28. Local warming
They all said the same thing. “Mmmmm. It’s warm in here!”
Compared to the chilly streets of winter Canberra, it was summer in Ounce Books, and customers were inclined to linger, browsing through the books, patting Grace the cat, or just chatting about books they had read or wanted to read or might be persuaded to [...]
27. The lovely buns
Zoe hadn’t messaged him or chatted or phoned. There was still timings to be worked out. Zoe naked, hot and sweaty. Zoe naked, in a shower. Zoe naked, in his arms. Would he be able to fit her in as well as attend the planned protest meeting?
26. Boomgate
BookCrossing. Giving away perfectly good books to strangers. Quint couldn’t understand it at all, but Ann took a strange amount of fun from the disease, often closing the shop for weeks at a time while she travelled to conventions where fellow-sufferers gathered to discuss their symptoms.
“Not my cup of tea, Ann. You tried to sign me up, remember?”
“You either get it or you don’t.”
Quint nodded. “Like a cold.”
“I caught it off Ann,” Harley said. “Anyway, I was on the airport rank yesterday, and I had a couple of spare seconds, so I whipped out and released a book against one of the pillars. This book.”
25. Many mugs
Thursday morning’s run was difficult.
“Jesus H!” exclaimed Ann, as the cold bit her on the nose.
“Christ!” she said, taking a second breath.
Frost crunched on the grass, cars were ghostly shapes, their windows covered in ice, and her breath was a white flag of surrender as she turned to go back inside.
Maybe tomorrow. She didn’t have [...]
On writing
You want to know who’s been bumping up the prices of Tales of the City videos and books on eBay? C’est moi, I blush to disclose.
I’m rapidly running into the end of the first book and I can see the brick wall coming up, and aaaaaargggh! I can’t stop!
This is so good. Why have I [...]
24. The clerk who came in from the cold
Kim watched the guards trudge away. What he really wanted was a shovel. A true cover-up. Problem with a quick fix on a construction site was that another idiot with a shovel or back-hoe would undoubtedly uncover the bones all over again. Besides, whoever the intruder was, he or she had been busily disinterring them.
The skeleton, or at least the parts he could see, looked old. Fossil rather than fresh. Maybe there was an elderly murderer out there mounting their own cover-up.
On writing
I’m enjoying my serial novel. It’s hard to find the time to write, in between twelve or thirteen hour shifts and the necessary sleep, but it’s not as if it’s hard work.
My main worry is that all the characters sound alike – sound like me. Ann is nowhere near as much the Californian babe she [...]
On writing
Well, I spent my anniversary evening attending a public meeting at Parliament House, run by the National Capital Authority, who approved the ASIO HQ building. It was hard to get a seat because I showed up at the last minute and you were supposed to book early. About 200 earnest citizens, and seven even more [...]
23. Taxi love
Flashing red and blue lights on Parkes Way beside the ASIO site. Half a dozen police cars, officers in reflective vests, orange wands. Random breath test. They never pulled cabbies over – a taxidriver would have to be insane to drink on a shift.
But a policeman was waving him to the side.
22. Dirty hands
Quint set down his bag. He’d look through that later, but for now he had to find out where he was leaking blood from. Somewhere on his head, most likely, because it wasn’t gushing out of anywhere visible. Unless it was on his back. Quint suffered badly from his back. There were parts he couldn’t reach, and they itched.
The face in Quint’s bathroom mirror was scratched. He looked like someone people would walk around on the street now. Hair full of mud and rotten oak leaves, eyes full of emotion, cheek covered in dried blood. Hands dirty and fingernails badly needing a scrub.