The Watcher in the Shadows Read Online Free PDF

exploded, annoyed at such a wasted opportunity. ‘If you want clever conversation pick up a book!’
    ‘I’ll think about that,’ Irene laughed.
    Hannah shook her head.
    ‘You’ll end up like my cousin Ismael,’ she warned.
    Hannah’s cousin Ismael was sixteen and, as Hannah had explained before, he’d been raised by her family after his parents died. He worked on his uncle’s fishing boat, but his real passion seemed to be sailing alone on his own boat, a skiff he’d built himself and had christened with a name Hannah could never remember.
    ‘Something Greek, I think . . .’
    ‘And where is he now?’ asked Irene.
    ‘Out at sea. He and Dad are aboard the Estelle . The summer months are good for the type of fisherman who likes to head off for adventure on the high seas. They won’t be back until August,’ Hannah explained.
    ‘It must be sad. Having to spend so much time at sea, far from home.’
    Hannah shrugged.
    ‘You have to make a living somehow . . .’
    ‘You don’t really like working at Cravenmoore, do you?’ Irene guessed.
    Her friend looked at her in surprise.
    ‘It’s none of my business . . . of course,’ Irene corrected herself.
    ‘I don’t mind you asking,’ Hannah said with a smile. ‘The truth is, I don’t really like it much, no.’
    ‘Because of Lazarus?’
    ‘No. Lazarus is kind and he’s been very good to us. When Dad had an accident years ago, involving propellers, he paid for all the expenses of the operation. If it hadn’t been for Lazarus . . .’
    ‘So what’s the problem?’
    ‘I don’t know. It’s that place. The machines . . . It’s full of all those machines and I feel they’re constantly watching me.’
    ‘They’re only toys.’
    ‘Try sleeping there one night. The moment you close your eyes, tick-tock, tick-tock . . .’
    They looked at one another.
    ‘Tick-tock, tick-tock . . . ?’
    Hannah gave her an ironic smile.
    ‘Well I might be a coward, but you’re going to be a spinster.’
    ‘I love spinsters,’ said Irene.
    That is how, almost without their noticing, one day and then another went by, and before they knew it August was marching in through the door. With it came the first rain of the summer, passing storms that lasted only a couple of hours. Simone was busy with her work. Irene was getting used to life with Hannah. And as for Dorian, he was learning to dive and drawing imaginary maps of Greta Garbo’s secret geography.
    Then, one ordinary day, one of those August days when the night’s rain had sculpted towering castles of cloud above the luminous blue sea, Hannah and Irene decided to go for a walk along the Englishman’s Beach. It was now a month and a half since the Sauvelles had arrived in Blue Bay and it seemed as if nothing more could surprise them. However, the real surprises were only about to begin.
    The noon sun revealed a trail of footprints along the white sheet of sand by the water’s edge. In the distant port, masts swayed like a mirage. In the middle of a vast expanse of sand, Irene and Hannah sat on the remains of an old boat surrounded by a flock of small blue birds that seemed to be nesting in the pale dunes.
    ‘Why do they call this the Englishman’s Beach?’ asked Irene, as she scanned the desolate coast between the village and the headland.
    ‘For years, an old English painter lived here, in a hut. The poor man had more debts than paintbrushes. He would give paintings to people in the village in exchange for food and clothes. He died three years ago. He is buried here, on this beach,’ Hannah explained.
    ‘If I was given the choice, I’d like to be buried in a place like this.’
    ‘What a cheerful thought,’ joked Hannah with just a hint of reproach.
    ‘Don’t worry, I’m in no hurry,’ Irene added. Just then she noticed a small sailing boat ploughing through the waters of the bay, some hundred metres from the coast.
    ‘Ufff . . .’ murmured her friend. ‘There he is: the solitary sailor. He