House of the Hanged by Mark Mills Read Free Book Online Page B

cutting, where the ground vanished in a sheer drop of some thirty feet to the steel tracks below. From here he made his way back towards the sea, working methodically, taking each patch of land between the latticework of pathways in turn and searching it thoroughly, delving deep into the tangled underbrush.

Chapter Three
    He signed for the cocktails and lay back on the sun lounger. As jobs went, he reflected, things didn’t get much better than this.
    He cast his mind back over the other ones and concluded that things didn’t get any better than this. Talk about mixing business and pleasure: a summer break at a top hotel right on the beach, just one little chore to perform and then he’d be gone.
    â€˜Why are you smiling?’
    She had finished her swim and was towelling herself dry in the sunshine. She was in good condition for her age, although gravity had taken its inevitable toll on her breasts and buttocks.
    â€˜Because I’m contented,’ he replied.
    He spoke a formal French, far too formal, but it would have to do. It was the only shared language between them. He barely spoke a word of German, let alone Swiss German, and her Italian was a joke.
    â€˜Is that for me?’ she asked in her guttural French, nodding at the drinks set on the table between their loungers.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜You’re a bad boy.’
    He was about to reply that she sounded like his mother, but checked himself just in time. She was, after all, close to his mother’s age; not so close as to repel him, but close enough for him to feel mildly squeamish at the prospect of seducing her.
    â€˜I’m on holiday,’ he said. ‘And so are you.’
    For the first time in their brief acquaintance, he used the familiar ‘ tu ’ instead of ‘ vous ’, and he could see that this didn’t go unnoticed by her.
    She adjusted her bathing costume, brushed some imaginary sand from her thigh and lowered herself on to the lounger.
    â€˜Well, if you insist . . .’ she purred coquettishly, following his lead and using the familiar pronoun.
    He knew from their conversation on the terrace after dinner last night that her husband had been held back in Zurich on business, leaving her to travel on ahead alone. He could picture the husband rolling around with his secretary on some dishevelled bed, and he wondered if she suspected the same.
    â€˜Did you contact your friend?’ she asked.
    â€˜My friend?’
    â€˜The painter in Cannes.’
    â€˜Oh him . . . yes.’
    He remembered now. Stuck with the cover story he’d already shared with a couple of the other hotel guests, he’d embellished it slightly for her benefit, adding a touch of glamour to impress. The painter in Cannes was a childhood friend from Rome who had recently found great success abroad, and was eager to show off his new house on the Cap d’Antibes.
    â€˜Have you decided when you’re leaving?’
    Not immediately the job was done; that was liable to arouse suspicion. No, he would brave it out for a day or two afterwards, as he usually did.
    â€˜When is your husband arriving?’
    â€˜Saturday.’
    He glanced around him, but the only people within earshot were two sun-bronzed children, a brother and sister, playing beach quoits nearby, and they were far too absorbed in their game to be listening.
    â€˜I was thinking Friday,’ he said.
    There, it was done. He had made his intentions plain. It wasn’t the end of the world if she didn’t take the bait, but it would be much better if she did. It was always good to have an alibi up your sleeve.
    She didn’t react at first; she just took a sip of her cocktail and stretched out on the lounger, closing her eyes.
    â€˜I’ve never done this sort of thing before,’ she said quietly.
    â€˜You haven’t done anything.’
    She turned on to her side and looked at him. ‘No, but I want to.’
    He saw the way the