The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit Read Online Free

something wrong. The man’s suit was wholly inappropriate for the beach in such hot weather. I could tell the little boy was aching to come and join the sand-castle fun. Then the boy lifted his hand and gently waggled his fingers, waving at me. I felt a shiver of loneliness for them.
    I figured that the man and the boy were not staying at the holiday resort and were therefore not permitted to join in the organized program. But I thought what the hell, so I beckoned the boy and his father to come and join us. What did it matter if the boy sat at the edge and joined in? They showed no sign of coming over so I smiled and beckoned them again.I couldn’t tell for sure but I thought the man was carrying a rope looped over his shoulder. Then I felt a sharp tug at my sleeve, and a little girl with white-blond ringlets and a freckled face said, quite indignantly, “My name isn’t Fish-and-Chips.”
    “Oh, so what is it?”
    “Sally Laws.”
    “Sausage Legs?”
    “No! Sally Laws!”
    Sally Laws wanted me to look at her sand castle, so I forgot about the little boy and the man in the blue suit. When I looked up they were already moving away. I felt sad for them so I stood up to go after them, but some sudden jolt, some squeeze in my gut prevented me. Instead I watched them go.
    After a while I went back and sat down next to Nikki. I thought she’d fallen asleep, but with her eyes still closed she said, “You’re good at working the parents.”
    “The
parents
?”
    “They love it, that. When you pay attention to their kids.”
    I looked hard at her. She kept her eyes closed now, but she must have been watching me as I’d made a circuit of the sand castles. I guess I was a bit shocked at her cynicism. I just wanted to make sure these children were having a nice time. I hadn’t done it to impress the parents. Then I remembered that Nikki was a professional dancer and entertainment was her trade. It was show biz. We were being paid to be nice. Like Abdul-Shazam in the café, serenading the punters. You were paid to smile.
    The hot sun climbed a little in the sky and when the end of the hour was reached, Nikki gave an impressive blast onher whistle. The children were beautifully behaved, sitting in stiff attention as Nikki and I judged the results together. We awarded first, second, and third prize positions and, like a scribe in the temples of Egypt, Nikki with great ceremony wrote down the names of the winners on her clipboard. They were to be awarded prizes at a theater gala event on the final day of their holiday. Meanwhile I saw to it that every child who had taken part got a stick of rock candy.
    We were then left with a free hour before lunch at the canteen. Once again we resorted to a coffee bar to fill the gap, but this time the one with sky-blue parasols alongside the swimming pool. On the way there, scurrying by in her white cleaning overalls, was the woman who, along with her husband, had shared a table with me only the day before.
    “Hello!” I called cheerily.
    She dealt me the quickest of smiles I’d ever seen. She compressed her lips and seemed to scuttle on by even faster.
    “Friendly,” I said to Nikki, after the woman was out of earshot.
    “I heard about that,” Nikki said, donning a pair of sunglasses. With her raven hair radiating an almost blue halo in the sun I thought she looked impossibly glamorous. Like a movie star. “Didn’t you sit at their table in the canteen?”
    “News travels fast.”
    “You were lucky.”
    “Oh?”
    We got coffees and took them to a table by the pool. She stirred a packet of sugar into her cup and as she spoke I noticed that she had a babyish fang-shaped canine eitherside of her front teeth. No, they didn’t make her look like a vampire. They made her look girlish, cute, kissable. “Last time someone tried to sit down at his table he grabbed their soup and flung it across the room, followed by their dinner, followed by their tray. He shouted, ‘This is my