Click on the tabs above to see all my fast paced and gripping Crime and Mystery novels. To get a taste of what is to come the first chapters are available to read.

 

​

Alternatively click the link below to switch to Short Stories To Entertain my short story blog with sixty short stories free to enjoy.

​​

​

​

​

My latest Blog Post

​

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

 

George sat at his kitchen table sipping black coffee looking through the window towards the dusty play area in front of the road. Smiling was what he should be doing but he had a distressing suspicion preventing the smile from getting any purchase. The dark-skinned girl sitting on his fence, on her own, took no part. He could see she was just sitting silently suffering. He thought about it but actually knew it was futile to intervene so stood, put the cup in the sink, took one last look then wandered to his study to continue writing what would be his greatest work, unaware that without even the need to intercede, he was in fact, the catalyst to the girl’s salvation.  

The fence swayed gently in time with Lucy, rocking back and forth as she sat on the low post joining two sets of two runners, just watching. The huge guard dog behind her growled and snarled, spluttered and coughed at the same time. A long chain clipped to its choke-chain collar tightened as he tugged and strained, his paws gouging long furrows in the dirt of the yard. Oblivious, the heels of Lucy’s shoes bumped a thumping rhythm on the post. Grey skirt, red shirt with one tail hanging loose, grey socks rolled untidily from bruised knees to pool around her ankles; her school uniform. Her brown leather school bag, dusty at her feet, held so tightly between grey speckled lace up black shoes with toes scuffed by scraping dirt and stones. Maybe she had a fear of bag snatchers: anything for a laugh, that was her school, one that seemed to despise newcomers, particularly ones with her appearance.

A picket fence, that’s what it was. How did she know that? She’d been places, that’s how. America with its fancy fences, then all over Europe. Six times in five years, in fact, was how many times she’d moved. The picket fence, white vertical slats and two runners, one top, one 

bottom and rickety. Absent-mindedly Lucy picked at the flaking paint and poked holes in the porous post as she concentrated on the game in front.

If you were to ask at this precise moment, the end of her first week, what she had thought of Monday’s school day she would say, pretty ugly. The tears she had felt like shedding as her hair twisted around the fingers of a particularly obnoxious boy. Head tugged back and laughing eyes staring into her pain as he muttered nasty insulting racist words that spat into her face. But no tears for her. She was a tough one who well knew the perils of showing weakness. An army brat, her family a household constantly on the move. 

She’d learned to take the bumps, the not so subtle shoves that landed her on her knees and  worst of all, the whisperings of catty girls. The cutting comments because she was different. The clique. The tight group with the biased barriers so hard to break down. The power that ruled the playground which, for her, was a hostile environment but the clique, they were the key to escaping enforced exclusion. She had to endure. But there was no easy way in for a newcomer with a frown, a scowl, a strange accent and skin a shade or two and sometimes even three times darker than theirs and that was always the problem wherever she went. Why it is cold outside in a new place.

For the sixth time the same pattern as all the other schools she had been dumped in. Nothing new at all, the first week. She’d experienced the same, hated the same for what seemed at least a million times before, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks but never forever because something always happened: someone might suddenly say something nice, some meaningful words that would break the mould. A test perhaps, or as happened this time just a few seemingly insignificant words, hardly any at all in fact, said by one girl after just a single nod then the come-on wave which was enough to know she had been accepted.

Her frown had become a scowl as she sat, shuffling, scuffing and twisting the satchel strap around her fingers, feeling the dreaded chill of loneliness. Now there were tears but she forced them back; I will not succumb to self-pity. A cracking thud of wood hitting rubber. A yell, catch it, but she didn’t move, just watched the girl running her way. Reaching, jumping, missing as the ball slipped through her fingers and flew over Lucy’s head to land ten feet past the straining dog, suddenly barking, drawn from a doggy doze by the screaming and yelling of a collection of kids, all eleven-years-old or thereabouts, hanging on the fence, rocking it, ignoring Lucy and all staring at the ball, at the dog, at the ball again, at the girl who should’ve caught it. The inference in that universal look at her was so easy to decipher. But the culprit was scared, that much was plain to see and didn’t move despite the intense goading.

Lucy stood, swung her legs over the fence and walked towards the dog. Scared? Of course. Did she let the dog see? No way. Instead, standing just beyond his reach she sternly yelled in as deep a voice as she could muster, “Sit, leave,” and waved her right hand in a downward motion. The briefest of pauses, an exchange of views of understanding and a searching of eyes and that’s exactly what the dog did, sit, and as she firmly strode towards the ball, she pleaded the leave would be understood as well. The ten feet past the dog felt like a mile, the time it took seemed at least an hour but she stooped with her back to the dog then retraced her steps past him, his head on one side panting, displaying sharp meat cleavers, emitting a muted growl just to underline a point of dominance. As Lucy exited the danger zone she smiled at him, said thank you and, heart racing, hopped back over the fence.

The incredulous pack looked at the dog, then Lucy holding the ball, then back to the dog and returned to the rounder’s pitch and Lucy to her perch. All of them, including the girl with the slippery fingers who picked up the bat; it was her turn. But the bowler didn’t bowl and along with the whole field gave a single communal nod towards the batter who wandered over to Lucy still swaying on the fence.

She said, “My name’s Alice,” and handed Lucy the bat complete with the magic words, “It’s your turn.” It was then Alice gave the come-on wave.

“Lucy,” is all Lucy replied and followed Alice, the frown and scowl lost, replaced with a welcome smile and took the bat. Expertly spun it once, then twice, thought three times a bit  inappropriately show-offy and properly smiled as she set her stance.

The others, they carried the air of acceptance. They had a new member, a brave asset for sure. Their clique had just grown. For Lucy, she felt herself warming to her new friends. She was well aware of how lonely being on your own was, just waiting for the warmth on the inside to thaw the outside freeze, so horridly based on outdated prejudices.

Her saviour, the dog’s owner, George, whose name she knew from the postman, appeared from the house. Maybe to see what the commotion was although it was now quiet, except, of course, for the sound of a mighty hit and the ball heading into the trees on the other side of the road, where a collective trawl through the undergrowth would eventually find it, Alice this time being a redeemed hero. 

 

On her way to school every day Lucy passed George’s house. The dog outside, always alert, not always growling but always restrained by the clattering chain as the postman came and

stopped at the gate where, suspicious of the chain’s security, he shouted, George, and the owner appeared, stood on the porch and yelled, “Sit, leave,” with a downward wave of his right hand to demand total obedience.