Excerpt from The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

– I'm coming, a soft voice says.

It's two minutes to twelve.

He can't do it, he just can't. He leans over the stairwell and starts down. Down, down. He hears the door opening on the top floor. Hello? the voice says. Past the doors with loud music and outside. Onto the street. He hobbles along the wall like a rat, then cuts across the street to his car. Calle Palangre is filled with people now. There's a group of cigar-smoking men standing beside his car, and girls astride scooters, champagne flutes in their hands.

Voices call out from the flats above. He fumbles his way into his car and wriggles it free of its parking spot. Following the one-way street, he parts the throng. A group wants to catch a ride, not seeing that his sign is turned off, but he's not interested. He pays no mind to their hands on his windscreen or their pleading eyes. Happy New Year, asshole!, a young girl wearing a silver-covered bowler shouts at him.

He drives away from the city's light and into darkness. The grey road ends and becomes a pale track. He presses down hard on the old Mercedes' creaky gas pedal. Gravel plinks against the undercarriage.

The image of the hairdresser's daughter opening the door returns to mock him. Now in socks – hair rumpled and a little glass of whisky in her hand. A fantasy only a horny man can imagine. That's something he hates about growing old. Going from the physicality of a youth lacking spirit to pure spirit lacking physicality. To the point where the best moments are comprised of thoughts, of conceptions of the future, of reminders from way back when. For almost eighteen years he's imagined intimacy with a woman. Imagined it. Even when he was with Annette, he imagined it. Back then it had just had a more concrete means of expression, back then it resembled intimacy with everyone else but her, right up until he was no longer near her.

His feet shift from the gas pedal to the brake. In the centre of his headlights' bright yellow cone he sees a giant object lying in the middle of the road.

***

At first he thinks it's a fallen satellite, then he sees that it's a car, an overturned car.

It's a bloody Montero, a black Montero like Bill Haji's.

It is Bill Haji's.

It's four or five-hundred metres from the spot where they'd passed one another, but how long ago was that? An hour? He can't make any sense of time. Maybe the Rusty Nail went to his head after all.

He cuts his engine but leaves the headlights on, so he can see the car. He hears the ocean and the soft hum of the Montero's motor. The dust settles.

He's about to turn on his CB radio and contact dispatch; it's the best he can do. Then he hears some rapping sounds, as if someone's trying to communicate or get free. He gets out of his car. He calls Bill's name. He calls as though they know each other. Bill Haji. They hardly know each other. Everyone knows Bill Haji. A colourful, obnoxious person. Never at rest, always on his way to or fro. Erhard has driven him a few times. The first time was to the hospital. And after that – upon request: a couple of trips to the airport and home to Haji's villa some miles away. Haji arrived from Madrid with four or five suitcases and a young man who seemed tired. They were the same suitcases both times, but not the same guy. Erhard didn't care about the rumours, or how Haji lived his life. One shouldn't get involved in that kind of thing. As long as the boys are over eighteen and have made their own choices.

– Bill Haji, he repeats.

The car is smashed up. It must have rolled a good distance. Stupid Montero. No better than Japanese cardboard. There's a long trail of glass. Which suggests to him that the vehicle skidded along the road. He calls again as he walks around the car and peers through what might have been the windscreen, but is probably a side window. There's no one inside. Neither Bill nor any of his boys. Erhard breathes easier. Even though he doesn't much care for Bill Haji, he feared seeing him mashed between the steering wheel and the seat like a blood-gorged tick. The vehicle is empty; one of the doors is open, hanging from its hinge. Maybe he's gone after help or was picked up by his sister, who's always close by Bill Haji, whenever he sees him downtown or at La Marquesina. He bends forward and touches the car. It's still warm.

Excerpted from The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl, translated by K.E. Semmel. Copyright © 2014 Thomas Rydahl, translation copyright © 2016 K.E. Semmel. Published by Oneworld Publications.