A shocking assassination

Reverend Mother Aquinas was buying buttered eggs in the English Market on the Friday morning when the city engineer was assassinated.  No one screamed. She remembered that afterwards. They just moved away.  The gas lamps in the gallery above the stalls were extinguished, quite suddenly. Seconds later the shot rang out. Her heart thudded, just a single stroke, and her breath quickened as she was swept back by the moving bodies all around her. The thick darkness intensified the smell of blood, of raw meat, of wet clothes, stale sweat, dung and the pungency of damp sawdust, mixed in with the almost palpable odours of fear. Excerpted from A Shocking Assassination by Cora Harrison All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.