Coinneach's Workload

Excerpt…

“So, Mike,” said Dave as he put his empty beer glass on the table. “What’s making news these days? What’s keeping you off the streets?”

The journalist signalled to the barman for refills before answering the question. “Nothing special; at least nothing consistent.” Dave raised an eyebrow. “I mean,” Mike went on, “there’s been a spate of murders or, at least, suspicious deaths, but they’re all unrelated.”

“I read about that this morning. It must be giving the boys in blue a bit of a headache.”

“It’s not as if there’s a serial killer on the loose. There isn’t any remote connection between any of them.”

“Everybody needs a challenge.”

“What about you?” asked Mike changing the subject, “are you getting enough?”

“Business you mean?”

“I’m not sure. I heard you had a new partner!”

Dave looked up as a shadow fell across the table. “Al! Mike here was just asking about you.”

Excerpt…

I was holding tightly to my mother’s hand. What else would I do out there in the big wide world with nothing to keep me safe save that warm, comforting grip? At my tender, not long off my knees age, there was so much to see and do and explore, and so many ways to be caught unawares by the very things that attracted my attention.

I distinctly remember that we’d left home, crossed Duntocher Road and were walking, at my pace, towards the bus stop.

Suddenly, a car backfired, something they were prone to do in those days, and my mother almost jumped out of her skin.

“What’s wrong, mum?” I asked. The noise hadn’t bothered me since I had still to learn the normal correlation between loud noises and danger.

Mum looked a bit sheepish, peering round about, but only said, “I got a wee fright there.”

Excerpt…

‘Faither!’ yelled Annie. “There’s that moanin’ Minnie again!” He came running up the gas lit stairs from the shared dunny on the half landing, hastily buckling his belt.

“Ah heard it,” the man said as he picked the toddler up from the doorstep and held her protectively.

She snuggled into his arms, “Ah’m scared. Make it stop!”

“Ah wish ah could, hen,” he told her sadly. “Ah wish ah could.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said his wife appearing at his elbow and shouting to be heard over the noise of the air raid siren, their two older children clutched to her side.

“Aye, jist let me get ma’ coat,” he replied. “Stand there a minute, hen,” he told Annie as he set her feet on the floor, stepped over the threshold to take his jacket and overcoat from a peg on the hall stand then quickly slipped the garments on. He caught his wife looking at him strangely. “Whit is it wumman?” he asked.

“Jimmy McKibbin,” she shouted, as sotto voce as she could over the incessant wailing, “air raid or not, you’ll need to button your fly.”

“That’s whit ah like aboot you, Isa.”

“What?”

“Even wi’ a’ this goin’ on. Ye huvnae lost yer sensa yumour.”