Read Online The Searcher by Christopher Morgan Jones - Free Book Online

final meeting, Hammer had raged over the words, but recently all he had felt was a great sadness—that their friendship had ended, and that Ben had contrived so skillfully to screw up his life.
    Now there came fresh fury at the man’s own cant. For what had he endangered everything Hammer had made? For a scrap of pride.
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    B eyond Hampstead the streets flattened out and the houses grew less moneyed and soon Hammer was on Hiley Road, wet through and steaming, walking the last few hundred yards to relax his legs and try to cool his thoughts.
    He rang the bell, conscious for the first time of just how wet he was. The rain fell cold on the back of his neck and he counseled himself to be calm. Don’t hit the fucker. An unexpected nervousness mingled with his fury, light in his throat, and with it a dull memory of relationships, and rows, and the anxious hope that came with trying to make up.
    Elsa opened the door, harassed, as if the last thing she wanted was a caller. Her dark hair fell across one eye, and she pushed it back distractedly.
    â€œChrist, Ike.” She seemed concerned more than surprised. “I thought you were a salesman.”
    So absorbed had he been that he hadn’t thought for a moment that he might see her. The question that only now struck him, and for which he had no answer, was what she would do if Ben was no longer around.
    â€œI’m sorry. I was passing, on my way home, and there’s something I need to talk to him about. I thought I’d stop by.”
    Her frown grew puzzled. Elsa was the last person in the world to be convinced by a bad lie.
    â€œHe’s not here. He’s away.”
    Of course. He would be.
    â€œWhen’s he back?”
    â€œI don’t know. Tomorrow maybe. He went to Karlo’s funeral.”
    â€œKarlo?”
    â€œThe journalist.”
    â€œJesus. Karlo?”
    Karlo Toreli. He had more life in him than ten men.
    â€œI thought you might have known.”
    â€œI’m the last to know things these days. That’s kind of unimaginable. Karlo?”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œListen, I barely knew the guy. But I liked him.” He shook his head. “Ben’s in Georgia?”
    He said it with disbelief but there was no reason to be surprised. It was a miracle he wasn’t at one of the poles.
    â€œIke, you’re sodden. Do you want to come in?”
    He did, of course. This was the only place that offered him noise and laughter and the healthy purpose of family life—in short spells, maybe, and not regularly, but he loved it here nonetheless. In his mind it was always full of talk and warm light. His own house was old, quiet, beautiful, and in it he felt like a passing tenant; this was a home, and to be a part of it from time to time had given him a glimpse of a sort of happiness from which he feared being completely separated. Elsa it was, he was fairly sure, who had been acute enough to spot this lack in him and kind enough to try to fill it.
    â€œNo. Really. Better that I keep running.” He smiled. Tried his best, absurdly, to sound breezy. “I like the rain this time of year.”
    â€œYou’re sure? Is everything OK?”
    â€œEverything’s fine. Just an old case that’s come alive again.”
    No, he wanted to say. Everything is listing pretty badly and for once, after half a lifetime of being paid to be clever and decisive, I don’t really know what to do. I thought I did, but standing here I’m losing certainty.
    â€œHow are the kids?”
    â€œThey’re fine. I was reading to Nancy.”
    â€œI’m sorry. You go.”
    She gave him that reserved, searching look that meant she wasn’t fully persuaded.
    â€œYou look terrible. Come in. Really. You read to her. She’d love it.”
    It seemed a scarcely imaginable pleasure, after the day he had had, to be in Nancy’s room, reading to his goddaughter