The crown jewels

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

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

Tara slipped and stumbled along the gravel drive as the sky grew darker and the rain fell more heavily. Despite being drenched by the icy shower, she could feel perspiration trickle down the back of h

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

THE toll of church bells was stifled by the winds. Sleet clawed my face as I pushed through the flurry. The orangery’s windows had shattered. Whichever way I turned, rattling, shaking trees bore down.

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