Read Lets Drink To The Dead for Free Online

hesitated.
    “Or you can stay here. I don’t mind at all. But at my age, a little company can be pleasant.”
    Dani found her torch and shone it at him. The man wore corduroy trousers, a Slazenger sweater and a battered Barbour jacket. A full head of grey hair swept over in a side-parting. His face was thin, his nose sharp, eyes dark. The skin around them wrinkled when he smiled, much like Dad’s. Maybe that was what decided her.
    “OK,” she said. “Thanks. I will.”
    “Alright,” he said. “I’ll wait outside for you. My name’s John, by the way.”
    “Dani.”
    “Danny?”
    “Short for Danielle. Everyone calls me Dani.”
    “Dani, then. I’ll see you in a moment.”
     
     
    3
     
    J OHN LIT THEIR way with his torch. Dani kept hers switched off. The batteries wouldn’t last forever and there was no knowing when she might need it next. Besides, just in case, it would serve as a weapon too.
    She kept looking straight ahead, partly to keep her eye on John, just in case, but more because every time her gaze strayed towards the woods the thin shapes of the trees seemed to waver, almost but never quite shifting into something else. People, perhaps. She was seeing things. She was tired and on edge, cold and hungry. That was the problem. Nothing else.
    He kept glancing sideways at her. She supposed she understood that. Ripped jeans, denim jacket covered in patches for bands like New Model Army and Anti Nowhere League, hair cut short, dyed blonde and spiked like a bunch of knitting needles. God knew what he made of that, if he made anything of it at all.
    “How far are we?” she asked.
    “Close now. There, see?”
    The moon came out from behind a cloud and she could see the place. It was three or four floors high, brick-built, with a clock tower and wide concrete steps under a portico leading to the main entrance.
    “What is this place?”
    “It used to be a hospital,” said John. “This was the admin block. The Warbeck building.”
    “What kind of hospital?”
    “One for soldiers. War veterans. It’s been closed for years, but...” he shrugged. “I worked here. When it closed, I...” He stopped, sighed, gazing at the building. “I’d never married, you see. And my parents had died. There wasn’t, really, anywhere else to go. I had my quarters here, and... well. The local authorities have tried to sell the place, but without success. I don’t think they know I’m here. Or if they do, it’s cheaper than paying a caretaker.” He went up the steps – limping slightly, she saw now – and opened the door.
    Dani looked at him again. His clothes might have been worth something once; now they were worn and rumpled and faded. Much like him. Poor old sod; all he’d got left was his dignity. “Is it just you living there?”
    “Mm. All the other staff found work elsewhere. And the patients were transferred to other hospitals. I don’t mind. I’ve always liked my own company. Shall we go?”
    “OK.”
    The lobby was cold, dark, the floor littered with plaster and flakes of fallen paint like desiccated leaves.
    “Don’t worry,” said John. “It’s a big place. Far too much for me to keep it all up, especially with what little I have. I’ve got my own little bolt-hole, a few other rooms I try to keep in good order. The rest, I’m afraid, you’ll have to take as you find. This way.”
    Dani followed him up a staircase to a row of rooms with wooden doors. The doors all had panes of frosted glass.
    “Administrative offices,” said John. “And here’s mine.”
    There was a cot-bed in the corner, and a fireplace full of glowing embers with a few chunks of wood beside it. John fed the flames and watched them brighten, lit an oil lamp on the desk.
    “This is cosy,” Dani said at last.
    John chuckled. “‘Be it ever so humble’. Some stew? I just made a fresh pot. It’s more or less what I live on these days.”
    “Thank you.”
    “I have tea and coffee. Only dried milk,