End of the Lane by Sonia Parin

Author:Sonia Parin [Parin, Sonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

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ABBY’S ENCOUNTER WITH RICHARD ARMSTRONG proved to be equally fruitless, but she did enjoy herself from the moment she saw him emerging from the back room of his studio, dressed as a country squire about to set out on a hunting trip.

Not a fashion statement, Abby thought as she noticed his tweed jacket had aged to keep up with his fifty odd years. His dark hair had a sprinkling of gray and a few lines crisscrossed his chiseled features. Abby couldn’t help wondering why men always looked more distinguished with gray in their hair.

“They warned me you might come by.” His smile told her he found it all too amusing but his furrowed brow suggested he would play along.

“When was the last time you saw Dermot?”

“Alive or dead?” he asked.

Abby huffed out a breath. “Let me guess, you’ve been talking with Mitch Faydon.”

He nodded. “Had a drink with him. I can’t remember a time when we had so much to talk about. What with Dermot’s death and your arrival. Did you happen to take a photo of the scene?”

“No. Why would I?” Abby kicked herself for sounding so defensive.

“You’re a reporter. Isn’t it in your nature?”

“Out of curiosity, is that what you would have done?”

He folded his arms and stared up at the ceiling. “Hard to say. My instinct might have kicked in but then, I’m sure I would have been too shocked by the scene to react. What did you do?”

“I called emergency services, of course.” And then she’d gone into shock. Just as well she’d never aspired to become a front-line reporter. “How often do you handle arsenic?”

He laughed. “You can’t be serious. This is the digital age.”

She looked around his store. “So, you keep these old cameras as keepsakes.”

“The studio is as old as the town. The cameras came with the business when I purchased it a dozen years ago. I used to have a business in the city but then I decided to slow down and go into semi-retirement. I kept the cameras but not the equipment used to develop films.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed anyone acting suspiciously or overheard someone…” she shrugged. “Sorry. I’m grasping at straws.” And now that everyone seemed to know her business, she was fast on her way to becoming a laughing stock. “Hang on. I saw a photograph at the pub of the Faydon siblings. It looked old.”

He nodded. “As I said. Digital. I can make an old photograph look new and vice versa.”

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