This dramatic short story collection contains eight stories based on a figurative, or literal, interpretation of wet, nasty weather. At turns spooky, frightening or funny, these tales are guaranteed not to disappoint.
Ice : "Vernon Wilson" (Paranor...
"Have you ever known something you shouldn't?" the woman sitting across from him in the public house asks, her voice as distant as the look in her eyes. The soft gas light from a frosted lamp over their heads makes her hair appear an unnatural bronze. In the plain light of day, it is sure to be light brown, he thinks.
She is still young, but hard physical work and poor meals have etched their mark into the soft parts of her face, neck, hands.
Her hands.
He sees them when she reaches for the glass of gin. Uncared for. Rough. The knuckles swollen. The only thing feminine about them is their size.
Her mouth, he notices as she drinks, has not been badly formed by nature, but disillusionment has given it an unpleasant set that tells him of an intense internal bitterness. She will be as reliable as a little lad who has been caught stealing apples, and taken the punishment badly.
If he were still who he once was, she would never have come here, to this public house at this time of night to meet with him. Never have told him what little she has. That knowledge irritates him, but he sends the feeling packing with an internal shrug. It could have been worse.
It always could be worse.
"No," he answers, somewhat delayed. "I only know what I should know. Facts are facts, not wishes." He adds a faint smile here, as an acknowledgment of human weakness. "How did you discover what it is you shouldn't know? What did you notice that didn't look right?"
The question is posed gently, skirting the real information, reaching into her daily existence to create a sense of safety.
She shakes her head sharply, suddenly fully present. And wary. "Sorry guv, don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see anything. . .what I shouldn't have. I'm no keyhole peeper!"
Too early, he thinks, he's got her on the hook too early.
"You told me you have knowledge you shouldn't. That you know something about a crime. That's the reason we're both here, Nelly. The faster-"
"I was only thinkin' aloud." She sets the glass, empty now, down on the scratched wood of the table and reaches for the thick shawl heaped next to her. She's had her gin, her time in the warmth, sized him up, put a face to the name. He can just imagine the secretive whispers.
Famous Mr Whicher, a normal-looking man of flesh and blood.
She's ready to duck out, slip back into her place in the world as if she were never gone from it, taking what she's seen, heard, suspects, with her. She's ready to dart through the night-shadowed streets of London, over the cobblestones to where she lives, through the basement entrance and up to where she's safe, anonymous, just another faceless woman with a serving tray.
Just one servant among many.
Although she's not.
She's a witness to a crime that confuses and frightens her. And she fears the beetle crushers, the coppers, who'll just as soon arrest and hang her for opening her mouth as look at her.
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