Half Made Up – James Dunlop

The flickering fluorescent lights hadn’t been fixed. My watch said just after nine o’clock. After my early breakfast with Jennifer, I’d sloped off for a more careful search of the scene than the forensics guys had done. I’d come directly from there with two spent Makarov casings in my pocket, a peace- offering to Romford. I clearly caught him just arrived at his desk and off guard. “You’re back,” he said with a noticeable degree of irritation.

“Nice of you to drop in again. We want to talk to you.” “What good luck. I want to talk to you.” I couldn’t be certain, but a distinctly smug look was creeping over his face. “We found your prints on a Soviet Makarov we recovered near the scene.” I wondered how much information he and Sinclair’s people really shared. “I know,” I admitted. I decided to lie. “I read it in the paper.” “I could place you under arrest right now.” “On what charge? Handling a firearm?”

“Give me one good reason I don’t arrest you?” “I’ll give you two. You don’t have the Right to Silence warning memo- rized and you left your aide memoire at home?” He didn’t find that funny. “Come on, Romford. You’ve seen the CCTV footage. I admitted I fired two shots. It’s in my statement. If you’ve forgotten, maybe you should read it. I can wait. It’ll be in your files somewhere around here, probably in trip- licate by now.

But if you can’t read, as I say, you’ll see it on the footage.” He ignored my insults. “The shell casings we picked up at the scene match the gun your prints are on. The same gun you have in your hand in the footage.” He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a plastic bag, which held the gun in question.

“This one, which we retrieved after you dropped it on the ground, MacKay. Careless. As far as I’m concerned, that connects you to the murder weapon.” “Romford, if you thought I’d somehow killed Edward, you’d’ve arrest- ed me already. That gun isn’t the murder weapon and I can prove it. I stood up to dig into my front pocket and dropped a little piece of carefully folded paper on his desk. What’s that?” “An early Christmas gift.”

He began to unwrap it. “Two nine-millimetre Makarov casings. I found them at the scene this morning. Your forensics guys missed them because these rounds were fired from the van as it left, a good distance from where Edward was gunned down. Still, it’s careless, Romford. Your ballistics guys will be able to match the bullets in Edward’s chest to these casings.

Copyright © 2025 by James Dunlop This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit- ted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise without the prior written consent of the author, except for brief quotations in a book review. Published in Canada by Expurgated Press. Cover design by Dean Hore Interior design by David W. Edelstein Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-0693008-1-2 Softcover ISBN: 978-1-0693008-0-5 e-book ISBN: 978-1-0693008-2-9 OceanofPDF.com T ONE he creature swinging the fifty-calibre machine gun mounted on the back of the jeep was a warthog, a dark green ugly one.

He had filthy, grey tusks. Up on its hind legs, the thing gripped the gun’s handles, flames erupting from the barrel. Rounds stitched along the ground toward me. Mind you, I didn’t spend too much time gawking. I nosed about for some dead ground, diving head-first into a ditch someone had conveniently left at the side of the road. I say road. It was more of a track, really. I squinted along it now, getting a worm’s eye view of things.

Rounds danced along it, kicking up little puffs of dust. The jeep was now a low-flying gunship. It lifted up and away, disap- pearing behind a plume of dust churned up from the thing’s prop wash. Nasty things, helicopters. Wait, the Taliban didn’t have that kind of kit. The crack of incoming small arms fire snapped me back to the present. A radio squawked to life, the OC yelling, “Send sitrep. Over!” I looked around for my signaller.

He was a step behind me, face down in the ditch. “Corporal MacKenzie,” I shouted. “The radio.” He tipped his head up. “Aye, coming right up, boss.” He crawled over, keeping low. I pulled the handset away from the communication piece strapped to his back. Two Taliban fighters sprinted for cover.

MacKenzie fired a quick burst from his light machine gun and they dropped lifeless onto the road. “Nice shooting. You didn’t give them much chance to reconsider their career choice.” “Had to lead ‘em, sir.” I depressed the handset button and shouted over the noise.

“Delta niner, this is delta three. Am engaging enemy. They have …” I suddenly remem- bered the fifty. “Enemy has one vehicle-mounted hotel mike golf.” No, wait. It wasn’t a jeep with a heavy machine gun. It was a bloody he- licopter. “Wait, out,” I shouted into the hand piece.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: fab41215f65b666a
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,317,704 bytes (2.21 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781069300812, 9781069300805, 9781069300829
• Pages: 305
• Language: English (en)

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