‘Well, you’ve got the video.’

‘I don’t have those last few minutes on tape.’ Which was Mallory’s way of saying she had erased the part where he had opened fire on a little boy, and therefore, it had never happened. Every now and then, she surprised him with unexpected insight and delicacy.

‘That took balls, Charles. Faking him out with an empty gun.’

She eased off the desk and padded out of the room, followed by the cat, which made more noise on its feet, less graceful now with the weight of its new bandage. A trace of perfume lagged behind, and it was a few minutes more before Mallory was altogether gone.

In the romantic literature of another age, a woman might have asked, ‘Wouldst thou slay a dragon for my sake?’ But the world had changed, was changing still, and the monsters were cruelly deceptive in their different faces. In the bizarre romance near the edge of a new century, Mallory might ask, ‘Wouldst thou slay a child for my sake?’

She had a code of sorts, and never would she ask, but the question would always hang between them. And if he could ever bring himself to it, he would tell her, yes – for he had believed the gun was loaded when he shot the boy, and shot to kill – for Mallory’s sake.

Carol O'Connell

Born in 1947, Carol O'Connell studied at the California Institute or Arts/Chouinard and the Arizona State University. For many years she survived on occasional sales of her paintings as well as freelance proof-reading and copy-editing.

At the age of 46, Carol O'Connell sent the manuscript of Mallory's Oracle to Hutchinson, because she felt that a British publisher would be sympathetic to a first time novelist and because Hutchinson also publish Ruth Rendell. Having miraculously found the book on the 'slush pile', Hutchinson immediately came back with an offer for world rights, not just for, Mallory's Oracle but for the second book featuring the same captivating heroine.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Hutchinson sold the rights to Dutch, French and German publishers for six figure sums. Mallory's Oracle was then taken back to the States where it was sold, at auction, to Putnam for over $800,000.

Carol O'Connell is now writing full time.