Stone Cold Red Hot

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Many thanks to Sean Duffy, Annie Manogue and Paul Morris who helped me with information on neighbour nuisance units, housing policy and Somali nomenclature. Any diversion from usual custom and practice is down to me. And as ever thanks to the novel writing group: Fay, Julia, Maggie and Natasha, for invaluable support and feedback.

My first impression of Roger Pickering was of nervous tension. He stood on the doorstep, hiding behind his fringe of light brown hair, eyes cast anywhere but at me.

“Sal Kilkenny?” He managed to get my name out.

“Yes, Mr Pickering. Please come in.”

I led him along the hall and downstairs to my office in the cellar. With the self-absorption of the painfully shy, he made no small talk, no comment on our location, and politely refused coffee.

I had told him about the Missing Person’s Helpline, when he had first rung me. He’d tried that, he said, a year ago when it became obvious his mother wouldn’t get better. Nothing had come of it. No word. Just a resounding silence. Like the silence that had echoed through their home for the past twenty three years. Since the day his sister left.

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