The Boat House by Stephen Gallagher Read Free Book Online Page A

on the pavement straightened, and Pete took a step back into deeper shadow.
    The young man turned. Under the yellow streetlights his face was a deathmask, a short-lived effect that faded as he walked back to the pathway. Pete, still in the bushes and now feeling like a prowler himself, held his breath as the man passed him no more than a few feet away. A dozen yards further on the man stopped, raised his head, and laseredin on the same second-floor window as before. Janis had kept her lounge in darkness, but there was enough spill from one of the inner rooms to make out her moving shadow with surprising clarity.
    Pete moved onto the concrete path in silence, out of the sight of the car again. The blatancy of this really pissed him off. His outdoor job kept him reasonably fit and even gave him a certain physical grace developed on narrow ladders and slippery decks, and he knew that he could look mean as long as he didn't smile. He didn't think there was much danger of him smiling now.
    He reached out with the flashlight, and pushed the man on the shoulder.
    "Seen anything you like?" he said.
    The man spun around, startled, but Pete was well back and out of reach. He held the flashlight ready, a weapon for if he needed it.
    "So," he went on. "What's the idea? This isn't some free show."
    They faced each other.
    The man was struggling for words. Shock made the struggle almost physical, like that of a beached fish for air. There was something strange about him, something off-key.
    And then he spoke.
    His accent was like Alina's. Only more so.
    "I need to see her," he said. "She has to talk to me."
    Suddenly Pete didn't need to ask who. How long had they been following, the three of them in the car? He felt blind, he felt stupid. He felt like a man who'd picked up an exhausted
    hare and then turned to see the dogs bearing down on him. He swallowed, hard, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now.
    "Listen," the man said, with a glance toward the road; he was holding up his hands as if to fend Pete away, or to show that he wasn't going to attack. "Those two men in the car, they're British policemen. Once I've identified her, they'll come for her. I don't want that to happen until I've at least had the chance to talk to her. Will you tell her that? Tell her you saw Pavel and he wants to talk. Please."
    The man was circling, heading back for the car and keeping safely out of range. Pete glanced up at the window again, long enough to see that Janis was there and staying well back in the room. She was a shade, a silhouette; at this distance, she could have been anybody.
    "Please," the man said again, still backing off, and with a note that was like desperation in his voice.
    A moment later, he was gone.
    Pete watched the space where he'd been; a light breeze shook the bushes, and a car horn sounded somewhere faroff. Then he turned, and briefly switched on the flashlight to signal to the block that everything was okay.
    One thing was clear to him. The prowler - Pavel, or whatever his name was - had been looking at Janis's outline and thinking that he was seeing Alina. As long as this mistake went uncorrected, they had time.
    Back indoors, Pete spent a couple of minutes in exploration before he knocked on the door of the third floor flat.
    Alina opened it.
    "You found your burglar?" she said as Pete came in and made sure that the door was closed behind him; he then set the flashlight on the teak effect sideboard, and turned to face her.
    "Does the name Pavel mean anything to you?" he said.
    Her reaction was instantaneous. Astonishment. Fear.
    She said, "I don't understand."
    "He's the one, the man outside. He knows you're here."
    "But how?"
    "I don't know. Could anyone have told them where your flight would be taking you?"
    "Nikolai," she said bleakly.
    "Well, it looks as if somebody near the airport must have seen me picking you up. They'll have put out a call on the make of the car. They'll think we're around here somewhere, but