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

the file about her private life or marital status one way or the other, but there was something about her family. She’d had three children, one of which had passed away in the 1960’s from polio, and two grandchildren. No details apart from one name.

A grandson, born in 1990.

Just a Christian name.

Bartholomew.

Pieter gently lowered the file and placed it onto the desk. In his chest something icy gave his heart the smallest of squeezes.

Slowly he came to his feet, the chair’s legs scrapping backwards across the floor.

For about twenty seconds he stood motionless, not daring to blink or breathe.

HELSINKI – FINLAND. MAY 2002

The black Toyota with the tinted windows pulled up before the large security gate. The driver’s window rolled down and a black-suited arm reached out towards the intercom system fixed to one of the stone pillars. A moment later, with a quiet electric hum, the gates slowly swung open, and the car glided forward down the short driveway towards the ornate house.

Swinging around the turning circle before a set of wide steps, it drew to a halt, and the driver briskly jumped out to open the rear passenger door.

Three people stepped out. A smartly-dressed lady wearing an expensive looking coat and cream-coloured trousers, and two children, a boy and a girl.

The boy was the oldest, aged twelve, and full of confidence. He was quite tall for his age, if a little plump in the face. He stepped forward and then turned with an annoying sigh as he had to wait for the little girl who followed behind.

She was around six or seven years younger, and very pretty, with fine freckles across her nose, but was very shy by nature, and the lady had to usher her along and encourage her up the steps with the boy.

At the top the double doors of the large townhouse were already open and they stepped into the gloomy interior, leaving the spring sunshine behind.

The house was mostly silent. It was mid-morning, but instead of the hustle and bustle that one might expect, the place was still and hushed. There were no staff, or pets, to welcome the visitors, just a large empty hallway and its grand staircase leading up to a landing above.

The lady led them upwards. Their footsteps were cushioned by the thick, red carpet underfoot. Lining the walls were a number of paintings. One showed a grand seascape, another was of a lake surrounded by a majestic forest. Another was a portrait of a fine-looking fellow, resplendent in his military uniform. The boy and the girl gawped at them open-mouthed as they climbed past, but as they neared the top their attention switched to the landing just ahead.

At the top a long hallway stretched before them leading to an open doorway at the end, and even before they approached they heard the beeps and electronic buzzes of medical equipment, the hiss and gurgle of respirators.

Now the boy hung back as well as the little girl, but the lady escorting them gently encouraged them forward.

“I will be right here. In you go, both of you.”

The room was carpeted in black, and the walls were of warm oak panelling. One whole side was dominated by a large, curved window, offering a panoramic view across the city.

At the centre was a king size bed surrounded by monitors and ventilators and syringe pumps, a resuscitator bag and a defibrillator and ICU screens.

On the bed, the dried-up old husk of a dying man.

The boy and the girl hesitated just inside the doorway. The room was large and spacious and beautifully adorned, with a high ceiling and fine furniture. In one corner was an ornate gilt mirror, and beyond it a private bathroom decorated with gold fittings and a grey slate floor. A bookcase was filled with old and rare volumes, preserved behind a glass front. But their attention was riveted on the man lying before them, and the sound of his slow and laboured breathing, which hissed through the oxygen mask hiding his features.

The old man opened his eyes. They scanned the room until they came to rest on the children and he beckoned them forward weakly.

The older boy and the young girl shuffled towards him reluctantly, until they stood on either side of the bed.

They watched him reach up and remove the oxygen mask, and the toothless grin beneath seemed more like a grimace of pain. A wracking cough crackled and wheezed from out of his emaciated body, and his other hand gripped the bedcovers tightly in discomfort, and the boy and girl waited nervously.

Eventually the convulsions passed and the skinny figure became still once more, but the eyes continued to look from face to face, and they seemed to shine with pride.

He exhaled slowly, and then spoke with surprising softness in a clear but whispery voice.

“My children, my lovely, sweet grandchildren.”

The boy swallowed, for his throat had suddenly become dry, all of his earlier confidence gone. Confronted with the sight of this elderly man wasting away and dying before his eyes was a frightening experience. All the more so because they both knew who he was, had heard stories about him from their mother. And although they had never met him before, they had been filled with awe about today, a peculiar excitement that had built and built. They would finally get to see this powerful person, their grandfather, for themselves. The one who others spoke about in hushed and reverent tones.

Yet here he was, a weak and pitiful-looking shadow of a man, tired and decrepit and close to the end of his life.

The boy felt tears of shame and disappointment well up in his eyes. He felt let down, embarrassed and angry.

But the girl. Her heart bloomed with love and tenderness. An almost overwhelming and intoxicating feeling of compassion swelled inside her heart, and she stepped forward and smiled at her grandfather.

She lay her head gently on his chest. The rattling and wheezing coming from his worn-out lungs