"The girl?" The bartender gestured vaguely toward the back booths. "She's been waiting. Doesn't look like she belongs here. Too much light in her eyes."
"You're late, Harry," she said, her voice a soft contrast to the abrasive roar of the pub.
Harry stood, his coat hanging heavy on his frame. He walked toward the shadows where Birgitta sat. She was his guide to this upside-down world, a place where the sun burned too bright and the secrets buried in the Outback had a way of crawling into the city streets. El Murcielago (Harry Hole 1) Jo Nesbo epub
"Another one, mate?" the bartender asked, wiping a glass with a rag that hadn't seen soap in a week. Harry shook his head. "I'm meeting someone."
Harry sat at the far end of the bar, his long legs cramped under the stool. He was a tall, jagged silhouette against the mirror, his eyes scanning the room with the restless precision of a man who looked for trouble because he didn’t know how to look for anything else. In front of him sat a glass of tomato juice, an ascetic’s penance in a cathedral of vice. "The girl
Harry felt that familiar cold prickle at the base of his spine. He wasn't just a visitor anymore; he was a hunter. And in this heat, under the gaze of a thousand strange stars, he knew the predator was already watching him back.
"Show me," Harry said, and as they stepped out into the humid Australian night, the hunt for the killer—and his own demons—began in earnest. Too much light in her eyes
The neon sign above "The Bat" tavern flickered with a rhythmic buzz, casting a jaundiced yellow glow over the damp pavement of Sydney’s Kings Cross. Inside, the air was a thick soup of stale lager and cheap cigarettes—a scent Harry Hole knew better than his own mother’s perfume.