Trick of the Dark Read Free

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To: [email protected]

    Good morning. The sun is shining here. A blurt of blue irises that wasn't there yesterday hit me when I opened the front door this morning. Almost dispelled the gloomy prospect of watching over 120 Legal Practice students to make sure they're not cheating in their conveyancing exam. But not quite. Every crappy little job I have to swallow right now reminds me of what I should be doing. What I'm trained to do. What I'm best at.
    Strange package at the breakfast table this a.m. with an Oxford postmark and no covering letter. Is this your idea of fun? If so, you're going to have to explain the joke. Your Scorpio sting in the tail, I don't always get it.
    Wish I was in Oxford; we could walk from Folly Bridge to Iffley and say the things we don't write down. I might even sing to you.
    Love, Charlie
    Sent from my iPhone

    Subject: Re: Ruby Tuesday
Date: 23 March 2010 09:43:13 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

    Hi, Charlie
     but sadly not here, so even if you were in Oxford, we'd have to find something more appealing than a damp river walk. I don't imagine we'd find that too hard, though. You always manage to cheer me up, even on the grey days.
     poetry like that, maybe you should be petitioning the Creative Writing department for work. All those novels about serial killers and profiling - you've got the inside track, you could teach them how to get it right. Poor you. Poets shouldn't have to invigilate exams!
     is, sadly, nothing to do with me. You must have another secret admirer here among the scheming spires. So what did the package contain?
    Nothing much to report here. This morning, I am supposedly working on The Programme. When I first envisioned 'I'm Not OK, You're Not OK; Negotiating Vulnerability' I had no idea it would come to consume my life.
    Thinking of you. Wishing we could run away and play.
    LKx

    Subject: It's a mystery
Date: 23 March 2010 13:07:52 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

    1 of 2
Another secret admirer? I don't think so. :-} One would be more than enough anyway, as long as it was the right one. If not from you, then from whom? The only other people I 'know' in Oxford are the few remaining dons at St Scholastika's who taught me, and I can't think why any of them would be sending me a package of newspaper clippings about a current murder trial. Unless someone mistakenly thinks it might interest me professionally because of the Schollie's connection? If so, then it's someone who isn't very current with my present status as the pariah of the clinical psychiatry world.
I've scanned in a couple of the articles for your edification. Just so you know what I'm talking about.
Hope the seminar programme is going well. I don't know where you find the energy. If I end up teaching students how to do what I used to do best, I will send them all on one of your weekend courses to teach them to develop empathy.
Sorry about the weather.
Love, Charlie
    2 of 2
    From the Mail
THE BATTERED BRIDEGROOM

Two city whiz kids callously murdered their business partner on his wedding day then enjoyed a night of wild sex together, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
The evil pair smashed Philip Carling's skull then left him to drown just yards away from the Oxford college garden party celebrating his wedding, the court was told.
    Shocked wedding guests taking a romantic stroll by the river found the bridegroom's body floating by the landing stage where the college punts were moored, blood from his shattered skull staining the water.
    Paul Barker, 35, and Joanna Sanderson, 34, are charged with murder and fraud. They owned a specialist printing firm in partnership with their victim, which gave them unique access to sensitive City information. Carling, 36, had allegedly threatened to expose Barker and Sanderson as devious fraudsters who were lining their pockets by insider trading.
    The prosecution