Inferno & A Miracle at Sant' Llorenc

Trev Hunt

Description

These 2 tales are from "Ibiza Shorts", the great collection of 14 short stories set on the holiday island of Ibiza which became a smash hit there when first published in 2005. Now revised and re-written as an eBook for the global market, they cover romance, comedy, crime and intrigue - all by a writer who literally 'knows the island backwards'.

Informations

• Publié par: Acorn Classics House Ltd.
• Date de parution: 25 novembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780954805883
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Inferno A Miracle at Sant Llorenc
Trev Hunt
A Few Comments and Kind Words on Trev Hunt's Writing.....
''Trev Hunt transports you to a world of love, comedy, drama and intrigue - brilliant!'' Guy Bellamy
''I have just read 'A Victimless Crime' from Ibiza Shorts with a glass of wine beside an open fire, and was gripped!'' Alastair Sawday
''Viva Trev Hunt - what a discovery his books are!'' John Hollands, MC - author of the 3-million best seller ''The Dead, the Dying and the Damned'' many other books
More comments are at the end of this book
Contents List of Stories
A Few Comments and Kind Words on Trev Hunt's Writing.....
Now let the fun begin.....
Inferno
A Miracle at Sant' Llorenc
About the Author
Also by Trev Hunt in eBook Format
'Tasters' - extracts from other Trev Hunt eBooks
A Virgin Bride
Love is Funny
Ibiza Shorts
A Variety of Verse
Four Play
More Comments and Kind Words on Trev Hunt's Writing
The Legal Bit.....
Now let the fun begin.....
Inferno

Picture by kind permission of photographer Gerald Andrews (As printed in IBIZAactual Magazine)
The daylight was fading, perhaps an hour or so left before dark. The thin sixteen-year old youth with black hair and a sallow complexion stopped the engine on his ancient little Honda trail bike and flicked down the prop-stand with his left heel. The narrow track through the pine woods up which he had ridden had been rough, but he could handle his bike and the ride had only added to his sense of excitement.
He looked around the small clearing and realised it was perfect for his purpose. As also was the day, a day of the dreaded 3 x 30s - temperature of over 30 degrees Centigrade; humidity less than 30 (the air was hot and dry); and a strongish wind of over 30 kilometres an hour blowing. The time of day was also ideal, for the planes could not fly at night.
Contented, he dismounted and took from his jeans pocket a battered pack of Camel cigarettes. Extracting one, he placed it between his lips and held it there for a moment, before putting the packet back into his pocket and taking a box of matches from the other. Striking a match he lit the cigarette and drew the smoke deeply into his young lungs, before flicking the lighted match onto the floor of the clearing, closely followed by a scrunched up sheet of newspaper, which landed neatly on top of it.
The nicotine hit gave him pleasure, and he again drew the smoke deep into his lungs.
But looking down at the floor of the clearing, at the ground covered in tinder-dry fallen pine needles, and noting with satisfaction the other type of smoke starting to rise from the newspaper where he had flicked his match, gave him a far more intense pleasure - a pleasure so exquisite it was almost sexual in nature.
Remounting his motor-bike, with the self-starter no longer functioning he had to use the kick-start pedal several times before the little engine burst into life for him. It had been a good bike, had given good service to several owners before it came to him, but he had never as much as laid a spanner on it in maintenance, and its glory days were far behind it.
He started back down the track, realising that eventually he must make for higher ground to get the best view. But although there would be something to see tonight, it might even be twenty-four hours hence before he saw the true results of his labour - if it was to be a good one.
If it was to be a big one.
* * *
Klaus M ller had spent his working life in the city where he was born - D sseldorf on the banks of the River Rhine deep in the German industrial heartland. D sseldorf itself is a bit like the curate's egg - it is good in parts. Or at least pretty in parts. And in other parts not so pretty.
Along the banks of the Rhine is certainly one of the prettier areas, with numerous restaurants and pubs from which to enjoy the views and location. At least when the weather is clement. One of the pubs, not actually on the river but close by, is the giant 'Uerige', well-known in the German city for its home-brewed dark Alt Beer served always in small highball glasses of just 200 millilitres, and well-known in Britain as the meeting point for the lads in the series Auf Wiedersehen Pet .
For many years Klaus M ller had been a regular at the Uerige, and found the 'alt beer' ideally suited to his palate. In his working life he had been a doctor, nothing fancy, not a consultant or a specialist, but a very good doctor nevertheless, popular with his patients. Being well paid, he was able to retire comparatively young in his early sixties, and together with his wife Helga had chosen to leave his native country to build a villa on the holiday island they had come to love - Ibiza.
The villa was one of two, similar in size though different in design, located up a long private tarmacced road high in the pine woods between Sant Joan and Cala Portinatx. It was truly idyllic, and the views out over the Mediterranean were to die for.
Klaus had two hobbies, rather different in nature from each other. He loved chess, both studying it and playing it, and he loved his motor cruiser, a Fairline Targa 40 which he had bought second-hand for a recession-led price of just over 100,000, and kept in the marina in Santa Eulalia. The Fairline had twin Yanmar diesel engines which gave it a fair turn of speed, could sleep and cater for four people with ease, and even boasted an on-board 'garage' where he housed a small dinghy with an outboard, enabling him to anchor in any of the island's numerous bays and go ashore to enjoy a beer or lunch at a beach hut or restaurant.
(In fact the only problem he had in Ibiza was that he could not find a bar to sell him his beloved 'alt beer' from the barrel. He was however gradually coming to terms with pilsner, the German lager, and found both Veltins and Warsteiner readily available. And if he was honest, he did even now enjoy an odd glass or two of the more local San Miguel.....)
Though he was a bit older, Klaus bore a striking resemblance to a German TV star, Jan Fedder, famous as the tough cop Dirk Matthieu in the series Grossstadtrevier . (By coincidence Jan also has a villa in Ibiza, although that is not part of this story.)
Helga M ller was the same age as her husband, though having kept herself in shape, with her auburn hair and trim figure could easily pass for a woman ten years younger. She had been a music teacher in her working life, and was accomplished both as a clarinettist and a pianist. Though like her husband she loved Ibiza and was in full agreement over their move to the island, she nevertheless did miss the music which had been her life, and in particular playing in the talented amateur orchestra to which she had belonged.
To ease her loss, she had been overjoyed when her loving husband presented her with a Yamaha baby grand piano, on which she spent many happy hours playing her beloved light classical pieces by composers such as Puccini and Mozart.
They had two grown-up children, Hans and Lily, who had both married and each presented them with two grand-children.
Altogether life was good for Klaus and Helga M ller, their family with their four grand-children visited them often, and they had a good circle of friends on the island, most but by no means all, German.
Probably the closest of their friends, literally, were in fact non-German, being their next door neighbours in the other villa.
Paddy and Mary O'Brien hailed from the town of Bantry in the south west of Ireland, which being touched by the Gulf Stream is one of the warmest spots in northern Europe. It is a very pretty little town in a lovely part of Ireland, and whilst they were sufficiently travelled and intelligent enough to know that fact for themselves, the O'Briens had been lucky to be born there, and spend their working lives there.
On the face of it they were chalk and cheese from the M llers from industrial D sseldorf, but under the surface the two couples had rather more in common. Before he retired to Ibiza, Paddy had been a lawyer, a family lawyer in a small practice doing the usual run-of-the-mill stuff of conveyancing and wills, with the occasional bit of litigation thrown in to keep things exciting.
Like Klaus, he too was a look-alike for a famous person, although in his case it was fellow Irishman Eddie Jordan, the well known F1 motor-racing guru and ex-team owner - right down to the beard and glasses.
Prior to moving permanently to Ibiza he had determined to learn Spanish and had purchased a set of CDs by the great (and sadly late) Michel Thomas to enable him to do so, achieving a fair degree of competence. But the thought of learning to speak German was not even in his sight-screen, and with Klaus and Helga having near perfect English it was not strictly speaking necessary. Nevertheless, to keep the grey cells active and out of politeness to his friend, this was a project he was now embarked upon. Again with the help of Michel Thomas.
Apart from that, Paddy had two other hobbies, and by fortunate coincidence one of these was chess, with the two neighbours spending many happy hours in silent tussle with each other. They were evenly matched, and not infrequently their hands would meet across the board as they shook to agree a draw, sometimes to enable them to retire for a late-night brandy before bed.
Paddy's other hobby was golf, and by mutual agreement Klaus had, rather late in life, taken up the noble art to keep his friend company, whilst Paddy had become a pretty efficient crew member in their frequent jaunts round the island on Klaus's Fairline cruiser.
Like Helga, Mary O'Brien had also been a teacher, although in her case it was commercial cookery, and she had run her own small school to which aspiring chefs from all over Ireland had come, all with the ambition to become famous, hopefully on TV, and own their own restaurant, but most of course destined to have a career working long hours in a pressurised e