The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Read Free Book Online

your father. Do you like the girl or don’t you?’
    ‘Mm . . . well . . .’
    ‘Don’t give me monosyllables, Romeo. I’m three times your age. Do you like her or don’t you?’
    Ismael shrugged. His cheeks were as bright as ripe peaches. Finally he mumbled something unintelligible.
    ‘Translate,’ his uncle insisted.
    ‘I said yes, I think so. Although I hardly know her.’
    ‘Good. That’s more than I could say the first time I met your aunt. And I swear by heaven above she’s a saint.’
    ‘What was she like when she was young?’
    ‘Let’s not get started on that or you’ll be cleaning the bilge next Saturday,’ Hupert threatened.
    Ismael relented and began to gather up his work tools. His uncle watched him as he cleaned the grease off his hands. The last girl his nephew had shown an interest in was someone called Laura, the daughter of a travelling salesman from Bordeaux, and that had been almost two years ago. His nephew’s great love, as far as he could tell, seemed to be the sea, and solitude. There must be something special about this girl.
    ‘I’ll have the bilge clean before Friday,’ Ismael announced.
    ‘It’s all yours.’
    When uncle and nephew jumped onto the dock and set off for home just before nightfall, their neighbour Picaud was still examining the mysterious pieces of metal that had fallen from the sky, trying to work out whether it was going to rain nuts and bolts that summer or whether heaven was sending him a sign.
    By the time August arrived, the Sauvelles felt as if they’d been living in Blue Bay for at least a year. Those who hadn’t yet met them knew all about them thanks to the communication skills of both Hannah and her mother, Elisabet Hupert. By some extraordinary alchemy, news seemed to reach the bakery where she worked even before the event. Neither the radio nor the press could compete with Madame Hupert’s conveyor belt of croissants and gossip. Which is why, by the time Friday came around, the only inhabitants of Blue Bay who hadn’t heard about the supposed love at first sight between Ismael Hupert and Irene Sauvelle were the fish and the interested parties themselves. Little did it matter that nothing had actually taken place; the short voyage from the Englishman’s Beach to Seaview had already been set down in the annals of that summer.
    Simone, in the meantime, had finally managed to establish a mental map of Cravenmoore, but her list of urgent chores was endless. Just making contact with suppliers in the village, sorting out payments and accounts, and seeing to Lazarus’s correspondence consumed every minute of her time. Dorian became her carrier pigeon, thanks to a bicycle Lazarus had kindly given him as a welcome gift. Within a few days, the boy was familiar with every stone and pothole on the road along the Englishman’s Beach.
    Each morning, Simone began the day by sending off the letters that had to be posted and meticulously sorting out the letters that had come in, just as Lazarus had asked her to. A small note on a folded piece of paper served as a quick reminder of Lazarus’s specifications. She would never forget her third day there, when she had been on the point of accidentally opening one of the letters sent from Berlin by Daniel Hoffmann. She only remembered at the very last second not to touch it.
    Hoffmann’s letters usually arrived every nine days, with almost mathematical precision. The vellum envelopes were always sealed with wax and marked with a stamp in the shape of a D. Simone soon became used to separating them from the rest, and ignored the strange nature of the correspondence. During the first week of August, however, something happened that reawakened her curiosity.
    Simone had gone to Lazarus’s study first thing in the morning with a few invoices and receipts that had just arrived. She preferred to leave them on his desk early in the day, before the toymaker went to his study, so that she did not have to interrupt him