It was a twisty, busy road, lined with what looked like mango trees, piles of old fruit under each one. We’d left Ish and LC back in Cairns, with instructions to use the day as they felt best. The conversation with our son had warmed my heart.

“This is a present for your Mum, son. I think LC would get bored, and it’ll be a full day. You sure you don’t mind looking after her?”

“She’s my sister, Dad. What else would I do?”

Chapter 9: Boundary of the Divine

The tension arrived before the sirens.

I found a jacket that remembers a missing girl, and it’s rewriting my body one day at a time. Now I have to solve that girl's murder before the coat finishes its work and I disappear into someone else’s life.

It all started one day at the start of the summer holidays; I was
the youngest of five children but the only boy. We lived on a farm
with no near neighbours. I was always teasing my sisters and I must
have gone too far. I was having my usual long bath that always
upset one or more of my sisters as they could not use the toilet.
This day I could here a lot of whispering and movement, but
nobody was knocking for me to hurry up. When I finally finished
my bath and went to my room I found out what everybody had been

Wychwood - Overstrand’s Offer

One

After Overstrand and Sandy had finished lunch, Overstrand asked Mhairi to come to the library, where he told her that Sandy would be staying at Wychwood to convalesce and finish the diary. As Mhairi listened to Overstrand, Sandy was surprised to see her purse her lips and a flash of what looked like annoyance cross her face.

“Very good, Sir Robert, I will inform the other staff,” she replied when he finished.

After she left, Sandy whispered to Overstrand, “I’m not sure she likes me.” 

The heat was the first thing.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

CHAPTER 56
The flight back was a quiet one for my family, partly through the effects of too much booze, but mostly in reaction to the revelations about Susie’s adopted father. I knew there was more to be told, but all I could think of was the contrast on that ‘Sharp End’ programme between that infantryman and Gerald himself.

The former had spoken with true venom, while Gerald had almost looked ashamed. That, I believe, was the message I took from it all: how the hell had he kept his sanity?

Readers may remember a story I did a few years ago, set in a a Spanish Brothel. This one has been sitting around on my computer for a couple of years, and I thought that it was time for it to see some daylight.

Part 1 Anything to turn a Penny

I suppose it was all my fault, right from the start. I was totally lazy, but I also had expensive tastes. The fact that I liked to dress well, eat well, and live well was my downfall.

In the morning I get up.

Not immediately — I lie still for a moment first, the way I've started doing, taking stock of the day before it begins. The chest there, the weight of it against the mattress, familiar now in the manner that things become familiar when you've woken to them for over a week. The mild awareness of last night's underwear, which has done what underwear does now, the slight damp of it, and I get up and deal with this in the bathroom before I do anything else. The mechanics of this have become unremarkable.

I shower. I dress.

Chapter 31 - Dénouement

I stepped to where Millie was huddled over Arthur, to check for any sign of life. “She… he is still breathing” I was able to report. The former was pressing a wad of material against her lover’s side. The pad was slowly darkening.

Gloria, tears coursing down her cheeks, fetched bandages and together with Millie, they bound the wounds more tightly, while I looked on helplessly. Guy found the phone and called for an ambulance and then the police. He covered the dead bodies each with a throw from the sofas.