Shooting in the Dark

an accident on the village pond, two little girls in pigtails; not the kind of scenario that leads to murder. Not usually, but then again, murder wasn’t a usual occurrence.
    ‘Tell you what,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll take the case. I’m gonna charge you exactly the same as I’m charging your sister-in-law. We’ll double everybody’s wages, kind of Christmas bonus.’
    Quintin squealed. He did the happiest face Sam had seen since Echo was born. Didn’t seem to matter that the guy had done up the wrong buttons on his shirt. ‘Do you want me to get cash?’ Reeves asked. ‘I could go to the bank.’
    Sam glanced out of the triple-glazed window. Deep and crisp and even. ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll send you a bill.’
     
    On the way back to York the snowstorm returned and Sam ploughed his way through it. A blizzard was how Angeles described what she saw at night, shadows in a blizzard. There were times he thought he could empathize with her and then the time would pass away and he’d feel only pity. She’d hate that, being pitied, because it was less than she deserved. It was less than love; pity was an emotion that could never be productive. Sam would throw it out, dig deep for the more complex empathy again; but when he wasn’t looking the pity began creeping back in.
    Hitting the A64, leaving those country roads behind, was like landing back on earth after a trip to another planet. He drove and watched the lights of oncoming traffic swimming towards him like huge shoals of fish.
     

37
     
    Celia sighed inwardly when Lorna George entered the office. Lorna was one of those women who come from so low down the social scale that it is immoral to dislike them. You know all the liberal arguments which prove that Lorna’s unfortunate personality is not her fault - she’s the product of a broken home, sexually abused by her father and brothers, teenage pregnancy and a long history of failed relationships - and you want to run a mile when you see her on the street.
    ‘Bloody freezing out there, Celia.’ Still a trace of a South African accent after all these years. She placed a well-used cardboard file on the reception counter and blew into her cupped hands. She’d found the time to fix her false nails before facing the world this morning: two centimetres long, flecked with gold. ‘Ooh, I love your hair.’
    Pass the bucket, Celia thought, watching her long-held Christian principles wither away. And she gave Lorna a smile which, fuelled by guilt, went gushing over the top.
    Lorna was a hack, the kind of journalist you find if you turn over a large stone. She edited a local free magazine but doubled as a freelance whenever she got a whiff of the unsavoury or the rotten. Police and local government leaks were all funnelled through Lorna George. Occasionally she got her dirty little fingers into national scandals.
    She was in her mid-forties now, wearing a grey suit with a knee-length skirt, fashioned from a cloth that contained a minimum amount of cotton. There were wrinkles in the material around her hips and thighs. She wore black tights and high-heeled shoes and her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of black and pinned up in a bun.
    She shook a long chocolate-coloured cigarette out of a pack and put it between her lips. ‘D’you mind, Celia?’ She raised the pencil lines which had replaced her eyebrows.
    Celia shook her head. ‘You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. We’re all ex-smokers here, fanatics. The office’s a smoke-free zone.’
    Lorna shook her head and put the cigarette back in the pack. It wasn’t clear why she was shaking her head. Could have been because of the no-smoking rule or simply that Lorna didn’t understand why anyone would want to give up smoking, or why anyone would want to give up anything. Especially if it was in the area of sex or drugs or money. ‘Is the great detective in?’
    ‘I’m afraid not; it’s difficult to catch him without an appointment.’
    ‘Didn’t use to be like that, though. Know what I mean?’ Lorna said. ‘After a couple of drinks you could net him with a wink in the old days.’
    Celia didn’t reply. She kept a deadpan face and held Lorna’s eyes, daring her to go on. That was a mistake.
    ‘He’d booze all your money away, shag you stupid and dump you for the next broad with a bottle or a jingle in her purse. He was a knight of the round table, chivalry dribbling down his trouser leg.’
    ‘Is there something I can help you with,