Month: July 2023

Mistaken Identity – The Editor’s Draft – Day 23

I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it

…

It’s been a long, hard day, and working on both the A to Z blog challenge, and writing this book is taking its toll.

I’m surprised one lot of writing hasn’t impinged on the other.

Meanwhile, back on novel land where Jack is still reeling from the threats being issued by his real father, and torn between the idea of hunting him down, and getting to know more about him, he feels he should be more interested in knowing how and why his mother got involved with a man who eventually went to prison.

To try and further enlist Jack’s help in procuring the diary back, for the forces of good, she is taking him to see her handler, who maybe can shed some light on what is in the diary and how it can help them.

The trouble is, he still doesn’t trust her, and is worried that it might be a ploy to take him into ‘protective’ custody as leverage to get Marjorie to hand the diary over. That’s why he insists it’s in Trafalgar Square, a large open space where rules will have to be observed.

Tomorrow will bring about the rescue of Jack’s mother, some investigation gives rise to a lead that could be the possible place where she is being held.

But is she being held by McCallister, her twin sister, Jacob, or a cabal of all three?

Today’s effort amounts to 4,234 words, for a total, so far, of 56,301.

More tomorrow.

Searching for locations: The Castello di Brolio, Gaiole in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy

The castle is located in the southern Chianti Classico countryside and has been there for over ten centuries, and owned by the Ricasoli family since 1141.

Like any good castle, it has strong defences, and I was looking for a moat and drawbridge, but it looks like the moat has become a lawn.

The very high walls in places no doubt were built to keep the enemy out

The castle has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over the last 900 years.  It was part of the Florentine defences, and withstood, and succumbed to many battles with Siena, which is only 20 km away.  More recently, it still bears the scars of artillery fire and bombing in WW2.

The room at the top of this tower would have an excellent view of the countryside.

Here you can see the old and the new, the red brick part of the rebuilding in the 1800’s in the style of an English Manor

We did not get to see where that archway led.

Nor what was behind door number one at the top of these stairs.  Rest assured, many, many years ago someone wearing armour would have made the climb.   It would not pass current occupational health and safety these days with a number of stairs before a landing.

Cappella di San Jacopo.  Its foundations were laid in 1348.

Renovated in 1867-1869, it has a gabled façade preceded by a double stone staircase.  The interior, with a crypt where the members of the Ricasoli family are buried, has a nave divided into three spans with cross vaults.

The 1,200 hectares of the property include 240 hectares of vineyards and 26 of olive groves, in the commune of Gaiole.

Monday, Monday…

It was a song, sung by the Mommas and Papas I think.  I suspect that will show my age.

I don’t like Mondays – another song, not sure who sang it.

Well, it’s official, I don’t like Mondays.

I’ve been procrastinating since last Thursday, telling myself I have to get the next part of one of my stories written, but I keep putting it off.  I have to go to Africa, the Niger Delta to be exact.  It can wait, I’m not ready for the steaming jungle and hostile villagers yet.

I didn’t do anything on Sunday, and, as a writer, I guess that’s not very good.  I’m supposed to be writing a page, or a hundred or thousand words a day, just to keep the juices flowing.

I’m not in the mood.  I sit and stare at the computer screen, and nothing is coming.  Is this the first sign of writer’s block?

I dig out several articles on how to overcome it, and start putting their suggestions into action.  No.  No.  Maybe.  No.  I don’t think it’s writer’s block.

Perhaps I need some inspiration so I go to my tablet playlist, and spend 10 minutes trying to find the headphones carelessly discarded by one of my grandchildren the last time they were here.

And, yes, the tablet was left in the middle of playing a Minecraft video which drained the battery.  Now I can’t find the charger!

Back at the computer, holding a dead tablet, and a pair of headphones, inspiration is as far away as the mythical light at the end of the tunnel.  Today it is an oncoming express train.
Perhaps a pen and paper will work.

An idea pops into my head ….

Is it possible the passing of a weekend could change the course of your life?  An interesting question, one to ponder as I sat on the floor of a concrete cell, with only the sound of my breathing, and the incessant screams coming from a room at the end of the corridor.

It was my turn next.  That was what the grinning ape of a guard said in broken English.  He looked like a man who relished his job.

What goes through your mind at a time like this, waiting, waiting for the inevitable?  Will I survive, what will they do to me, will it hurt?

The screaming stops abruptly, and a terrible silence falls over the facility.

Then, looking in the direction of where the screams had come from, I hear the clunk of the door latch being opened, and then the slow nerve-tingling screech of rusty metal as the door opens slowly.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, no.

No writer’s block.  But I have to stop watching late-night television

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 9

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

An interrogation and a revelation.

…

I think I just about reached that same conclusion just seconds before she uttered it.  But, I didn’t think this was the time to air my own thoughts on the matter.

The question I did ask was, “It appears our service has been compromised.”

She glanced at me almost condescendingly.  “It appears so.  Have you got your cell phone?”

I had it with me and gave it to her.  I had it ready because I knew they would ask for it.  It had a record of orders given, and phone conversations made, before, during, and after the operation.

For a review, or in this case, a search for the guilty.

I watched her put in the passcode, and go to the messages, and bring up the one sent to me, to attend the briefing.  It was all in order, no different to the previous five, with all the right designations and protocols.

“There was no reason to suspect it was anything but a real callout.”

Another glance at the screen, she put it on the desk next to the file.  “No, it looks real enough.”

Thought best kept to myself; how the hell did someone outside our organisation, know so well our inner workings?  I wanted to ask the question but refrained from doing so.

It also explained, now that I thought about it, the reason why the target had said he was one of us.  We had been hunting him so someone else, and enemy organisation perhaps, so they could kill him.  The question was, why?  Had he made a discovery, the evidence he was referring to that a certain Alfred Nobbin might have.

Perhaps a good idea, for the time being, to keep that snippet of information to myself.  After all, this new person in front of me could be one of Severin’s people.

Where I was sitting was not a familiar place to me, though I had been to the building before, which is why I knew where to go for this interview.  AS for the people, everyone I’d met so far, other than the other team members, bar one, I’d known from training.

So, now another expected question from me, or at least, if I was on the other side of the table, it’s one I’d expect to be asked.  “Just who was I working for, if it was not for us?”

Assuming she was one of us.

“That’s what we intend to find out.  Who was the target?”

I gave her the description we’d been given, and a copy of his photograph that had been circulated at the briefing.  I’d kept one of them, and luckily no one noticed it missing.  It was fortuitous that’s I’d copied the photo before I had to give it to her, which was right then.

There was not a flicker of recognition in her eyes.

“So, not one of us?” I asked.

For an interrogation, she wasn’t asking many relevant questions.

She looked up.  “Why would you say that, if your mission was to keep him under surveillance?”

“Which we now know was not sanctioned, so we have to assume that we had been persuaded to find and track one of our own agents.  You look as though you didn’t recognise him?”

“I don’t try to remember every agent we have in the field, here and overseas.  There a few too many for that.  But I’ve got a request out for his identity.  He didn’t say who he was?”

“No.”

“Anything at all that might be useful?”

“That he was one of us, who’d made a mistake, and feared we’d set the dogs on him.”

“Yes.  Someone definitely did that.”

© Charles Heath 2019

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Searching for locations: A small part of London, England

We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye.  As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.

housesofparliament3

This photo was taken as we were coming down.

Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints!  There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station

The pub was called ‘The Princess of Wales’

And still be light enough to find your way home.

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

Mistaken Identity – The Editor’s Draft – Day 21

I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it

…

Jack’s mother is missing, well, not technically missing, but dumping the package and disappearing seemed a very close equivalent.

Maryanne has finally dropped the pretence and told Jack the truth, she is working with the authorities (but will not tell him who exactly they are) and that she is only interested in the diary, which everyone now assumes was in the package.

Who does it belong to? That will be revealed soon.

Failing her mission, Maryanne tells Jack she’s been taken off the case, and when Jack tells her is going after Jacob, she decided to tag along, perhaps for his protection.

Looking like Jacob, and going to look for him has some irony attached to it, and it would not be unreasonable to assume Jack is about to find himself in some very hot water, from good people and bad alike.

Then, if that isn’t enough on his plate, McCallister, the reputed owner of the diary, and Jacob’s father, and probably likely his, calls. He wants the diary back, or Jack’s mother will be harmed.

The search is now not for Jacob, but his mother.

Today’s effort amounts to 2,186 words, for a total, so far, of 51,629.

More tomorrow.

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1

In a word: Under

Under by itself is a rather boring word, you know, under the moon, under the sea, under the influence, which is not hard to be if you’ve been hypnotised or after a few drinks.

Under is anything beneath something else.

But let’s add it to some other words like,

Underrated, which means it is better than what others give it credit for.

Underwear is what you would wear underneath your clothes.

An understudy is a person who takes over a lead role when the lead is incapacitated. And how many understudies are guilty of harming the lead, in order to get a big break?

And not get away with it?

Understood, an agreement that might or might not be in writing that something will happen, that is, it is understood that I will be the next president.

Or not. Who on earth would really want to be president of anything?

So in the spirit of trying to confuse everyone all of the time, I have a conundrum in the form of a question, what is the difference between under and underneath?

To me there is none, you can be under the sea or underneath the sea, or under the table or underneath the table, but then there’s another, you can be under the influence but not underneath the influence, though technically you could, if you wanted to use confusing English.

And, just to add to the confusion further, I can say that the submarine sailed under the sea, underneath the sea, but, in actual fact, it doesn’t.

What is under the sea is the sand, or sea bed, and a submarine does not plough its way through the sand, does it?

What we really should be saying is that a submarine moves through the water.

Just saying…