I wonder if childhood is ever really happy. Just as well, perhaps. To be blissfully happy so young would leave one always seeking to recapture the unobtainable. Like those people who were always happiest at school or university. Always going back. No...
Every island to a child is a treasure island.
Dalgliesh was too experienced to assume that fear implied guilt; it was often the most innocent who were the most terrified.
Our parents' generation carried the past memorialized in paint, porcelain, and wood; we cast it off. Even our national history is remembered in terms of the worst we did, not the best.
Unnatural death always provoked a peculiar unease, an uncomfortable realization that there were still some things that might not be susceptible to bureaucratic control.
Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.
