Read Online The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith - Free Book Online

that day, I’d never seen him before.
    “You know me?” I swirled my beer glass around on the table. Clockwise. It was empty.
    He glanced over his shoulder at the bar. “Will you have another beer?”
    “No.”
    Panic choked at me; my heart raced and my throat constricted in an invisible grip. It felt like I was tied down again. I thought about running.
    “I only wanted to see if you knew me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”
    I looked at him. I could see something human in his eyes, not like Freddie’s. Freddie Horvath’s eyes had no caring in them at all.
    “I don’t know who you are,” I said. “Why are you following me?”
    He took a drink.
    I thought I was about to be arrested or something.
    “I apologize if I’ve been rude,” he said. “I really didn’t intend to scare you.” Then he stuck his hand out across the table and introduced himself. “My name is Henry Hewitt.”
    It was like falling from a cliff. I shook his hand.
    “But really,” he continued, “you seem frightened of me. I can assure you…”
    “How do you know me?” I asked. I stared straight into his eyes and I tried to look like I was ready to fight.
    Henry leaned forward. “I’ve known you for a very long time, Jack. Not from here, though. From Marbury. Then I saw you—I finally saw you—at Heathrow today, and I knew it was you.”
    And I thought, This must be some kind of weird coincidence—that he knows someone who looks like me from somewhere else.
    “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “I’ve never been anywhere called that.”
    “Marbury?”
    “Yeah. Where is it?”
    “You’re sure, then?”
    “Yes. You must be thinking of someone else named Jack.”
    “You are named Jack.” He said it as though he were asking the question to prove to himself who I was. Or maybe to convince me. And he said, “Jack Whitmore.”
    My eyes watered. I stifled a yawn and slapped my hand lightly down on the table. “Look. I’m really tired. I’ve been on an airplane all day. I should leave. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Really.”
    I started to get up, and Henry pulled his glasses out from the breast pocket on his coat. When I saw the shine of the lens, the light seemed to move and shift inside them.
    Henry put the glasses on for just a second, looking at me like he was snapping a picture, then he immediately folded them closed and lay them on the table between us without saying anything.
    He emptied his beer.
    I glanced at the glasses, and then at the man sitting across from me.
    “Take care about looking at your friends there, Jack. I mean, in Marbury.”
    “I told you I’ve never been where you’re talking about.”
    “Look,” he said, and he leaned forward. “Are you certain you won’t have another glass of beer with me, then?”
    I was already buzzing. I wanted to sleep, but there was something that kept me there talking to him.
    “No. But thank you, anyway.”
    “I’ll just have one more, I think,” Henry said, then spun around in his seat to go to the bar.
    I stared at the glasses. There was definitely something odd about them. There was something moving inside them. I could see it, but I was afraid to look. I wanted to touch them, unfold them, but I knew that would be rude. Still, there was something that was so unique and attractive about them—and they just sat there on the table in front of me, as though Henry was tempting me with them.
    I looked up at the bar.
    And Henry Hewitt was gone.
    A full glass of beer sat on the bar in front of the taps, and the bartender stood, his arms locked straight where he leaned against his counter, watching me.
    I got up. I felt dizzy. The place seemed suddenly empty. There were two older men sitting in a dark corner near the toilets at back of the pub, but that was all.
    I said to the bartender, “The man who ordered the beer. Do you know where he went?”
    The bartender raised his chin. “He paid for the pint for you, mate.”
    He pushed the beer