More mystic detective

Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie was playing in the T Hive where Paul was settling down over a mug of mocha. It took him back to his childhood and his father’s love of Bowie. Music was one place where he and his dad met up. ‘Haven’t heard this song in years and it makes me feel a bit misty and spaced out inside listening to it again,’ said Paul to himself. And memories of being out with his dad in a rowing boat on the River Severn flooded through him. These moments of contact with his dad were precious to Paul – few and far between. Most of the time his dad was kind of absent – lost in some unhealed traumas relating to his army service in Northern Ireland during The Troubles in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

His father had died in 2001 unresolved about his time in the Army despite the relative success of the Northern Ireland Peace Process. And it was as if he had passed on these issues to Paul to figure out. Paul’s own service in the police force had not helped. But somehow working now as a private detective seem to. Sometimes, indeed often, things could be resolved to some extent; not always how his customers wanted it to be but a resolution none the less.

And with regard to his friend Frankie and his recent beating, the question remained: was Frankie in the wrong place at the wrong time or was he a victim of a deliberate hit and if so by who and for what?

-          Did you get a good sight of who attacked you?

Frankie shook his head,

-          It was all over so quick… and it was dark… all I remember is that one of them had a sniffle.

-          Sniffle?

-          Yeah.

-          Broken nose?

-          Maybe.

-          Oh… just remembered one of them had a Welsh accent.

-          Welsh?

-          Yeah and not the sniffler. It was the way he said “Isn’t it?” at the end of a sentence, typical Welsh!

-          Hmm.