Lisa left the hospital later than expected. It was by then already dark. Kate, her daughter, was fine and so was the baby. It was Lisa’s first grandchild and she had travelled a long way to see him. She had brought her best camera and taken his photograph. He was just one day old. Lisa had travelled alone. She believed she was well able to look after herself; she had set out in life to do just that. She had driven down that very day and intended to make at least some of the long journey back before booking in at a hotel. Thanks to her marriage and the money it had brought, she had just the ...

    The two children were sitting out on the sea front away from their caravan to eat breakfast. There they were on the fringe of the site close by the camp shop, watching high tide on a fine, clear morning just along the coast from Minehead.     They had two huge pieces of toast and jam each and it was lovely for them just to feel independent and, better still, to be away from London. One was a little, fair-haired girl; at her side sat her diminutive brother. His hair was also very fair, but, unlike his sister, he had not bothered putting a brush through it that morning.     Joyce saw them a...

The following tale was meant to raise questions about our deepest loyalties. There have been several news articles about keepers and animal enthusiasts who have trusted their big cats too far. George Adamson once destroyed one of his favourite lions when it killed one of his friends and assistants. But it was my mother who once told me of the famous circus performer Clyde Beatty who might easily have died from wounds received when he was once mauled. I think it was this incident more than any others that helped me shape some of the events in ‘Rivalry’. RIVALRY Regina looked for what might h...

Though he was stretched on the beach at Beg Meil in the brightest sunshine with another week of his holiday in Brittany to run, Sean McPhail was not at all happy. For some time now he had felt certain that the man sunbathing only ten metres away, lying just outside the arc of shadow thrown by his beach brolly, was actually ogling Carla who had been strolling by the seashore, naked but for her bikini bottom. Carla McPhail was some years younger than her wealthy husband – twenty five to McPhail’s forty one - and the successful supermarket owner (he ran a chain in the North of England) already ...