Jack Horne is educated to double A-level standard in Information Technology (RSA Diploma) and currently works for the local theatre in Plymouth, England.
A number of his poems, short stories and articles have been published in magazines, anthologies and webzines, and broadcast on radio programs. He has also had some competition success. Horror is his favorite genre.
Jack Horne has collaborated with two friends to publish a collection of poetry: Shades of Darkness and Light, also available from eTreasures Publishing.EXCERPT:
In a rush to get to the library, I phoned
Raquel on the way. “There’s so much to tell you, love,” I said. “Fancy helping
me research at the library?”
“The library? Hardly exciting, is it?” she
snapped. “You do that on your own and you can tell me about it, if you like,
over dinner in a decent restaurant.”
Suzy would have gladly helped, I thought as I
put the phone down. Suzy would happily go anywhere with me.
The library was a grandiose Victorian building,
a stone carving of Sir Francis Drake’s ship over its doorway. I admired the
stained glass windows as I made my way up two flights of steps, and, panting
slightly, smiled at the librarian. “Have you got any press cuttings about a
hanging? I think it was in this month, about fifty years ago.”
“A public execution?” she asked, her gentle
voice surprising from a woman of such size and with such a ferocious
expression. “Or a suicide?”
I followed her to a huge wooden cabinet and
watched as she selected a drawer. “What was the man’s name again?”
“Joseph Pearson,” I said, hardly daring to
breathe as she thumbed through the index cards.
She nodded towards a card. “Here’s your man.”
“You have all the newspaper reports on
microfiche?”
She nodded, removing the card and closing the
drawer. “It says here where to find them. Lucky for you, they’re all on the
same reel. I’ll get it for you.”
Thanking her, I suddenly had an idea. “Would it
be possible to check a suicide that probably happened fifty years before that?”
“You’re not interested in this one now?” she
asked, her mouth a scowl.
“Yes, but I think an actor, a Patrick O’Toole,
was found hanged at the theatre about fifty years earlier.”
She studied me curiously. “Are you writing a
book on suicides?” she asked, her smile transforming her face. She selected
another drawer of the cabinet and flicked through the cards. “That’s strange,”
she said with a slight frown. “It happened exactly fifty years to the day
before the Pearson hanging.”
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