Fire in the Thatch

Fergal asked him, ‘Have you business here?’ The constable shrugged the question aside. ‘Your sister,’ he told Fergal, ‘wants to have a care when carrying that axe. I might mistake it for a weapon.’ ‘Would you, now?’ The words held open insolence.

‘How did you end up in the Service? Did you follow your dream? And I need the non-boring answer, please. I’m not a tourist.’ Elizabeth nods. ‘I had a professor; I was studying French and Italian at Edinburgh. Anyway, he had friends who had friends who were always on the lookout, and he floated the idea and it wasn’t for me, but then he’d float it a

Miss Clarvoe hung up. She knew how to deal with June and others like her. One hung up. One severed connections. What Miss Clarvoe did not realize was that she had severed too many connections in her life, she had hung up too often, too easily, on too many people. Now, at thirty, she was alone. The telephone no longer rang, and when someone knocked