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“That boy is too good-looking to want to be tied to a cripple like you!” I heard my wife yelling at my daughter, Vanessa. “Now he knows the family money’s all gone, you’ll never set eyes on him again!” “No Mum! You’re wrong about him.” I heard her breaking down in tears. “Where is he…
Gullsville-on-sea is a filthy, disgusting cesspit and possibly the most boring place in Britain. The seafront is rubbish, the rusty pier looks as if it longs to fall under the waves, the town centre shops are about as inviting as a crypt, and I mistook the museum for a public lavatory. I wouldn’t visit this…
“The bomb is timed to detonate in one hour’s time,” said Jacob, staring ahead, jabbering excitedly, with a wild stare in his eyes. Rushing towards the lift when it was just about to leave, I had jammed my fingers between the doors so they opened again and allowed me to get inside. It was the…
“She’s absolutely wonderful, nothing is too much trouble.” My old friend Jonathan Dexter beamed with pleasure as he touched the arm of Bella Fazakerly, who was helping him climb the stairs to his flat. Jonathan was 95, and a recent fall had landed him in hospital with a broken leg. After he got better he…
Charles Dickens walked up to the bar, accompanied by some friends, who were all wearing their finest outfits: frock coats, tall ‘stovepipe’ hats, fancy waistcoats, while the women in his party were decked out in hooped skirts, crinoline and bonnets. I was sitting at a table towards the rear of the old pub with my…
“My business has gone bust, I’m going to lose everything I own, I might go to prison for fraud, and my wife has left me.” I told the little man I had just met. “Apart from that everything’s fine!” The small man who had come up to talk to me didn’t smile. Indeed, he didn’t…
When you think you’re going to die, it’s true, your past life does flash up in front of you. In my case it was just the few moments before the train crash: running along the platform and leaping on the train as it had started moving, and accidentally colliding with the blonde-haired young woman standing…
“Arise, Sir John.” After the tap on each shoulder by the Queen’s sword, the words she said evoked the chivalric romance of the days of the Knights of the Round Table, and indeed, I couldn’t quite believe it was all happening to me. True, I had led a long and busy life, done my best…
“You’ve done very well, Mary,” said George, who had produced a clipboard and pen, and was looking at me over his half-moon glasses with a patronising smile. He was every inch the city accountant: smart suit, neat silver hair and superficial charm. “You see, I’ve been meeting so many women via the dating site that…
I heard the shouting, went outside onto the landing of the block of flats, and saw the man with the gun. Then I saw him firing it. The other man fell down and didn’t get up. The Barnaby Estate is renowned for violence and criminality. I should know – I was born and brought up…