Hi all! It's me! I'm alive! I'm currently working on a new James and Lily thing but things are NOT going well!
In the meantime, I'm considering joining a writer's group in my area but I'm horribly out of practice. If anyone could read and review this as constructively as possible, I'd massively appreciate it. Having only written fan fiction for the past five years, and not even writing that regularly, I don't want to turn up to the meeting and be waaay out of my depth!
Thank you so much!
Cuckoo x
The pen rolled along the desk, catching in the ruts and dents that punctuated the surface. He waited a moment to see whether it would slip back towards him, pursing his lips and sighing when it stayed put.
He leaned back in his chair, wincing as always at the protesting creak of leather and wood. He was beginning to wonder why he had bothered to come into the office today. In fact, after nine weeks of no cases and no prospects, he was beginning to wonder why he bothered to turn up at all anymore.
At 37, John Michael Turner could hardly kid himself that this was just a rough patch. When he had set up his own PI practice five years earlier after a vicious knee injury had ended his career as a police officer, Turner had felt uncharacteristically hopeful about his new venture. No targets to meet, no boss to please, no neurotic members of the public to pacify.
For the first eighteen months or so, business boomed. Helped along by ex-colleagues who had directed anxious housewives with unfaithful husbands or victims of theft left frustrated when their belonging could not be recovered to his door, Turner could have hardly described himself as idle. When the almost overwhelming flow of cases gradually became a stream, he comforted himself with the observation that at least it was still steady. He couldn't really pinpoint when the stream had become a drip.
But now, after sixty-five frustratingly empty days, Turmer could no longer fool himself that thing would pick up soon. Checking the time and flicking the pen across the desk, he sighed heavily and got to his feet. Nothing was happening any time soon; he might as well get an early lunch.
The phone trilled harshly, breaking the heavy silence of the office.
"Turner, Private Investigator," Turner said gruffly.
"H-hello?"
Turner's brow furrowed. The voice was a strange mix of timid confidence.
"Is that John Turner?"
"Speaking."
"My name is Alex. Alex Duxbury."
He was little more than a boy, Turner thought. And yet that odd blend of anxious certainty rang through as though he has steeled himself for this phone call.
"And how can I help you, Mr Duxbury?" he asked, softening his tone slightly.
He obviously succeeded; the boy's response was much more confident now.
"I think I need your help. My mum and I - we need your help."
Turner leaned forward, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. He grabbed the pen from the far side of the desk and tugged his notepad closer, poised to write.
"Fire away, Mr Duxbury. What do you need my help with?"