A Shade Darker

A Shade Darker

The Further Adventures of Hilary Darke

By A. F. McKeating

A SHADE DARKER

Hilary Darke Part 2

by

A. F. McKeating

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

A. F. McKeating on Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 by A. F. McKeating

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

Other Books by A. F. McKeating

Chapter 1.

Katy Jones. Early twenties, fresh from business school. Big eyes, button nose. Slightly shocked expression when caught unawares: who, me? Like a teddy bear discovered with its paws in the till. Not sure what's between her ears – maybe nothing – but you can't afford to be complacent. She sees more than she lets on. Could be a useful ally if it came to it, but not someone you'd trust. Slight build, but known to work out at the gym, even if it's just for the social scene, so she's probably quick on her feet. Also seems to have a penchant for surfing dating agency websites during core working hours (on the smart phone, of course, so she's not that stupid). In short, duplicitous and quite possibly dangerous when cornered. One to watch.

Joe Davies. Hard to tell his age, but estimate between thirty and forty, depending on the light – at the higher end of the scale after a hard night. Messy hair and shabby chic style that might have suited him a decade ago. Looks as if he should be in fashion college, not here in the civil service. Smarter than he appears, in all senses of the word, but too lazy to make more of himself. Possible drink problem, judging by recent appearances first thing in the morning. Developing a bit of extra padding around the belly, which the baggy shirts aren't always enough to disguise, but appearances can be deceptive; he might not be as soft as he looks. It's probably better to have him in the bunker with you than on the outside. Not an obvious threat at this stage, but may need to reassess at some point.

Ewen Hunter. Aged 19. Skinny, fashionably anaemic-looking. Temporary admin assistant, future professional comedian. Lively, prone to irritating fits of giggles, but willing to work hard when necessary. Likes a gossip and a cup of tea with the girls. Someone you could rely on if you had to, but the overly-familiar manner can grate. Looks as if he wouldn't put up too much of a fight. Struggles to grasp some complex tasks, but keep a close eye on him. His skull might not be as thick as it seems after all…

…paperclips?

It's probably quite thin. Like an eggshell…

Paperclips?

Hilary blinked. Sorry?

Ewen shifted uncomfortably in his seat as she stared at him. Paperclips? he repeated.

What about them?

Hilary could feel the three of them watching her as her brain scrabbled to catch the thread of the conversation. What had they been discussing in their team meeting? They'd got as far as paperclips, apparently. No wonder her mind had wandered to more interesting matters. The old habit of checking out her territory, assessing potential threats, was never far away.

Can I get some?

Ah, yes. They'd been considering the next stationery order before her brain had taken a short leave of absence. Hilary sighed inwardly. Could life be any more tedious? Nevertheless, she put on a bright face and said, Yes, why not? Tell you what, let's push the boat out. Get three boxes. We might not have a stationery budget for much longer, according to Lyn.

Lyn Masters, the head of their branch, was languishing at home with an arm that had been broken in three places during a recent car accident. She had asked Hilary, as her second in command, to keep an eye on things until her return.

Great. Ewen ticked the item off his list.

Anything else?

No, that's me done. He beamed.

Thank God for that, Hilary thought as she returned his smile. See, it was worth you coming in today, she said before turning to Katy. Have you got anything to update us on?

Well, we're still having problems sorting out those payments to the Bridgend project. I think it's because of that stuff they were doing with the finance system last week.

Bloody computers, muttered Joe.

Hilary nodded in agreement. Her mind began to wander again as Katy went on about invoices. Involuntarily, she started as her ear caught the thin thread of a passing siren outside, somewhere on the A470. It was heading south towards Cardiff by the sound of it. They're on their way…

She tuned back into Katy's voice just in time to catch her saying, that's it, with a perky smile.

Hilary nodded, even though she didn't have a clue what the girl had been going on about. Great. Thanks, Katy, she said with just the right balance of warmth and careful approval. The message was clear: you're doing fine, but don't get complacent. It scared Hilary sometimes just how easily she could churn out this stuff.

Still, Katy looked pleased.

Thanks everyone for your work lately. I know Lyn would say the same if she were here. Hilary gave them all a smile: bright, inclusive, reassuring. She held it for just long enough before saying, The new Minister's very keen to make progress and I don't need to tell you what that means for us. We'll have plenty of work to keep us busy between now and Christmas.

Suits me, if you think you'll be able to keep me on till then, said Ewen.

Don't worry, good temps are hard to come by, Hilary reassured him. Right, unless anyone can think of anything else, I think we're done. She got to her feet, feeling a sudden yearning for fresh air. I need to fetch something from the car.

Outside, a couple of smokers were skulking near the front entrance, despite the warning signs that smoking was forbidden on office premises. Hilary went over to her car and opened the boot, where she pretended to rummage through her gym bag for something. For a second, her mind flicked back to the memory of a dark winter night some three years earlier, when she'd been grappling in the boot of a hire car, trying to get a grip on a much bulkier item. Awkward plastic-covered angles had evaded her grasp with their peculiar deadweight stubbornness. Bin bags whispered recriminations…

She swatted the recollection away, as she had done so many times before. This wasn't the time or place to allow all that to resurface. No, this was a beautiful sunny morning in early September, a day to be savoured before the chill of autumn set in. Hilary took a few deep breaths as she stood by the car for a moment longer, checking her phone for personal emails. Her brain felt stale after yet another late night at the computer, and the prospect of a morning dealing with paperwork wasn't doing much to revive it.

Damn. There was no urgent summons to call a publisher, who'd suddenly woken up to the fact that a brilliant young author was waiting in the wings, ready to supply the rest of her latest manuscript on an exclusive basis.

They don't know what they're missing. A fat woman in a tight red suit was busy texting on her phone while providing a running commentary to her fellow smokers. "That's what I think anyway. I've a good mind to tell 'em what I think and then bugger off out of here."

That'll show them, love, but it won't put food on the table, said another woman.

A scruffy-looking kid with a goatee beard, who was studying his own phone, grunted and said, Yeah, dream on. You've got to eat, haven't you?

Hilary shoved her phone into her pocket and headed back into the office. The woman in red was right. They didn't know what they were missing. No sign of a Eureka moment from any of the half dozen recipients of her latest submission. Surprise, surprise. Still, at least she hadn't received any rejections either. Hope could live a little longer.

*

Back at her desk, Hilary composed herself to write yet another briefing. Something to do with sustainability and its impact on the community, or was it the other way round? She should check probably before she started on it, but would anyone really notice the difference? Katy had given her most of the background already, so all Hilary had to do was review the information and put it into something resembling plain English. Or maybe not…

We formed a view on the validity of the issues raised in written responses, based on whether they provided clear arguments or rationales for particular views, and whether they were supported by the body of available evidence.

Hilary shuddered. She could hardly bear to read any more of this stuff. It was all so tedious. She scowled at the words that marched across her computer screen. That was the trouble with churning out all this stuff; it sapped your creative juices. She'd been thinking of updating her blog today, but the more of this drivel she wrote, the less inclined she felt to do so. Everyone said you had to have a blog these days if you wanted to be taken seriously as a writer. And if you could manage a website, even better. It was your shop window onto the world, according to all the so-called experts at least.

She'd given up her own website a couple of years ago when the license for the domain name ran out. She couldn't honestly say that she missed it. For starters, the title, Hilary's Home Truths, had been terrible, unless you were being ironic (which she wasn't, not at the outset at least). It was easier and cheaper to maintain a blog on a free site, as she did now. Even though she'd already adopted a pseudonym for her writing, M. B. Jones, she'd since decided to go one step further with the new blog, which she maintained under the moniker Little Miss Sunshine. (She really was being ironic this time.) If only it didn't take so much damned effort, generating this contribution to the endless babble on the internet. So many words... Sometimes she felt as if she were drowning in them.

Hilary sighed and tried once more to focus on the briefing. In the background she could hear Ewen and Katy sniggering over something he was showing her on his phone. She gathered that it was a clip on You Tube of some poor sap who'd had a run-in with a filing cabinet.

Offices are dangerous places, Ewen said with a smirk.

Hilary almost smiled. He had no idea…

Three and a half years after she'd first been taken on as a temp in the Welsh Government, here she was, a senior manager. She had to admit, that was pretty good going by most people's standards. Her team was part of a Division that seemed to change its name at least annually, although the words Cohesion and Development were usually in there somewhere. Hilary didn't really care. As long as there was a need for her particular talents, she could adapt and, although it pained her to admit it even to herself, she could manufacture the banal phrases and grand statements of policy speak with the best of them.

To the casual observer, she'd done pretty well. Better than she'd expected to, or even wanted to, when she'd first arrived. Of course, she was aware that there had been a few mutterings amongst her colleagues. Her rapid rise through the ranks obviously irked some people. How had a temp got so far so quickly? What was so special about her? Hilary ignored any mutterings on these matters, treating all views, whether for or against her, as background noise. She'd won the second promotion at least on her own merits, although she was grateful to Lyn for giving her a leg up a little sooner than might have been expected. Lyn had chosen Hilary when she could have gone with the safe choice, a nondescript career civil servant from within the department who'd thought the job was his.

Hilary's mouth twisted into a bitter half-smile. Wasn't that what she had become herself now, a career civil servant? No, not if she could help it.

Earlier that year the Department had relocated from central Cardiff to a modern office development just north of the M4. It was a nice enough place: clean, open-plan, no partitions to hide behind… Hilary, the reluctant insider, felt exposed in the new office, somehow. She of all people knew that there was such a thing as too much visibility.

Her eyes slid to her shoulder bag, where she kept the notepad containing her latest jottings for the fourth in her series of books about Sandra Hanson, the reluctant serial killer. She had published the first three novels electronically, having given up on securing a paper publication through the more conventional route. Even these days, with the proliferation of e-books, Hilary couldn't help clinging to the belief that seeing her name on a cover in a bookshop – a place that people actually went into – was somehow more valid than attaching it to a PDF image on Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter. There had been a moderate amount of interest in her work – a trickle of income rather than a flood of riches – but so far, sadly, Sandra had failed to set the world on fire.

Now Hilary was in the middle of working out Sandra's prime motivation for this new instalment in her adventures. After a spell in prison, she had outgrown her previous life as an upmarket hair stylist/entrepreneur and it was time to move her on. If only it were as easy for her creator to move herself on. A few strokes of the pen or keyboard and WHAM! There she'd be. The new Hilary!

She still entertained the hope that one day she wouldn't have to squeeze in her writing like this. Hope sounded so innocent – not like her at all – and so, well, so bloody hopeful, but it remained a commodity that she had in bucketfuls. How else would she have survived for so long?

Her fingers were just reaching into her bag when a voice behind her made her jump.

Hilary! Got a minute?

Damn. It was Alun Hopkins, her Head of Division and Lyn's immediate boss. He was a chubby, good-humoured man in his early fifties, with a fondness for camping in France. He brought biscuits for them all now and then, and was always good for a few bottles of wine at the Christmas meal. Everyone's favourite uncle, as Joe had once said.

Yes, of course. Hilary forced herself to smile.

Marvellous. I'm going down to see the Minister tomorrow morning. That thing about the cull. His mouth twisted in distaste. God knows who's been bending his ear about that. I can't believe he would have come up with it on his own. I mean, killing cats… It's political suicide, but who am I to question him…? Anyway, I thought I'd better have an expert with me to explain some of the detail in that paper of yours. Can you come?

I'd love to, Alun.

He grinned. That's what I thought you'd say. How's that briefing coming along, by the way?

Nearly there.

He shook his head. Don't know how you do it.

Hilary cast another longing glance at her bag, where Sandra and her notebook languished. Neither do I.

*

Hilary was feeling more optimistic by the time she got home that evening. A visit to the gym had helped. She wasn't a natural enthusiast for physical training, but she'd discovered that the mindless rhythm of her feet pounding on the treadmill was a surprisingly effective antidote to writer's block. It was also a good way to fight off any encroaching flabbiness that came from spending eight hours a day and more sitting at a desk. She'd followed her session on the treadmill with a short burst of weight training, just enough to keep her strong without getting too bulky. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had the idea that she needed to keep sharp, ready for the unexpected. Based on past events, there was probably some logic in this, but she didn't examine the idea too closely in case it triggered the train of thought that led to cold, dark nights and the rustle of bin bags again.

Still, all that was far from her mind as she jumped out of the car. Her evening was all planned out. A healthy stir-fry, maybe with a glass of wine on the side, and then a peaceful hour or two of writing before watching that film she'd recorded the other night. Simple pleasures, but enough for now, she told herself.

She had a small circle of friends and acquaintances she could call on to share a drink or a film at the weekend if she was in the mood to be sociable. That was the extent of her social hinterland. No great excitement. No surprises. Just the way she liked it, she reminded herself as she climbed the stairs that led up to her flat. It was situated on the first floor of a large semi-detached house in the Heath area of Cardiff. Just an ordinary house on an ordinary road. Pleasant, but forgettable. No major distinguishing features. Nothing that would have stood out in a line-up.

The flat downstairs belonged to a middle-aged couple who seemed to spend most of their time at a caravan somewhere in West Wales. They were pleasant enough, happy to chat about ordinary topics like the weather and Council Tax when Hilary bumped into them, but otherwise as keen as she was to keep a respectable distance.

Hilary ate her dinner in front of the television. There was a brief mention on the evening news bulletin of a man the police were seeking in connection with an incident near Tongwynlais. Hilary felt a flicker of interest.

It isn't believed that the man is dangerous, but police are asking the public to remain vigilant, said the newsreader. And now, on to other news…

She switched off the television and turned her mind to Sandra's first kill in the new novel. She had almost got her protagonist to the crucial moment. Her victim would be the accountant who'd been digging a bit too deeply into her finances and had uncovered evidence of her misdoings. The scene would take place late one evening in his office, when Sandra turned up, beautiful but deadly, and armed with a knife in her bag, to go over some figures. He had already poured her a drink and the atmosphere between them was alive with possibility. Sandra was ready to strike, but something about the set-up wasn't quite right.

The scene had just kept on niggling at her, refusing to allow itself to be written. Usually, once Hilary was in full flow writing about Sandra's exploits, she found it easy enough to move her through the plot, but this time she was struggling. It had struck her a couple of days ago what the problem might be: the accountant was just too damned nice. All Sandra's previous victims had been asking for it in some way, usually because they had put her and her loved ones in danger. It had been easy. But this guy was different. He was kind, attentive, more than a little in love with Sandra (but far too professional to make a move on a client) and even though he'd dug up some dirt on her, it just hadn't occurred to him to use it against her in any way. Hell, when she invited herself over to his office that night, he most likely had it in mind to offer to help her.

Hilary shook her head. Would he really do that? Maybe she was getting a bit soft. Sandra, that is. There was no way that she would have had any qualms about killing off a character in the earlier books, no matter how nice he was. If he'd got in her way, that would have decided it for Sandra. Gone. No looking back. What was happening to her? Maybe she needed to sleep on it and let a solution come to her in its own time. There was no point in trying to force Sandra to use the knife yet if it didn't feel right.

Leaving Sandra and the accountant to stew for a little longer, she began to work on the ghost story she'd been drafting for a competition that had been advertised in one of the writing magazines. It was something of an experiment for her since she didn't really believe in the supernatural. There were too many bandwagons to be jumped on as far as she was concerned. Too much hysteria. Still, it would do her good to try her hand at a different genre for a change.

She wrote quietly for a bit until she had completed a reasonable first draft, and then tinkered with some of the wording in places to make the story flow better. Her eyes were beginning to smart now. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly nine. She would just have a quick check on a couple of websites and then switch off for the evening.

After browsing her latest download figures for the first three Sandra Hanson novels (still in the hundreds) and some short stories which she had made available free (almost up to triple figures for a couple of them), Hilary flicked to the review site she had discovered recently. Write Right! was a place where writers could post excerpts from their work and gain reviews which, if they were good enough, could move them up a rankings chart.

She'd been toying with the idea of putting some of her latest chapters on there just to test the water. The authors who attracted the best reviews had a shot at a meeting with an agent, according to the blurb on the website anyway, although there was no promise of actual publication. The quality of the writing wasn't too bad either, judging by the few pieces she'd scanned previously, although Hilary liked to think that she could do better.

Unfortunately, you had to be prepared to put in the time reading and reviewing other people's work if you wanted to move up the rankings. Hilary had used a couple of sites like this over the years, but had found participation too much effort in the end. The trouble was everyone wanted a word of praise, a bit of encouragement, some kind of endorsement for what they were doing. The inherent neediness of it all was a big turn-off and she had found it vaguely depressing that there were so many other people out there like her. And now here she was, ready to give it a go all over again…

Not that she was keen on the idea of amateurs picking over the bones of her work, but all avenues for possible advancement had to be explored. There were a few short stories that she was thinking of bundling together as a collection and, although she still hadn't signed up as a user on Write Right!, she was thinking that perhaps this would be a good place to test the water with them.

Hilary searched a few of the genres that were listed on the site: religious, young adult, comedy, shape-shifters… The list was endless. She clicked on one, romance, and pressed enter to generate a random read.

Della always knew that her life as a cocktail waitress could lead to something better. And that something was just about to walk through the door in cowboy boots.

Hilary grimaced and tried another.

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