Read Online No Place in the Sun by John Mulligan - Free Book Online Page A

arrived and Tom got stuck in to the hamburger and eggs; the food was tasty, just what he needed. The Englishman got up to leave.
    ‘Enjoy your meal; contact me if you ever want to put roots down in Western Marbella. Henry Williams is the name, I’m sales manager for one of the biggest property agencies in this area, be delighted to help if you ever need to buy or rent a place.’ He dropped a business card on the table and wended his way between the tightly packed tables to the street.
    Tom finished off his food and leaned back, taking in his surroundings. The restaurant was open at the front, facing across the narrow street to the harbour. A constant parade of pedestrians strolled up and down, alternately looking at the boats and at the diners in the restaurants. The occasional luxury car detached itself from its parking space and squeezed through the throng of tourists. The background noise was overlain with a constant clanking of ropes against the hollow aluminium masts of the yachts in the marina, the babble of a dozen languages and the rattle of glasses and cutlery. It was a pleasant place to sit and consider a few options; it seemed a million miles away from the pressure of the sales yard and the troubles that had descended on his head over the last couple of days.
    The best course of action was to enjoy the break and do nothing for a while; that was for sure. He owed himself a holiday, and he had plenty of money in his pocket and lots more in the bank. The last year working for Kevin had been lucrative, with a combination of long working hours and high earnings and little time to spend the money; he was now well ahead and could afford to do nothing for months. Even better, the rent here was less than at home, and the price of everything seemed to be a lot less if Picasso’s menu prices were anything to go by. Puerto Banus looked like a good place to lie low for a while.
    His impressions of the cost of living were borne out a little later when he paid his bill and wandered further along the seafront. The promenade came to an end at a small beach, and he turned inland, intending to make his way home and get an early night. A huge department store faced him on a corner, and he strolled through the supermarket section and bought the basics for breakfast. ‘Wave-ohs’ he commented to the pretty cashier as she scanned the half dozen eggs and added up his purchases; she smiled and made some unintelligible comment that he assumed was the total. ‘How much?’ he still didn’t understand the Spanish answer. The pretty girl pointed to the digital display on the register and smiled, but it was a friendly smile and he didn’t have any sense that she might be mocking his lack of language skills.
    It didn’t seem a lot for such a big basket of food, this was getting better and better. A ten minute walk should have brought him home, but a couple of minor wrong turns delayed him and it was another half an hour before he was walking through the small garden past the pool and heading for bed. Still, he mused, the only way to get to know an area is to walk, and to get a bit lost. If this is to be home for a while, I had better get used to the place.

    Tom dived into the still water and surfaced, swam a few lengths and got out to dry himself. The pool was cold, just the job to wake a body up and to clear the head. The beer had been flowing the night before; the saxophone bar had been rocking and he had been drinking with the English gang who worked at the water park. They were a wild bunch, most of them just taking a couple of years out of their lives to party it up on the Costa del Sol, but they were good company and he enjoyed meeting up with them on Sunday nights. The park was closed on Mondays and they tended to party well into the night, but he had dropped out of the drinking games about four o’clock and made his way home.
    He brought his breakfast out on to the balcony and rifled through one of the Irish Sunday papers;