CHAPTER ONE

Gluttony
Somerset looked at the clock. It was almost 2 a.m. He had been
in bed for more than an hour, but he was still awake. He had too much to
think about. After twenty-three years as a homicide detective, it was
never easy for him to go to sleep.

A homicide detective sees humanity at its very worst. He sees

murders of every imaginable sort. People killed with guns, knives,
poison. Husbands killing wives, and wives killing husbands. Children
killing parents, friends killing friends, and people killing strangers.
Sometimes to rob them, sometimes for no reason at all.

But now, Somerset was leaving. He had only seven more days
left before he retired. Then he could leave the city, forget the crime he
had seen, and live quietly in the country.

He had seen enough of the violence and crime of the city. His
pictures and his books were packed and ready to move to his new house
in the country.

Only seven more days. He thought of how long he had lived in

the city. He had been married twice. At one time he had wanted to have
children - but not in the city. He knew what living in the city did to
children. But deep in his heart, he felt that it wasn’t right not to have
children. It isn’t too late, he thought, forty-five isn’t too old to have
children. He still might meet someone. It was possible. Anything was
possible once he got the hell out of here.

Suddenly his stomach was tight. Was he making a mistake?

He’d lived his whole life in the city. What if he hated the country? He
tried to stop himself thinking and go to sleep. It will be all OK, he told
himself. Only seven more days of crime,