He sat down with his son’s manuscript; the first chapter of his long-awaited book.
As a father, he was very proud, of course. He was delighted that his boy, a schoolboy, should embark on such a project, and one that was completely outside of the school curriculum. He began to read…
Chapter One
The Discovery
The man in the heavy blue duffle coat; blue because ‘Harry’s Smartware Emporium’ on the corner of Tudor Road and Plantagenet Street had run out of black, got out of the midnight blue, two-door hire car, rented from the ‘Self-drive Corporation’ at the end of Lancaster Street during the early hours of the morning as a result of his own silver-grey four-door saloon car being in for repairs, resulting from a road accident that wasn’t his fault.
Straightening, he carelessly crushed the paper cup that had held his Long Macchiato with his usual double hit of espresso, purchased only minutes ago from the ‘Happy Butterfly Café’ next door to “Mister Chin’s Chinese Takeaway’, and tossed it into the gutter.
He knew the man he was here to see was damaged goods and decidedly dodgy. Not damaged in the way some common kitchen utensil might get damaged if the owner used it inappropriately to prise the lid off a container of instant coffee, not the sort of damage that left the thing bent a little, no, more like the kind of damage the would be brought about if a twelve-ton steamroller went straight over something made of a very brittle plastic, like a small measuring cup; that kind of damage.
Despite this, he…
The father stopped reading and looked up.
Shrugging, the boy said, “Of course, it’s not quite finished yet.”
“Erm…”
The boy goes on, “There’s an interesting piece coming up where he tries to walk across a roundabout.”
“Yes, well, on the subject of roundabouts, I see in this… traffic lights, junctions, crossroads, detours, roadworks, and all manner of things slowing you down.”
The boy brightens. “As a matter of fact, there is an incident involving a detour.”
As he continues to read his father whispers, “I’m sure there is.”