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Once upon a time there was a boy called Jock who lived with his mother on a beanfarm, where they grew all sorts of beans except the broad ones. The farm was leased from the local king, for whom Jock's father had worked for many years until he died unexpectedly at the age of forty-one, after an accident involving a bicycle, a bucket and a bayonet but that's not really important.
Jock had always wanted to be friends with the king's son, but although the prince thought Jock was quite spiffy, his father was really stuck up and wouldn't he
I woke up with a 'what was that!' jerk, realising it had just been a dream, but this time, a useful one, because crazy though it had been, it'd given me a clue about the case I was working on. I was staying in this haunted house see, with six or seven other people and a couple of staff. We'd been trapped by the raging blizzard outside, all of us scared to death because one of us was a murderer.
I got dressed as quick as I could, because it was cold enough to freeze the knackers off a brass monkey. I knew this from the little statue of the three wise monkeys on my mantelpiece, with their paws over their mouth, eyes and ears. I'd examined it c
It is raining and I am soaked wet. Water has seeped beneath my leathers; they itch most keen and the weight of the young hind slung across my shoulders doubles my discomfort. The clouds are dark, racing low, reaching nigh to the tops of the trees among which I stand, hid from the men below who burn my village. I watch as my mother runs in screams from our hut towards the body of my father, her cries near drowned by the sound of the rain, the roar of the flames and the raucous laughter of the mounted soldiers as they slaughter my family and kinfolk.
Mother's voice is stilled as a quarrel pierces her breast, then another slices through her nec