The Boat House by Stephen Gallagher Read Free Book Online

block. It's really nothing to do with the hospital. A lot of us live here, that's all."
    Pete said, "Switch the lights off, for a minute."
    "Can you see something?"
    "I'm not sure."
    The glare of the unshaded light in the room wasn't doing much to help Pete's night vision; most of what he could see was his own reflection. The room went dark, and Janis came to join him as he scanned the bushes where he thought he'd seen a movement.
    There was an almost immediate response. One of the shadows moved, stepping out into the low-level light of the path.
    A young man, fit-looking, with short, fairish hair; pale skinned and unfashionably dressed, he was staring straight up at their window.
    "Is that him?" Pete said.
    "He's the one." Janis's voice had the kind of tome that she'd probably use to point out a particularly unappealing patch of slime.
    "Well, he's seen me."
    The prowler was still staring. There was no doubt about it, their window was the one that interested him above all the others; and far from being scared off by Pete's appearance, he'd actually moved out to become visible himself.
    Janis said, "It doesn't seem to have discouraged him much, does it?"
    "No." Pete took a step back, and drew her with him. "Have you got a big flashlight, something really bright?"
    "There's one I use with the car. But I don't want you doing anything stupid."
    "Me? No chance of it. I'm just going to ask him what he thinks he's at. It's the only way to deal with these people." Either that, he was thinking, or slug 'em with the flashlight . The bigger and heavier, the better.
    Janis was dubious. She didn't like what she'd started, but she was a single woman living alone and she'd been around enough to know that she'd be fooling herself if she didn't get nervous at something like this.
    She brought the flashlight from her kitchen. It was of a square, freestanding type with a carrying handle on the top. Pete did his best to meet her concern with confidence.
    "Don't worry," he said. "I'll bring it right back."
    Pete didn't switch on the stairwell light for his descent. He slipped out into the grounds unseen.
    Once in the cool night air, he stopped for a moment and told himself that he was going to have to slow down; otherwise, he might be heading for a nasty surprise. He didn't have to impress anybody - and even if, for understandable reasons, he felt that he did, he wasn't going to do it by taking on more than he could handle.
    He doubted that the prowler was going to be much of a problem.
    Adequate people didn't get their kicks from watching bedroom windows - or at least, that was the theory.
    He moved out into the shadows beside the path, and at first he didn't switch on the flashlight. He saw no one. So then he cautiously checked the dark spaces in the undergrowth with the beam, but again with no result. The peeper had guessed that someone was coming and had run, that was the only explanation that Pete could see.
    He was about to go back, when he heard voices from the direction of the street.
    So, moving quietly, he went to take a look.
    It was a big and anonymous-looking saloon, pulled in close to the kerbside and just far enough along to be screened from the apartments. Two men sat inside. A third stood on the pavement with the nearside door open, talking to them.
    The third man was the prowler, as seen from the second floor window.
    A sense of wrongness, hard to explain and impossible to ignore, began to take root somewhere deep inside Pete McCarthy. Since when did perverts hunt in threes? The two in the car, shown up by the interior light, seemed to be taking more interest in their trays of carry-out food than in what was being said to them. The one on the pavement, in contrast, seemed to be taking the whole thing more seriously. The man in the passenger seat - leather jacket, bearded, a face you could see and then forget - was nodding over his fried rice in a way that said Yeah, sure, you carry on and let us know when it's all over . The man