from an enclosure on the other. The house itself was Georgian: white brick with slender windows and columns. Everything looked very neat. There was a walled garden with evenly spaced beds, a square glass conservatory housing a swimming pool, and a series of ornamental hedges with every leaf perfectly in place.
    The car stopped. The horses swung their necks around to watch Alex get out, their tails rhythmically beating at flies. Nothing else moved.
    The chauffeur walked around to the trunk. ‚Sir David will be inside,‛ he said. He had disapproved of Alex from the moment he set eyes on him. Of course, he hadn’t said as much.
    But he was a professional. He could show it with his eyes.
    Alex moved away from the car, drawn toward the conservatory on the other side of the drive. It was a warm day, the sun beating down on the glass, and the water on the other side looked suddenly inviting. He passed through an open set of doors. It was hot inside the conservatory. The smell of chlorine rose up from the water’ stifling him.
    He had thought that the pool was empty, but as he watched, a figure swam up from the bottom, breaking through the surface just in front of him. It was a girl, dressed only in a white bikini. She had long, black hair and dark eyes, but her skin was pale. Alex guessed she must be fifteen years old and remembered what Mrs. Jones had told him about Sir David Friend. ‚He has a daughter … a year older than you.‛ So this must be her. He watched her heave herself out of the water. Her body was well shaped, closer to the woman she would become than the girl she had been. She was going to be beautiful. That much was certain. The trouble was, she already knew it. When she looked at Alex, arrogance flashed in her eyes.
    ‚Who are you?‛ she asked. ‚What are you doing in here?‛
    ‚I’m Alex.‛
    ‚Oh, yes.‛ She reached for a towel and wrapped it around her neck. ‚Daddy said you were coming, but I didn’t expect you just to walk in like this.‛ Her voice was very adult and upper class. It sounded strange, coming out of that fifteen-year-old mouth. ‚Do you swim?‛ she asked.
    ‚Yes,‛ Alex said.
    ‚That’s a shame. I don’t like having to share the pool. Especially with a boy. And a smelly London boy at that.‛ She ran her eyes over Alex, taking in the torn jeans, the shaven hair, the stud in his ear. She shuddered. ‚I can’t think what Daddy was doing, agreeing to let you stay,‛
    she went on. ‚And having to pretend you’re my brother! What a ghastly idea! If I did have a brother, I can assure you he wouldn’t look like you. ‛
    Alex was wondering whether to pick the girl up and throw her back into the pool or out through a window when there was a movement behind him, and he turned to see a tall, rather aristocratic man with curling gray hair and glasses, wearing a sports jacket, open-neck shirt, and cords, standing just behind him. He too seemed a little jolted by Alex’s appearance, but he recovered quickly, extending a hand. ‚Alex?‛ he demanded.
    ‚Yes.
    ‚I’m David Friend.‛
    Alex shook his hand. ‚How do you do,‛ he said politely.
    ‚I hope you had a good journey. I see you’ve met my daughter.‛ He smiled at the girl, who was now sitting beside the pool, drying herself and ignoring them both.
    ‚We