The Darkfall Switch Read Online Free

He had stopped in a pretty tree-shaded avenue close to London’s sprawling Richmond Park. It was early evening and the trees were showing the best of their early-autumn colours in the golden light of the setting sun. The air had been washed clear by the rain that had fallen earlier in the day, and now everything was crystal-bright. It was still warm, and hanging in the air was a slight, not unpleasant, smell of leaves burning on distant bonfires.
    He sniffed at the air and clenched his jaw as he removed a bottle of wine from the car. This evening was going to be tough. Three months had passed since the Oxford Circus disaster and the pain of losing his fiancée, Fiona, was still like a raw wound – an injury into which salt was agonizingly rubbed by the slightest reference to her.
    Immediately after the disaster he had retreated into a shell, and it had been a long time before his many friends had been able to persuade him to emerge again. Now, this was the first time he had been to a dinner party since her death, and he dreaded what the evening would bring. But he knew he had to face life again some time or other, and it might as well be now. He locked the car and headed for a nearby house.
    As he pushed the gate open and stepped on to the crazy-paved path leading to the front door, he paused for a moment to think about the owner of the house in front of him. Alex Cooper was an old friend who had left his home in Hong Kong soon after the former colony’s handover to the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1997. Alex had made hispile in Hong Kong and, as a result, had been able to buy this elegant Victorian edifice.
    Foster had to admire the house. It was a two-storey detached, red-brick building, fronted by an elegant lawn. The lawn was bordered with flower-beds that were only now beginning to recover from the summer’s drought. Foster guessed that Cooper employed a gardener, because he had always dismissed gardening as an esoteric art obscured by complicated Latin names and mumbo jumbo processes. His Hong Kong apartment had boasted only a small window box which Cooper’s Canadian wife, Tina, had lovingly nurtured.
    Foster was confident that the invitation he had received had come from Alex, most probably over Tina’s objections. He had always suspected that she was suspicious of him, and probably a little jealous too because, as engineers, the two men had much in common. Although they both tried hard to include her in their conversations when she was present they both knew that, at best, she merely perched on the edge of their discussions, apparently amused but not really involving herself, and showing an obvious air of bored tolerance.
    He advanced up to the door, rang the bell and was very soon greeted by Cooper who gave his customary broad Cockney greeting, ‘Wot-cher mate!’ and proffered a large paw to be shaken as he looked at Foster. Cooper was faintly surprised that very little seemed to have changed in his old friend: there was still the tan, possibly a little faded now, and perhaps the beard was a little more grey, but he still looked fit and under his smart cord jacket and chinos, his body seemed hard-muscled as ever.
    Foster accepted the offered fist and handed over the bottle of wine. Cooper gave the label a once-over and smiled thanks before leading his old friend into the living room.
    The room was genuinely beautiful, with intricately moulded plaster cornices, elegant William Morris wallpaper, comfortable chairs and a large settee. A fire blazed in the hearth opposite a wall filled with bookshelves.
    ‘Very nice!’ Foster commented and Cooper smiled an acknowledgement .
    ‘Yes, Tina’s done it up well,’ Cooper said. ‘Or she’s employed people to do it,’ he added with a wink. ‘I found the house myself and fell in love with it because it’s got a huge brick outbuilding that I saw straight away could be turned into a workshop. I’ll give you a dekko later, if you like.’
    Cooper loved