by Sam Hurcom
I looked out the windows as we sped away from Cardiff. Soon we were immersed in the rolling landscape, the beauty and tranquillity of a calm summer eve. All so normal.
Something dreadful dawned on me. It niggled away at first until I gave it my full attention.
Cummings and Vaughn had never wanted me in Dinas Powys. They had never wanted me knowing what they had done. They’d never wanted anyone outside the village knowing what had happened. They’d wanted only to keep the murders quiet.
How then did the Glamorgan Constabulary come to know of the murders in the first place?
Brent had written to Vaughn, telling him of my arrival to assist in the enquiry. Brent had written to me, asking for my services. Neither I nor Vaughn had made any contact with him before this. Brent had had no way of knowing.
I only wanted everything to return to normal.
Terror began to well up inside of me. Betsan in the negatives. Betsan coming to me in the church cellar, Betsan in my room and watching me from every shadow.
Betsan. Betsan. Betsan. I tried to think none of it real.
I took a pencil from my pocket. I wished then I had found my negatives to look upon – they would be irrefutable proof.
Betsan. Betsan. Betsan.
There is no Chief Inspector by that name.
How naïve I’d been to think none of it was real.
I only wanted to return to normal.
I scribbled Betsan’s full name below Taliesin Cedwyn Brent. I began to scratch out matching letters from each name. Terror made my hand tremble.
How could I have believed that none of it was real.
I scratched away the last letters, the pencil falling from my fingers as I did. It was plain to see now. The letters from one name matched up with the letters from the other. My trembling hand grew more unsteady. The elderly woman with her husband laughed. Normal slipped away from me.
Betsan Ceridwen Tilny – Taliesin Cedwyn Brent.
They were one and the same. Betsan had brought me to the village. Betsan had brought me to find her killer.
I looked back out the window.
We charged through green pastures. Labourers moved lazily at the end of their working day. It was worthy of a John Constable painting.
It was tainted for me for ever.
Author Biography
Sam Hurcom was born in Dinas Powys, South Wales in 1991. He studied Philosophy at Cardiff University, attaining undergraduate and master’s degrees. He has since had several short stories published and has written and illustrated a number of children’s books. Sam currently lives in the village he was raised in, close to the woodlands that have always inspired his writing.
A Shadow on the Lens is Sam’s debut novel.
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Orion Fiction
Ebook first published in 2019 by Orion Fiction
Copyright © Sam Hurcom 2019
The right of Sam Hurcom to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781409189886
Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,
Lymington, Hants
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
www.orionbooks.co.uk