Jan sensed someone had been in the house even as she opened the door. She stood tense for a moment, "Is anyone there?" There was no reply and she squared her shoulders.

It was a winter afternoon in 1939 when I heard that my Aunt Marie Hepplewaite was dead. Naturally I hurried out to Hepplewaite House where her companion Jane, in floods of tears, told me she had found a body in the garage. Her diatribe was interrupted as Aunt Marie leaning heavily on two sticks appeared at the open door:

Miss Trimble was watching from her bedroom window again. God he hated the old bat with her corrugated iron perm and thick glasses always peering behind her net curtains. He loathed her nasal query.

"Mrs Scot still away?"

'Who is it?' I shouts.  Coronation Street was about to start when the doorbell rang.  People's got no consideration these days.

"BODY FOUND" the headlines screamed. Simon felt his stomach lurch, he clung to the edge of the counter for support.

Ere are you all right duck?’ The assistant asked?

I walked into the second hand book shop to escape the rain. No one came to question me. The musty interior echoed the tinkle of the antiquated door bell as I entered.

Sarah Golding threw her briefcase into the back of her red Mercedes and slid elegantly into the driving seat. She had no qualms about the coming interview. Why should she? Her whole life had been a series of hard decisions. This was just one more decision.

I was eighteen and a baker's round man when I first met my wife. She was twenty-two and a teacher. "You're not like any teacher I had", I told her.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. I had been sick this morning and fainted twice in the past week so I thought it best to relax with my book and try to stop worrying. I had not got beyond the first page when the phone rang .

The sky muffles the land like an army blanket. Stars and moon are hidden it will be a long night. The man's heels click on the cobbles as he gropes his way down the hill. He flicks on his torch. The faint slit of light picks out the white painted curb edge guiding him. It will suffice until he needs to cross over. Concentrating on the pavement his head makes impact with a street lamp and he falls unconscious.

"'Yes, Sir? What can I do for you?- I'm sorry, sir, I didn't quite catch- a body, did you say?- yes, if you please, sir- young woman not known to you, you say? quite sir. Yes you can leave it all to me.'

"Morning", Caroline cheerfully greeted her colleague as she entered the office of Frith & Jones.

"I suppose", Katrin answered without raising her eyes from her P.C. "At least it has stopped raining." The heavy downpours of the holiday weekend had soured her outlook.