A BIT OF A PICKLE
The ghost of a Petula Clark song drifted into The Bag O’ Nails through a partly open window. A shard of sunlight sliced through the blinds, picking out specks of dust that floated in the air. An old electric kettle boiled in another room. A refrigerator hummed. A dishwasher chugged dully. A mangy black and white cat strolled across the newly polished bar before curling up on a wooden bar stool and going to sleep. Bertie Peaslee took another sip of warm beer and drowned in a haze of Proustian nostalgia.
***
A grubby-grey December morning had melted into an inky-black night. And then it all turned white. Ingrid Faith, tall blonde and unerringly magnificent, wore black sunglasses and black fur coat as she strode across a snow smothered Hyde Park, indifferent to the blizzard attacking her from all sides. She looked as if she owned the place, thought Peaslee, but then, she always did, wherever she went. Shivering, and slightly hung-over, he stumbled beside her, a gloved han…
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