Lost Cause by John Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

in the photograph. It looked older, more worn. My eyes drifted to the wall beside it, as if I expected to see the faded hammer and sickle and the words Mac Pap . There was nothing.
    Well, this was it, the moment that would determine the next two weeks. Whether I succeeded or failed. I stepped forward and raised my fist to knock. Before I had a chance, the door flew open and the girl from the photograph stood there, smiling exactly as she had all those years ago. The insane thought that she was a vampire, one of the ageless undead, flashed into my mind before I squashed it. That was stupid, even for me.
    It wasn’t the same girl. Not only was that impossible, but now that I looked closely, this girl was different. There was a similarity around the mouth and she had dark hair and an olive complexion, but I was starting to understand that was pretty common in Spain. The nose was the clincher; it wasn’t at all like the one on the girl in the photograph. Hers had been small and straight. This girl’s nose was longer and narrower, more like mine, and it was slightly skewed, giving the impression that her head was continually tilted slightly to one side as if she was questioning everything.
    All this flashed through my mind in the first second I stood staring, slack-jawed at her, but it was her eyes that made my knees go weak. They were the deepest brown I had ever seen, so deep that I almost felt I was falling into them.
    â€œAre you going to hit me?” the girl asked in perfect English.
    Horrified, I realized I was standing in front of this beautiful girl with my fist raised threateningly. I snapped my arm back to my side. “No. Of course not. I was about to knock. I’m sorry,” I babbled.
    The girl’s smile broadened. “You are lucky, Steve. I was just on my way out. I expected you earlier.”
    â€œSorry,” I blurted out again before I realized what she had said. “How do you know my name?”
    â€œYour grandfather told me.”
    â€œMy grandfather told you?” The more I said, the stupider I sounded. But how could my grandfather have told her? She wasn’t the girl in the photograph and, as far as I knew, my grandfather had never been to Spain after the war. “How?”
    â€œIn the letter he wrote to me.”
    â€œThe letter?” My brain seemed to have stopped working.
    â€œYes,” the girl said patiently. “My great-grandmother wrote your grandfather a letter and he wrote back. Then I heard from your grandfather’s lawyer that you would be arriving on an early flight this morning and would be coming here. That’s why I expected you before now. A taxi from the airport does not take this long.”
    â€œThere weren’t many taxis,” I said, “so I took a bus, and had a coffee.”
    The girl nodded as if what I had said made any sense. “Well, now that you have had your coffee and are here, shall we go inside?”
    â€œYes,” I mumbled and followed her through the door.
    It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside, but I could soon make out a row of mailboxes along one wall on my right. The girl was already climbing stone stairs ahead of me.
    On the first landing, the girl produced a key and opened a second heavy wooden door and waved me into a wide corridor. Doors opened off to the left and right, but we proceeded down the corridor’s full length into a wide room, brightly lit by floor-toceiling windows that overlooked the street. The high ceiling was carved dark wood, and the walls were almost completely covered with framed pictures, both old black-and-white photographs and paintings. What wall space was left was covered with overloaded bookshelves, and a variety of old-fashioned chairs were scattered around a low wooden table. The floor, too, was wood but was covered in the center by a worn red patterned rug.
    â€œWelcome to my home,” the girl said. “Put your pack down; it looks