A Tabloid Story by Jan Needle
In the never-ending search for an honest living as a writer, I have wandered down many byways. Most recently, having written a novella about a particularly gruesome murder, I decided to show it to a few chosen intimates to give me some idea of if it was any good or not. It's called The Blood Hound , and even that title was given to me by one of those intimates. It's based on a true series of events which took place in Blackburn, Lancashire, in the 1870s. A little girl called Emily disappeared one afternoon after having been given a prize for excellence at her local school. On her way home she was called across the street by a man, who asked her to go and collect some tobacco for him from a local shop. She knew him, and he gave her the money for the purchase, then went back into his barbershop to wait for her. She was seven. At home, her parents became worried when her father came home from the mill where he worked, but Emily had still not returned. He went to the p...