Like all the hotels we’re staying in, it has an impressive foyer. You walk in and you think on appearances it’s going to be 5 stars, and not the 3 and a half rating on trip advisor.
Pity then that it all goes downhill from there.
We have a corner room and no bathroom.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel that has rooms with no bathroom? Yes, it’s a first for us too. Still, this is China and I suspect if you complain there’s always a worse room to put you in.
For us, it’s just going to be an amusing situation we’d bear and give it a one-star rating on TripAdvisor for the hotel.
And just a word of warning, if you decide to book the hotel directly make sure you don’t get a corner room.
At least everything else was reasonably ok. Ok, not so much, the safe doesn’t work.
This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the tour in this particular place.
Before we leave, some photos of our room, and the lack of a bathroom.
Separate doors for shower and toilet, and on the other side of the passage, the washbasin
Feng Shui seems to have been forgotten when planning this room.
The next morning we discover that other rooms do have bathrooms but they’re small. Some have neither tissues or toilet paper, another has a faulty power socket and cannot recharge the phone, and I’m sure there are other problems.
All in all, it seemed very odd to have the toilet and shower on one side, and the wash basin on the other side of the passage.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
…
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, I came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down on her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, and sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed like the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it was something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, which was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use-by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. In the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by a slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, but they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in the new job, the last thing she want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, threw out everything she didn’t want, a few trips to the op shop with stuff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me were a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of planes departing, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just to see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
The address in 84th Avenue Jamaica, was between Jamaica Hills and Briarwood, and a little confusing because there was an 84th Avenue, 84th Drive, 84th Road. It led Bryson to a single two-story house with a driveway up the side to a garage. It was not wide, but long, and painted a rather odd colour, and in need of updating. It
He parked the car in the side alley and pulled out the key ring that was found on the body, and went up to the front door. He stepped to the side and looked through the window, where there were several cracks in the Venetian blinds. It was too dark inside to see anything.
The seventh key he tried opened the outer glass door and the last the front door. There was no alarm, at least not one that was set. It was clear, once inside, that no one else was in the building. He switched on the light and was confronted with a rather untidy room with old furniture, and few modern comforts.
He put on the gloves he had brought, and picked his way carefully through the mess, trying not to disturb anything. After a cursory inspection, he would call in the CSI team.
It was a room that wasn’t used often, with no television, a setoff shelves with a few books tossed in, and items of clothing tossed on a settee. The room had a musty odour, as though it was not used, nor cleaned often. Moving towards the back there was a dining room, with a large table covered in documents, newspapers, connections for a computer, a printer, a USB hub, and leads leading to missing devices, one of which was possibly a phone. Other than the printer, there was no other hardware.
The kitchen showed signs of recent use, with dirty dishes and cutlery tossed hastily in the sink. A look in the refrigerator showed a few items, some looking very stale, and a block of cheese that had turned green. He didn’t check the milk, it looked off.
The papers on the table were haphazardly tossed, perhaps as a result of Bergman looking for something and not finding it. It didn’t have the feel of someone else looking for something.
Further on was a passage leading to the back of the house and another entrance. Back in the middle of the house were stairs going up and down. Visible from the outside was a basement, and Bryson shuddered, a bad experience in his childhood to do with basements came back to haunt him. It was going to take some effort to go down there.
Upstairs there were two very large bedrooms and a bathroom, the first bedroom showing signs of use, with clothes tossed on the bed, others tossed on the floor. The closet doors were open, and clothes were hanging, half hanging, or fallen on the floor. It looked like Bergman was in a hurry to find something that he believed was in the closet.
There was nothing in the other bedroom, nor anything of interest in the bathroom. Overall, Bergman was very untidy. The upstairs rooms had faded wallpaper, and in places, it was peeling off. The roof was stained, and the bathroom had mould.
The whole ground floor and upstairs needed repainting, and the bathrooms modernized. And the wallpaper replaced or removed. The carpet in the upstairs rooms was both stained and very dirty.
He went back downstairs and pulled out his torch, headed down the stairs to the basement. At the bottom, there was a door, locked, and the first time through all the keys, not one unlocked the door. He tried again and found that a little more elbow grease was required to turn the key in the lock.
Just to be on the safe side, not knowing what to expect, Bryson pulled out his gun and was ready, just in case there was a surprise. He opened the door and pushed it open slowly.
Darkness, And a very bad smell, like something had died down there.
He reached inside the wall and found the light switch, then turned on the lights.
The area he could see was surprisingly clean, and sparsely furnished, with a long table with boxed neatly set out. Along one of the walls was a set of filing cabinets. The floor was uncovered concrete, and the odour was most likely rising damp.
When he crossed the room to the table, he could see, in the other direction, a doorway that looked like an exit, and a free-standing safe, quite large, with the door open. He went over to look inside, but it was empty.
There was no clue as to what might have been in there, but Bryson suspected whatever there had been, Bergman had taken with him, the day he died, or before that, but recent.
The boxes on the table had power tools in them and were probably part of the stock in trade.
On one box was a folder which Bryson carefully opened and looked at the first page.
Shipping dockets. Some in the name of Phillip McGarry, and the rest in the name of Avondale Traders, Bergman’s company.
He tried the keys on the filing cabinets but none of them opened any of the cabinets. Each appeared to be full because Bryson tried moving them and it was very difficult. CSI would be able to get into them, and he would have to wait.
There was the noise of a car pulling into the alley beside the house and then stopping. A few seconds later, two doors slammed shut.
He raced up the stairs, closing the door behind him, and reached the top just as the visitors opened the front door.
So, today’s seeming straightforward news event that didn’t make the front page, nor the next three, is about the death of a man and a woman who had just begun dating, their bodies being found in an ordinary suburban house.
The police received a call regarding their welfare and upon visiting the house, found the man and woman lying side by side on the floor, deceased.
The police were not treating the deaths as suspicious.
So …
What if …
The first thing that leaps off the page is the fact the police are not treating the deaths as suspicious.
That’s exactly the moment that investigators should be looking at the situation a little more closely because, in our scenario, the scene has a staged look about it, and on the surface, it appears to be a simple case of a dual drug overdose.
Firstly, the friends of the two were not aware they were ‘doing drugs’ and if they were, lying on the floor at home was the last place it would happen.
No drugs were found in the house, and the sniffer dogs could find no trace of any except on the bodies.
Secondly, in the upstairs office, a laptop computer was missing, only the cable and mouse were still sitting on the table. Curiously both their cell phones were missing, but nothing else. Between them, they had about 500 pounds, which meant, if there was foul play, the perpetrator had very specific items to take.
Nothing else was disturbed.
Thirdly, a quick examination of the bodies showed the woman had bruising to her neck, a sign that someone had held her in a choke hold perhaps, but the coroner would have a closer look.
Fourthly, a simple check on the names comes back with an access denied flag on the male.
That, as far as Detective Chief Inspector Barnes was concerned, was enough to change the investigation from death by misadventure, to a suspicious, possible murder.
Worthington was in a state, now realizing that he had become a target, and immediately assumes it was Zoe on the end of the sniper rifle.
He considers calling John and telling him what just happened, but if Zoe was there with him…
No, better to attend to the problems at hand. Arabella wasn’t dead, but it had come very close. And, he suspected, it was because he had asked her to get a drink for him, and if she had not moved, the damage would be far less.
It was important then to go to the hospital with her and make sure he was then when she woke up to explain what just happened. If she would ever speak to him again, that is.
Meanwhile, John is ‘collected’ at his hotel, and taken to Olga. When he wakes up in a rather quaint bedroom or what seems to be a house in the countryside, he only remembers being in the hotel, then nothing.
When he is escorted to the meeting room, it is not the sort of interrogation he was expecting but is fascinated with the old Russian woman who claims to be Zoe’s mentor and teacher, and says that she has no interest in harming him, she only wants Zoe back.
John works out that the woman is in fact Alistair’s mother and presses her for more information about Zoe.
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,771 words, for a total of 57,988..
Detective Worthey arrived at the Bergman residence at the same time as the first team of crime scene investigators.
He had come directly from interviewing Sandra Worsley, Bergman’s daughter.
“The list of suspects is getting longer and longer,” Worthey said, after joining Bryson by his car, having a cigarette, the first in a number of months.
“Why am I not surprised.”
“I thought you gave up smoking.”
“I thought I did too, but this case. There’s something odd going on here, and I’m sure when I find out what it is, I’m not going to like it.”
“Odd, funny or odd, hairs on the back of the neck?”
“Why does an import/export trader have a rented house in an obscure location with a large basement and a dozen filing cabinets?”
“Can’t be too obscure if his scorned wife knows where it is.”
“She’s been having him followed by a private detective. Met him just before. There’s more to him than meets the eye.”
Bryson had dealt with a lot of Private Detectives in his time, and they usually fell into two categories, those that found missing pets, and the photographs of cheating spouses, and those that were proper investigators, ex police, ex FBI, even ex CIA. Davidson was in the latter category, and he wasn’t simply investigating a cheating husband.
“Will I add him to the ever-growing list?”
“No. I’ll look into him. I have a feeling it’s going to end up above our pay grade.”
That was the other thing Bryson noted. The dynamic between Stacy and Davidson. It was more than just Investigator and client. He was either a relative, or they were more than just friends. Looks and words exchanged between the two were ‘noticeable’ to a trained eye. How did it go with the daughter?”
“Sandra? A father’s favorite daughter. She did not speak badly of him. Certainly, does not like the wife, Stacey, and speaks kindly of Wendy Anderson. Appears she had known her for most of her life, in fact, I got the impression Wendy was her mother. She certainly has some of her physical characteristics.”
“Interesting. Another question we can put to James Anderson. I’m willing to bet he knows nothing about her. What does she do for a living?”
“Schoolteacher, up in Yonkers. Comes to stay with her father once every few months. She just happened to be here this week for a conference. They were supposed to have dinner at her favourite restaurant on the night he died, but he called to cancel, saying he had an unscheduled meeting with a friend who needed to see him.”
“A friend? Could be the person who shot him. He didn’t happen to give her a name?”
“No. We’re not that lucky, but she thought it might be a woman rather than a man.”
“Chances are she is totally unaware of his philandering, other women in his life, and the fact his business was going badly. Did you ask her if she knew what his business was?
“I did. She said he told her it was importing and exporting, but she thought that was a euphemism for something else, not necessarily illegal, but she did say he used to be in the army as a Quartermaster, she heard him mention it to another man in a conversation recently. He never told her what he did, but she assumed that was because he’d been in Iraq or somewhere like that. When she mentioned his service I did a quick check, and it hit a brick wall.”
“Classified?”
“Like there is no record of him being in the military.”
Bryson looked over at the entrance to the house and saw one of the crime scene investigators coming towards him.
He’d worked with him before, enough to be able to interpret the expression on his face as impending bad news.
“What have we?”
“The filing cabinets, John.”
“Weapons, contraband, or artifacts?”
“What look to be artifacts in several, weapons in another, what you might call the spoils of war. Nothing earth-shattering, but definitely worthy of the real owners getting slightly upset. Several of the items appear to match the descriptions of items that were supposedly destroyed by ISIS.”
“We’re dealing with black market artifacts then?”
“Quite possibly. I’m getting an expert to come in and tell us exactly what the items are. If you’re looking for a motive for his death, then these items would definitely fit that. There’s a lot of foreign weaponry too, the sort collectors pay a small fortune for.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll let you know more later.”
Worthey sighed as he watched the man return to the house. “Why couldn’t this be a simple case of a jealous husband shooting his wife’s secret lover?”
I personally believed that we wouldn’t be sitting on this alien vessel unless we had some value, or there was something about the group of so-called criminals that the alien captain didn’t have the authority to take decisive action.
“Hold that thought,” I said to him. Then, “Number one?”
“Sir?”
“Are you still with the alien group?”
“Yes sir, awaiting orders?”
“Is the spokesman for the prisoners nearby?”
“A moment, sir.” Silence for a minute, then, “He’s here, sir.”
“You wish to speak to me?”
An odd thought, they all sounded the same.
“Yes. I find it odd that the alien captain of this vessel hasn’t just destroyed our vessels and moved on, after all, if they have determined you are all criminals, what would be the difference between being left in a prison, or being executed?
“I’m not sure what you are getting at. For all intents and purposes, we are dead, to them and our homeworlds.”
It wasn’t the way he said it, but the way it was spoken. And what was left unsaid. It was a moment when you didn’t get the answer you wanted because you didn’t ask the right question.
“Now is not the time to be keeping secrets, because when our host comes back, the situation is going to end badly for you, and just as badly for us. We’re all still here because you have something they want. What is it?”
There was silence, but it was not generated by a refusal to speak, but more than the answer might have worse consequences than no answer.
Then, very quietly, he said, “Jai Ti.”
There are only three reasons that drive people to do the unthinkable. Money, power, and a woman.
“She is not a so-called criminal, is she?”
“No. She was indiscreet and found herself banished to the same detention center like us. We are high-level detainees, rather than prisoners, who live in far better conditions than the more common criminal classes.”
“Let me guess, she was a so-called friend of one of the high council or someone of consequence in the political power structure.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“And they’re worried if she gets free, she might denounce the injustice?”
“She feels she did nothing wrong. She claims she did not tell anyone, as per her agreement with the individual in question. The situation is exacerbated by the fact they people have a very strict moral code, and relationships, shall we say, that is extra, and severely frowned upon, and for a leader who is expected to set an example.”
“And this leader…”
“The rules don’t necessarily apply depending on who you are. Unfortunately, it is a problem across the many homeworlds here. An enlightened society doesn’t necessarily mean what we and others are led to believe.”
“We have the same problems. Thank you for your honesty, it may help, it might not.” I had all I needed. “Number One.”
“Sir.”
“No need to stay, I have no intention of getting between the passengers or the alien captain, so get back to the ship as quickly as you can and be ready on the bridge. General?”
“Sir?”
“You are ordered to defend the ship by whatever means at your disposal, without regard to that personnel not aboard. Do you understand?”
I expected a but because I was basically telling him that if he had to fire upon the Russian ship or the Alien ship, both senior officers and some crew would be in danger.
As far as I was concerned, the ship and 2000 others were more important.
“Under protest, but I understand. Sir.”
“Number one?”
I also expected to get the standard lecture, which was well within his purview, but instead, “Understood, sir but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Second?”
“Sir?”
“You have the bridge until either Number One or I return, otherwise you know what the standing orders are.”
“Understood.”
It was the precise moment the alien captain returned.
“I’ve spoken to the high council. We are also monitoring a high level of activity on your ship.”
“If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get. I think it’s time for the truth, something you have been playing, as we say, fast and loose with. I told you exactly why we’re here, you haven’t. I don’t approve of my compatriots’ actions, but he has, as anyone from our world would grant preliminary asylum to anyone who asks for it, pending a thorough investigation. That investigation starts and ends with two words, Jai Ti.”
For a man with an expressionless face, it wasn’t hard to tell I’d hit the nerve.
“Alas, as you may or may not appreciate, we are in a difficult situation.”
“Dare I say it, but for an enlightened civilization, you seem to have all the same problems we do. We could have resolved this much earlier had you just stated the facts.”
“Then you are prepared to return the prisoners.”
“Prisoners, yes, but with a suggestion. The princess, no. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to censure the leader that broke the rules.”
“And if that’s not possible?”
“Then I will take her home, and whatever happens after that is on his head, and to a lesser extent, yours.”
“Even if it means your ship is destroyed, and all those crew members die needlessly.”
“More have died for less, but noble cause. Do as you wish, but I strongly advise you not to test our resolve.”
The alien captain turned to the Russian captain. “If you hand over the prisoners, all of the prisoners, you will free to leave.”
“Sorry. It’s a tempting offer, but it doesn’t solve the problem for future explorers. Eliminating us will just bring more, in the not-too-distant future, only they will be hostile. You might be able to live with the short-term consequences, but given what we are learning about your relations with other worlds, who are they going to blame for the problems you caused in the name of short-term expediency?”
A few seconds later four new aliens appeared, each in a particular style of dress.
Self-published authors are fully aware that perhaps the easiest part of the writing journey is the actual writing. Well, compared to the marketing aspect I believe it is.
I have read a lot of articles, suggestions, and tips and tricks to market the book to the reading public. It is, to say the least, a lot harder to market eBooks than perhaps their hard or paper-back relatives.
This is despite the millions of eReaders out there.
Then there is that other fickle part of the publishing cycle, the need for reviews.
Proper reviews of course.
As we are learning, reviews can be bought. And Amazon is out there seeking what it calls unverified reviews and reviewers and it had brought with it very strict control over who can leave a review, especially on Amazon.
Another site where reviews are taken seriously is the Goodreads website where I have established a presence, and expect in due course, some reviews.
But, all the advice I have seen and read tells me that reviews should not be paid for, and that reviews will come with sales. It might be a difficult cycle, more reviews mean more sales, etc.
And getting those first sales …
Therein lies the conundrum. It is a question of paying for advertising or working it out for ourselves. I guess if I were to get more sales, I could afford the advertising … yes, back on the merry-go-round!
And yet, the harder the road, the more I enjoy what I do. It is exhilarating while writing, it is a joy to finish the first draft, it is an accomplishment when it is published, but when you sell that first book, well, there is no other feeling like it.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 