Black Wood by S J I Holliday

Author:S J I Holliday [Holliday, S J I]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Calibre
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

She was browsing some fancy fonts on the Internet, trying to finalise an order of wedding invites. She needed to have them prepped for printing in the morning. The local paper survived on advertising, and its secondary business of printing brochures, business cards, flyers … all that stuff. At least designing them was interesting when there wasn’t much news copy to deal with. She was engrossed, and when the door opened she didn’t even bother to look up.

‘Hello, Claire. How’re you doing?’

‘Ah, Sergeant Gray … not seen you around for a while. What can I do for you?’

She’d had to stop herself from saying ‘business or pleasure?’ He cut a fine figure in his uniform and she’d often found herself hoping that he might see her as more than just that wee girl from the woods. She wondered what her mum and dad would think if she ended up with him rather than Jake. Dream on, Claire …

He took off his hat. ‘Er … have I missed the deadline for tomorrow’s adverts?’

Claire laughed. ‘Technically, yes. By two full days …’ She smiled at him, and he smiled back, raising an eyebrow. Don’t do that, Davie, I can’t bear it … ‘But seeing as it’s you … if you’ve got it ready I can fire it in right now. They don’t start printing until eight tomorrow morning.’

‘Oh, is that right? I’ll remember that next time I need to advertise my latest bike-part rejects in the Buy-and-Sell …’

‘Ha … no … I’m guessing it’s something a wee bit more urgent than that?’

She’d had Bridie Goldstone in earlier, ostensibly to check the line prices for an advert for her granddaughter’s birthday. In actuality, she was there to tell Claire about Scott chucking out Jo and apparently losing his job. Claire had nodded, pretending she hadn’t known about the break-up. She had to remind herself to ask Jo about the job thing, though. She hadn’t made any reference to that. Maybe he was skint and would have to sell his flat? That’d explain why he’d chucked Jo out without explanation. Too embarrassed to tell her the truth.

If that was true then the man was pathetic. As if Jo cared about stuff like that.

Davie coughed, alerting her to his presence. ‘Well, yes it is, actually. I suppose you’ve heard about the girls up at the Track?’

Claire nodded. ‘Of course. Sorry … I was thinking about something else.’ Bridie had told her about that too, and it had been a scoop. God knows where the woman gleaned her information from, but Claire was considering offering the old biddie a job. Unfortunately, half the stuff she passed on was embellished and the other half was outright lies.

Claire swung her chair round and positioned herself back behind the desk. Davie slid a piece of lined paper towards her.

‘“Emergency Self-Defence Class for Girls”,’ she read out loud, ‘“Wednesday, 7 p. m. at the Church Hall. Free.” It’s that last bit that’ll get their attention,’ Claire said. ‘Do you think

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