Stark Contrasts (An Adam Stark novel Book 1) Read Free

trying so hard to suppress. Most of you would not recognise the tells but I can. It circulates with his blood and I can hear him fighting it. It's in his breath, his footsteps, his glance, his shoulders. You would see a confident young man. I see a charade...a victim.
    I have selected all of them carefully. They have done wrong - I've seen that. They taunt us, daring us to do something about it; hiding behind rights and excuses. Deny responsibility, blame deflected and renounced. They require chastening and I shall provide. A start was made but I need to finish things off. Complete the circle. Cleanse us of the stain created.
    He's wearing the hooded top, shuffling, almost hobbling along in the obligatory manner required of his tribe. The park is deserted, it's late. Any witnesses will likely have four legs and a tail, demonstrate a remarkably similar gait to my boy. In any case, I'm always careful about who sees me. I move with grace and whispers.
    I am a shadow, a ghost...a reaper.
    He's chewing.
    I'm waiting.
    He thinks he hears a sound. He does, but without recognition of significance...too late. I am around him, upon him.
    No-one sees me. Not even him.
    The room is prepared. He cannot struggle now - the anaesthetic has seen to that. It takes me a  while to complete all I want to do. Some of it has grace but a certain amount of brutality cannot be avoided. Should not be avoided.
    It's a hard lesson learned but he'll be a poster boy for change. An example to take heed of. A warning of what might befall the transgressors. He'll thank me one day for showing him the error of his ways...you all will.

4. Stark
     
    Detective Inspector Adam Stark walked slowly along the hospital corridor, mind not fully on the job in hand, even if it did sound both bizarre and intriguing. To be fair, he was intrigued, but Sarah remained foremost in his pondering.
    Sometimes, life as a cop could be shitty. The job, ironically, took no prisoners. You were in up to your neck or you were out - no compromise, no middle ground. Once you made detective grade, it was your life. Sarah: more patient than any of the others, more understanding, more forgiving. But even she had a line - a line he crossed once too often.
    Still, you make choices in life. No-one coerced him into being a cop, never mind a detective. If a relationship, normality and all that jazz really topped his list of desires, then he could surely have it. It would probably mean leaving the service, but he could make that choice if he wanted to. The unavoidable truth dawned on him as he mulled. Even though Sarah leaving troubled him, it wouldn't make him choose her. They both knew this to be the incontrovertible truth. He was a cop -  welcome to his only choice.
    “Hello, Detective Inspector Stark!”
    The voice hauled him away from his meditation, back into the harsh fluorescent and cloying antiseptic of the hospital.
    “Hey, John. How goes it, wee man?”
    John Constance was an orderly and a regular contact. He revelled in feeding Stark snippets of information gleaned from patients, and highlighting any admissions he thought might pique Stark's interest. Constance meant well; a cheery, amiable sort, perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer but harmless enough.
    “I'm good, Detective Inspector, just fine an' dandy. Unlike that poor bastard you're going in to see! That is one weird situation right there.”
    Eyes twinkling, and yet, Stark sensed an effort being made to suppress disquiet. A false bravado. After many years working in hospitals it was likely Constance had encountered all manner of gruesome sights. Whatever this one involved, it managed to shake a seasoned veteran of trauma. Stark smiled; his own bravado perhaps. Without consciously thinking about it, he held his breath, turned the handle and entered the room.
    A young black man lay in the bed, attached to a drip, with his face heavily bandaged. Detective Constable Katz looked toward Stark as he closed the door and