A scandal in spring

WASN’T it you who used to work behind the bar at the Frog and Lettuce?” Susan Tallboys looked up. She’d been fastening the buttons of her overcoat, suppressing her dislike of its worn fabric and its m

WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of

AS Ellie bent to pick up an old trainer laying half buried in a pile of seaweed, she screamed. “Aargh, there’s a leg attached to this!” For a moment she thought she’d stumbled across a gruesome crime

Julie stared out of the window at her garden, mostly bare branches with only a few spots of colour in the deep red of the dogwood and silver cineraria. She sighed – it was that unsettling period after

I WOKE up after a vivid dream of Eleanor. I’d had quite a few recently. Eleanor was my half-sister. She was older than me – the daughter of Dad’s first wife, Dorrie. My mum only found out he had a fir

WHAT was the man thinking of when he did his shopping? Jessie thought. Two huge, brown paper parcels spilled food on to the kitchen table. Enough to feed a family for a fortnight at least. Slices of t