Through Dead Eyes Read Online Free PDF

– be nice to me. Pleeeeease.’
    ‘So,’ said Saskia, walking towards them. ‘Has my daughter apologised?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘It’s OK. Everything’s cool.’
    ‘Everything is most certainly not “cool”,’ said Saskia with a frown. ‘It is not “cool” at all.’
    ‘Mother!’ said Angelien. ‘Come on. I’ve said sorry and Alex has accepted. What more do you want me to do? I can’t do anything about what happened.’
    ‘It was my fault as well,’ said Alex. ‘For walking off. I shouldn’t have done it and I’ve caused a fuss and everything. I’m really sorry.’
    ‘You would not have walked off if she hadn’t been with that no-good –’
    ‘OK, OK,’ said Angelien, burying her face in her hands. Angelien mumbled some words in Dutch without taking her hands away.
    Saskia stood stiffly for a few moments and then turned to Alex.
    ‘Jeremy needs to come into the office again tomorrow,’ she said, in a softer tone of voice.
    ‘Again?’ said Alex. ‘He said he would have some time off tomorrow.’
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Saskia. ‘If today had not been so disrupted . . .’
    Saskia glared at Angelien, who scowled and looked out of the window. Alex’s father eventually walked over.
    ‘Look. What’s done is done,’ he said. ‘Angelien has apologised and has agreed to spend tomorrow with you. But only if you agree. If you aren’t happy about it, we will have to think of something else.’
    Angelien looked at Alex with big, pleading eyes.
    ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Really.’
    ‘Good,’ said Saskia. ‘Let’s hope we can all start over. Beginning with tonight. We will pick you up for dinner at seven o’clock.’

Chapter 5
     
    Alex stood under the shower, lost to the white-noise hiss and the pin-sharp drumming of the water on his head and neck. Alex’s father had insisted that he had a shower before they went out, and he’d thought it best not to argue. He stepped out, a little light-headed, drying himself on a huge white towel.
    Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he had the same uncanny feeling he’d had earlier in the day: that there was someone watching him; as if the mirror was one of those two-way devices he had seen in TV programmes and cop movies where you could look at someone but they could not see you – they only saw their own reflection. A drip from his wet hair trickled down his back and made him shiver.
    Alex put on the hotel bathrobe and went back into the bedroom, closing the door on the bathroom and the mirror, and telling himself he was being stupid.
    He had put the mask, still in its bag, on the top of a chest of drawers near the connecting door to his father’s room. A sombre-looking carriage clock sat on top of this chest and Alex wondered if that too was the result of one of those trips to the antiques market.
    Its tick was more of a gasp or a quiet cough, as though someone was repeatedly trying to clear their throat.
    He remembered how the manager had said that his wife had felt the objects she bought spoke to her. Alex thought he understood this now. The mask had not spoken actual words, but the effect was the same. It was as though the mask had reeled him in like a fish on a line.
    Alex picked the mask up and inspected it. Again he was surprised at how cold it was to the touch. Though it was made of wood, it was chilled like a piece of marble.
    He ran his fingers over the smooth nose and mouth and around the curved teardrop-like eye sockets. It had been white once, and skull-smooth, but age had yellowed it and crazed the varnished surface so that it looked like cracked eggshell.
    There was something about its inscrutable, frozen smile that Alex found horribly disconcerting. His head still felt hot from the shower and the dizziness returned as he squinted at the mask. It now seemed utterly repugnant to him. Why had he found it so hard to resist it at the antiques market?
    He opened a drawer in the chest and slid the mask inside, then