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might just do for the local section or one of those human interest spots.’
    Lara sighed. She’d hoped to spend about an hour mollycoddling Pom her cat, and now had to waste time ambulance-chasing. It wasn’t fair! Nothing ever happened in Easton. Ritchie knew it and she knew it but the good people expected their name to appear in the local news for some reason or other.
    â€˜All right,’ she agreed. ‘But it might take a while to track down.’
    Ritchie had already lost interest and was busy emailing a colleague as Lara grabbed her keys and headed out the office door.
    Pom was feeling very sorry for herself. Lara had to admit she felt guilty about putting her pet through such a procedure, but the thought of her apartment being overrun with kittens, and a recent near-escape with the tomcat down the hall, had strengthened her resolve about the need for the operation.
    â€˜You poor old baby,’ she crooned, lifting the sad-looking ginger cat up onto her lap and talking to her. Pom was not only her companion and room-mate, but made living in this bachelor girl apartment just about bearable. The cat glared reproachfully up at her as Lara petted the silky furgently, not wanting to hurt the animal. She refilled her milk bowl and opened a foil pack of the most expensive cat food on offer in her local store, forking it out onto the cat’s dish.
    â€˜Here you go, Pom. Just eat a little bit for Mommy, that’s a good girl.’
    The cat had dozed off again when Lara crept out of her apartment.
    She often shopped in Easton and ate regularly in the Bistro restaurant and Flanagan’s, the well-known oyster and fish restaurant on the outskirts of town.
    The main grocery store was Gerald’s and she assumed it was the one Ritchie had mentioned as she turned her Toyota sports car into the parking lot. Parking was at a premium in Easton and she was glad to have found a spot. Grabbing her purse, she decided to have a look around. She noticed a lanky boy with greasy hair collecting the shopping carts. He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about and Lara wondered if she’d deliberately been sent on a wild-goose chase.
    She wandered inside the store, hoping to spot a manager or someone she could ask. It was quiet, and judging by the two bored-looking teenagers on the registers probably the crossover period between night and day staff. She asked the one with the name-tag Jeanette and the triple studs in her right ear if she’d heard of the accident a few days before.
    â€˜Someone said something about a kid, I think,’she shrugged vaguely, ‘but ya know I wasn’t really listening.’
    Lara tried to smile nice and friendly, hoping there was somebody left from the day staff who actually gave a toss about what went on in their place of work. Then she spotted an older man. He was standing over near the exit and had pulled a navy shirt on, but she could see he was wearing the store security uniform underneath it. Racing through the frozen goods aisle she managed to catch his attention.
    â€˜Excuse me, sir!’ she interrupted. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the accident here involving a child on Saturday?’
    He looked up. The pale blue eyes which lurked under a clump of rough grey eyebrows were immediately suspicious.
    â€˜You from the insurance company or something?’ he replied.
    â€˜No! No, sir. Nothing like that at all,’ she assured him. ‘I’m a journalist on the
Boston Herald
and, well, I actually live in the neighbourhood and I was wondering what exactly happened.’
    He stared at her for a moment or two, until she produced her ID.
    â€˜Can’t be too careful!’ he murmured as she put it back in her black leather purse. He relaxed a bit and she followed him towards the door.
    â€˜Just one of those things, a crowd of kids on bikes. You know what boys that age are like.Racing and chasing all over the