He wanted to buy a gift that would be completely unexpected. The type of object that could never be guessed. His father was the type of person who had it all. The type of person who it was difficult to buy for. It wouldn’t matter if he bought him somethin...
The knife dripped its last drop of blood onto the carpet, and Paul Campbell stood in a state of confusion and panic. His mother lay motionless on her bed, blood glistening in the daylight from the windows. That was it, he thought. In a brief moment of mad...
He wondered why he had never thought of it before, in all his years of burgling houses, most of them urban, he had never specifically gone out into the countryside to burgle a house. They would seem to be easier than normal dwellings, as the owners would...
Armed with a rolled up newspaper, Raymond Stockton hit out at a large wasp that had invaded his bedsit, but missed, and hit the frame of a print of the Andes in winter. It flew around the shadeless bulb in the middle of the room, even though the light was...
This had to be the place. It stood out like a cat being entered for crufts. The house was virtually covered in ivy, and the well maintained garden looked like it was to be entered at the Chelsea flower show, with a central water feature surrounded with wh...
When he heard a loud, sharp crack, he instantly knew what it was. He checked the sole of his sandal and saw that he had stood on a cockroach, one of its legs still twitching. It didn’t matter. He was always standing on them, most of the time on purpose. S...
He could only stop and stare. There was nothing else he could do at that moment. He’d skidded to a halt on his bike, nearly going over the handlebars, as he saw the abandoned house on one of his familiar trails. For 15 years, he had ridden along this path...
It was perhaps the death of a national figure that caused her obsession. A nation in mourning had entwined itself into her psyche, rather like that of a fixation on a particular television series, or a person. Unknown to her, or rather not acknowledged, l...
It started so innocently, all those years ago, when they were six years old, when he woke up to discover a big plastic spider on the pillow. Even at that age, spiders were frightening beasts to him, and he had been in tears for hours afterwards, much to t...
Once again she had awoken late, which was unlike her, and in her dressing gown and slippers, surveyed her living room, surprised at what she saw. It wasn’t as she knew it, and what she was used to. It was different. It was tidy. Margaret Hayes was 65, and...
Michael noticed yet another change in Anthony’s behaviour. They were subtle changes. Not enough for people to notice, other than family and friends, basically those who knew him, and were around him often. Michael was his older brother, older by eleven ye...
Everybody has a price. I learned that recently. A price in which anybody will do anything for money. The premise is simple. If I said I would pay you one hundred pounds to walk into a supermarket and steal one item, it being of no concern what it was you...
When he awoke, pain rushed immediately to greet him, and he cried out, putting his hands to his head as the headache tore its way through his brain. He kicked out instinctively, knocking over an empty bottle of whisky. There were also empty bottles of vod...
