The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest Page 0,251

in his bar or somewhere else.

She drank slowly, did not talk to any of the other customers, and did not make any trouble. Her only activity apart from the consumption of alcohol seemed to be to play with a hand-held computer which she connected to a mobile now and then. He had several times tried to start a conversation but was met with a sullen silence. She seemed to avoid company. Sometimes, when there were too many people in the bar, she had moved outside to a table on the pavement, and at other times she had gone two doors down to an Italian restaurant and had dinner. Then she would come back to Harry's and order another Tullamore Dew. She usually left the bar at around 10.00 and made her way unsteadily off, always to the north.

Today she had drunk more and at a faster rate than on the other days, and Harry had kept a watchful eye on her. When she had put away seven glasses of Tullamore Dew in a little over two hours, he decided not to give her any more. It was then that he heard the crash as she fell off the bar stool.

He put down the glass he was drying and went around the counter to pick her up. She seemed offended.

"I think you've had enough, Liz," he said.

She looked at him, bleary-eyed.

"I believe you're right," she said in a surprisingly lucid voice.

She held on to the bar with one hand as she dug some notes out of her top pocket and then wobbled off towards the door. He took her gently by the shoulder.

"Hold on a minute. Why don't you go to the toilet and throw up the last of that whisky and then sit at the bar for a while? I don't want to let you go in this condition."

She did not object when he led her to the toilet. She stuck her fingers down her throat. When she came back out to the bar he had poured her a large glass of club soda. She drank the whole glass and burped. He poured her another.

"You're going to feel like death in the morning," Harry said.

She nodded.

"It's none of my business, but if I were you I'd sober up for a couple of days."

She nodded. Then she went back to the toilet and threw up again.

She stayed at Harry's Bar for another hour until she looked sober enough to be turned loose. She left the bar on unsteady legs, walked down to the airport and followed the shoreline around the marina. She walked until after 8.00, when the ground at last stopped swaying under her feet. Then she went back to the hotel. She took the lift to her room, brushed her teeth and washed her face, changed her clothes, and went back down to the hotel bar to order a cup of black coffee and a bottle of mineral water.

She sat there, silent and unnoticed next to a pillar, studying the people in the bar. She saw a couple in their thirties engaged in quiet conversation. The woman was wearing a light-coloured summer dress, and the man was holding her hand under the table. Two tables away sat a black family, the man with the beginnings of grey at his temples, the woman wearing a lovely, colourful dress in yellow, black and red. They had two young children with them. She studied a group of businessmen in white shirts and ties, their jackets hung over the backs of their chairs. They were drinking beer. She saw a group of elderly people, without a doubt American tourists. The men wore baseball caps, polo shirts and loose-fitting trousers. She watched a man in a light-coloured linen jacket, grey shirt and dark tie come in from the street and pick up his room key at the front desk before he headed over to the bar and ordered a beer. He sat down three metres away from her. She gave him an expectant look as he took out his mobile and began to speak in German.

"Hello, is that you?... Is everything alright?... It's going fine, we're having our next meeting tomorrow afternoon... No, I think it'll work out... I'll be staying here five or six days at least, and then I go to Madrid... No, I won't be home before the end of next week... Me too. I love you... Sure... I'll call you later in the week... Kiss kiss."

He was a little over