Free Through Dead Eyes by Chris Priestley Page A

fine.’
    And it was fine. He surprised himself at how relaxed he felt around Saskia and Angelien after such a short amount of time.
    ‘She’s not banging on too much about the Golden Age, I hope?’ he asked. ‘Angelien? Some historians can be real bores about their subject.’
    Alex smiled to himself. His father clearly didn’t count his own obsession with the Second World War as part of this problem.
    ‘I find all that stuff about merchants and guilds a bit dry to be honest,’ said his father. ‘Oh, I know we are supposed to be fascinated by Amsterdam back then, but when you are a historian some things grab you and others don’t. It’s hard to explain.’
    ‘Actually . . .’ began Alex.
    He wanted to tell his father about the paintings and about the strangeness surrounding the mask but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
    ‘Yes?’ said his father.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Alex.
    His father always scoffed at anything that smacked of the supernatural. So did Alex normally, for that matter.
    Alex’s mother had a much more open mind on that kind of thing and his father would give her a hard time about it. For the first time in a long while Alex found himself wishing that he could tell his mother about this, knowing in his heart that she wouldn’t make him feel foolish for speaking about it.
    ‘Well don’t be bullied, Alex,’ said his father. ‘There are all kinds of fascinating aspects to Amsterdam and they don’t all revolve around the Golden Age and merchants and guilds. When I’m free, we’ll go to the Anne Frank museum. We can’t have you come to Amsterdam and not go there.’
     
    The reflections of the hotel and the houses either side of it were swaying back and forth on the black waters of the canal. Lights were on in the windows and these too moved gently on the surface, doubling the effect and making the whole street look brighter and more cheerful than Alex had ever seen it by daylight.
    The receptionist gave them their keys and they climbed the stairs to their rooms, saying goodnight on the landing. Alex opened his door, turned on the lights and slumped down on to his bed. As he pulled off his jacket and felt his mobile phone in his pocket, he thought about calling his mother.
    But as soon as he touched his phone he knew that he could not call her as if everything was cool again. Everything wasn’t cool. Not by a long way.
     
    Alex got into bed and reached over for his book. He was reading The Big Sleep. His father had recommended it and normally that would put him off, but he had recently seen the film and liked it and he thought he would give the book a go.
    He liked the way the private investigator Philip Marlowe talked and the way he handled the daughter of his rich client. Alex wished he could be like that. Marlowe never seemed to let people get the better of him. He always seemed to know the right thing to do, the right thing to say. There were a few people he wouldn’t mind punching on the nose either.
    But Alex was never going to be like that, he knew. He was going to be like his father and maybe that wasn’t so bad. Women like kind men, his mother had told him once; they liked gentle men.
    Maybe they did, thought Alex. Some women did, probably. But what about Carl Patterson? There was nothing kind about him. Molly didn’t seem to mind. And Dirk? How kind or gentle was he?
    Alex had a sneaking suspicion that women also liked tough men – men like Philip Marlowe. Being kind was OK as far as it went, but sometimes it seemed like weakness.
    He found his place in The Big Sleep and settled down beside the lamp to read. But he could not concentrate. Angelien’s smiling face in the Rijksmuseum filled his thoughts. It loomed large in his mind, as though she was standing improbably close, her lips close to his face.
    But though this image was a very attractive one, frustratingly, it kept slipping out of focus and the background would sharpen until it was revealed in hyper detail. Past her