Chapter 2

My name is Alice Mary McConnell and I’m a teenage girl, wondering what my future holds for me. I don’t wish for things any longer. After a week of getting used to seeing the new me in mirrors, and learning to move around in a nightie, I was almost ready to face the world.

Chapter 6

When John and Hannah walked into the gym there was a huge cheer. Mary came over to them and took control.

“Come with me to Marilyns’ office and sit quietly. I’ll get you cups of tea. It takes time to settle down after being in a firefight.”

They sat and looked out at the others going about their business. John sighed.

“Do you feel it or is it just me. We’re the two most juniors in the team, but we’re being treated as if we’re something special.”

Chapter 4

The Colonel left them. Jim Dutton looked at Marilyn.

“How on earth do you know that man! He has obvious links to the secret services.”

“He came to meetings with that double murder and cold case a little while ago. There were aspects of it that had national importance, although that was never brought out in the papers. Keith Russell, in Leeds, has a contact number for him. He wasn’t involved, that time, just an interested observer.”

“He’s certainly needed now; with the way this is going.”

Chapter 2

Marilyn went and stood on Coppergate and tried to visualise the scene. There was something wrong if the carnage was just a byproduct of a targeted hit. The Ram must have been waiting nearby, with a spotter in the Walk. If there was forward planning, the killers had to know, in advance, that the target would be there at that time, which meant a meeting had been set up.

Chapter 6

Marilyn walked with her to the stairs. She held out her hand.

“See you later, Brightman. I’m heading back to my office to plug a new name into our searches. We’ve been trying to get the names of the robbers that Anderson was with out of the records for a week. They all went into juvenile and the records sealed. We’re looking at another avenue, but I believe that we now have the one we really wanted.”

She went up to the team office and stood by the ‘Rascal Wall’.

Chapter 4

There was something that Marilyn could do while she was at her computer. It would be doubling up Ians’ work, but she called up Ancestor and entered Geoff Hunter and his known year of birth. She tracked through the family tree, finding that he had five brothers. One, who would be the right age as the man that Rose had seen, was called Henry Hunter.

Chapter 2

They walked into the office to see most of the team already studying computer screens. Marilyn went into her own office and spent two hours working on administrative paperwork, to clear her mind. At around ten, she had a call on her mobile.

“DI Houseman.”

And now, as they say in the classics, for something completely different. This is a pair of stories triggered by watching a very realistic British crime series on TV. The term ‘flower’ further into this, is used in York, in a similar way that ‘pet’ is used in Tyneside.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

I waited as I was, as the other guy strode away. Drom stood for a few moments and then went to a stall selling coffee. They had some tables and chairs set out. I turned around and watched him get a drink, then he went to sit down.

I went over to the stall and got my own drink. I had been worried what Drom would say if he ever saw me in a skirt, but now that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to him about. I went over to his table.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

“Make yourself at home, Miss.”

Chapter 3

We just sat there, speechless, as she looked at her papers.

Chapter 1

I should have known that I was too old to try to pull that dead stump. I wasn’t the young buck any longer, although it would have been hard to describe me as a buck in my youth. It was about the time of the third pull that I felt something was wrong, with my left arm and chest suddenly painful and my strength going, I fell onto my back and looked at the scudding spring clouds.

Chapter 8

I had taken a taxi to the airport when I had left, and had called Randall from Sydney, so wasn’t surprised when he was waiting for me when I strolled into the terminal. He came over with a smile on his face and kissed me.

“Nice outfit, makes your eyes pop.”

“Take a deep breath, love. I’ve had this on since Darwin.”

“Ribboned and named, I see.”

“Yep, mine to keep as a reminder.”

“Did you do anything interesting this time?”

Chapter 6

I almost passed out and he gave me some water, still grinning.

“You don’t expect the Minister to take you around the bases without you having the basic knowledge of military life, do you? This is going to be great.”

“Great, what do you mean, great! It will be me doing all these things!”

Chapter 4

I parked at the museum, beside the OB van, and went in. Matthew was organising the set, which didn’t take long with our morning preparation. Steve was in his official uniform and there had been a sign on the main door announcing that the museum was closed until five for a private function.

Chapter 2

I waited until we had finished dinner before I told my family the news.

“I went to Sydney this morning. I had a talk with the Head of News and came home as the new presenter for the ABC. My area is from the Gong to the border.”

Pauline squealed and stood up to give me a hug.

“That’s fantastic, Mummy. I’ll be able to see you on the box and shout at you without you yelling at me to be quiet.”

“Unless I’m in the room at the time, you minx.”

When they were Down, they were Down

After New Year, I was busy with my books and notes, swatting up for the exams. And then it would be new work in a new term. I took the dress and shoes back to Steph and we arranged for me to be available on Saturdays to wear her new designs for the camera.

He had Ten Thousand Men

The Duke may have had that many men, but the pub where I worked, of the same name, would only fit a few dozen of them in the front bar, if they were friendly. There was a lot more room over the three floors and the beer garden. We catered to a very wide range of drinkers, from social groups, office after-hours groups, shoppers from along Oxford Street, and tourists drawn in by its eighteenth-century ambience.

Firing Blank

My name is Donald James Blank. I know, it’s a hoot, but a hoot I’ve had to live with all my life. In primary school, the teachers would often say, “Come up and write the answer on the slate, Blank’. I was given the nickname, Slate, which stuck with me through higher education and into my first employment, seeing that two of my fellow recruits to the financial company had been with me through the accountancy degree.

Chapter 9

For the Christmas and New Year shows, we had to be in a studio at Broadcast House, in London. We were put up at a very nice hotel across the road, and our partners were allowed to join us. It was an interesting experience, going live over the whole network.

For New Year, we did the show up to eleven, when one of the bigger names took over. The four of us welcomed 2024 and watched the fireworks from a higher floor window. We could see the lightshow and hear midnight strike on Big Ben, followed by something that sounded like a war zone.