The Cork and the Bottle
The Cork and the Bottle was a typical workmen’s pub of the kind that was rapidly disappearing all over the country, all dark wood and worn leather, crown glass and brass. On either side, chromium-gleaming coffee bars and trendy boutiques were putting the squeeze on The Cork and the Bottle, but it still held on, the last hold-out of a working class past in a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood.
Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd made her way past the police tape blocking off the entrance and stepped into the comfortable gloom of The Cork and the Bottle. It might have been almost cosy, if not for the dead body lying face down on the floor in a puddle of blood.
“Pete Collins, age sixty-seven, landlord of The Cork and the Bottle since 1974,” Police Constable Walker rat
