Bright City Old Wounds

By Graham Storrs

Ronnie Walker’s dark past is about to catch up with him. The dead body in his garden is a message but he doesn’t know from whom, or even what it says. All he knows is that he and everyone around him are in danger and that includes his friend and sometime partner, Luke Kelly. As the police begin their investigation – with Ronnie and Luke as their prime suspects – more people start dying and Luke and Ronnie are helpless to find a single clue as to who this ruthless killer might be.
For Luke, it is a desperate time of worry for the safety of his family, his fiancée and his employees at the Featherfoot Agency but his attempts to keep them all safe while he and Ronnie hunt down the murderer are frequently met with resentment and resistance. He believes the key to finding the killer is in Ronnie’s past but, as usual, Ronnie is reluctant to speak about it and, as the danger grows worse, reluctant even to let Luke become involved.
But Luke and the people he loves are bound to Ronnie’s fate and, as the case unfolds, hunting the murderer who is hunting Ronnie pulls them all into deadly danger despite Luke’s best efforts to keep them out of it.
Bright City Old Wounds is the fourth book in the Luke Kelly crime series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Storrs
• Release date: Jan 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645363210

Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs is a science fiction writer who lives miles from anywhere in rural Australia with his wife and a Tonkinese cat. He has published many short stories in magazines and anthologies as well as three children's science books and a large number of academic and technical pieces in the fields of psychology, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.He has published a number of sci-fi novels, in four series; Timesplash (three books), the Rik Sylver sci-fi thriller series (three books), the Canta Libre space opera trilogy. and the Deep Fracture trilogy. He has also published an augmented reality thriller, "Heaven is a Place on Earth", a sci-fi comedy novel, "Cargo Cult", a dark comedy time travel novel, "Time and Tyde", and an urban sci-fi thriller, "Mindrider."

Book preview

BRIGHT CITY

OLD WOUNDS

A Luke Kelly Crime Story

by

Graham Storrs

This Edition, Copyright © 2022, Graham Storrs

ISBN: 978-0-6453632-1-0

Published by Canta Libre

Cover art and design by Craig Johnson (windowgazing.com)

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Dedication

Bright City Old Wounds is my twentieth novel. I can only imagine how proud my late mother, Audrey Storrs, would have been of this accomplishment. When Mum discovered in me her own love of poetry and literature, she encouraged me to read widely and, later, to write. So, I’d like to dedicate this, my twentieth novel, to the remarkable woman who nurtured and nourished the desire and confidence in me that led me to this point.

Chapter One

What’s taking him so long?

Megan wasn’t usually an impatient person but she had a point: Ronnie had disappeared around the back of his house at least five minutes before to see if Mary was waiting for him back there. We’d been late arriving and it was quite possible she’d given up standing in the porch and gone to find somewhere to sit down. For all she was Ronnie’s date for the night, Mary was no spring chicken. About Ronnie’s age, I would have guessed, and he was sixty-six.

You’re right, I said. I’ll go and check.

I got out of the car and walked up the drive. This was all my fault. I was the one who’d said that a double date – me and Megan with Ronnie and his latest old lady du jour – would be a good idea. Then I’d stuffed things up by getting tied up at the office and making us all late. Best case, Mary was in a huff about being made to hang around and Ronnie was in the garden trying to placate her. Worst case, she’d gone home and Ronnie was in the garden sulking.

The reality was something altogether different.

When I turned the corner of his house and saw it, the scene in Ronnie’s patio was impossible to understand. My mind kept sort of sliding away from what my eyes were seeing. Ronnie was standing on the grass, just beyond the paved area, staring at… something. The lights were on and the patio seemed overly bright, like a stage. Ronnie kept staring. An audience of one.

Then I realised the long, brown things on the floor were legs. The legs were attached to hips. They wore sandals with a low heel, tights and women’s panties. So, a woman’s legs. But I couldn’t make out the rest of her, as if she was lying behind something but I couldn’t see what it was.

There was a pile of something pink wet and disgusting on the tiles nearby, and there was liquid all around it, as if someone had dumped a bucketful of offal and blood. Maybe two bucketfuls. There were wet ropes of pink stuff leading up from the floor to the thing hanging from the wooden beams of the patio’s half-roof.

And that’s when it all clicked into place. That’s when my mind stopped dancing around it and faced what I was actually looking at: a woman’s body. Mary’s body. She’d been cut in half. The top half was hanging from a hook in the ceiling. The bottom half was lying on the floor. Her innards and her blood had come pouring out of her and now lay in a heap below the torso.

I turned away and threw up into the flower bed behind me. This was the second time in my life I’d seen a dismembered corpse but it was by far the worse. To my credit, my first thought was to stop Megan coming round and seeing what I’d just seen. Leaving Ronnie to whatever he was going through, I staggered back around the house and straight to the car. Megan wound down the window as I approached.

Jesus! What’s wrong? she asked, trying to get out. I could only imagine the horror she saw in my eyes. I pushed on the door to keep her inside.

No. Don’t get out. It’s Mary. She’s… Dead seemed like too small a word for what she was. Don’t get out. Just… She couldn’t stay there. Not even in the car. Here. I handed her the key fob. Take the car. Go… Go home. I’ll call you later. I need to get the cops here. I need to look after Ronnie.

Oh god, Ronnie! She tried to get out again.

Yeah, look, you don’t want to go back there. Trust me. She’s not just… Look, go home and I’ll call you, yeah?

Reluctantly, she gave in. What about you?

Me?

You look…

I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I tried a smile. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.

It took a little more persuasion and I had to promise to call her, often, but she finally left. I watched her tail lights receding into the night until she made the turn at the bottom of Ronnie’s street. I turned back to the house, took a deep breath and made myself start walking.

Ronnie was still standing on the grass when I got back. He was no longer staring at the body. His eyes were moving around the patio, examining every inch of it.

Did you call the cops? he asked. His voice was low and level. Not natural, but steady.

Not yet. I wanted to send Megan home.

He nodded. Best call them now, hey?

I went back to the front of the house and dialled triple-zero. I told them what we’d found and went back to see Ronnie.

Should we wait inside? I asked.

He shook his head. No, but we should take a look around. The whole house is a crime scene.

We went to the front and Ronnie let us in. He went straight to the console of his security system and tapped keys. He had six cameras around his house. Two inside and four out. One watched the porch and drive. One watched the patio.

Nothing, he said. From the log, it looks like someone came in this arvo, wiped the recordings of them doing that, and switched the whole system off. Perhaps they stayed in the house after that and waited. He was probably here when… He choked on her name. It was the first sign of emotion he’d shown. For a moment he stood still, staring past me as he reassembled his rock-hard facade.

Right-o, he said. I’ll check upstairs. You take a look down here. I began to move off but he put out a hand to stop me. Luke, he might still be here.

I felt a chill run through me. I hadn’t even considered it. Wide-eyed, I scanned the rooms and doorways around me.

He’s probably gone, though, he added and set off up the stairs.

Alone, I moved cautiously through the silent house. Had someone waited here for Ronnie? Sitting in one of his armchairs, perhaps? Had he gone to answer the door when Mary rang the bell, chatted to her, deciding right then to kill and mutilate her? What kind of person committed murder so coldly and so brutally?

I realised I’d stopped moving. I was standing at the door to the utility room. The light behind me penetrated the little room and I could see Ronnie’s washing machine and the tumble dryer mounted on the wall above it. But I couldn’t see the whole room and, if there was anybody standing against the wall beside the door, they were really close to me. I listened for their breathing. I tried to quieten my own. If I poked my head in to look, they’d be close enough to reach out and grab me. The person who had hacked Mary in two and had hung her up like a pig in a slaughter-house, might be waiting for me, too.

I took a slow, quiet breath and stepped through the door.

The room was empty. It was just a room. All my bravery had revealed was a basket of washing and an airer folded up and stowed against the wall. I turned away and cried out in shock. A man was standing right behind me, a powerfully-built brute of a man with close-cropped hair, a short, thick neck and a gun in his hand.

All clear? Ronnie asked.

Shit! You scared the crap out of me.

He gave me a long, thoughtful look. Come on, we’ll wait out front for the cops.

What’s the gun for? I don’t know why I asked, since it seemed obvious on a moment’s reflection.

He tucked it into the back of his trouser belt. I don’t want the cops finding it. They’ll be crawling all over this place soon. We went out onto the front porch and walked in silence up the drive. At the end, he took the gun out and bent down under a shrub. When he stood up again, the gun was gone. He brushed soil from his hands. I’ve got a little cubby hole down there for stashing things, he explained.

Of course you do.

Ronnie’s obsession with security and his reluctance ever to mention his military background were a constant source of intrigue for me. Irritation, too. I’d long been convinced his daggy old bushie persona was just a front. The real Ronnie Walker was someone else, someone who had trained in the UK’s SBS as a special forces operative and had run covert operations all over the world, a man who had killed people to order and had grown to hate who he had been. So much so, that he had moved to Australia and devoted half his life to hunting killers and bringing them to justice, first as a cop and, when they threw him out, as a private investigator.

We’re going after the killer, right? I asked.

We won’t have to, he said. The killer is coming after me.

It – It might have been a burglary gone wrong, or something, I said although I knew it wasn’t.

Yeah, right, he said, treating the idea with the contempt it deserved.

The image of Mary’s mutilated body flashed back, as it probably would forever.

It was a message, I said and the enormity of it hit me hard. Someone had taken a woman’s life, an innocent woman, a stranger most likely, and then chopped her up to create that bloody tableau of death, just to threaten or horrify Ronnie. What kind of monster did a thing like that?

Ronnie said nothing, just kept staring down the road. His face looked older and harder than I’d ever seen it.

Did you understand it? The message? Do you know what it means?

It means there’s a sick fuck out there who I’m going to— He stopped himself. His fists were balled and, for a while, he breathed heavily through his nose. I’d never seen Ronnie like this. In some ways, it was as disturbing as seeing Mary dead. Was it the loss he felt, or was there something more? I opened my mouth to ask what he knew but the flashing lights of a cop car turning into the street made me close it again.

* * * *

My old mate Sergeant Tim Pearce from the local nick was first on the scene. It had been almost a year since I’d last seen him. That was at the time of Megan’s kidnapping by a bikie called Thomas Thackery.

Round the back, was all Ronnie said to him.

When Tim returned, he was white-faced and grim. Jesus, he said. He pulled out his notebook and began asking questions.

We both knew the victim, Ronnie said, interrupting him. Her name was Mary Dalgarno, aged sixty-two. Sixty-three next week. We were meeting her here to go on to a restaurant. Me, Luke, and Luke’s fiancée, Megan Thomas. You remember Megan. He drew a breath. I expected Mary to be waiting by the front door. When she wasn’t, I went round the back to look for her. That’s when I discovered the body. It was six-seventeen P.M. I glanced Ronnie’s way, surprised that he’d noted the time under the circumstances. Luke and Megan stayed in the car. About five minutes later, Luke came to find me and he saw the body too. He sent Megan home without her getting out of the car and called you lot. Then we both went into the house to check that it was empty. His lips pursed so briefly I almost missed it. It might have been a moue of regret. It was. We came out here to wait for you to arrive. You know the rest.

Tim looked at me. Anything to add?

No, that’s everything.

Is this… Tim looked concerned. Are you two working on a case? Are you in trouble?

No. Ronnie said it firmly. Tim turned to me.

Just the usual rubbish, I said. My PI company, the Featherfoot Agency, had not had a single exciting case since the Harry Cross murder. We’d been busy, all right. We’d become the most famous private investigation agency in Queensland thanks to the media storm over that case and we had more work than we knew what to do with. Nothing we’re doing would provoke… this.

Tim asked us to stick around until the detectives arrived. A van had turned up with more cops by then so we went to sit inside it. It smelled of new car and looked clean. I called Megan and gave her an update. Ronnie sat with his head down and his hands clasped. I wanted to talk about what had happened, what we’d seen, but he seemed so far away I was reluctant to make the journey. So we sat in silence for at least half an hour before two detectives turned up in a large SUV. I watched them get out and walk across to Tim Pearce. One was a surly overweight man in his late forties, the other a petite, dark-haired woman ten years younger. I knew them both. The man was Detective Inspector Ivan Bronski. The woman was Detective Sergeant Alexandra Bertolissio. I saw Tim Pearce point over to where we were waiting. Both detectives turned to glance our way. Then Bronski spoke and they all went off together to take a look at the body.

It’s Bertolissio and Bronski, I told Ronnie. He nodded without looking up. Are you OK? I was beginning to worry.

Peachy, he said.

I took the hint and shut up.

Whatever state of deep meditation Ronnie was in, was not one I could master. The van, with its thick odours of new plastics, was suddenly suffocating. I got up and went outside. There were people in the street by then, Ronnie’s neighbours, curious passers-by, all held back by a thin strip of blue-and-white tape and a couple of uniformed officers. Quite a few of the spectators had their phones out, filming the bored cops and me as I watched them. The press had not yet arrived but there was a van up the street that I knew belonged to the police forensics team. Turning towards the house, I could see men and women in white coveralls moving back and forth. Light leaked from what must have been arc lamps at the back of the house. I hoped the cops had brought plenty of plastic sheeting to hide what was hanging there. Ronnie’s garden was quite private but there were a few neighbours who might be regretting peering out of their back windows.

I saw Bronski emerge from the side of the house. He stopped for a moment and looked up at the heavens. Bertolissio, beside him, saw me and our eyes met. When Bronski started moving again, I called to Ronnie.

They’re coming to talk to us.

He got out of the van and stood next to me, watching the two detectives approach.

You two again, Bronski said. He was balder than the last time I’d seen him. That would have been during our investigation of the McKinley murder, more than two years ago. He looked a lot more than two years older.

You got a promotion, I said. I didn’t look at Bertolissio. She was the one who should have been promoted, not this useless time-server. Bronski looked at me as if he was deciding how best to put me down. Then he turned to Ronnie.

What’s your relationship to the dead woman?

Her name was Mary, Ronnie said. Mary Dalgarno. Her family was from Aberdeenshire in Scotland. She was very proud of that.

Bronski blinked, caught off-guard. While he hesitated, Bertolissio jumped in.

What was your relationship to Mary, Ronnie?

Ronnie kept his eyes on Bronski as he said, She was a friend.

And when did you see her last?

Last Saturday. We went for a ride on the river. She liked just travelling up and down on the ferry. Cheap date, right?

You were supposed to meet her here tonight for a meal, yes? Did you have a booking somewhere?

Ronnie looked away, as if it were all too tedious.

I made the booking. Toscano’s for six thirty. Table for four. We were running late. That was my fault. My own words hit me like a blow to the chest. That was my fault. Was Mary dead because I’d wanted to tie up a few loose ends at the office before the weekend?

The other one, Bronski said, getting back in the game. He looked at Bertolissio, who dutifully supplied Megan’s name. Why didn’t she stick around?

I told her to go home. I didn’t want her to see…

You live together?

She’s my fiancée.

It was October. The wedding was an eternity away in March.

We’re going to have to talk to her.

I nodded.

Don’t you want to arrest us? Ronnie asked.

Don’t tempt me, Walker. If I could see any blood on you, you’d be on your way to the lockup. The thought must have reminded him of something. What did you go in the house for?

What? You think I broke my friend’s neck, hacked her body in half with a machete and then nipped inside to change my clothes before calling the cops?

Who said anything about a broken neck? Bronski asked, echoing my own thoughts.

You saw the body. How do you think she died?

What about the machete? Bertolissio asked, curious.

I keep one in the tool shed. Whoever did this, took the time to fix a hook to the rafters. He’d have needed the drill from my tool shed, too. The hook is also mine. I keep a machete in there. It looked to me like the body had been cut in half with a long-bladed knife after it had been hung up, so I had a quick scan of the garden and saw the machete under the boundary hedge. I’m sure your guys will find it eventually.

Bertolissio called over a uniform and gave the officer instructions. Bronski just narrowed his eyes and focused on Ronnie.

You seem to know a lot about what happened, he said.

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes and sighing heavily, which earned me a tight-lipped glare.

Her next of kin is her sister, Susan, Ronnie said. I’m sure you were getting around to asking, you being an experienced detective and all.

Do you have the address? Bertolissio asked, returning. Ronnie rattled it off and Bertolissio wrote it down.

How long have you known Mary? she asked, quietly taking over the interview.

About two years, I reckon. She moved to Brissy maybe three years ago from Dubbo. She had a farm out there. Came to live with her sister when her husband died and she found the farm too much to manage on her own.

It was all news to me but then, Ronnie always accused me of being too incurious about the people around me. Here was some more evidence he was right. A wave of guilt surprised me and I had to look away.

Any children? Bertolissio asked. Other siblings?

Nah. She was alone. If you want to know who inherits, you’ll have to ask Susan.

You know Susan?

Nah, only from what Mary told me. They seemed close enough. Susan didn’t rate Mary’s old man much but they didn’t argue or anything.

Can you think of anyone else in her life who might have done this to her?

Ronnie shook his head. This wasn’t about Mary. This was all about me. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bastard was waiting for me. Then Mary turned up and he improvised.

Bronski puffed himself up for a question but Bertolissio got in first.

How do you know that?

The security cameras are off and he wiped the recordings of his own entry. All the times are in the console logs.

What? Bronski sounded outraged, as if we’d withheld vital information.

Does it record to the cloud? Bertolissio asked, ignoring him.

Ronnie shook his head again. Not in real time. It does a dump to my cloud account every night. I’m going to need an upgrade.

How do we know you didn’t wipe it? Bronski demanded.

Check the logs.

Bronski’s nostrils flared and his brows came down. Ronnie had a way of irritating people. In fact, he had a flair for it. Not that Bronski didn’t deserve it.

You’re saying you have an alibi for when the security system was turned off? Bertolissio asked.

I was with Luke and others at the Featherfoot Agency office all afternoon.

Which isn’t very far away, is it?

I expected Ronnie to snap back at her but he just pursed his lips, silently acknowledging the truth of the implication that he could have slipped out, gone home, switched off the cameras and been back at the office in less than an hour.

Luke? he said.

I can confirm that Ronnie did not leave my sight for more than ten minutes all day.

We’ll need you both to come in and make statements tomorrow, Bertolissio said.

No worries, I said.

Wait a minute, said Bronski. Not so fast. You two could have been working together.

I saw Ronnie’s jaw clench.

We were working together, I said. All day.

Bronski gave me the glare again.

Maybe we should be having this conversation at Headquarters, he said.

Ronnie’s temper finally snapped. He stepped closer to Bronski. The Detective Inspector was a big man but it was all flab. Ronnie, although he was almost twenty years older and thirty kilos lighter than the cop, was of a very different construction.

Maybe you should get your fat head out of your clacker, mate, and take a look around. What the hell do you think is going on here? Do you think Mary and me had a lover’s tiff and I decided to chop her in half, hang her up like a dead dingo on a fence and then call Clowns’R’Us for a free evening’s entertainment, complete with flashing lights and performing animals?

What I think, is you seem to know far too much about how your friend was killed, Bronski said.

Ronnie smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. Al, he said, turning to Bertolissio, also noticed the broken neck. Didn’t you, love? She also saw the way the blood was disturbed by someone stepping away from the body, onto the lawn, and then going back, probably with a branch from a shrub, to try to disguise their footsteps by spattering more blood onto them.

Bronski turned to his sergeant. Well?

Bertolissio gave him a small nod of confirmation.

So I suppose that makes Al a suspect too, does it? Just because, by a spooky process of using her eyes and her brain, she can know all kinds of things a dropkick like you can’t.

As Bronski was winding himself up for a retort, Tim Pearce turned up at his elbow.

Sir, we just found the machete. There’s a broken-off branch half-way down the garden too. They’ve both got blood on them.

Bronski looked like he might explode. For a moment he stood in silence. Perhaps he was praying for strength. Perhaps he was counting to ten. Either way, it seemed to keep him from bursting. To Bertolissio, he said, I’m off to take a look and talk to forensics. Don’t let these two go. I haven’t finished with them.

Fuck that, said Ronnie. You’ve asked your questions. We’re leaving.

In your dreams, Walker. Try it and see how long it takes me to arrest you for obstructing my investigation.

Try that and see how long it takes my lawyer to get here. Even you know you can’t just arrest people because they piss you off.

First big case since your promotion? I asked. Bronski turned his scowl on me, curious about what I was getting at. You probably don’t want it littered with spurious arrests, official complaints, internal investigations by Ethical Standards Command, all that crap.

Keep your nose out of it, Kelly.

"That’s Doctor Kelly to you Detective Inspector. Doesn’t the QPS have a code of conduct for dealing with members of the public? What’s it called? Oh yes, your Client Service Charter. What does that say about how you should treat witnesses, or suspects? So what level of complaint do you suggest we make? Is this just a ‘breach of discipline’, or this this an ‘act of misconduct’?"

All right, I was showing off. I’d spent a bit of time trying to understand in detail what my rights were in dealing with the police. Let’s face it, I’d been putting up with rude, aggressive cops like Bronski and Reid for years by then and I was pretty sick of it. Yeah, sure, there were good ones – Bertolissio and Pearce for a start – but most of the senior detectives seemed to take against private investigators on sight. That I had a PhD in philosophy just wound them up even more. Their automatic assumption was that I thought I was better than them. The fact that Ronnie and I had solved three murders in as many years that the cops had given up on, didn’t help, nor the tabloid press constantly referring to me as the Genius Detective. Detective Chief Inspector Reid, Bronski’s boss in the Homicide Group, seemed to labour under the bizarre delusion that I was actually some kind of master criminal who used my brilliant mind to thwart and humiliate him. This, despite my help last year with his promotion to DCI.

Bronski stepped up so his scowl was right in my face. His own face had gone red with anger and he was practically snorting fire out of his nostrils. He poked a finger at me to emphasise his earnestness.

As of now, I’ve got two suspects: you and Walker. You’d both better start co-operating or I’m going to start treating you the way you deserve. Ever been inside a police lockup? Yes, of course you have. Second home to a suspicious character like you, I reckon. Well don’t push your luck, Kelly, or you’ll be back inside before you know it.

Inspector, could I have a word? Bertolissio said.

What?

In private?

In a minute.

Now, if I may, sir.

I could see she was going to try to talk him down. Anyone could see his behaviour was well over the line but the Detective Inspector was too angry to control himself. To pour petrol on the fire, I said, Hey, that’s right. I never did sue DCI Reid for wrongful arrest. Maybe I should do that now. What do you think he’ll say when I tell him it was you that reminded me to do it?

Bertolissio shot me an angry look. Luke, shut up, she said. Sir, I need to talk to you right now.

She led him away and, this time, he let her. They stood far enough away that I couldn’t hear them but close enough that I could get the tone of it. She was telling the big oaf to pull his horns in and he was slowly coming to see he’d overstepped the mark. Nothing but trouble could come of bullying me and Ronnie, her tone said. Oh, but I really, really want to, was in Bronski’s replies. Eventually, she won. He threw up his arms and barked an order, then stomped away towards the crime scene, followed by a nervous-looking Sergeant Pearce.

Bertolissio came back to us.

You shouldn’t wind him up, she said to me.

Can we go now? Ronnie asked. He sounded fed up with the whole business.

Yes, she said and Ronnie immediately began moving. If you like, I can get someone to drive you, she called after him.

Thanks, I said. He probably needs to walk it off. All of it.

Tomorrow at ten for a formal interview, she said. Bring Megan.

I nodded and hurried after Ronnie.

Chapter Two

Go where? Megan asked. Do what?

Just take a vacation or something, I said.

We were alone in the lounge room of my home. Ronnie had taken himself off to the spare room having shown no enthusiasm for talking about what had happened or what it might mean. I’d taken him some bedding and towels and he’d accepted them with a silence that was worrying and ominous. I’d hung about, trying to think of some way of getting him to open up but, in the end, I retreated in defeat.

As I left the bedroom, he said, softly, You need to get Megan away from here.

What?

Tomorrow, he added. And your parents. You should probably go too.

What?

Luke, it was a message. What do you think it said?

That some psycho is after you.

Yes? And?

The penny dropped. And they’re willing to kill the people close to you to make whatever twisted point they’re making.

So?

I took a deep breath. So I’ll talk to Megan.

As I’d expected, Megan was not happy with the idea.

I can’t just drop everything and take a vacation. I’ve got clients, deadlines…

She looked across at the hallway and bit her top lip. I knew she was feeling the presence of the bag that sat in a cupboard there.

We always knew this might happen, I said. We prepared.