znaddanz

Well, that was fun. Many thanks to all those who read and helped to edit: Nat, Annie, Adrian, Rob, Sarah, Jayne, Chiara, Anood, Katie, Matthew, QE and Nerd Girl, whomever she may be. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be- I still went out three nights a week and while I had to miss a few things I'd rather not have, spending my evenings writing was more interesting, and more fufilling, than watching TV. Plus I technically finished writing on Wednesday, which m ...

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The next thing I was aware of was my hands being roughly put together and plastic handcuffs being snapped around them. ...

I needed to find out where Colmes was, and fast. I paced rapidly back and forth across the marble hallway for a few moments, muttering to myself. “Did they give you any clue where they were going?” I snapped at Gillette. “No. Just that it was to dinner.” “Damn.” ...

Y’know I read once that the brain, at least the conscious part of it, perceives time at a certain rate, like twelve moments a second or something. Not a huge amount, but the brain kind of ties events into a single coherent stream so that it seems like they all flow together. They reckon the mind gradually perceives less and less moments per second as you age, which is why every year seems to go slightly faster than the one before it. Ever noticed that? That’ll be scary, huh, when you’re ...

I dumped the car outside Paddington and stumbled into the emergency room. Someone walks into a room wearing nothing but a blood-stained bathrobe, it gets a heck of a reaction, let me tell you. I was rushed to triage and the robe was cut away from me. As it turns out, the bullet had gone straight through my triceps and out the other side, completely missing any bones. A graze, as far as bullet-wounds go. An inch to the right and it would have missed me entirely. They stitched it up and put me ...

You know much about dream interpretation, Doc? Yes. Studying Freud is a prerequisite for Psych 101. ...

“Jesus man, are you alright?” Jez crouched over me as I spat the last bit of bile out onto the floor. “What a fucking mess.” “I can’t do it.” I managed to say through gasping breaths. ...

Despite Jez’s protestations, finding a someone who’s willing to kill someone else is not simply matter of popping your head into the Bail bondsman’s office and seeing if there’s a dude in there with a scar on his cheek named Arty. You can’t just put an ad in the Times saying: ‘Killer required, one-off job, no health plan.’ As much as we couldn’t afford to bring suspicion on to the operation before it was carried out, it would look ten times worse if, after Saul had been ...

“That…is a very generous offer, Mrs. Colmes.” Jez said. ...

A week later, we’d gathered more material on Saul Colmes than we could ever possibly need to implicate him. We had him sewed up tight. A small package of brown paper and foam on Gillette’s doorstep would contain audio, video, SMS transcripts, hell, we even had a hand-written note from him confessing his affection for Max. If this, including the implied threat that it might be leaked to the press, didn’t break them up: nothing would. ...

You wanna know why I was so keen to become a private dick, when Jez floated the idea? Of course. ...

We spent the next six days power-dating. Ah, power-dating? ...

Did I mention that this is a love story? Not one of those uplifting, feel good, will-they won’t-they oh-look-they-did love stories. Not even one of those tragically tragic, love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name let’s-kill-each-other love stories. I’m not saying those kind of stories don’t happen. I’m sure they do. Every now and then. But they’re not really love stories. They’re love anomalies. Love singularities. Points where the normal physics of life break down and do not make sen ...

So tell me about yourself there, Doc. Excuse me? I guess I feel like I’m doing all the talking and not doing much listening. How did you end up a psychologist? Wait, are you a psychologist or a psychiatrist? Actually, what’s the difference? ...

So, I knew the mistress of this dungeon pretty well on a client basis. We’d never asked her to recruit honey-traps before, but she seemed amenable to it, which is no surprise because it’s a pretty well-paying gig. I was slapping myself on the forehead for not thinking of it before- professional dommes are perfect for the part because A. we know they are buyable; B. they are used to creating and maintaining fantasies- which is more or less what honey-trapping is; and C. they are discreet.< ...

Have you ever been, I dunno, just sitting around one day, minding your own, maybe talking to someone, maybe reading or watching TV, maybe you’re in a doctor’s waiting room and you’re waiting for the doctor to come and see you, and then all of a sudden this feeling comes over you, from completely out of nowhere, this intense urge to hurl yourself out of the window, or run screaming out the door. Like, you don’t know where it comes from, nothing around you triggers it, but it just all o ...

Our surveillance broke into two main parts- invasion and observation. Observations are non-intrusive, mostly legal and of a passive nature. Watching and listening, more or less. Even though you’d have a terrible drag through court, it’s very difficult to convict someone of listening into a parabolic microphone directed at their house. There are just too many variables to prove- variables that are usually unprovable by the time the court case comes around. Peeping is a little more difficul ...

Do you know who Saul Colmes is? Someone mentioned him to me when I first took your case. He was some kind of broadcaster? Not some kind. All kinds. Everything. The biggest. He had his own TV show, his own radio show, his own newspaper column. His own company, revolving around him. The Saul Colmes universe. He was an ultraconservative hack, righter than the rightest Tory. He referred to Thabo Mbeki as King of the Negroes, live on air. He lobbied for a law that prevente ...

Did you kill Saul Colmes? Laugh. That is the question, right there. My question. Did you bring my cigarettes? Yes. Thanks. ...

…for records only. They won’t be released. I’m sure they won’t. The press is lazy like that. Could you state your name for the records, please? No leaks comin’ out of this prison, not for any amount of money. Sir? Your name? Dalent … Robert … McKinley. ...

Uhm....right. For the next thirty days, starting tomorrow (Nov 1st), this site will be where I post my attempt to complete NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The idea behind this challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, which means I'll have to try and post about 2500 words a day for the next four weeks. This may not work. I may not have time. I may sit in front of the computer and stare blankly instead of writing. Whateve ...