Reality Bites
Ever since I was a kid, I’d dreamed of being a detective. I’d played sleuth for years, working out who swiped Mum’s fresh cookies and who stole my brother’s lunch money.
In my early twenties, a small windfall from a great-aunt made my dream come true. I ditched my dull warehouse job like a shot and put down two months deposit on a small city centre premises. That dingy backstreet office represented my freedom. The day I hung up my sign, “C. Smith, Private Investigator,” was the proudest moment of my life.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the shine to disappear. The only people through the door were desperate wives who wanted me to spy on their cheating husbands, their pilfering cleaners, or their dodgy childminder s— or all three. A far cry from the excitement I’d imagined.
I’d imagined myself as a modern day Sherlock and hoped to get cosy with the local police force, but they treated any tip-offs or polite requests on my part like dirt. The realisation of how naive I’d been sunk in.
I was close to chucking it all when I found the body.
It had been a long night of ineffective surveillance — another cheating hubby — and I cut back to my office through the park. Darkness had fallen, and it wasn’t the kind of park you lingered in, so I tucked my chin down and got moving. Halfway down the main path, I tripped and…
