I’m too old for this! Garth cursed as he got out of his car and surveyed the immediate area for witnesses. A small noise got his attention. Two little pairs of eyes surveyed the scene in wide-eyed wonder, from the back of a three-storey flat. They were soon joined by a woman with her curled hair in an abstract net, her face covered with bright blue mud, so that she resembled a demented woad-blue Pict shaman.

‘Don’t you be letting him off with just a ticket, officer!’ she berated him accusingly. ‘He’s gone and wrecked Alice’s dustbin! There’ll be hell to pay, you wait and see!’

Lorne reached through the shattered window, verified what he already knew about his suspect’s state of health. As he did so, he could hear the demented Pict speaking with her neighbour on the telephone.

As he waited for the scene-of-crime van to arrive, it belatedly occurred to him that two little pairs of enquiring eyes were studiously observing something not meant for the very young. And yet something in their bearing stung him with misgiving, and after several moments of soul-searching he realised how much they resembled the photographic representations of the deceased Archie Skinner, wise beyond their years, avatars of judgement stemming from some elusive and transcendent plane of being.




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