The Union Man...and other stories

By Eamonn Murphy

The Union Man and other stories brings you three stories from Eamonn Murphy.
An interrogator (torturer) for MI5 is accused of a murder, a murder he couldn’t have committed, but where his investigation takes him will not only change his life, but it will forever change the world.
Happy is a drug that has been legalized in England, but no one can expect the consequences of what that legalization will mean, except for one man, and no one want to listen to him, because everyone wants to be Happy.
Finally, a brief story that is a twist on the princess and the frog tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nomadic Delirium Press
• Release date: Jan 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370330300

Eamonn Murphy

Eamonn Murphy was born and bred in the south-west of England many years ago. He grew man-size but retained childish interests like science fiction, fantasy and comic books. Never settling to a career he earned beer money on building sites and in call centres. He has a perfectly useless degree in Humanities and History from the Open University. Now, aged, bent and broken, he lives in a quiet cottage with a nice lady where he types reviews for sfcrowsnest and stories for small press publications. Website at https://eamonnmurphywriter298729969.wordpress.com/

Book preview

The Union Man…and other stories

By Eamonn Murphy

Published by Nomadic Delirium Press at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright 2018 by Nomadic Delirium Press

All stories are copyrighted by Eamonn Murphy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passes in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, broadcast, etc.

Nomadic Delirium Press

Aurora, Colorado

CONTENTS

The Union Man

Clap Your Hands

Frog Dialogue

The Union Man

Your boss describes you as a very good man, said the Detective Chief Inspector. He says you have his full backing.

Bertram Ward nodded acknowledgement of the compliment from his boss, Director Patel, head of MI5 but kept a wary eye on the fat man before him. Bertram was sat in a hard backed, hard bottomed chair at a plain pine table in the basement of police headquarters, a glass of water to hand. He felt disheveled, sweaty and mildly concussed. The fat policeman who questioned him was just disheveled and sweaty, his shirt half out of his baggy trousers and his bald head glistening with perspiration. Bertram didn’t mind basement interrogation rooms, he worked in one. Usually he was the man in control. This time the shoe was on the other foot. It promised to be an interesting experience not least because his questioner knew that the suspect was himself an interrogator, and at a much higher level, albeit in a different government department. They might have some interesting mind games to play. Of course, the psychological pressure was all on Bertram. He faced losing his job, and possibly his freedom too, if convicted of murder. He did not imagine that former interrogators for MI5 had an easy time in prison. There would be quite a few of his old clients there and some were bound to remember him.

Chief Inspector Thomas sat himself in the hard chair opposite Bertram and leaned forward. "Why would a good man like you let a valuable prisoner die? Or did you kill him?

I didn’t kill him. I was knocked out.

By a man securely bound in one of your own torture chairs, said Thomas, shaking his head slowly as if it were the saddest thing he had ever heard. I don’t think so. Tell us what really happened.

Again?

Again. From the moment you walked into work this morning.

Bertram knew the technique of course, keep the suspect repeating the story until you caught him out in a lie. He sighed and began his sorry tale once more.

*

For a good man, he was not feeling very righteous as he walked into work that Monday morning, a mood not helped by catcalls from junior colleagues.

Up the workers, Bertram, some joker sneered as he walked past the reception desk on his way down to the basement interrogation unit. He turned his head quickly to see who had spoken, almost tripping over a vacuum "bot that should have avoided him (damned thing needed reprogramming) but the group huddled round the coffee vendor all showed him their backs and feigned innocence. A shock of ginger hair identified one of the group as Harry Webb, a man not in the Interrogators Union and