The Ice House Read Online Free PDF Page B

would be behind the rocks, out of the line of a direct blast. She had been lucky to be just around the bend in the road when the bomb had detonated. He thought the guy up on the ridge must have detonated it, or it was on a very long timer. He had been in the valley since well before dawn, and had seen no one come up the road except the policeman, and he hadn’t been carrying anything, so they must have planted the thing yesterday sometime.
    He kept his hand up in front of his face and skirted round the walls of the place. It was a single-floor villa, typical Spanish style, but modern, built mainly from breeze blocks, with a light brick cladding. The bricks had exploded all over the place. It was built onto the hillside, just below the main valley track, with terraced levels which were gardens, and a pool. The water there was coated so completely with a layer of floating dust that it looked like a solid surface, perfectly still now. There was a low perimeter wall about ten metres past the pool, then past that he could see the side of the valley dropping away, heavily forested with some kind of low, deciduous tree.
    The blast wouldn’t have needed to be huge to demolish a house like this. Parts of two of the outside walls had collapsed, one onto the car, the other, further round, next to the swimming pool. He stepped up towards the place and could smell the burning, but still couldn’t see any fire. There was smoke coming through a hole in the roof, further back where it had collapsed inwards. He couldn’t interpret the layout through the wreckage and the smoke, couldn’t see where a front door would be, so near the pool he picked his way over the fallen masonry and went through a wide hole in the wall. He was listening for people calling out, buried, but couldn’t hear anything. His heart was beating very fast now. Fear and adrenalin. If they triggered a second blast he would get it full on.
    He moved quickly, searching through the mess, coming into what must have been a bedroom. There was no roof but he could make out a bed – the wooden frame upturned, broken. There were bookshelves standing against a wall, perfectly intact, books still in them, everything coated in the white dust. He called out, shouting in English, asking if there was anyone there.
    The far wall was still up, a picture hanging there, not even at an angle, but the wall next to it had caved in. A door was swinging on one hinge. There was a jagged pile of bricks, tiles and wood all over the ground, mixed in with fluttering paper and torn sheets, a metal bedstead poking up through the mess. He could see some flames licking through the smoke in the room beyond the collapsed wall. There was a light haze of choking smoke all around him.
    He put his sleeve over his mouth and nose, then looked down. Right at his feet there was an arm protruding from beneath a wooden panel of some sort. It was poking out, the fingers closed on the palm. He bent quickly and tried to shift the panel. It was only the back of a cupboard, and came away easily, revealing a woman lying in a twisted position, a big puddle of blood all around her. He crouched and put his fingers at her neck, feeling for a pulse, but nearly all her head and face was a horrible ragged mess. He thought something large had hit her. The body was still as warm as his own, but there was no pulse. She had a light cotton dress on, spattered all over with blood. It would be the girl’s mother.
    He stood, and shouted again, desperate to get out quickly. But then saw another body behind the pile of rubble: a man. He was just lying there, face up, eyes wide open, chest terribly still, the skin pale and mottled with the dust. There wasn’t any blood around him. Carl stepped through the broken furniture, over a mattress with the insides bursting out, and saw the body was naked. He couldn’t see a mark on it. But the eyes were wide open, the face rigid.
    He had to get out. Now. He had been up close to the effects