Read Online The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill - Free Book Online

cope, he had almost decided not to come here at all. She had been the one to push him into it, insist that he needed the long break, and of course she had been right but it didn’t stop him worrying. Physically, managing work and family, she would be fine – she was competent, she would grit her teeth and get on with it, and she had plenty of friends and willing help. She also had Judith, with whom she had formed a close bond that Simon should not have resented – but did. But emotionally, he knew, Cat was only just holding herself together, was more vulnerable than she would admit. He was the one to whom she always turned.
    He spent the next half-hour helping to unload the ferry, then got a mug of coffee and paid for access to one of the Island Café’s two computers. The shop was busy and noisy, the café quiet.
From [email protected]
I am sending this from the school computer in lunch hour. Thanks for the pictures of the island. I wish I could come up theyre and see you. Im OK, school is OK. I have not been picked for the rugby or soccer teams but I don’t mind. I am liking hockey which I didnt play b4. Cricket is better. If you go to the Scottish island again can I come with you? I miss talking to you about things. I miss you being here, when are you coming home? Have you been fishing if so what kind of fish? I am reading a very good book called Northern Lights. Did you know the other name for Northern Lights was aurora borealis? Can you see those on your island?
Love from Sam.
PS Hannah still likes puke pink everything. Judith bought her a puke pink new bedcover. It is puke.
PPS I really wish you were here.
    There were no other messages.
    Simon spent the rest of the day on the other side of the bay, drawing two of Taransay’s ancient cairns and the hollowed-out section of rock behind them, which had been excavated a few years previously and found to be an Iron Age burial site. It was windy but he was well sheltered. He had been here several times, trying to capture the roughness and textures on the stones, the intricate overgrowth of lichens, the shading of the ground. There seemed to be so little in this bleak landscape and yet, the more closely he looked, the more detail he saw.
    He was only stopped by a great sweeping veil of rain that soaked him before he had gone fifty yards. It was forty minutes of hard slog back to the cottage. The sea was whipped up to a frenzy, the sky pewter. He changed, had a shower and lit the fire. Rain and wind hurled themselves at the stone walls and made a drumbeat on the roof. He stretched out on the sofa in front of the blaze and picked up an old John le Carré novel which someone had left behind. He had first read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy twenty years ago, when what had seemed to matter was the story that he had raced through to reach its denouement. Now, what delighted him was the prose, the sense of place, the richness of a text which he had not appreciated before.
    He was still on the sofa, book on the floor and the fire burnt down to a small red core, when Kirsty McLeod came banging in and woke him just after six. She bore a wide smile and a small carrier bag containing two large steaks. An hour later, Serrailler wondered why he had thought he might ever leave Taransay at all.

Eleven
    There was no light on in the caravan but Jonty Lewis kicked at the door anyway. He knew she’d be in there. It was too early for her to be working and she didn’t have many other places to go. But it was several seconds before she answered and by then he’d kicked harder.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, do you have to do that?’ Marie stood back to let him shove his way past her into the dingy space. She’d tried to make it like a home, put curtains at the windows and a weird-looking plant on the cruddy work surface, and there were some cushions on the bench that did for a seat. But it was still a manky caravan.
    He pulled open cupboard doors above his head and slammed them