When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.
I’ve been on a few of those in my time.
And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.
For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.
Did I say ‘Iron Horse’? Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.
It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast
But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay. I’m sure it’s happened more than once.
Then…
Are you inclined to go?
A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.
An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?
There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation. Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.
But, you never know. Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.
Hang about. Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?
I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!
Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.
I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?
Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.
Right now.
I pick up the pen.
Character number one:
Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing. Still me, but with a twist. Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance. Yes, I like that.
We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.
He had a wife, which brings us to,
Character number two:
Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons. It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated. There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.
Character number three:
The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.
Oops, too much, that is my old boss. He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him. Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him. Last name Benton. He will play a small role in the story.
Character number four:
Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.
More on her later as the story unfolds.
So far so good.
What’s the plot?
Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers? No, that’s been done to death.
Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world. Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people. That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people! There will be guns, and there will be dead people.
There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around. That’s better.
Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.
All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.
Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work. He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks. The phone rings. Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down. He’s needed. A few terse words, but he relents.
I’ve managed to come back from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (where I’m deeply immersed in another story) for long enough to continue writing the last few chapters of the NaNoWriMo project.
Today, I wrapped up Chapter 33 and went through the aftermath of the latest attack on the main character, with a little assistance from a new operative, and one I’m beginning to like more than I should.
I’m hoping this is not a bit-part player who’s going to steal every scene she’s in.
Then it’s onto chapter 34, where we get to sit down and discuss what happened and why. Sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious and not realise that what seems too good to be true generally is.
And where the title of the book gets justified.
There’s more than one betrayal going on here, and it’s going to be a hard pill for one of the characters to swallow.
It’s time to delve into the past that Zoe tries so hard not to remember because the memories are painful.
It was a time before she became the emotionless killer she was now, and the people who had turned her into one.
Friends, lovers, teachers, mentors, but, in the end, all people who wanted her for one thing or another because they were selfish.
Alistair’s mother, Olga, was one, the woman who first had the job of training her, the first to recognise that while gifted, she would be trouble.
She had been recommended to her by a man called Yuri, the first of many to take advantage of an innocent girl who didn’t know any better.
Once trained, she was placed with Alistair, and he too, wanted her for himself, until he found her replacement, a man who wrongly thought she was so emotionless she would be happy to share him with others.
It was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
It was Yuri she discovered who had been in contact with the kidnappers in Marsailles, and perhaps inadvertently inserting himself into her quest for those seeking to kill her. He would know who it was seeking her, and who the name Romanov referred to.
After ensuring John was safe, she contacted him.
There’s a conversation, and he agrees to meet her, reluctantly, as being seen with a fugitive might harm his reputation.
It’s going to be an interesting conversation and reunion.
It’s a town we visited in Italy when on a private tour. Of course, I wrote it down on a notepad app on my phone at the time, and, yes, not long after that, an accidental reset lost all the data.
Now, I have no idea with the name of the town is, just that it was a picturesque stopover in the middle of a delightful private tour of Tuscany.
There are narrow laneways that I suspect no one 300 hundred years ago planned for cars
Narrower walkways that lead to very dark places
Walkways on the side of the hills that look down on the picturesque valleys
And rather interesting hillsides, some of which provided inspiration for Leonardo da Vinci
Or maybe it was this landscape, though it is difficult to see what could be found as inspiration in such a bland hillside
A lot of houses, some of them quite large, nestled in amongst the trees
Gardens, of sorts, balcony’s, not so big, and hidden doorways
Even not so secret passageways between houses.
All in all, it was an interesting visit, and it made me wonder what it would be like to live here, all crowded together, rather than living on our relatively isolated quarter-acre blocks.
**Please don’t assume that you have to, nor would I ever expect you to, read any or all of these books. You don’t.**
Everyone, it seems, will publish what they call the top 100 books that you should read. Some are voted on, some belong to the opinion of the editor of the book review section of a newspaper, and, as you know, there are a lot of newspapers, a lot of editors, and a lot of opinions.
I’m not a newspaper, nor an editor, but I have a list, based on personal experience and many years of reading.
It’s in no particular order.
41. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as a host of other Sherlock Holmes stories
42. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, one of Conrad’s later political novels, set in London in 1886 and deals with anarchism and espionage. In those days, spies were called anarchists.
43. The Ipcress File by Len Deighton, introducing us to Harry Palmer, who was personified by Michael Caine and led to Horse Under Water, and Funeral in Berlin. More of Len Deighton later on in the list
44. The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter introduces the somewhat enigmatic detective, Morse, his first name not revealed for a long time, but oddly, Endeavour. John Thaw brought him to life
45. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, hard to pronounce and even harder to read, but perhaps worth it in the end. By the time I read this, I was wishing for a Russian writer who could use an economy of words
46. Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak wasn’t it. A vast and lengthy dissertation on lost love, I felt very sad for Zhivago in the end. I saw a stage play of the same name, and I’m sorry, but it’s a few hours of my life I will never get back
47. Casino Royale, the first of the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. I have to say these are among my favourite spy books. I must say I preferred the new James Bond in Casino Royale, though Sean Connery still rules!
48. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsythe, a fascinating story about an assassin
49. Anything written by John Le Carre, but in particular, the George Smiley collection. Finally unmasking his nemesis, the Russian spymaster made it all so satisfying.
50. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, inspiring a long series by both Ludlum and Eric Lustbader, makes entertaining reading, but the first, the man who did not know who or what he really was, was excellent. Matt Damon didn’t harm his persona either.
51. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers, whose detective is Lord Peter Whimsey, a 1933 mystery novel that’s eighth in the series
52. Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. You have to admit that his Russian detective, Arkady Renko, is up against it when his investigation goes in a direction that uncovers corruption and dishonesty in his superiors
53. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, a semi-autobiographical novel written between 1987 and 1884, and published in 1903. The story of the Pontifex family.
54. Howards End by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, is an interesting insight into the behaviour of the, and between, the classes, with the Schlegels acting as the catalyst.
55. Washington Square by Henry James, originally published as a serial, covers the conflict between daughter and father. I must say I prefer The Ambassadors to Washington Square.
56. Ulysses by James Joyce, a day in the life of an ordinary man, Leopold Bloom, why could it not be the 7th June rather than the 16th, for obvious reasons
57. The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley is a view of society at the end of the Victorian period through the eyes of a young boy. I read this while still at school and had no clue why, but later, when I read it again, I understood the meaning
58. Atonement by Ian McEwan, I saw the film and then read the book. Never a good idea. Basically, a young girl makes a bad mistake and tries to atone for it.
59. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the War and Peace of American novels, and as long by comparison. The only book written by Mitchell, and the second most-read book by Americans. The film was interesting but awfully long.
60. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, with a man with severe burns and the effect he had on three others. Colin Firth is villain one day and hero the next, this time in the cinematic version, an out-and-out cad.
David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.
Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.
They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?
When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.
When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.
Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.
We have visited this town on a hill, famous for its fourteen towers, twice. The first time we stayed in a hotel overlooking the main piazza, and the second time, for a day visit, and return to a little restaurant tucked away off the main piazza for its home cooking.
No cars are allowed inside the town and parking is provided outside the town walls. You can drive up to the hotel to deliver your baggage, but the car must return to the carpark overnight.
This is one of the fourteen towers
I didn’t attempt to climb to the tower, which you can do in some of them, just getting up the church steps was enough for me. Inside the building was, if I remember correctly, a museum.
Looking up the piazza towards some battlements, and when you reach the top and turn left, there is a small restaurant on the right-hand side of the laneway that had the best wild boar pasta.
Another of the fourteen towers, and through the arch, down a lane to the gated fence that surrounds the town. The fortifications are quite formidable and there are several places along the fence where you can stand and look down the hill at the oncoming enemy (if there was one).
Part of the main piazza which is quite large, and on the right, the wishing well where my wish for a cooler day was not granted.
Officially, the Piazza della Cisterna is the most beautiful square of the town, San Gimignano. The well was built in 1273 and enlarged in 1346 by Podestà Guccio dei Malavolti.
And not to be outdone by any other the other old towns, there is an old church, one of several. It is the Collegiate Church or the Duomo di San Gimignano, a monument of Romanesque architecture built around 1000 and enlarged over time.
Next door is the Museum of Sacred Art.
And I guess it’s rather odd to see television aerials on top of houses that are quite literally about a thousand years old. I wonder what they did back then for entertainment?
To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.
But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continued on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.
That, I think, is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much of an idea of where it’s going as the reader does.
It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years. Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?
My private detective, Harry Walthenson
I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mould of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Philip Marlowe, but he’s not.
But I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it. Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.
Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life. I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.
Then there’s the title, like
The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello
The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister. And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.
But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.
Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brothers’ Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then it went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and I am at the editor for the last reading.
I have high hopes of publishing it in mid-2026. It even has a cover.
It’s time to delve into the past that Zoe tries so hard not to remember because the memories are painful.
It was a time before she became the emotionless killer she was now, and the people who had turned her into one.
Friends, lovers, teachers, mentors, but, in the end, all people who wanted her for one thing or another because they were selfish.
Alistair’s mother, Olga, was one, the woman who first had the job of training her, the first to recognise that while gifted, she would be trouble.
She had been recommended to her by a man called Yuri, the first of many to take advantage of an innocent girl who didn’t know any better.
Once trained, she was placed with Alistair, and he too, wanted her for himself, until he found her replacement, a man who wrongly thought she was so emotionless she would be happy to share him with others.
It was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
It was Yuri she discovered who had been in contact with the kidnappers in Marsailles, and perhaps inadvertently inserting himself into her quest for those seeking to kill her. He would know who it was seeking her, and who the name Romanov referred to.
After ensuring John was safe, she contacted him.
There’s a conversation, and he agrees to meet her, reluctantly, as being seen with a fugitive might harm his reputation.
It’s going to be an interesting conversation and reunion.
By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope that the day would improve.
The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers. Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier. I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village. I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.
I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed. In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passengers’ attention. Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.
I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back. He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury. He looked at her ticket, then nodded dismissively and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway. I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.
From what I could see, there was something about her. It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile. I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone. Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.
She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model. I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris. The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.
Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.
She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on. I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me. I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin. My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.
I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast. With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination. It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight. It would give me enough time to sample the local fare and take a tour of the medieval village.
Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch. After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward. I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and letting the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.
It didn’t work.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked and what part I played in it. And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out. What was wrong with me?
I usually blamed it on my upbringing.
I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land. There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.
Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would have needed to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later, a keen military mind. If nothing else, I could ride a horse and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.
I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared. I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.
Computers were the new vogue, and I had an aptitude for programming. I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which, although I hated the subject, I excelled in. Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.
About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.
Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks. It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.
Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited my qualifications, and the rest I think I intimidated simply because of who I was. In that time, I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist and, through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.
And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time, she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues. I knew that in building a relationship, compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise, and what had happened was always going to be the end result.
It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing. There was a certain expectation I had to fulfil, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented. The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged. Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian. He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties. He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns. He was one of the lucky ones.
I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa. From that moment, my obscurity disappeared. It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses. He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.
Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door. There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.
Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa? For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her, when she had a certain air of unpredictability. That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future. She just failed to see how much he was using her.
Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.
I thought about calling her. It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.
I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move. The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red. It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific. In fact, her sublime beauty was the other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact that her hair was short rather than long and jet-black.
I had to wrench my attention away from her.
A few minutes later, several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid. I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.
I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes before retracing my steps to the front of the ship, and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water. It was almost mesmerising. There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.
Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”
I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned. The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close to me without my realising it. How did she do that? I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.
“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping. I hear the water is very cold.”
Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck. There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her, particularly around the eyes, and of her hair, which was jet black. An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtly, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.
Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory. The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent and was fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.
Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate. Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes. My first thought, then, was to be careful.
“No. Not yet.” I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak. And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.
The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanour as a little warmth reached her eyes. “So that’s a maybe. Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”
It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.
“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away. Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped, she turned to face me again. She did not move closer.
I realised then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket. “Thanks for your concern …?”
“Zoe.”
“Thanks for your concern, Zoe. By the way, my name is John.”
She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease. “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”
“I might throw myself overboard?”
“An idiotic notion, I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”
Then she tilted her head to one side, then the other, looking intently at me. “You seem to be familiar. Do I know you?”
I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings. If she were, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me. Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.
“Probably not.” I also didn’t mention the fact that she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.
She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realised who I was. “Yes, I remember now. You made the front cover of the Economist. You sold your company for a small fortune.”
Of course. She was not the first who had recognised me from that cover. It had raised my profile considerably, but not Sternhaven’s. That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family. I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.
“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.” Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.
“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky. It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”
The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times, which had made that exact comment recently.
“But I am boring you.” She smiled again. “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts. I am sorry.”
She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.
“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me. It had been Sebastian, on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money. He was not very subtle when he described their methods.
But I knew he was right. I should have let her walk away.
She stopped and turned around. “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”
A sudden and awful thought popped into my head. Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit. “Are you a reporter?”
I was not sure if she looked surprised or amused. “Do I look like one?”
I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment. “People rarely look like what they are.”
I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave. Instead, she astonished me.
“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot. To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true. Aside from the fact that this excursion was probably a bad idea. And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”
I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignore their natural instinct. I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.
“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing. I was supposed to be travelling with my prospective bride. I think you can imagine how that turned out.”
“She’s not here?”
“No.”
“She’s in the cabin?” Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment, then came back to me. She seemed surprised I might be travelling with someone.
“No. She is back in England, and the wedding is off. So is the relationship. She dumped me by text.”
OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her? I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.
She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge. No walking the plank today. She moved towards it and sat down. She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair. Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.
I wondered, if only for a few seconds, if she used this approach with anyone else. I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.
She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us. After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message. It is difficult, the first few days.”
“I saw it coming.”
“I did not.” She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her. “But it is done, and I moved on. Was she the love of your life?”
OK, that was unexpected.
When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry. Sometimes I ask personal questions without realising what I’m doing. It is none of my business.” She shivered. “Perhaps we should go back inside.”
She stood and held out her hand. Should I take it and be drawn into her web? I thought of Sebastian. What would he do in this situation?
I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet. “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.
I’ve managed to come back from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (where I’m deeply immersed in another story) for long enough to continue writing the last few chapters of the NaNoWriMo project.
Today, I wrapped up Chapter 33 and went through the aftermath of the latest attack on the main character, with a little assistance from a new operative, and one I’m beginning to like more than I should.
I’m hoping this is not a bit-part player who’s going to steal every scene she’s in.
Then it’s onto chapter 34, where we get to sit down and discuss what happened and why. Sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious and not realise that what seems too good to be true generally is.
And where the title of the book gets justified.
There’s more than one betrayal going on here, and it’s going to be a hard pill for one of the characters to swallow.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 