there-could-be-a-sting-in-the-tale

  If it wasn’t for the dog, there is every possibility you would miss the elegantly dressed lady sat in the coffee shop. She drinks there most weekdays, occupying the same table at roughly the same time. It is away from where much of the action happens by choice, and has absolutely nothing to do with current social distancing requirements. Simply put, she enjoys coffee but doesn’t like talking to strangers. Unfortunately, it is also on the quickest route to the now reduced toilet facilities, which is where the dog comes into its own. Kenneth, for that is the dog’s name, doesn’t take kindly to anyone getting too close to his mistress. If someone does, he growls quite loudly and for an impressively long time without seeming to take a breath. His mistress encourages this behaviour. It works on 75% of the passing customers, who scuttle away thinking the dog is an untrained disgrace and shouldn’t be allowed in the place, but there’s always one who for whatever reason is oblivious to t...

  “So, what is it you do for a living?” Not wholly original from Marcus in the great scheme of things, but a sign of interest that should not be ignored, thought Abby, given the circumstances. It is something she’d been asked a thousand times before and every time she answered truthfully the look she received was invariably one of amazement. She wasn’t expecting anything to change. She’d thought about making something up, and had even tried it on occasion before, but the line between reality and fiction is narrower than you would imagine, as you will discover later. Anyway, even the slightest deviation from the truth would no doubt come back to bite her sooner or later, given what she does, so she chooses honesty. This is probably a good decision. “I drive large, single-decked buses through a variety of local towns.” Leave it there; don’t say more than you need to at the moment. Try not to speculate on the likely reply. You’ve heard them all before anyway. Just relax and let ...