Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

the lab to analyse it. Hopefully they would provide some answers to the mystery.

Done, Pieter grabbed the chair from beside the small desk and PC and, placing it on the floor, climbed up and shoved open the sash window and poked his head out of the attic. He looked down at the street below, once again struck by how high up this part of his house was. The guy last night – and he only assumed it was a man – certainly had a pair of balls for the method of his escape was treacherous and foolhardy, for one false step in the dark and he would have taken a swan-dive straight down to the pavement below.

Shaking his head in wonder, Pieter reached out his hands and felt around the outside of the small, square window frame, along the bottom, up the sides and across the top, searching for a tell-tale sign that the window had been jimmied open from the outside.

Nothing. Not a single thing.

◆◆◆

After lunch Pieter decided he ought to go over to his dad’s houseboat to collect a few things. As he fancied a bit of fresh air, he decided to walk.

It was a sunny day and the thirty minutes it took to go from his home on the Singel canal to the riverfront helped to clear his head. Before reaching his dad’s, there was a small jetty that he stopped off at. It was nothing more than a stumpy wooden thing sticking out into the river for a few metres, but he stood there and let the stiff breeze blowing in off the water ruffle his brown hair and blow away a few cobwebs.

The houseboat was tied up in its usual spot, having been brought back to the riverside by the police once they had finished their work. Two cheap fold-out deckchairs plus dad’s fishing gear was still up on the top, together with a large number of empty cans and bottles of booze. Finding some plastic refuse bags, Pieter cleared away the rubbish and then packed away the fishing rods and tackle back into their storage space just inside the boat’s narrow entrance.

Going into the main living space Pieter stood looking at the usual mess, the place cluttered with junk and old furniture and unwashed cups, but somehow empty and soulless. He hated the thought of throwing a lot of it away, but really who the hell would want it? Pieter planned on selling the houseboat itself, quickly and if need be, cheaply, just to get it off his hands. Some of the better items, such as the kitchen stools and the small bookcase in the corner, perhaps the double bed, and the TV which was one of those smallish but modern flat-screen ones, they could probably be sold with the boat itself. After all, who would want to buy an unfurnished and empty houseboat? But much of the rest was no use, they were simply things that dad had accrued over the years and allowed to fall into a state of disrepair. Junk really. As for dad’s clothes, he would go through them and take the better items to a launderette and offer them to a charity organisation.

However, Pieter didn’t have the energy to make a start today. Perhaps later in the week, during his evenings, he would begin the sad process of dismantling his memories of his dad, bit by bit loosening the connection his dad had with life. Until eventually, all traces of him would be gone, having made no mark whatsoever on the world.

There was one thing that Pieter wanted to salvage today, however.

He stepped across the room and took down the framed photo from the wall, the one with his dad and his army colleagues. Holding it in his hands, Pieter looked at the image, and could not stop the lump in his throat. He clenched his teeth, realizing that this photo right here was a snapshot showing the point in his dad’s life when his entire future altered. The moment that signified the start of his gradual decline, from a happy and kind father and dedicated soldier, to the grubby and sordid nature of his addiction, and the tragically sad circumstances of his death. All caught in this one photograph, frozen in time.

Tucking the picture frame under his arm he set off for home.

When he reached his canal house he found Lotte sitting on the doorstep.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

CHAPTER 8

SLEEP OVER

She’d brought with her a large canvas shoulder bag, presumably with a few overnight things inside. Plus a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

“I don’t want to be on my own,” she’d told him, talking quickly “Call me silly, but I just can’t bear the thought of spending another night there, jumping at every sound. Which is stupid, because nothing actually happened there, but it’s still frightening thinking that Bart might just turn up. Even though you said he wouldn’t.”

She’d smiled up at him sheepishly from the doorstep.

“And I don’t think you should be on your own either,” she’d added.

Then Lotte had jumped to her feet and flung her arms around him, squeezing him fiercely. Crying, not for herself, but for Pieter and his dad, who she had never even met.

Inviting her in, Pieter led her upstairs. On the way up she had a good glance around his place, her disposition now a little sunnier, and her positivity starting to rub off onto him as she nodded approvingly at the set up.

When she walked into his kitchen however, she stopped in her tracks, and looked at him.

“A microwave and a small toaster? Seriously, that’s all you have?”

Pieter shrugged.

Rolling her eyes, Lotte handed him the bottle of wine. “You open this, and find some glasses. I’ll see what I can rustle up.” With that, she began going through his cupboards.

A short while later they were sitting side by side on the couch in the living room and tucking into cheese and ham omelettes sprinkled with pepper, their