The Watcher in the Shadows Read Online Free Page B

mother exchanged glances.
    ‘I’d love that,’ said Irene after a short pause.
    Hannah smiled from ear to ear.
    ‘Don’t worry, Madame Sauvelle. I’ll bring her back in one piece.’
    Irene and her new friend shot out through the front door and set off towards the Englishman’s Beach, while the house slowly recovered its sense of calm. Simone took her cup of coffee out onto the porch to enjoy the peaceful morning. Dorian waved at her from the cliffs.
    Simone waved back at him. Curious boy. Always alone. He didn’t seem to be interested in making friends, or perhaps he didn’t know how to. Always lost in his own world and his notebooks, and whatever else filled his mind . . . As she finished her coffee, Simone took one last look at Hannah and her daughter walking off towards the village. Hannah was still chatting away. It takes all sorts, she thought.
    Learning about the mysteries and subtleties of life in a small coastal village took up most of the Sauvelles’ time that first month in Blue Bay. The initial phase – a period characterised by culture shock and confusion – lasted a good week. During that time they discovered that, apart from the metric system, all the customs, rules and peculiarities of Blue Bay were completely different to their Paris equivalents. Firstly, there was the question of timekeeping. In Paris it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that for every thousand inhabitants there were another thousand watches – tyrannical inventions that organised life with military precision. Yet in Blue Bay there seemed to be no other timepiece than the sun. And no other cars but Doctor Giraud’s, the vehicle belonging to the police and Lazarus’s car. And no other . . . the list seemed endless. Deep down, though, the differences didn’t lie in the number of things, but in the way of life.
    Paris was a city of strangers, a place where you could live for years without knowing the name of the person who lived across the landing. In Blue Bay you couldn’t sneeze or scratch the tip of your nose without the event being widely commented on by the whole community. This was a village where even a cold was news and where news was passed on quicker than a cold. There was no local paper, nor was there any need for one.
    It was Hannah’s mission to instruct the family on the life, history and wonders of the small community. Because of the dizzying speed with which the girl machine-gunned out her words, she managed to compress into a few sessions enough information to fill an encyclopedia. This was how they found out that Laurent Savant, the local priest, organised diving championships and marathons, and that on top of his stammering sermons about laziness and lack of exercise, he’d covered more miles on his bicycle than Marco Polo. They also learned that the village council met on Tuesdays and Thursdays at one o’clock to discuss local issues. During these meetings, Jean-Luc Dupuy, who had effectively been appointed mayor of Blue Bay for life and was as old as Methuselah, spent a good deal of time stroking the cushions of his armchair under the table, convinced that he was exploring the hefty thighs of Antoinette Fabré, the town hall’s treasurer and a fierce spinster.
    Hannah rattled out an average of six stories per minute. This was not unrelated to the fact that her mother, Elisabet, worked in the bakery, which seemed to double up as an information hub, detective bureau and agony-aunt service for the village.
    It did not take long for the Sauvelles to realise that the village financial system tended towards a rather strange twist on Parisian capitalism. The bakery, it would appear, sold baguettes, but in the back room an information exchange was also in operation. Monsieur Desplat, the cobbler, mended belts, zips and the soles of shoes. However, his forte was his double life as an astrologer and tarot card reader . . .
    This pattern was repeated over and over again. On the surface, life seemed calm and