Hour of the Wolf Read Online Free Page B

almost every second. That slight thud and the jerk of the steering wheel; the rain, the lifeless body of the boy and the slippery ditch . . . Always present in the background, day and night: and now at last when he was starting to have periods when he didn’t think about it, it felt in a way as if something was missing.
    A sort of emptiness.
    Like after an eleven-year-long childless marriage . . . Yes, there were definitely similarities.
    During this period it occurred to him that he must be some kind of hermit. Since Marianne left me, nobody has really meant anything to me. Nobody at all. Things happen to me, but I don’t make anything happen. I exist, but I don’t live.
    Why haven’t I found myself a new woman? Why have I hardly ever asked myself that question? And now, suddenly, I’m somebody else.
    Who? Who am I?
    The fact that such thoughts should start occurring to him after he’d run over a young boy was remarkable in itself, of course, but something prevented him from digging too deeply into the situation. He decided instead to take things as they came, and to do something about it for once, and break new ground. And before he knew where he was – before he’d had time to think about it and perhaps have second thoughts – he had invited a woman round for dinner. He happened to meet her in the canteen: she had come to sit at his table – there was a shortage of space, as usual. He didn’t even know if he’d seen her before. Probably not.
    But she’d accepted his invitation.
    Her name was Vera Miller. She was cheerful and red-haired, and on the Saturday night – just over three weeks since he had killed another human being for the first time in his life – he made love to another woman for the first time in almost four years.
    The next morning they made love again, and afterwards she told him that she was married. They discussed it for a while, and he realized that the fact worried her much more than it worried him.
    The letter arrived on Monday.
    Some time has passed since you murdered the boy. I have been waiting for your conscience to wake up, but I now realize that you are a weak person who doesn’t have the courage to own up to what you have done.
    I have irrefutable evidence which will put you in jail the moment I hand it over to the police. My silence will cost you ten thousand – a piffling amount for a man of your stature, but nevertheless I shall give you a week (exactly seven days) to produce the money. – Do the necessary.
    Looking forward to hearing from you.
    A friend
    Handwritten. With neat, sloping letters. Black ink.
    He read it over and over again, five times.

4
    ‘Is something bothering you?’ Vera Miller asked as they were eating their evening meal. ‘You seem a bit subdued.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her. ‘I just feel a bit out of sorts. I think I have a temperature.’
    ‘I hope it’s nothing to do with me? With us, I mean.’
    She swirled the wine in her glass and eyed him solemnly.
    ‘No, of course not . . .’
    He tried to laugh, but could hear that he produced a rasping sound. He took a swig of wine instead.
    ‘I think it’s all started so well, you and me I mean,’ she said. ‘I so much want there to be a second chapter, and a third as well.’
    ‘Of course. Forgive me, I’m a bit on the tired side – but it’s nothing to do with you. I think the same as you . . . I promise you that.’
    She smiled and caressed his arm.
    ‘Good. I’d almost forgotten that making love could be as enjoyable as this. It’s incredible that you’ve been lying fallow for four years. How could that happen?’
    ‘I was waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Shall we go to bed?’
    When she left him on Sunday, he found himself longing for her almost immediately. They had made love until well into the early hours, and it was just as she had said: it was almost incredible that it could be as satisfying as this. He crept back into bed and burrowed