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 never thought I would get to this point, where there’s almost a complete novel.
It is quite remarkable that it is possible if you decide to focus on getting a novel out in a month.
What it does tell you is that proper planning is really a necessity if you want to succeed.
But…
It’s not the be-all to end all.
I’m not going to stop flying by the seat of my pants, but it’s given me another insight into the writing process.
I’m up to the business end of the story, and it requires concentration, and it will not be the first time I have written a page or two, gone back to reread it and made an adjustment.
I have to be careful not to be overly critical. After all, it is only the penultimate draft, and I’m striving for, but not necessarily expecting perfection.
The day he sold the house on Mulberry Lane where he had lain his head to sleep every night of his life was, he thought, the happiest he had ever been.
It was not as if it started out as a house of horrors; in fact, from the moment he could remember, about six or seven, it had been an idyllic refuge. That was what his mother had told him, before he went to boarding school, before she remarried, before that man who told him the first day they met he was going to send him away, as far away as possible.
Those days before his world was turned upside down…
…
He stood in front of the cottage, now almost surrounded by the forest it had been nestled in. He could just barely see the window on the second floor, a special room his first father had built into the roof, a room with a view of the valley and the small stream that ran through it, of the fields with the cattle and sheep, or crops, and then grass as far as they could see.
It was his playground to play hide and seek, to go down to the stream and swim on hot days in the summer or pretend that he was a pirate on the high seas.
And then after dinner, a story from his mother, he lay his head on the pillow and dreamed of the adventures he would have when he grew up.
Then, on a cold, stormy night, that world changed a little. His father had been in an accident, and he was not coming home. It was just going to be them, and that life would not change.
For what seemed a long time, it didn’t. Then another man came, a man who seemed to make his mother happy, but there was something about him. He didn’t like him, and he soon discovered the man didn’t like him.
There was a wedding, and they went away, leaving him with his aunt, a rather severe woman who lived in Scotland, a long way away from his house in the forest. He was there for what seemed a long time, then his mother returned alone and told him that his new father wanted to travel, and that she was going to travel with him, and he would be going to a special school for children with parents who travelled.
He asked why he couldn’t go with them, but she said that he was better off in the special school. He would live there and get a special education, one that, if he stayed with them, he wouldn’t. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone.
…
He did not know that it would be the last time he would see her. He did not know that his mother had left responsibility for him with his aunt. He was upset when she didn’t visit him at the school or come to get him during the holidays. Those times he went to Scotland to stay with his aunt.
He did not know until he left the school that his mother had died that first year in boarding school, or that his new father had murdered her and stolen her fortune and his inheritance.
And now, standing in front of that house where he had been happiest, he tried very hard to remember his father and his mother, but not remember either of them. Only that horrid man who had stolen everything from them.
That man he had buried at the back of the house, down the bottom of a well that no one would even find.
He spent six years tracking him down, and when he made an appointment to see him, the man had not recognised him. It took a week to assume his identity and take everything back. What was left of the fortune, the inheritance which hadn’t been touched, and the house which he discovered the man had not visited or maintained. The man had perpetrated the same evil on a dozen other women, and he took all of that, too.
Then he told the man what he’d done and told him if he wanted it back to come to the cottage in the forest. He was surprised the man agreed.
He had advertised the property and had a single buyer contact him. The original owner of the property. The offer was acceptable, they shook hands on the deal, and after a final look, and a lot of memories returning briefly, he left.
Those memories were of his childhood, and now that chapter had closed, he could finally get on with his life.
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.
There’s nothing like being a few days early or a few days late for a major festival.
We have the dubious honour of being able to do both without thinking. I guess this is why you should try to plan your holiday around events, if possible.
We love Italy.
We’ve been several times, but the last visit was the best. Of course, it was not without a lot of hiccups just getting there, but in the end, later than we expected, actually about five minutes before they closed Florence airport, we made it.
So, little did we know there was such a thing as Calcio Fiorentino an early form of football and rugby that originated in 16th-century Italy and is thought to have started in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. But we were in Florence, at the right time, and even got to see the procession through the streets of Florence.
We were not so lucky in Siena where we were about a week early for the Palio di Siena which was to take place on 2nd July.
Nor were we in Arezzo at the right time for the Saracen Joust which was held on the penultimate Saturday in June. It is held at the Piazza Grande in the heart of Arezzo and is one of the most beautiful piazzas in Tuscany.
The Piazza Della Liberta and the Town Hall tower
The Piazza Grande, also known as Piazza Vasari, is said to be situated on the site of the ancient Roman Forum. Here, it is being set up for the coming Joust.
A different view of Arezzo Cathedral | Cattedrale dei Santi Pietro e Donato
I never did take advice very seriously. Especially when they were issued by old man Taggard, a man of some mystery that we all, adults and children alike wanted to know about.
Everyone in the street knew him as he had lived in the almost derelict mansion at the end of the cul-de-sac forever, way longer than anyone else in the neighbourhood had. In fact, it was rumoured he had owned all the land around and sold it off bit by bit over time, the reason why there were so many houses of varying age in the estate.
Ours was one of the older houses, a few doors up from it. We were close enough to observe Taggard’s habit, like sitting on the porch on an old swing chair in the afternoons, to the late-night wanderings in the street. Some said he was accompanied by the ghost of his long-dead wife, which led to stories being told of the house he lived in being haunted.
As children, we had been brought up on a diet of TV shows such as ‘The Munsters’ and ‘The Addams Family’, and had invented our own make-believe show called ‘The Taggard Mansion’, the house with ghosts, and the neighborhood center for strange goings-on.
And as children were wont to do, we had to ‘investigate’.
There was a ‘gang’ even though we didn’t refer to it as such, about seven of us who lived in nearby houses, and all of whom had very active imaginations. We also met in the cubby house out the back of our house to plan forays to find out whether the rumours were true. The thing is we never got very far as he seemed to know when we were sneaking in and scared us off, so for years, the rumours remained just that, rumours.
But as grown-ups, and by that I mean, middle teens, our plans became bolder and more sophisticated, based on a whole new breed of TV shows, where the seemingly impossible was no longer that. And Andy Boswell, my older brother’s best friend, his father was a private detective, or so he told us, and he had managed to ‘secure’ some of his father’s tools of the trade; a camera on the end of a wire that could connect to a cell phone, a listening device that could hear through walls, and in-ear communicators. We could now, if we were close enough, see under doors, and hear if anyone was in. We could all keep in touch, though I couldn’t see how this would help.
But a plan was formulated. All seven of us had a role to play. My brother Ron and Delilah, his girlfriend, were taking point, whatever that meant, Andy and I were going to take point, while Jack, Jill, and Kim were going to run distraction. The theory was, they’d make enough noise to keep the old man occupied chasing them. No one had been inside the house, ever. Andy and I were going to be the first.
Andy had drawn up a plan and it was up on the wall. He had charted the house, and had a very accurate picture of the house’s footprint, where doors and windows were, likely entrance points, including a hatchway down into what he assumed was a basement, though he preferred to call it the dungeon, and a layout of the grounds. Apparently under the undergrowth were paths and gardens, even a large fountain that once graced the grounds of the three-story mansion made of sandstone, and built sometime during the middle of the 1800s.
Andy had done some research, mostly from old newspapers, and also discovered that the old man had once been married, they had a half dozen children, three of whom had died, the others scattered around the world. It explained why no one ever visited the place.
The distraction team would be going in through the front gate, easy enough because it had come off its hinges and just needed a shove to open. The old man usually emerged from the house via the driveway, or what was once a drive where cars could enter one side of the property, stop under a huge canopy, and emerge onto the road further along. But it’s overgrown stare, the width of the pathway was now about six feet. The fact it was once an amazing feature was the roadside lights, now all but disappearing behind the undergrowth.
Andy had found a photograph in the paper of it, and it had looked magnificent, as had the gardens, the overhanging canopy, and all the lights. To think such magnificence was now lost. And having seen it for what it once was, it was not hard to imagine any number of scenarios, my favourite, rescuing a damsel in distress from the tower. Yes, it even had a tower, two, in fact, at each end of the house. My brother always said I had an overactive imagination.
Andy and I would be going in by the less-used car exit, and heading for the left side of the building where Andy said were several floor-to-ceiling windows that looked to him like French doors. Of course, none of us knew what French doors were, and my brother cut Andy short when he tried to explain.
Failing that, there was a door at the rear that seemed to be open, and we’d try that next. We would get into position, advise the distraction team, and the operation would be a go. The only debate was about what time of the day were we going to do it. My brother preferred late in the afternoon. Andy said it was better at dawn, or soon after if we were looking for maximum confusion about the target.
Dawn, confusion, tactics, target, Andy was in his element. He was going to be a spy when he grew up. My brother said he would never grow up, but then, my brother said I was a dreamer and would never amount to anything. We ignored his advice, well, we pretty much ignored everything he said.
We were going in at dawn.
At 5 a.m. on Saturday morning, we gathered at the cubby house ready for action. We all took a communicator and put it in our ears, and then had fun saying stupid stuff, and hearing it through the earpieces. It was weird but added an exciting element to the adventure. I know my heart was beating faster in anticipation. Andy was pretending to be cool and failing. I suspected my brother and Delilah had other plans when we left them alone in the cubby house. The distraction team was ready to go.
Shortly after the sun came up, it was cool and the air still. It was going to be a hot day, and in that first hour, everything was almost perfect. It seemed a waste to do anything but let the early morning serenity settle over us. Not today. Andy and I went to our position, slowly feeling our way through the bushes, taking bearings from the light poles, and every now and then seeing the guttering and what looked to be a concrete path. Beyond that was once a garden, and I tried, more than once, to imagine what it was like.
In my ear I could hear the others in the distraction team setting up at the start of the driveway, ready to go. We reached our position, about twenty feet from the so-called French windows, the view into the house blocked by curtains, but beyond that, what we could see was darkness inside the house. Taking in the whole side of the house, there were no lights on behind any of the windows. If we didn’t know better, we could have assumed the house was empty.
I heard Andy say, “Ready. Start making noise.”
A minute later we could both hear the distraction team in the distance and through the communicators. It took two minutes before we heard the old man, yelling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Their job done, getting him out of the house, all they had to do was retreat.
Time for Andy and I to go.
Working on the basis that no one else was at the house, and the fact we had no evidence there was, we were not overly worried about making a stealthy approach. I could hear in my earpiece, the gasping of those in the distraction team, having just made it outside the gate, and to tell us the old man had stopped them at the gate. I doubt he had been running, but his yelling was just as effective.
That had stopped, and a sort of silence fell over the area.
We were now at the French doors, and Andy produced another tool that he’d forgotten to tell us about, a lock pick. The fact it didn’t take long to unlock the door told me he was either very talented, or the lock was old and presented no problems. Either way, he opened the door and ushered me in.
I brushed the curtains aside for him to follow, then moved in as he followed, closing the door behind him.
I’d taken five steps before I heard a woman’s voice say. “Uncanny good luck shines upon me. My knights in shining armour. You’ve come to rescue me, no?”
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
The day he sold the house on Mulberry Lane where he had lain his head to sleep every night of his life was, he thought, the happiest he had ever been.
It was not as if it started out as a house of horrors; in fact, from the moment he could remember, about six or seven, it had been an idyllic refuge. That was what his mother had told him, before he went to boarding school, before she remarried, before that man who told him the first day they met he was going to send him away, as far away as possible.
Those days before his world was turned upside down…
…
He stood in front of the cottage, now almost surrounded by the forest it had been nestled in. He could just barely see the window on the second floor, a special room his first father had built into the roof, a room with a view of the valley and the small stream that ran through it, of the fields with the cattle and sheep, or crops, and then grass as far as they could see.
It was his playground to play hide and seek, to go down to the stream and swim on hot days in the summer or pretend that he was a pirate on the high seas.
And then after dinner, a story from his mother, he lay his head on the pillow and dreamed of the adventures he would have when he grew up.
Then, on a cold, stormy night, that world changed a little. His father had been in an accident, and he was not coming home. It was just going to be them, and that life would not change.
For what seemed a long time, it didn’t. Then another man came, a man who seemed to make his mother happy, but there was something about him. He didn’t like him, and he soon discovered the man didn’t like him.
There was a wedding, and they went away, leaving him with his aunt, a rather severe woman who lived in Scotland, a long way away from his house in the forest. He was there for what seemed a long time, then his mother returned alone and told him that his new father wanted to travel, and that she was going to travel with him, and he would be going to a special school for children with parents who travelled.
He asked why he couldn’t go with them, but she said that he was better off in the special school. He would live there and get a special education, one that, if he stayed with them, he wouldn’t. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone.
…
He did not know that it would be the last time he would see her. He did not know that his mother had left responsibility for him with his aunt. He was upset when she didn’t visit him at the school or come to get him during the holidays. Those times he went to Scotland to stay with his aunt.
He did not know until he left the school that his mother had died that first year in boarding school, or that his new father had murdered her and stolen her fortune and his inheritance.
And now, standing in front of that house where he had been happiest, he tried very hard to remember his father and his mother, but not remember either of them. Only that horrid man who had stolen everything from them.
That man he had buried at the back of the house, down the bottom of a well that no one would even find.
He spent six years tracking him down, and when he made an appointment to see him, the man had not recognised him. It took a week to assume his identity and take everything back. What was left of the fortune, the inheritance which hadn’t been touched, and the house which he discovered the man had not visited or maintained. The man had perpetrated the same evil on a dozen other women, and he took all of that, too.
Then he told the man what he’d done and told him if he wanted it back to come to the cottage in the forest. He was surprised the man agreed.
He had advertised the property and had a single buyer contact him. The original owner of the property. The offer was acceptable, they shook hands on the deal, and after a final look, and a lot of memories returning briefly, he left.
Those memories were of his childhood, and now that chapter had closed, he could finally get on with his life.
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
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.
Would you give up everything to be with the one you love?
…
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, a place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledged that something had happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive, she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realises is the love of his life.
The cover, at the moment, looks like this:
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 