There are two other characters that will be used in this rewrite, the second an addition to give the main character a means of letting the reader get to know a bit about him.
His name is Milt, an African American that’s always been on the fringe. Another who is a victim of his circumstances but not letting it get the better of him, the sort of man who makes the best of a bad situation.
He’s seen active service in the army, honourably discharged, but still affected though not as bad as some of those he served with. He is in fact the ideal man for the job, with combat experience, so he’s not likely to get flustered in a shit storm.
And probably not the man you want on this site. Being in desperate circumstances doesn’t mean you do desperate things.
He is one of a team of four and our main character drew the straw to partner him. There are two others, based on the other side of the park, neither of whom are trustworthy, Smithy, the overall leader, to whom they all report at shift start and end, and Carruthers, an Englishman reputed to be ex SAS, but no one is inclined to believe him.
The scars on his neck tell a story, but it was left to the other’s imagination, as he doesn’t talk about it. Milt was of the opinion he was captured in Afghanistan and tortured, but that could be just be canteen scuttlebutt.
Whatever the circumstances, Graham kept away from him as much as possible, and was glad when he didn’t have to partner him for the shift.
The other character. Penelope has featured in the earlier versions of the story. Over the changes her background has changed, but I’ve settled on a medical surgeon career, renown for doing tricky procedures with a high success rate, and in doing so gained a reputation, some not always good.
Wealth and ego don’t always make a good pair, and marrying wealth brings its own rewards and pitfalls, particularly when you discover the man you married isn’t exactly whom you thought he was.
It is of course a typical scenario, but I’m going to try and weave it differently. There will be no more teasers until the story starts.
But she will be introduced earlier than in the previous iterations because she needs some backstory too, otherwise just arriving at Graham’s work and getting shot, while provoking a volatile situation that drags the reader in, out of left field is not exactly the best start.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
When I woke, I was outside the warehouse near an ambulance, and when I opened my eyes, I could see my mother, looking close to hysterical. Further back, behind her, was Benderby himself, looking concerned.
A voice was saying, on the other side, “Just take it easy. You’ve had a nasty knock to your head.” I tried, instinctively, to move my hand there, but it was not responsive.
That scared me.
I tried wiggling my toes, and it felt like something was happening. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
Then I realised there were more people around the gurney I was lying on and a lot of chatter about a break-in and possible casualties. There was only one, wasn’t there? Me.
I went to say something to that effect when I stopped. Not a good idea to say two masked assailants came to interrogate me about a map. Firstly, my mother would be annoyed I was wasting my time on frivolous matters with Boggs, and secondly, everyone would think the blow did more damage to my sanity.
If they were calling it a break-in…
“What happened?” I asked.
I moved my head sideways further and could see the Sheriff standing next to Benderby. The sheriff moved closer.
“We think one or two unknown persons got past the perimeter security, disabled the alarm system, and broke into the warehouse where you were. One of the night security guards was doing his rounds when he found you on the floor in the main office. Can you tell us what happened to you?”
One of the paramedics answered for me, “We need to stabilise the wound, check for concussion and any other side effects before you can question him. That might have to wait until we get him to the hospital. Now, I need everyone to stand back.”
And he meant everyone, including my mother. I guessed they would let her come to the hospital with me, but if not, I was sure Benderby would bring her. He actually had his arm around her, talking to her. I didn’t think she liked him that much or was I just delirious?
I was about to tell the paramedic to tell the sheriff to go check on Boggs, but that would only lead to uncomfortable questions, and since Boggs had been so cavalier in putting the assailants onto me, I wasn’t very happy with him. But I did wonder if they had gone back to him about my lack of co-operation, and what they might do to him.
Or, I just remembered, maybe nothing, because they thought it might be an elaborate hoax. I was beginning to think that myself, despite Boggs giving me a copy of the map. When I looked at it, on the surface it seemed to be the same as the one Osborne was peddling.
Whilst getting my head bandaged, I saw one of the sheriff’s men come running up to him, speaking and gesturing wildly. I thought I heard a name, but the paramedic chose that exact moment to accidentally wrap the bandage around my ear.
Then I heard it, sharp and clear, perhaps as an answer to a question by Benderby.
“It’s Boggs. Looks like someone gave him a severe beating and left him outside his house.”
The result of an equally forceful interrogation, or had it been a warning not to waste people’s time?
Most people think the life of a ‘problem solver’ is simply staying in the best hotels, and virtually going on an expensive all-expenses paid holiday, with a little work on the side.
They’d be wrong.
No first-class hotels, no living in the lap of luxury, just a hard slog, sometimes without result, sometimes ending up in a hospital, or in detention in a country where you really don’t want to be in detention.
And definitely no sightseeing.
So, in his place, we will take in the sights, like:
The Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, Tiergarten and Hitler’s Bunker
Just to name a few.
Of course, there is the Stasi records office where our main character spends time researching various people.
Then, there are the beer halls, like then Hofbräuhaus München Berlin, and Alexanderplatz, accessible via the U-Bahn, and a station that was partially closed off during the division of Berlin, up until 1990.
But, after a week David is getting restless, and it’s time to go home. Fortunately, or otherwise, Susan is coming to join him as she has decided it’s time for them to present him to the world at large, and back into her life.
But as always there’s a problem lurking, and maybe even an unexpected visit from …
Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night. It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway. Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining. That could, of course, simply be condensation.
Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor. A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.
It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate. That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers. Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head. The flight had been relatively turbulent free.
When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave. As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is. This time we avoided being at the back of the plane. Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.
Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be. It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,
A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.
And…
That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again. Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long. Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.
We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall. It wasn’t a difficult process in the end. We were in the blue group. Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group. The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another. A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.
Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.
Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same. An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory. It’s important. Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.
Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter. It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.
That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport. It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night.
Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days. From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good. Lots of space, marble, and glass. If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.
Sorry, that boat has sailed.
We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52. Imagine if the incoming plane is late.
This was taken the following morning. It didn’t look half as bland late at night.
This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass. It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.
This the foyer of the floor our room was on. Marble with interesting carpet designs. Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room. From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.
So…Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room?
The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor. Water pressure is phenomenal. Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater.
Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.
And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half. Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going.
You know how it is when you’re working away, an idea comes to you, but the problem is, it cannot come out of nowhere.
There has to be a previous reference to it so that when the reader gets to that point in the story, they can say, oh, yes, I read about that two chapters back, and that was what it was about…
So, back I go, in my time machine and re-write history.
Just to be clear, I didn’t write myself out of existence, which I often wonder in these shows on TV where you can go back, that they do not alter their own timelines.
Of course, I keep forgetting when we watch these shows we’re supposed to suspend belief for the hour. If we could do that in reality, how many of us would make the same mistake, or create a whole new timeline?
The drive down to Sorrento was interesting, not only for the stilted conversation with Francesca but the fact we were being followed. I found it hard to believe they didn’t trust her.
Or, it might be something, or someone, else.
I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want to scare her.
Later, we could have branched off to go to Naples or Pompei, I would certainly want to go to the latter, but time was of the essence. Instead, I drove directly to Sorrento, and it took about three and a half hours, with one small stop on the way for more coffee. And to check out the person who was following us.
I would have liked to look at the scenery but couldn’t.
I had another go at small talk. “Where do you come from?”
She looked round at me with a frown. Was I interrupting her sightseeing? She blinked a lot, so I assumed she was nervous. She didn’t have the red spots on her cheeks now, but I wondered it that was a sign she was angrier.
Then having decided, on what I didn’t know, she said, “Milan. I wanted to be a model, but it didn’t work out.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
“My mother thought it best I get married to a nice man and have children. It seems women, to her, are meant only to be dutiful wives. I had no such aspirations.”
“Then what stopped you?”
“The awful man I picked to be my agent. Wanted me to sleep with him before he took me on. I taught him a lesson he’ll never forget.”
“How did you get to be an art historian?”
“I liked going to art galleries and looking at paintings. I wanted to know more, got into university, and it was fun.”
“And working as a private detective?”
“A friend of my father heard I knew something about old paintings and asked me to come and look at some that had been recovered from a robbery. He thought they were fakes, which they were. Offered me a job, gave me the training, just in case I wanted some variety, and here I am.”
“You just need to work on your surveillance skills and maintaining a low profile.”
“For such a so-called good agent, you were easy to pick up at the airport.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide. There are two ways I could have arrived, the first is so that no one knew I was coming. The second, make a splash, identify the surveillance, and then remove it.”
“And if two men come up to you in the street, throw you into a white van, and drive off…”
“Always be aware of your surroundings.”
“Is that a hint that I should have been looking for anything unusual while on this road trip. If it is a subtle dig, then I would not be surprised if you have already picked up the man in the yellow Fiat three cars back. He;’s been there for a while.”
“Not one of yours?”
“No. Why would there be?”
“Your boss still thinks you’re not clever enough to outwit me.”
“Or I’m smarter than he thinks I am. I’m with you, you’re not considering me a problem, I get to see and do everything you do, that’s pretty smart don’t you think?”
I had to admit if you were to put that spin on what she was doing, it was. I hoped her boss wasn’t an ungrateful sod.
Conversation over, she went back to her phone and worked on a crossword. She changed the radio station to classical music, and I didn’t change it back. It was Ravel’s Bolero, and for some reason it made me think of Cecelia.
“Do you think we should play cat and mouse with our tail?”
“Why would you want to do that.” She gave me a sideways glance that I interpreted as ‘Are you stupid?’
“Just say I have a strange sense of humour.”
With that, I slowed down and pulled off onto the side of the road, and being such a sudden move, my tail didn’t have time to do likewise, and if he did, he would have given himself away.
I watched him drive by, noting that he glanced in our direction as he passed.
I pulled out from the side onto the road after several cars passed, then settled in to follow him. I expected him to pull over and stop, just to see what I would do, but he didn’t.
“What exactly did you achieve?” she said.
“Nothing yet, but the day is young. Once we get to Sorrento, I will not be letting him know where we’re going.”
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
When we first planned to stay in Tuscany for a few days, we wanted to be in a central area. We had thought of staying in Florence and making daily treks, but the tour operator we selected told us it would be better if we stayed closer to Arezzo.
We picked Greve in Chianti, and a place called Antico Pastificio, we booked a standard apartment with two bedrooms, and it was about as authentic Italian you could get. The building we stayed in was the yellow pasta factory, and the apartment named ‘Iris’.
It was only steps away from the main square, shops, restaurants, and at the opposite end, the quaint ringing of church bells at various times during the day.
Gaining access was through a very narrow arch which required some deft driving and then up the road. There were villas and two large apartment blocks.
You can just see the archway at the end of the road. This was the entrance to our room,
along a passage and up the stairs, turning left at the top.
Going straight ahead through the gate to the car park,
and access to the grounds behind the buildings.
This was the view from the lounge/living room. The days were hot, and on several evenings it rained, breaking the heat and making the evenings sitting by the window cool and refreshing.
And the last view is looking towards the town piazza and the church
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
It’s a fact of life that over time people change. Yes, they do keep some of their original characteristics, but a lot of people sometimes wake up, forty years later, and wonder who it is that they are in bed with.
It hasn’t happened to me yet, but the person I married has changed.
We all do.
External influences like workplaces, friends, enemies, attitudes, and even children, all have an influence on who we become. I personally have no idea where the 18-year-old version of me has gone, not that I remember much of him.
So it goes for our hero, David. He has an inkling of who Susan is or was, but so much has changed for her. Her mother is dead, she had been held captive by a madman, drugged and tortured, it would have to affect anyone.
But, then, there are different nuances, so un Susan-like. Little changes he knows she might not partake in, and it is these that start him wondering, what if…
Firstly, she cuts short a planned reunion away in Italy, time for them to reconnect. Yes, she is now head of the family business, yes, she is hanging out with new men in her life, and no, it seems he does not fit into her corporate persona.
