Category: Books

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 37

This is a residential tower down at the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, with every apartment on the beachside overlooking the ocean.

There could almost be a Die Gard scenarion going on here, but I like the idea of a drama unfolding in the penthouse, like

The husband comes home and finds the wife with her personal trainer, who is getting too personal, and he is about to thrown him over the balcony. That’s a long way down.

Uber eats arrive at the door, but it’s really two wannabe ransomers who take the daughter, tie her up, then start making absurd demands, and the daughter almost throws the two of them over the balcony.

But, not one to miss an opportunity, or get her stepmother, who is younger than her, into all sorts of trouble.

The brother of the owner, a single father is killed in a freak accident, and his son has to be taken in, brought back to the penthouse, and thinks he’s struck it rich. The conniving brat is about to be taught a lesson he’ll never forget when he discovers all is not what it seems.

Or my absolute favorite, I win the lottery, move into the apartment, and so do the other 27 layabout members of my family.

Don’t laugh, it happens…

“I was minding my own business when…”, a short story

What do you say, when everything that could be had been said, and then some.

What did marriage counselors know, other than they are right, and you are wrong?

I don’t think either of us, with the same belief, could be wrong.  The marriage was over, and there was no use prolonging the agony.

Except we had to try to at least put some of the pieces back together, if only for the sake of walking away with a sense of closure and peace.

But, peace was the last thing in the atmosphere inside the car, and it had been like that since leaving Vancouver.

There had been a momentary truce in Kamloops where we had to stay, in separate rooms, and polite conversation over breakfast, until I put my foot in my mouth.

Again.

I’m not sure if I knew what to say to her anymore.  To her, everything I said was laced with an agenda or a subliminal plot.  I got it, I’d lied to her once too often, and once she proved one right, and, from there, it didn’t take long for the whole charade to unravel.

I’d been advised against marrying her, that I would not be able to do my job and have some sort of life with Eloise, but I wanted it.

And, fifteen months down the track, my employers had been proved right.
Eloise was driving.  Her parents lived in Banff, and we had made the trip in all of the four seasons, and now winter, she was more used to the icy conditions than I.

It gave me a chance to look at her from my side of the mid-sized SUV.  We were going to take her car, a rather small sedan, but it had broken down, so I hired a Ford Flex.

If you’re going to take on the elements, I wanted a car that could handle the conditions.

In that, I think I’d managed to surprise her, and not in a bad way.

For the first time in a long time.

Then, of course, she had to look sideways, and that ruined it.  The frown followed by the pursed lips.  Something caustic was about to come my way.

Except a very loud bang took us both by surprise, and skewing the car sideways, catching the edge of the ice on the road, and we started spinning.

As good as she was, there would be no containing this calamity.

I looked behind to see what the hell had hit us.

An F350 or RAM 2500, definitely larger than us, definitely deliberate, and definitely with intent to hurt us.

Or me.

My work had finally come home.

There was a scream just on the edge of her terror as the car had spun sideways and the car behind us slammed into it us again, arresting the spin and pushing us towards the edge of the road.

I could see what the pursuer’s intent was.  Down the side, a roll if possible, then pick off the survivors as they scrambled from the wreckage.

Or not have to worry, the roll may do the job for them.
We hit the edge as the other car braked, and we continued on, that stifled scream from Eloise now erupting.

She could see what was going to happen, just as our car tipped.

Six seconds.

Seat belt or not, totally unprepared for what was about to happen, she was not going to walk away from this.

Unless I did something about it.

Seatbelt unhitched I dragged her to me and protected her as best I could.  She didn’t resist, but the look in her eyes, terror laced with something else, no time to think about it now, told me she would do whatever I wanted.

Over on the roof, upside down, I prayed it stayed there, and slide,  The ice, snow, and slush was going to help.

Seconds passed, taking what seemed forever, till we reached the bottom of the hill and hit a rock, arresting the movement with a loud bang and a crunch of bending metal.

Stopped.

Engine still running.

No movement from her.  Yet.

And relief.  No bones were broken, or none that I noticed.

Under me, she stirred.

Just as a bullet smashed the rear passenger window, and the shattered glass splattered the interior.  A moment later, the side window, above my head did the same.
I lifted myself, whispering in her ear, “Slide towards the front window.”  It was buried in the snow and dirt kicked up in the final run to the bottom.  The shooter would not be able to see it, or her.

Above me, I reached up to feel under the seat and found the package.

A gun.  Always be prepared.

Ten seconds since the last shot.  From up top, the shooter would not be able to see us, or any movement.  He was going to have to come down and finish the job.

And hope we were would not be able to fight back.

That was the purpose of running us off the road.

Pity then that he had not been given my file.  If he had he would have driven off and tried again later.

That he was halfway down the hill when I saw him told me this operation had been cobbled together quickly, with no time to find a professional.

And now I knew why Barnes had told me to be careful.

A lone wolf looking to make a name for himself.

And failing.
Ten minutes, the police arrived.

Long enough to bury the body and the weapons under a lot of snow, in a ravine that no one would discover until the thaw.

The car that rammed us had gone.  Soon as he saw his partner go down, he left.  A wise man, he had stayed at the top of the hill, having more sense than his friend.

Live to fight another day,

The policeman asked the questions, and Eloise answered.  Not one mention of being rammed, run off the road, being shot at, or that there was anyone else involved.

As cool as a cucumber.

It took her a minute after I shot our attacker to ask the questions I’d expected a week ago when she finally discovered my other life, prefaced by, “No more lies, just tell me the truth.  What the hell is it you do for a living?”

“Make the world safe for people like you, and in my case right now, for you in particular.  Sorry, I was sworn to secrecy.”

“Even from your wife?”

“Especially from you.  You now know why.”

“Bit late for that now, do you think?”

“Just a little.”

And then I saw the look, the one I had fallen in love with 15 months ago.  The one that made my heart miss a few beats.

“You do realize you are the biggest idiot on the planet, don’t you?”

“Does this mean I can stay?”

She punched me on the arm.,  OK, no broken bones, but there was going to be bruising, major bruising.

“If you promise to tell me only the truth from now on.”

What harm could it do?  She knew enough.

“Good.  We should probably do something with that man out there.  I’m assuming the police do not take too kindly to you working in their jurisdiction.”

Too many thrillers, too much TV, or an educated guess, she was right.  This would be impossible to explain, and Barnes was already angry at me.

I held out my hand and she took it as I helped her out of the wreckage.  Out in the fresh, cold air, she took in a huge breath and let out a slow sigh.

“Is it always this exciting?”

“This is the Sunday in the park stroll.  Wait till you have a hand held rocket boring down on you.”

 

© Charles Heath 2019-2020

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 31

Here’s the thing…

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.

 

Was she insinuating that Alex Benderby killed Jacob Stravinsky?

“Alex is a bully but he’s not a murderer,” I said, and wondering, at the same time, if he had finally graduated to a full-blown bad guy.

“He wouldn’t do it.  Like his old man, they get others to do their dirty work.  I’m sure the significance of Alex being out on his father’s boat was not lost on you.  You asked the questions, and now that I’ve thought about it, it’s possible those divers could have planted the body on Rico’s boat.”

It’s one thing to come up with theories, but it was entirely another to suddenly realize they might be true.  Until this point, I was happy to let Boggs have his dream that one day we might uncover a treasure trove, thinking that it was more fiction than the truth.  It made a good story, one of hope for a person who had had very little of it in the past.

Now, it was becoming horribly true.  What might amount to proof there might be treasure buried somewhere along this coast, an expert being interrogated and then killed, and a pair of what could only be described as gangsters about to start fighting over the spoils and not afraid of killing anyone who got in their way, these were omens, omens not to be ignored.

“Then don’t you think this is far too dangerous to get involved in?  Look what happened to Boggs and I.  We got off lightly if what you say is true.  I’m surprised if this Stravinsky is dead, then why isn’t Boggs?  He had the map, there’s no doubt Vice would assume he had made a copy.  What to stop him from doing the same to Boggs and Benderby did for Stravinsky?”

“Vince is not a clever as Alex.  Vince will never take over the Cossatino clan.  Alex, on the other hand, is the next generation of Benderby thugs.  But I suspect the older Benderby doesn’t know what’s going on.  Not yet anyway.”

My bottle of beer was empty.  Now I think I needed something stronger.  A lot stronger.

There was a knock on the door, which caught us both by surprise.

Are you expecting anyone?” I asked, and in the next second suspected it might be Vince, and I’d been led down the garden path to a place where I really didn’t want to be.

“No.”  She went over to the door and peered through the peephole.

“Damn,” she muttered.

Another, more demanding, knock.

She turned to look at me, “It’s Vince and my father.  I didn’t ask them to come here, and no, I didn’t tell them anything, whatever you might be thinking.”

All I was thinking right then was the coincidence of their arrival and being very afraid.

She opened the door.

Vince barged in almost pushing the door into his sister and stopped when he saw me.  At a more sedate speed, Giuliano Cossatino, Nadia’s father came into the room, and also stopped when he saw me.

There was no mistaking the malice on Vince’s face.   Nadia was right.  He was all muscle and no brain.

The older Cossatino spoke first.  “I see you have a new friend, though I would have thought you’d have better taste in men.”

“Your days of telling me what I can do and not do were over the moment you sent me away.”

“And yet you come back, slinking about like a thief in the night.  Your mother was most upset when you didn’t tell her.”

“The fact I have to, as you call it, slink back, should tell you a lot.”

“That you’re still the idiotic child you were before you went away.”

OK, now I was in the middle of a domestic family standoff.  I was waiting for the order for Vince to throw me out, quite possibly over the balcony for good measure.

“I should leave,” I said standing, “and let you two work it out.”

Vince took another step forward and was now only two paces away.  I’d have to go through him to leave.

“Stay,” Cossatino said.  “I have nothing against you.  Yet.”

“If you’re thinking this is anything but reminiscing about the old days, Mr Cossatino, then you’d be wrong.  There’s nothing between your daughter and I but air.  And,” mustering more bravado than I felt, “call your attack dog off.”

“Or what?”

“You don’t want to find out.”  Where was this coming from?  I was saying the words, but they were not my words.

“I hardly think…”

“That’s probably your biggest fault,” Nadia said, in a tone that suggested she was rapidly losing patience with her father.  

It was clear to me now, she had a hard time of it as a child, not unlike the rest of us, but for different reasons.  The bullying didn’t have to happen at school, but I could see why she had been like she was back then. 

“You never gave me any attention except to treat e like garbage, no, worse than garbage.  I can see nothing has changed.”  Then she switched her attention to Vince.  “And look at you, daddy’s little attack dog, as Sam says.  I’d start worrying Vince, because one day someone’s going to beat the crap out of you, and then you’ll be nothing, just like me.”

Vince only had one expression, so it was difficult to tell if he was worried or not.

Back to her father, “Why are you here?”

I doubt anyone had spoken to him like Nadia just did, and he looked angry.  If I hadn’t been there, I was not sure what would have happened to her.

“Your mother would like to see you.”

“You tell her to grow a backbone first, then when she does, I’ll think about it.  Now get out of my room, or I’ll call the sheriff.  At least he’s not in your back pocket.”

She picked up her phone and made ready to call.

A flick of his head got Vince to back up to the door and open it.

“You will regret this, young lady.”

“And don’t you forget I know where the skeletons are buried, so I’d leave now before some of them start rattling.”

A look of suffused anger flashed across his face, and he took a step forward.  I was not sure what to expect, but Nadia did take a step back.  She knew what he was capable of.

“We need to talk.  Don’t make me wait too long or there’ll be consequences.”

A glare at me, another for his daughter along with a shake of his head, then he left closing the door quietly after him.

I sat down before I fell down.  Nadia visibly wilted.

“I’m sorry about that.  You might have thought twice about threatening Vince.  You know he’ll come after you now.”

“Let him.  I always thought you were close to your father.”

“Daddy’s girl I was not.  Daddy’s biggest disappointment, maybe.”

“You didn’t ask him to come?”

“No.”

“But he didn’t come here to ask you to visit your mother.  It sounded like a last-minute invention.”

“It was.  My real mother is dead, and my stepmother was the reason why I was sent away.  Among other things.  No.  He was here to tell me to get closer to Alex.  It means only one thing.  This treasure hunt is about to get very, very ugly.”

 

 

© Charles Heath 2019

“Strangers We’ve Become” – The final countdown to publishing in 23 days

How not to win friends

…

Here’s the thing

It is far harder for people who are not used to keeping secrets to keep a secret from someone who has been trained to uncover them.

Whilst David had been to the castle before, there seemed to be new people there, as well as those he remembered, and he took an instant dislike to some.  The estate manager, the construction manager, and the cook.

Perhaps the cook was possibly the wrong person to get on the wrong side, but David never had any qualms about rubbing people up the wrong way.  If only he could shoot her and get away with it.

A private tour of the estate would require the subtle sidelining of his shadow, whom he discovers is really part of the surveillance team, and a secret way in and out of the castle, not all that hard because all castles have secret, and not so secret, passageways, and this was no exception.  The construction within the castle walls turns out to be useful camouflage.

But, like any sortie under the eyes of the enemy, he nearly gets caught.

And cops a rebuke from Susan when his shenanigans are reported.

Not that he learns any real intelligence from what seems to be run-of-the-mill repairs and enhancements, though the new stables seem to be much bigger and more sophisticated than he would have thought necessary.

But Susan does like riding, and the estate is large enough to indulge that passion.

…

Searching for locations: On the road to Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

One the first things you notice when driving around Beijing, other than the roads are congested with traffic, is the number of trees and flowers that have been planted, in the median strip as well as along the edges of the road.

What you also notice is the large number of multi-story apartment blocks, which are needed to house the millions of Beijing residents.  What we have, so far, rarely seen, is single-story houses.
These continuous areas of trees and rose bushes are, every now and then, broken up by very colorful garden beds:

Nearer to the square we are able to get up close to the flowers.  These, we are told, are a variation on the rose, one that flowers for nine months of the year.

They come in a variety of colors.

And they are literally everywhere you go, on the side of the roadway, often blotting out the concrete jungle behind them.

NANOWRIMO November 2023 – Day 13

“Opposites Attract”

…

A little time in Emily’s world

…

After the meeting with Mrs Bakersfield is over, our boy realises that Emily is going to be staying with her grandmother until the end.

Perhaps he will be too, but nothing is really set in concrete.

Time to spend a little time with Emily in her world of luxury and privilege.

It’s not what he wants, but he didn’t say no to the limousine ride to the airport, or no to the ride in the corporate jet, or no to the suite he was put in in the hotel.

I mean, only a fool would, wouldn’t they?

He calls his sister Darcy and lets her know that he is swilling it up, for the moment, it won’t last, and she says she is jealous, maybe. 

Then, of course, there are the other members of Emily’s family, especially her stepmother, whom Emily despises, and rather niggardly calls Mrs Winkle, her former married name, and not as Mrs Rothstein, and definitely not Mom.

Our boy is going to take a seat on the sidelines and see just how not happy families get along.

…

Today’s words:  1,965, for a total of 25,541

The cinema of my dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 54

Anna’s arch-enemy

…

I was woken to a bunch of messages arriving on my phone just after the time I’d designated as ‘switch on’.  I had only recently realised the phone had a ‘sleep’ function.

Among the messages was one that said he had arranged for the will matters to be finalised in a week’s time, and that he had organised a stay of proceedings based on what appeared to be legal mumbo jumbo.

It doesn’t matter.  It was the week I needed.

I didn’t have to wake Cecelia; she was an early riser and an exercise freak.  She’d already been out and back, showered and dressed and was ready.

“You have an assignment.”

“From all that stuff we got.  It looked like we needed a lawyer to decipher it.”

“It’s simply given us a week to close this case.  I want you to go to the main Dicostini resident and stake it out.  I suspect you might see some familiar faces before the morning’s out.”

“What are you going to do.”

“Break the news to our three charges, if they’re still there.”

“And you think…”

“We’ll soon find out.”

“Can I take the sniper rifle?”

“Have you got one?”

She just gave me one of those condescending looks of hers.

“Yes.”

“Good.  There might be some prospective big game hunting.”

I showered and dressed and headed over to the hotel where, hopefully, the three women were still waiting.  I guess the fact they might be still in someone’s crosshairs might be incentive enough to sit still.

For them, it was only another day.  I wondered what they were going to sat when I told them it had been put back a week.

When I arrived, they were cooking breakfast, and it appeared they were all good friends, almost as if they were on holiday together.  None seemed to look like they were going out for the day, though Juliet had dressed, so perhaps she was the one going out for supplies.

She was sitting at the table nursing a mug of coffee.  It smelled better than the one I made from the hotel minibar, and I was still slightly annoyed I hadn’t got down to the hotel breakfast room.

“One day to go,” the countess said.

I wondered, in that moment, just who she really was.  To look like the countess, enough to fool the Burkehardt’s she could not be one of the Dicostini family.  Dicostini had gone to a lot of trouble to make this work, including kidnapping and attempted murder.

If he was the one behind the deception.

“That’s what I came to discuss.  There are some legal issues to be ironed out and the signing will not happen for another week.”

The countess looked annoyed.  “Those Burkehardt’s are up to something, trying to find a way around it.  We can’t let that happen.”

“And we won’t.  I’ve alerted your solicitor, and he assures me that he’s on the case, and will be calling on Anna tomorrow.  I saw her yesterday, and whilst she would rather it didn’t happen, she recognises that in the absence of a will, the state determines your claim.  I presume that you searched for a will and couldn’t find one?”

Or more to the point, she had not been there to search for anything, but the real countess had.  What would she have done?  It was a question I’d asked when we finally met.

“Benito?”

“The one and same.  We met, and he seems to me to be quite stodgy.  I can tell him, if I see him, you’re here.”

“No.  I don’t quite trust him, simply because he once worked for the Burkehardt’s and may still have some allegiance towards them.  I’d rather he not know where I am.”

“As you wish.”

I would have thought she if she was the real countess, would want to see him.  Another nail in her coffin.

Juliet handed me a mug, and it had a nice aroma about it.  Our hands touched, and there was a tingle.  Damn her.  Despite everything, she was still in my thoughts, and that was not good.

Especially if I had to shoot her.

I sat next to her at the table.  The others kept cooking breakfast.

“What are you doing with yourself?  I bet that Cecelia type is keeping you amused.”

“She is a colleague.  If I want anything to keep me amused, it’s working out why you are here, and there, and everywhere I go.”

She smiled.  “Serendipity.”

“Or a curse.

“Perhaps it’s fate trying to bring us back together?”

“Why?”

It had been a mismatch and ill-fated relationship the first time around, perhaps one of those things a patient has for their doctor.  She was there, she treated me nicely, and she needed someone to pour out her troubles to.  We mutually kept each other sane.  I was disappointed when I discovered she had gone off the deep end.

But, as Rodby said in his usual pragmatic way, shit happens.

But, the question loitering in the back of my mind was how she could find me when I was so deeply buried in a new persona in a place where no one could possibly find me.

Venice.

“Why are you here?”

“To tell you about the legal proceedings.”

“You could have called.”

“And you should be working for us.  A third degree if I’m not mistaken.”  She was not a fool.  A distracting answer was needed fast.  “I hate to admit this but I was thinking about you last night, and I got it in my head that I had to see you.”  I shrugged.  “Now I have.”

It seemed to assuage her curiosity.  “What’s going to happen after this is over?”

“You’ll get to live happily ever after with your mother.  It had to be what you call serendipity to be reunited with her after all these years?”

“You might think so.”

“You don’t.”

“There’s a reason why she left me behind.  I doubt a leopard is going to change it’s spots.  Once she gets her money she’s gone.”

“What money?”

“On one hand, if she had to verify the countess’s identity, on the other, putting me in the frame as an heir.  I don’t want it, but it is worth quite a lot, and she says I can just sell it and both of us could have the life we were meant to have.”

“You believe her?”

“Everybody in my life has screwed me over, Evan?  What do you think?”

“I think, if you’re rich, I could come and live with you.  That Burkehardt residence is something else, and, it has servants.”  I stood.  “Just a thought.”

I’m not sure what she made of that, but it certainly wasn’t what she was expecting.

© Charles Heath 2023

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

Searching for locations: The remnants of the wall that surrounded Beijing, China

The fortification walls, both an inner wall and an outer wall, surrounding Beijing city were built from the early 1400s to 1553.

The dimensions of the Inner city wall are:
          Length: 24 kilometers or 15 miles
          Height: 25 meters or 49 feet high
          Thickness, at ground level: 20 meters or 66 feet
                            at the top: 12 meters or 29 feet

It had nine gates.  The fortifications included gate towers, archways, watchtowers, barbicans, barbican towers, sluice gates, sluice gate towers, enemy sighting towers, corner guard towers, and a moat system.

The outer city wall had a length of 28 kilometers or 17 miles.

From 1911, after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the dismantling of the fortifications began.

In 1965, major deconstruction of the fortifications was commenced to allow for the construction of the 2nd wrong road, and Line 2 or the Beijing underground railway.

 In 1979, the government called off the demolition of the remaining city walls and named them cultural heritage sites. By this time, the only intact sections were the gate tower and watchtower at Zhengyangmen, the watchtower at Deshengmen, the guard tower at the southeast corner, the northern moats of the Inner city, the section of the Inner city wall south of the Beijing railway station, and a small section of Inner-city wall near Xibianmen.

For more reading, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_city_fortifications

As for our guide’s explanation of the fortifications: Leaving the Square to go to the Golden Mask Dynasty Show, we pass remnants of the wall that used to surround Beijing.

This wall was built in the early 15th century and was about 24 km long, up to 15 meters high and about 20 meters thick, and had nine gates, one of which still exists today.  In 1965 most of it was removed so that the second ring road and an underground railway line could be built.

“Strangers We’ve Become” – The final countdown to publishing in 24 days

David needs a sojourn

…

The Featherington empire has residences in various places, including a castle and estate in the country.

Susan’s mother tolerated it, and Susan hated it.

David thought it was all very Old English.  Since the castle now belonged to Susan, and he was currently her husband, a title that could become very tenuous unless he started behaving like one, he got the notion he could be almost lord of the manor.

But it was not with that intention he was going there.

He just liked the idea of living, if not briefly, in a real castle.

Sadly, the fantasy does not live up to reality, and he is instantly submersed into a new chapter of the ever-evolving conspiracy.

What conspiracy?

It’s old, draughty, almost out of a dream, or nightmare, especially if it had dungeons and he ended up in one, and it brought a whole new cast of characters.

Fiercely loyal to their mistress, and very sceptical of their new master.

An initial inspection shows endless repairs and improvements being undertaken, not unexpected since the place was a few hundred years old, but what was really going on, under the surface?

All he had to do was shake off his constant shadow, as beautiful and she was beguiling, and like everything else, too good to be true.

…