The Fell Walker Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dounreay to get him a job as a labourer in the concrete batching plant, which had been set up on site for the construction of a new waste, receipt, assay, character-isation and super-compaction (WRACS) facility.
    His uncle, and the manager of the batching plant, Callum McDonald, both attended the same church on Sunday mornings, which is where the good word went in.
    Hector found it difficult to socialise with the rest of the workers and, eventually, found a quiet hideaway in a corner of the laboratory mould store, making himself a seat with an upturned admixture container. Here he spent his breaks alone, listening to music on his Walkman. By now he had added Sibelius and Rachmaninov to his list of favourites.

    *

    For the next few months, the routine of work, and the novelty of having money to spend, brought some stability into his life. Then, during a rare cleaning spell, his uncle found his stash of magazines and tapes under the floorboards, and threw him out.
    He had just enough money to pay the bond on a dingy flat in Thurso, above Harold’s butcher’s shop in Bank Street, next to the Central Hotel.

    *

    During the next three years Hector drifted into a routine of work and drink. During the day, the uncomplicated, physical work routine suited him. He kept his nose clean and the rest of the staff left him alone.
    But at night it was different. The solitude he sought during the day became his tormentor at night. In the evening, alone in his flat, he listened to his music. But as the night progressed, he would begin to feel empty and desolate. He had nobody to share his music with. He wanted somebody to sit beside him and hold his hand while they listened. He wanted somebody to love. He wanted Kathleen Rinaldi.
    He fantasised about abducting her. When he saw her in the street, holding hands with her boyfriend, he wanted to kill him. He would follow them just to keep her in his sight as long as possible. But it would become unbearable, and the night would end in the Central’s lounge bar drowning out the pain, blotting out the malevolent world.
    After a drinking session, he would lie in his bed, eyes closed, listening to an adagio, tears flowing, relying on the swirling, nauseous, numbness in his head to blot out thoughts of suicide or ...

    *
    He was still clinging to this fragile routine when his uncle died.
    Hector had been asked by Dounreay Security to check on him, as he hadn’t turned up for work for two days.
    He found him at the back of the croft; face down in an overflowing sheep-dip bath, together with a dozen trapped sheep bleating their hunger. It was the first time Hector had seen a human corpse.
    He poked it with his foot. The body suddenly turned over in the stinking organophosphate solution, stiff arms saluting the air, head fixed in a sitting up position, staring at him with pickled grey eyes. Fascinating.
    Before the body could turn over again, Hector put his foot on the head and pushed it under. He watched with interest as rigid legs came up and kicked at the sky, then sank, bringing the arms and head back up, the whole body becoming a gradually faltering seesaw in a khaki liquid grave.
    He released the sheep and played a few more body games before going into the house. Not knowing he would inherit the croft, he spent the next hour searching and looting.
    He informed the police on his return to Thurso. Subsequently, they informed him that his uncle had died of a heart attack, and that a will had been found and passed on to a solicitor.
    His uncle had left him everything - house and outbuildings, car, animals, and, surprisingly, savings of over eleven thousand pounds. The solicitor read out a statement from the will. ‘I am leaving everything to my nephew Hector Ian Snodd, in the belief that this act of charity will inspire him to mend his ways and take the path of God to everlasting salvation.’
    Hector took the path to the high street and bought the best hi-fi system available. He installed it and