Of course, prior means gone before, as in past history, or perhaps only a few moments ago; it happened prior to my arrival on the scene.
But it can also mean, quite confusingly, to something in the future, when trying to get out of a meeting by saying I’ve got a prior appointment.
If you are an aficionado of American police dramas then you will be well acquainted with the prior, meaning a previous criminal conviction.
And for something quite different, a prior is a priest of sorts, who to me were named as such in the middle ages. A prior is below an Abbot and is head of a house of friars. By the way, the most notable friar I know is Friar Tuck
A prior could also be a magistrate in the medieval republic of Florence.
It is not to be doubly confused with Pryer or Prier
Someone who pries into another’s business, the most notable prier, the woman across the road from Samantha, in Bewitched.
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 of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, 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 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 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, 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, that 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. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, 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 t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff 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 a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, 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 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.
Down here, it is summer, and the last few days have been rather hot, well, it is summer after all, but tonight it is particularly hot.
So, as I can’t sleep, I’m lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, otherwise known as the cinema of my dreams.
Where am I?
Well, the location is in keeping with the weather, hot, humid, and cold drinks are mandatory.
I’ve got one now!
…
A sleepless night did nothing to make the idea of going on a treasure hunt and more palatable. I couldn’t say I didn’t see it coming, because Boggs had been hinting he’d found something of his father’s when poking through his old stuff.
I was hoping it was money.
And visiting the bar, I thought that he had found a lead in his quest to find some information about his parents, two people he realized now, he knew very little about.
In that quest, I was only too willing to help.
When he finally told me about the treasure, I didn’t think he was the sort to believe in fairy tales, because everyone knew it was little more than that.
I didn’t flat out debunk the myth, but I could see I was going to have to carefully get him off this track. Real or not, we were hardly equipped, mentally or physically, to deal with whatever this quest might throw up.
Yes, in my mind’s eye I had a Raiders of the Lost Ark scenario running through my head, from large rolling stones, through to a snake pit. I hated snakes too.
In fact, with the addition of Boggs uncle Rico in the mix, it seemed to me we would be better off spending our time looking for work rather than using any excuse to not, but that was the problem with our neighborhood, too many people looking for work and not enough jobs. Prosperity seemed to be everywhere else.
“No lounging around in bed, Sam.” My mother’s voice came from the kitchen where she would be throwing food into a container for her lunch.
She was suffering from the lack of employment too, being a qualified accounts clerk, but for the time being, working check out at the local supermarket.
A job was a job, but it barely paid the bills.
I made it to the kitchen just as she was about to leave.
“You need to try harder,” she said. “Walter said they’re looking for people in the warehouse again. Promise me you’ll go see them.”
I could see the strain of the odd shifts she worked, the fact she didn’t want to be there, but unlike my father, she accepted responsibility, no matter what it cost.
“I promise.”
A kiss on the forehead and she was gone.
The jobs at the warehouse were little more than slave labor, minimum pay, very hard work, and ungratefully supervisors. Most of those like Boggs and I lasted a week, or less because that way they didn’t have to pay you for the few days you worked.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
It took almost an hour to recover. Monroe didn’t come looking for me, so I think they knew it would take some time for me to get my legs back.
And it felt good to stand under the hot shower for twenty-odd minutes, letting the warmth of the water sink into my bones and clear my head.
And think.
How long had Bamfield have an eye on me? It was a question that sprung to mind the moment I saw him in the desert camp. I’d heard if you were transferred to one of his commands, at some point, it was not because it was another posting, it was because he wanted you there.
I’d been specially selected by Bamfield personally, out of the preliminary training camp, to further my military career under his oversight. I’d made it very clear from the outset that I was not interested in a commission, that I preferred the lower ranks. Officers were a different breed, and I’d not been cut from that cloth. Bamfield had admitted as much when I was first interviewed by him, and several other’s on what I soon discovered was his selection panel.
They were charged by him to find the best of the best.
And at that first interview, I’d disagreed with his assessment. I’d been in trouble before, and the military was the only place I could go if I didn’t want to serve a stretch in jail. Perhaps it was that innate ability of mine to seek out and become embroiled in trouble that caught his attention.
Certainly over time he and his instructors had honed those skills to a more refined set that, in civilian life, would set me up for a long stay in prison. It begged the question of what I was going to do with myself after the military had finished with me, a question I hadn’t really thought about until I’d been shunted to my last post in a training school of sorts.
I realised now that it had been Bamfield sidelining me until an operation crying out for my particular talents came along.
That disastrous operation with Treen.
Was it his? Or was it someone else who pulled it together, and he just provided the manpower. It had been the first major active offshore operation I’d been on. There’d been a few skirmishes along the way, but that was the first, and in a zone where I don’t think we were meant to be operating.
That had, I thought, been the sole purview of the CIA, and if I looked back on what had happened, there was no doubt the two agents we were supposed to pull out were CIA operatives, it had got too hot for them to stay, and they had clandestinely called for help.
It begged another question, was Bamfield CIA or working with the CIA, with or without the military hierarchy knowing?
The thing is, if it had been pulled off, as expected, no one would be any the wiser in that country, but once they found out, by whatever means it happened, the proverbial had hit the fan. It goes hand in hand with trusting people on the ground who were purportedly working against their country’s regime, for better or worse.
That country had a ‘friendly’ government, that had been ‘supported’ and then been deposed in the usual coup by the military, and, afterwards, the new hardliners got the benefit of those times when the country was a friendly and had military hardware and knowledge to wage war clandestinely or otherwise with its neighbours, given willingly.
Lessons hadn’t been learned after a particular middle east debacle. Maybe lessons would never be learned. Just look at the number of times had relations turned sour after a coup and agents had to hastily withdraw. It seems that my visit had been at the end of another of those ‘diplomatic’ missions that had gone wrong.
This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.
The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Things are about to get complicated…
With Jan safely in custody, probably for about 15 minutes when Dobbin discovered she was in police hands, Jennifer and I were free to chase up O’Connell and maybe we would also find Anna.
It was a long shot at best.
But we had to find out more about Anna Jacovich. For that, we would have to go back to the office and talk to Joanne. I told Jennifer what I intended to do and dropped her at the safe house for some much-needed rest before we went after O’Connell.
Then, back in the car, I called the number I had for Joanne.
“Sam.”
“Memorised my number?”
“I like to know who’s calling before I answer.”
“Then this isn’t a restricted line?”
“Restricted enough.”
“I found your little toy?”
Did I hear a sigh?
“You know the world we live in Sam, trust no one not even your mother. Hard for me to trust or not trust her, she passed away when I was seven. Monica said you were good. What can I do for you?”
“A full workup on Anna Jacovich. I’m coming into the office now, and will be there in about half an hour.”
“No pressure then?”
“Not at all.”
“Try not to irritate security this time.”
I’m sure I saw a grim expression on the face of the soldier that had been there the last time I tried to run the gauntlet, and then disappointment when my card worked. I signed in and put the name of the department I was visiting down as Research.
When he asked for a name, I gave him Joanne’s. No doubt he would call her long before I got to her.
She met me at the second level of defence and then took me to a room where two folders sat at opposite ends of a table, two desk lamps shining light down on them. The rest of the room was in darkness.
When she shut the door, I said, “Please tell me there in;t a firing squad in black camouflage just waiting to shoot me.”
She smiled. “If it was more sensitive information, I’d let you read it, then have you shot. Not today.
That was a relief. Oddly, I believed that she would if the circumstances warranted it. Joanne was scary, nor scary than Jan. It’s the quiet ones you had to worry about.”
We sat.
“Read. Then I’ll answer questions.”
For the ten minutes, it took me to discover that Anna was a biochemist herself, and had worked in a not-so-secret government laboratory that had been unmasked with disastrous results, adding another dimension to the problem. I was beginning to think she might be the one who created the monster and had set her husband up to take the blame.
If that was the case, she was never going to pass it on to O’Connell or sell it to him, other than to take the money and run. If that was the case, Severin knew it was her all along, and how dangerous she was.
But and there was a big but in all of this. She needed an accomplice to get to England, which was O’Connell. Now he was no longer needed…
Yes, she would also need both Severin and Maury off her tail, and that had been taken care of.
Jan? Unless I completely misread her, it was not possible she could be the accomplice; she was doing what Dobbin requested. Or had she? Dobbin did say she was able to make executive decisions on the fly.
“The threat isn’t O’Connell. He’s just a pawn.”
“Not just a pretty face then?”
“I never regard my face as pretty.”
She shook her head. “It’s Anna. She played Severin and Maury, she played Dobbin, and she played Dobbin’s little toy soldier, O’Connell. Or Quigley I believe his real name is. I hesitate to say O’Connell played you.”
“Call a dog a dog, Joanne. If I had more experience and more information I might have seen that. You can’t keep people in the dark, and then expect miracles.”
“I’m the messenger, Sam.”
“I’ve been known to shoot messengers, just because I can.”
“Save your bullets for the bad guys.”
“How do I know you and Monica are not the bad guys?”
Another shake of the head. “OK. You’ve passed the scepticism test, Sam. Now put it away. We have to work together on this. It’s a condition for continuing to work on the case.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I don’t need to answer that. But, I get it. You’re a self-starter and will keep at it, with or without us. I can see why people like you. To me, your just another dangerous amateur.”
There were words I could say, but judging by the reek of self-aggrandisement, it would not penetrate the thick hide.
I smiled. “Not noted for your charm then.”
“No. Where is Jan?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play games, Sam. They don’t become you. You went to see Severin, but he ended up dead, and she shot him. Why?”
“You read this file?” I picked it up and dropped it on the table.
She was the sort that read the first page, the preamble, and the last page, the result or desired result.
“I did.”
“Then you know why, as for Jan, if you know I was there when Severin was shot, you’d know where Jan is.”
“She disappeared into the trees. And no doubt in the wind. You should know she’s a trained MI5 assassin on loan to Dobbin.”
Who was now in jail somewhere pending the Detective Inspectors leisure, unless she filed a report. If she did, she would be out now, and looking for O’Connell and Anna.
“Then how should I know?”
She shrugged. “I thought I’d ask. I’m not sure I like having to peel away the layers of this story one by one.”
“Be more forthcoming.” I stood. I had what I needed. “If that’s all, I’ll go on with the job.”
“O’Connell?”
“He’s probably dead by now, but I have to find him, one way or another.”
This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.
…
In all of the goings-on, with Zoe chasing down old acquaintances in Bucharest, then moving on to Yuri, then Olga, we forget that Isobel and Rupert are on her trail, with Sebastian in tow.
It’s not so much Sebastian in charge anymore, not after going rogue and shooting his boss and John’s mother, an act that Rupert witnesses after following Sebastian on the hunch that he was up to something.
Rupert realizes that Worthington still presents a major problem, and on the basis that Worthington is going to realize it’s not Zoe shooting at him, Worthington has to be taken off the chessboard.
Unfortunately, he has to enlist Sebastian to get a crew together to kidnap him and take him to a safe house.
Meanwhile, Isobel, with a computer in hand, takes up vigil at the hospital with John’s mother, pretending she is her daughter. There she tracks Zoe via her cell phone to an address in Zurich.
Then, miraculously John’s cell phone reappears and is active long enough for her to get a location, and see that a 96-second phone call is made to a phone in Zurich, Zoe’s.
Then it disappears again.
Isobel then calls Zoe and gives her the address. It’s a short call.
Calls to Sebastian and Rupert mobilize them, and everyone is on their way to John’s location.
This morning we wake up to rain. Or so we thought. Taking a closer look out the window of our room on the 16th floor, we notice the rain is speckled with snowflakes. As the morning progressed the snow got harder until there were flurries.
Later we discover this is called wet snow by the local Vancouverians, and whilst they winge a lot over the endless rain, to them rain is infinitely better than snow.
To us, by the afternoon, it was almost blizzard conditions, with lots of snow. Then the only thing is that it does not accumulate on most of the ground so there are no drifts to play in.
Because the weather is so dismal we decided not to go into Vancouver to do some sightseeing because the clouds were down to the ground and then the snow set in.
Another interesting fact is that construction workers do not go off the job if it’s raining, or worse when it is snowing. Our room overlooks a new apartment complex under construction and the workers battled on through what seemed like appalling conditions.
At four in the afternoon, the Maple Leafs are playing the Ohio Blue Jackets, in Ohio. It is a game we expect they will win. Sparks is the goalkeeper, not Anderson, they’re playing back to back games and Anderson’s starting tomorrow.
They win, four goals to two.
Just before darkness falls, about four thirty, the snow stops and there is a little rain, which melts the snow.
Time to go up to the executive lounge to get some snacks and coffee, then sleep because the next day we’re taking on the Trans Canada highway from Vancouver to Kamloops.
The forecast is for snow, more snow, and just for a change, more snow.
When you venture out from the city, particularly, this city, you find yourself among the blocks that run to several acres, allotments that are ideal for keeping a horse or two.
Inner suburban living often runs to high-rise apartment blocks, with no gardens, except perhaps on the roof.
Outer suburban living runs to individual houses on allotments that are from 600 to 2,000 square meters. We have not yet gone into mass building of duplexes or terrace housing because, for the time being, we don’t have the population.
And, this is why you only have to go about 35 kilometres from the centre of the city to be able to buy acreage.
So, we are visiting, and on such a glorious day, it’s a pleasure to sit on the back verandah, spending some time soaking up the sunshine, breathing the country’s fresh air, and letting the inspiration flow into the writing.
It works.
I’ve managed to write another photograph-inspired story, number 151, which will be published on my writing blog in the next day or so.
Also being tackled will be the next episode of PI Walthensen’s second case – nearing 60.
Unfortunately, though, the inspirational location didn’t afford me a title for this new case but it will have the opening three words “A Case Of…’
The rest, I’m sure, will come as the story unfolds.
We visited the falls in winter, just after Christmas when it was all but frozen.
The weather was freezing, it was snowing, and very icy to walk anywhere near the falls
Getting photos is a matter of how much you want to risk your safety.
I know I slipped and fell a number of times on the ice just below the snowy surface in pursuit of the perfect photograph. Alas, I don’t think I succeeded.
The mist was generated from both the waterfall and the low cloud. It was impossible not to get wet just watching the falls.
Of course, unlike the braver people, you could not get me into one of the boats that headed towards the falls. I suspect there might be icebergs and wasn’t going to tempt the fate of another Titanic, even on a lesser scale. The water would be freezing.
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’.
