The Last Temptation by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page A

tiny flicker of strength that his grandfather’s constant and brutal humiliations had failed to extinguish, and he’d fed it the kindling of fantasy, then more of the hot burning fuel of hatred and self-loathing until it flared bright enough to fire him into action. He’d finally shown the sadistic old bastard who the real man was.
    He’d felt no remorse, neither in the immediate aftermath nor later, when attention had turned away from his grandfather’s death to the latest gossip of the rivermen. Thinking about what he’d done filled him with a lightness he’d never known before. The craving for more of it burned fierce inside him, but he had no idea how to satisfy it.
     
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    Improbably, the answer had come at the funeral, a gratifyingly small gathering. The old man had been a bargee all his adult life, but he had never had any talent for friendship. Nobody cared enough to give up a cargo to pay their last respects at the crematorium service. The new master of the Wilhelmina Rosen recognized most of the mourners as retired deckhands and skippers who had nothing better to do with their days.
    But as they filed out at the end of the impersonal service, an elderly man he’d never seen before plucked at his sleeve. ‘I knew your grandfather,’ he said. ‘I’d like to buy you a drink.’
    He didn’t know what people said to get out of social obligations they didn’t want. He’d so seldom been invited anywhere, he’d never had to learn. ‘All right,’ he’d said, and followed the man from the austere funeral suite.
    ‘Do you have a car?’ the elderly man said. ‘I came in a taxi.’
    He nodded, and led the way to his grandfather’s old Ford. That was something he planned to change, just as soon as the lawyers gave him the go-ahead to start spending the old man’s money. In the car, his passenger directed him away from the city and out into the countryside. They ended up at an inn that sat at a crossroads. The elderly man bought a couple of beers and pointed him to the beer garden.
    They’d sat down in a sheltered corner, the watery spring sunshine barely warm enough for outside drinking. ‘I’m Heinrich Holtz.’ The introduction came with a quizzical look. ‘Did he ever mention me? Heini?’
    He shook his head. ‘No, never.’
    Holtz exhaled slowly. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. What we shared, it wasn’t something any of us like to talk about.’ He sipped his beer with the fastidiousness of the occasional drinker.
    Whoever Holtz was, he clearly wasn’t from the world of
     
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    commercial barge traffic. He was a small, shrivelled man, his narrow shoulders hunched in on themselves as if he found himself perpetually in a cold wind. His watery grey eyes peered out from nests of wrinkles, his look sidelong rather than direct.
     
    ‘How did you know my grandfather?’ he asked. The answer, and the story that came with it, changed his life. Finally, he understood why his childhood had been made hell. But it was rage that welled up inside him, not forgiveness. At last, he could see where the light was. At last, he had a mission that would shatter the glacial grip of fear that had paralysed him for so long and stripped him of everything I that other people took for granted.|
    That night in Heidelberg had simply been the next stage in that project. He’d planned scrupulously, and since he was still at liberty, he’d clearly made no mistakes that mattered. But he’d learned a lot from that first execution, and there | were a couple of things he’d do differently in future.|
    He was planning a long future.
    He powered up the small crane that lifted his shiny Volkswagen Golf from the rear deck of the Wilhelmina Rosen on to the dock. Then he checked that everything was in his bag as it should be: notepad, pen, scalpel, spare blades, adhesive tape, thin cord and a funnel. The small jar containing formalin, tightly screwed shut. All present and correct. He checked his watch. Plenty of time to