I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.
Here’s the third part, the Opportunity
Where was I last night between 9pm and 3am?
Not with my wife, Wendy. She had gone out before 6 pm, about the time I got home from work. No, she didn’t really say where she was going, or if she did, given the list of the past, I didn’t believe her.
Where was I?
Home, alone.
Could anyone corroborate that?
Sadly no. Isn’t that always the way, though?
But, the car I was driving was a company car. It had a GPS and tracking system, part of so-called security measures put in by the company I worked for, but in reality there to check after-hours use.
The GPS would show I never left home. Using the car, that is.
The only other car had been taken by Wendy so the reality was, I hadn’t left home. The other car, the off-road vehicle was in the workshop, still waiting to be repaired. It was the car our son had been killed in, and neither of us had the heart to do anything with it.
But…
Apparently, I had a visitor.
James Burgman had been seen outside my house at 10:30 pm, his car had been found two blocks away in the car park, away from the street, and he was found dead, shot by a gun that used 9mm bullets, at 4:45 am the next morning.
No. I had not been seen leaving the house, but it had been ascertained that it was possible to leave and not be seen, if I tried hard enough.
I hadn’t and had no reason to, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Sitting in the interview room, purportedly to help the police in their enquiries, Detective John Sanderson had detailed quite succinctly how I had a motive, the means, and the opportunity.
Little else mattered, particularly the fact I didn’t do it. It was only a matter of time before the gun was found.
So, there I sat in the station, waiting for a series of test results to come back, mainly gunshot residue on me and on my clothes, not just those I was wearing, but everything I owned.
In the end, there was nothing. They couldn’t prove I left home, or that I shot him. Not then. I was advised not to leave the city, that I was a person of interest.
When I asked whether my wife, Wendy, had been subjected to the same interrogation, the atmosphere changed, and Sanderson had rounded on me quite savagely.
“Her innocence is not in question. In fact, you would not be here if it wasn’t for her statement. She honestly believes you shot him out of pure jealousy, and, quite frankly Mr Winters, so do I, and it will only be a matter of time before I find the evidence to convict you. Now, get out of my sight.”
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
We are often told that it’s the choices we make that shape our lives.
It’s true.
What distinguishes the basis of those choices is the circumstances of the individual.
What a lot of people don’t realize is the diversity of backgrounds of everyone, and that in a minority of cases, the few that really have no choices at all.
Yes, there are those who have no control over their circumstances, and therefore no choice whatsoever.
Inevitably, the people who are first to criticize those who apparently made the wrong choice, are those that have never found themselves in similar circumstances.
And probably never will.
This perhaps is the biggest problem with governments who are staffed with advisors who do not understand the plight of the common man.
I never had the same opportunities as those who could afford a university education. My family were working class and were relatively poor. Had I not hot a scholarship who knows what sort of education I would have got, if any.
Certainly, my father never got an opportunity to get a good education, but, at the time, during the great depression, his choices were limited, whereas those with any sort of wealth it was a different story.
And his lack of choices reflected on us, and that lack of opportunity haunted all of us as time passed.
It was always a case of the haves and the have not’s.
Yes, we all have choices, but sometimes it really is the lesser of two evils, and not whether we will have the fillet or the rib eye steak.
A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.
A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?
A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.
A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.
After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.
From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.
Henry and Diana are sent to a hospital where Henry’s father was on call, both appalled when he discovers the identity of one of the victims, and ready to operate on his son.
Banner curses his late arrival as the Turk got away, and so, apparently, did Michelle.
She returns briefly to see Henry and talk to Harry. She asks if he is willing to help make those who caused Henry pain, and he readily agrees.
Henry survives but will be in an induced coma for a while.
Harry gets the call, and with some of his friends, they are off to capture those who caused Henry’s injuries, principally Felix and the Turk. The mission is run by Michelle, whose slowly evolving plan has reached maturity.
First Felix, at one of the parlours. He has one weakness, and it is his downfall.
Then the Turk, who thinks he is invisible, but there was one person who knows all of his secrets, his one weakness.
Both end up in a room, securely bound, awaiting their fate.
It’s going to be a long slow death.
Banner runs into one of his old felons, who just happens to be the Turk’s neighbour, and who is able to fill Banner in on some details, like who may have perpetrated the kidnapping.
He headed to Harry’s place and all but accuses him, but with no tangible evidence, all Banner has is suspicions. He leaves empty-handed.
When I woke up that morning it was like every other day. Everything was familiar. Except…
The first thought that popped into my head was a question, “Why did I walk through the blue door?”
Usually, it was those few minutes when the aches and pains of old age were something to look forward to the moment I got out of bed.
But…
The blue door?
Here’s the thing. I don’t remember walking through a blue, or other coloured door. When I thought about it, it had been in a dream where, the night before, I had wished I could go to a place where the pain was negligible, and, more importantly, the family were at peace instead of at war, over, of all things, our father’s will.
I hadn’t thought that money would be everyone’s first thought, but I was wrong. I guess the amount he left behind was large enough to fuel that inherent monster in all of us, greed.
Being the only one not motivated to dispute the will, and being the principal beneficiary, I was over it, and in fact was ready to wipe my hands of the whole business, and let the lawyers take most if it in fees, leaving the rest with next to nothing.
All of it had come to a head and good old-fashioned pugilism. Blows were exchanged, words that couldn’t be taken back, said, and threats made. What was meant to be a congenial meeting of family members to discuss the will, very quickly degenerated into a disaster.
No surprise then that I would metaphorically step through any coloured door to escape reality. There had been a green door, a red door, a blue door, a yellow door and a brown door. Blue was my favourite colour.
OK, so another fragment of the dream returned while I was staring at the ceiling and thinking it was not like that the last time I looked. Each of the doors represented a different outcome in my life. Then I realised the MC, dressed in a ring master’s outfit, yes, there was a circus element.
Obviously, my mind wanted to go somewhere, anywhere but where I was right then.
I looked sideways at the form that had burrowed under the blankets, not the sort of thing Margret, my wife of many long-suffering years did. She hated my family to begin with and we had distanced ourselves from them. It was not a thing I did to please her, I hated them too.
Having come back to nurse my father to the grave, the last six months had been difficult. The relatives, known and obscure, had come from everywhere, smelling blood in the water.
Her hand was on the pillow, and I gave it a squeeze.
A head popped put, a smile, and then shock. Not hers, mine.
It was her younger sister Margery.
“What the hell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
I remembered having a think for Margery before I met Margaret and had been resentful and bitter when Margaret stole me away. But, as a first love, she had never quite left my mind.
“Have you been dreaming again? Yesterday you thought you’d turned into your father.”
Good Grief. Behind the blue door was one of my fantasies. I shook my head.
“Where’s Margaret?”
“Forgetful too it seems.” She sighed as if this was normal for me. “She died two years ago. Cancer. I came back to see how you were, and you were broken. Then I discover you had this crush, so we gave it a fling. Married last year, don’t regret it, just hated Margaret more for stealing you.”
My dreams summarised in seven sentences.
“OK. That sounds about right for me. What about Dad?”
If my life with Margaret was over then everything else could be changed. I could only hope.
“Still hanging by a thread, knowing the longer he drags it out the more he can torment the family. It’s going to be a blood bath at the will reading. God, I hate money. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.”
“Isn’t that women for men and men for women?”
She punched me in the arm. “Don’t try and make me feel better. On the other hand,” she leaned over and kissed me. “Please make me feel better.”
It was the one thing I remembered about Margery, how much fun it could be with her. She was one of the few what you see is what you get girls and I had loved her quite intensely until Margaret came along and turned me into the dull and responsible version that my father approved of.
That was when my two brothers both irresponsible troublemakers abused the privilege of their position, squandered their inheritances, and then went cap in hand to our father for support and instead got disinherited. Now, knowing what he was worth they were like Hyenas circling their prey, waiting to swoop.
I wasn’t going to burst their bubble by telling them that disinherited meant no recognition in the will. I’d seen a copy where the bulk of the estate was left to the responsible one, me. They got nothing.
Margery was right. It was going to be a bloodbath.
I visited my father every day. He had been a heavy smoker and suffered because of it. Now breathing was almost impossible and the cancer was going to kill him. Did he regret any part of his life or anything he did? No. What was the point? You do the best you can. There’s always someone telling you what you did was wrong, but there’s no such thing as being perfect.
Except for our mother, his first wife, was perfect. And I agreed with him.
He was looking better. To me, that meant the end was close, that short period of remission before death. Time to order up the priest to administer the last rights. He might have been a bastard and a crook, but he was also steadfastly religious.
“The jackals were in. Never saw a worse pair than those two. Their mother would be ashamed to call them hers.:
“No. She had a higher degree of tolerance than you. She expected more of me, like you, but they could do no wrong. In a way it was her fault they turned out the way they did. Are you sure you want to cut them out?”
“Teach them a lesson. They’re survivors. People like them always are. You can take pity on them if you want, but once you open the door you won’t be able to close it.
That conversation was different, but then so was the woman I was married to. Perhaps there was some sort of joke in this alternate universe, that my father just shunted all of his problems into me.
If the blue door was what I wanted rather than what I had, the red door was hell. I mean, it was a red door. What was I expecting?
The green door was all sweetness and light, everyone was sickly kind and thoughtful without a hint of discord and enmity. Even my father was the epitome of generosity and kindness.
Behind the brown door was a void. It was like stepping from the light into the dark. There was no one but the voices in my head, and if I’d stayed there too long, I would have gone mad.
That left the yellow door. There was a reason why I’d been dragged three ought each, leaning more about the people I knew or thought I did, and in an odd sort of way discovering more about myself.
I knew that I’d spent most of my life compromising, taking the easy way, doing what was expected of me and not what I wanted. I guess that was what life was meant to be like. So few of us ever got to do what we wanted, mainly because we couldn’t afford to, and that was basically it. Money ruled our lives.
I looked at that yellow door for a long time, believing it was going to be more of the same. A horrible father, obtuse relatives, greedy little sycophants who’d willingly sell their souls to the devil for 20 pieces of silver.
Did I want to see more about a life I should have had and didn’t get?
And there it was, the yellow door beckoning, and who was I to resist?
I opened the door and went in. It was a room, with a desk, two chairs on opposite sides of the table, and a sign on the back wall that said, “Please sit”. Below that was a two-way mirror, that only reflected one way.
An interview room in a police station?
Five minutes later a door opened beside the mirror and a woman came through.
My mother.
Or a very young version of her, before my memories of her started. I had not known she was so beautiful, or blonde.
I said nothing but watched her sit, then when settled, smiled.
“Well, Walt, this is a fine kettle of fish.”
Metaphors? Who was this woman?
“Why am I here, and just to be clear, you are my mother.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. This is your imagination, Walt, and I could be anyone. But, you have used a memory of your mother.”
“So, you do know about me?”
“More than I care to, but yes. You’ve come to a crossroads in your life, and you have to make a decision that will affect the rest of it. You can choose to live or you can choose to die. You’ve always made the right choice, Walk. Always. Quite often to your detriment, or to please others, while all the time suppressing your hopes, wishes and desires. Admiral but depressing.”
She was right. But it wasn’t that simple.
“I had no choice.”
‘You always had a choice, Walt. You just chose the most expedient. Like marrying Margaret rather than Margery. Of course, you knew that was a huge mistake. So did your father and I which is why we paid Margaret to steal you away before Margery’s bad ways destroyed you, like she was destroying herself. You loved Margery, I know, but love was never going to be enough. You needed solid and dependable. That was Margaret.”
“What else did you do?
“Too many to be listed. Just be assured we did it for your own good. And, fortunately, it had led you here, now. I guess if your father hadn’t been the bastard he was, we wouldn’t be here, but he was dependable like that. And lazy, leaving all his messes for you to fix up.”
“Like my bothers?”
“Nice boys, but utterly useless. We knew that from the moment they could speak. You were our only hope, Walt. Those two, all the love in the world was never going to fix them, and that’s apparent now in spades. You must look after them, Walt. Your father wouldn’t, but you are not your father.”
“Margaret?”
‘You’ve been planning to leave her. She’s financially independent and will have no claim on the inheritance. Like I said, we gave her a fortune, so you can leave. Find someone else.”
“Margery?”
“If you can find her. Last we knew of her whereabouts, it was a commune in Tibet, or on the side of a mountain.” She shrugged. “That PA of yours, Ms Pendle, she seems a good sort. “has a thing for you, too.”
Ms Pendle was a little too staid for me. But then, perhaps I was the same and didn’t realise it.
“Right, enough yammering Walk. Time to go.” She stood. “Just remember, the future, your future, is n your hands, no one else’s.”
I woke, in the same bed, in the same house, looking at the same roof, and when I looked on the other side of the bed, the same hidden form with a hand on the pillow.
I touched it, thinking it might be Margery, but it was Margaret.
I watched her wake and wondered if it was true, she had been paid to get me away from Margery.
“You were late in last night.”
“I was with my mistress.”
She snorted. “You, with a mistress?” She shook her head. “When did you become a comedian?”
I decided on a change of subject. “Did my parents pay you to get me away from Margery?”
The smile disappeared and a frown appeared on her face. “Who told you?”
“Mother, just before she died. Wanted to go with a clear conscience.”
She thought about what sort of answer to give me, then said, “It was the right thing to do. They wanted you to have a future, not flame out before you were 35. Margery would have killed you, Walt.”
“Well, your job is done. I made it. Today is the first day f the rest of my life, and while you may be in it, it will not be as my wife. I thank you for your service.”
“To be honest, I thought you’d divorce me long before this. I did love you, you know. I guess we just sort of grew out of love in the end.”
It seemed so, well, I had no idea what it seemed like.
“What are you going to do with the family?”
“Annuities. They live within their means or go to hell.”
“And you?”
“First day and all, Margaret. I have no idea.”
It was odd to discover Margaret had a case packed and ready to go, she had for a long time. Everything else she owned; she didn’t want. It would be, she said, like taking her memories with her, and she was past that.
We had a last breakfast together, one last kiss, and she was gone. No, she wasn’t parting with the Audi A5.
I was going to go into the office but decided not to, and instead called the lawyers and for the next hour told them what I wanted done.
Then, I went out onto the patio, put on some melancholy jazz, and stretched out in one of the sunbeds, my last thought before dozing off, was the endless possibilities of what I was going to do.
I was lost in a mist, going upriver in a boat, slowly wending towards the mountains. It had started out very warm, and the further inland we went the closer it got. I had the feeling I was not alone on the boat, the figures were indistinct shadows, flitting about in the background.
Then it started to rain, and I woke with a start.
I realized I was at home and the automated sprinkler system had started.
When I went to get up, I realised something or someone was holding my hand and a looked over.
Margery.
“What are you doing here?”
“My, my, Walt. I thought you would be more pleased to see me.”
“I am. But…”
” Margaret called me about a week ago. She told me what had happened all those years ago and apologised. She said you two were splitting up, and if I wanted to get first in line, I’d better get my butt home. I just knew she had something to do with splitting us up. Not that it wasn’t a good idea, I was in a bad place then.”
“Now?”
“Now I know better. And the best thing about it. We have a lot of years to catch up, perhaps it will take the rest of our lives. Never stopped loving you, Walt. Not for a minute.”
“Nor I you. I was just coming to find you.”
“Then everything is as it should be. Now, let’s get out from under these sprinklers before one or other, or both of us get pneumonia.”
It’s an interesting phrase, one that means someone is working overtime at the office till late at night, or early next morning.
You know, “Been burning the midnight oil again, Frank?”
It prompted me to look up its real meaning. It goes back to the days before electricity where a worker toiled into the night using only an oil lamp or candles.
In my office, I now have LED lights that are reasonably bright, not like the neon lights I used to have that made me feel like I was in a television studio. Either way, it’s not quite the atmosphere needed when looking for inspiration.
That inspiration might be better attained in a more subdued atmosphere, perhaps even using candles. In one of the other rooms, we have a wood fire and that projects a very soothing glow, as well as providing warmth, and there I sit sometimes, Galaxy Tab in hand, writing.
But all of that aside, those hours leading up to and after midnight are the best time for me to write.
At times the silence is deafening, another rather quaint but relatively true expression.
At others, there are what I call the sounds of silence, which for some reason are much easier to hear than during the daylight hours.
The bark of a dog.
The rustle of leaves in the trees.
The soft pattering of rain on the roof.
The sound of a train horn from a long way away.
The sound of a truck using its brakes on the highway, also a long way away.
The sound of people talking in the street.
I’ve never really thought about it until now, but it will be something I can use in one of my stories.
This was taken from the plane on our way home from Melbourne to Brisbane and we were on approach to Brisbane airport.
Aside from the fact whenever we are returning home, we are relieved, glad to be coming home, and always tired. The thing is, you always come back from holidays exhausted.
So, what sort of inspiration can this provide?
One: The obvious, coming home, tired, from a hard mission in the field. A worn storyline, no one knows what you really do, and think you’re just coming back from another sales trip or conference.
Sometimes it’s hard to hide the injuries when things go wrong. Broken bones mean elaborate excuses not to come home, bruising, you walked into a door, drunk, everyone thinking injuries cause by drink are funny, and forgetting to bring back holiday trinkets, is unforgivable.
Trying to blend into normal society, is a battle in itself.
Two: A little more elaborate, coming home to see the family after being away for a long time, for reasons that no one really wants to remember. Old feuds are lurking, and hurt remains, particularly between father and son, or mother and daughter.
Old flames are there still, either successful, married, unmarried, or divorced or widowed.
Whatever the situation, it’s still water under the bridge, and still with a possibility of drowning.
Three: and one I haven’t thought of using but has merits, being shunted into witness protection in the boondocks. A city person unable to cope with open country, fresh air, and mountains.
Or a country person lost in the concrete jungle, and having far more trouble to get into.
There’s more, I’m sure, and will no doubt add to the list over time.
I hadn’t realised that the ship was, on the one hand, virtually a city, with all the standard infrastructure like hospitals, schools, and a pseudo police force.
And, on the other hand, almost like a hotel, running quarters for the single staff, a restaurant for everyone to eat, and recreational facilities to provide entertainment outside of work.
It was, perhaps on of the reasons why the ship was so large, and its crew so diverse.
And in the way diversity is sometimes a curse or land, so it can be on board the ship, with the usual disagreements between people. I was sure the human resource division took all that diversity into consideration when they chose the crew, but there was always going to be the odd situation.
Which is why I had to attend to the first, and probably not the last, ‘situation’ between two crew members. It seemed strange to me that they hadn’t sent a judge type figure to sort those out, but left it to the captain.
Not to mention the running of a very large cafeterias, a sort of night club, sports venues and so many other items
And like every other city, there was always going to be an element that caused trouble.
A chamber had been set aside where the ship’s security team was located, for either mediation or adjudication.
The matter at hand should have been dealt with long before it reached me, but Masters, head of security, believed a tone had to be set as it was very early in the voyage and simple problems could fester into bigger problems.
This was where the previous captain’s experience was needed.
But, he was not available, and it was in my hands.
In normal circumstances the two crew members involved should have sorted their differences out themselves. The fact that a fight had started over seating arrangements in the restaurant was bad enough, but the fact both were willing to continue it outside, sealed their fate.
Now each sat either side of the table with a glowering Masters sitting between them. He read out the charge sheet.
Neither looked contrite.
I looked at Fred Danvers, storeman, a burley man whom his employment record said was a hard worker, a good man in a crisis, but prone to getting into fights over trivial matters. This was exactly that, trivial.
I switched my look of consternation to the other man, Bryson O’Connell, a red headed Irishman, who worked in the Laboratory, a man specially along to aid in the research of alien life, if we found any.
His employment sheet showed no prelidiction to fighting or even exchanging a cross word with anyone.
An ideal foil for Danvers, then.
I glared at one then the other. “Can either of you give me one good reason why you should not spend the next week in the brig?”
Masters eyebrows went up, registering surprise, but he didn’t comment.
Danvers said, “That’s a bit harsh for an argument over a seat?”
I looked at O’Connell.
“I should have just walked away,” he said.
I shrugged. “Three days in the brig for the both of you. You’ll have time to write down why it shouldn’t be extended for the rest of the week.” To Masters, “put the word out if people want to waste my time over trivial matters, it’ll be a week minimum in the brig where they can figure out what their priorities are. We’re out here to do a job, not get caught up on petty misdemeanours. Make a note in their records, a second infraction and they’re off the ship.”
I stood, just in time to hear the message, “Captain to the bridge.”
I also noticed, coming out of the chamber, that the ship had slowed, or stopped. I hoped it was not a problem with the propulsion unit.
Henry wakes to the realization that, one, he is in hospital with no memory of how he got there two, his brother Harry is nearby, three that he had no idea if his rescue mission succeeded or failed. And lastly, what happened to Radly.
The reality, he had been used as a human punching back, Michelle had disappeared, along with the Turk, and Harry made the conscious decision not to tell his little brother what had transpired while he was in the hospital. Good news though, Diana and Radly were in the same hospital, and were alive.
Harry has pieced together the night’s events, and ever relating it, he wonders how any of them are still alive.
His father comes to visit, and it’s apparent he doesn’t know the real reason Henry is there.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Henry has bought a house in his now favourite village by the sea, easily accessible by train, for now, and plants to go there when discharged.
Michelle has not returned, and he has told himself that she might never. It’s that old saying, better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 