Read Online Vengeance Child by Simon Clark - Free Book Online

his body until it reached his helmet. Back then, to sit underwater must have been like travelling to another world.’
    â€˜It’s this island. It inspires people to think in unusual ways. Sometimes crazy ways. But it can make us inventive.’
    â€˜What an amazing little heap of rock this place is. It gets inside your head. You think thoughts here that you don’t think back home. I remember that story about the shepherd who arrived here a hundred years ago. He suddenly got this wild idea he wanted to write a play even though he could hardly write his own name. The Value of Man. That’s the title, isn’t it? Didn’t it persuade the government to introduce old age pensions for the first time? Now what’s the guy’s name? Victor, you’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?’
    â€˜Sorry. I was thinking.’
    â€˜I’ll say. You look like you’re sleepwalking. Too much cider last night?’
    â€˜No,’ he said with a laugh. ‘It’s just what you said about the island getting inside your head. Jay told me the same thing this morning.’
    Lou tensed. ‘Did he say anything else?’ She glanced back at Jay. He seemed lost in his own world.
    â€˜Oh, this and that. He enjoyed feeding the goat.’
    â€˜But there’s something bothering you, Victor.’
    â€˜If anything, I’m concerned about the kids. They seem different this year. They just come across as . . . edgy? Scared?’
    â€˜Maureen’s accident was a shock.’ Lou called back to the children. ‘Keep up, people. We’ve got to reach the castle by one.’ She walked faster. ‘I want to see that diving suit if you lot don’t.’
    Victor liked Lou. An open, honest, warm-hearted woman. But she’d changed. There was something she wanted to stay hidden. He hung back to point out to the group a lizard sunning itself on a wall. Even so, he found himself thinking about what Laura might tell him later. Oddly, despite the heat, his blood all of a sudden ran cold. When he started walking again he found himself in the company of the little boy with the blond curls.
    â€˜Cool lizard,’ Archer told him. ‘Can you get them as pets?’
    â€˜It’s not a good idea. They’re better off in the wild.’
    â€˜They bite?’
    â€˜No, there’s nothing to be scared of. But they’re happier living a natural life.’
    â€˜I’m not scared of lizards, but I don’t like him.’ He scowled at Jay. Luckily, the child was out of earshot. ‘Nobody does.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜Not even grown-ups.’ Archer became angry. ‘If he starts saying your name again and again it means something bad’s going to happen to you.’
    â€˜How can someone saying your name hurt you?’
    â€˜Jay said Tod’s name and Maureen’s, and look what happened to them.’ Archer shuddered. ‘One day he’s going to say my name. I know he will. Then I’ll be like my dad. I’ll be in a big black coffin and shoved into the ground.’
    Before Victor could say anything the little boy retreated down the line so he could hold the hand of a carer.
    Jay approached with a smile on his face. ‘Victor . . . Victor.’
    Victor couldn’t help himself. He felt cold shivers race through his body. The boy had spoken his name. For a moment he stared at those big brown eyes that seemed so other-worldly.
    â€˜Victor.’ Jay pointed to a clump of trees. ‘Are those Saban Deer?’
    With a gush of relief that embarrassed him with its intensity he went to join the boy. He repeated my name . . . I don’t believe what Archer told me, do I? As he pointed out the deer to other children he tried to push away the sense of superstitious dread. Even so, he remembered Laura’s words when Jay had referred to Ghorlan: ‘ When he said her name