Hour Of Darkness Read Online Free

say that I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter what rank you’ve reached, you’ve always put yourself on the line for the job, emotionally and physically. That had to end sometime, before it ended you. You must know that, Bob.’
    ‘Sometime,’ I agreed, ‘but of my choosing. This isn’t the way I thought it would finish.’
    ‘But it has, and your kids will thank you for it, like I thank you now. They’re going to want you around to see them through school and university and on into their adult life.
    ‘Me too,’ she added. ‘I don’t just want you around; I need you. I’ve tried living without you and it didn’t work very well. I hate to remind you, but you’re over fifty years old and you have a heart pacemaker.’
    ‘Am I? Have I?’ I murmured. ‘Goddammit I’d forgotten!’ That was almost literally true. I’ve had the pacemaker for a few years, to make sure that my heart rate doesn’t drop too low, as in down to zero. It doesn’t affect my day-to-day life, and if it wasn’t for a small lump on my chest just below my left collar bone, nobody but me would know it was there.
    ‘Well, I haven’t,’ Sarah murmured, with a small grimace. ‘That day you fell over, I almost died with you. As a pathologist I know all too well there is such a thing as unexplained sudden death syndrome. I’ve seen it, too often, in young fit men. There they are on the autopsy table and there is no discernible reason why, other than the fact that their heart isn’t beating any more. You may have forgotten about it, my darling, but I never will.’
    I sensed a hovering presence near us. Not John, the proprietor of La Clota, where we had eaten, as I always have on my L’Escala visits, since the earliest days . . . John wouldn’t have hovered; he’d have crash-landed at our table . . . but the tall young waiter who had served us. His face was new to me, but that wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t been in Spain for a couple of years.
    I glanced in his direction, and he moved in, his order pad in his left hand, which had a large sticking plaster across the back. ‘Coffee, senores?’ he asked. ‘Or would you like liqueurs?’ His English was confident, but heavily accented.
    I glanced at Sarah. ‘Coffee will be fine,’ she said.
    ‘Me too,’ I told the kid, once Sarah, my coffee monitor, had given me the nod. ‘But let’s have a couple of sambucas as well.’
    ‘Certainly. What type of coffee, senores?’
    ‘Americano, please,’ Sarah told him.
    ‘And I’ll have a tailat ,’ I added. There’s no single word in English for what I wanted, espresso with a little milk, so I used the Catalan.
    He frowned at me. ‘I’m sorry?’
    I switched to Castillian Spanish. ‘ Un cortado, por favor. ’
    His eyebrows rose, and he flushed a little beneath the tan. ‘Of course. Perdon , senor.’
    I’d embarrassed the lad. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be flashing my crap Catalan. So you’re not from these parts?’
    ‘No, senor, I am from the south of Spain. There’s more work on the Costa Brava than where I live; I’m here for the rest of the summer.’
    ‘Good for you, son. What will you do when it’s over?’
    ‘I go back to Cordoba, to start university.’
    ‘To study what?’ Sarah asked.
    ‘I will study chemistry, senora.’
    She smiled, and its warmth seemed to wash over the boy. ‘You could do much worse . . . What’s your name?’
    ‘Nacho, senora.’
    ‘Then good luck with your career, Nacho.’
    ‘Thank you, senora.’
    ‘But before you get that far,’ I interrupted, ‘do you know what to do with a sambuca?’
    ‘Of course, senor; I set it on fire.’
    ‘That’s right. But you’d be best to do it at the table, not at the bar. You might want to work here again next summer, and John will not take it too well if you burn down his restaurant.’
    ‘That is true, senor,’ he agreed, with a smile. ‘I will bring matches.’
    He turned and strode into the