The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 74

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 installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

Charlene after talking to Boggs

…

Charlene was standing in the elevator lobby, with the look of a person who was waiting.

Perhaps she was expecting Boggs to make a run for it, but that was hardly likely since there was a deputy outside the door to his room, a new addition after Charlene had been asked to leave.

“Have you got a few minutes?” It was a question where the only answer was yes, or else.

I was not going to push the ‘or else’ button.

“Of course.”

She led the way to a room that looked to me like a consulting room for doctors, ushered me through then closed the door. She sat behind the desk and left me to sit in an uncomfortable patient’s chair.

While she consulted her notebook, I took the time to think back to school days and the motley group that had been in my graduation year, of which Charlene was one. She too had chosen to stay, despite the lack of post-graduation opportunities, and it was no surprise she ended up in the police, having once had the ambition of becoming an investigative journalist. It was no surprise then she was now a detective in training.

She left the notebook open on a blank page and gave me her attention. “So, what have you been doing with yourself since school?”

An odd question to ask, but in her mind, I suspect it was an opening gambit to set the interviewee’s mind at rest, a veritable calm before the storm.

Odd also because she knew what happened as well as anyone, her father, the Sherriff, Being an occasional visitor at my mother’s house, an obligation he felt after my father passed.

Other than that, we had run into each other from time to time since leaving school but she had never shown any interest on any of those occasions.

“Relevance?”

“Just curious.”

“I’m sure your father may have mentioned our family circumstances, so if you’re looking for information on Boggs, come out and say so, don’t try to feign interest in my welfare.”

Perhaps that was a little harsh, and certainly not how I wanted it to sound, but she had written an op-ed in the town newspaper reviling her contemporary’s lack of enthusiasm to get a job, and rather become the problem, not the solution to the counties economic woes.

She looked taken aback, not expecting such a response. Her expression changed, more resolute. “Boggs is looking at an array of charges. What was he doing there? You’re his friend, I’m sure he confides in you.”

“Hoe little you know what bring a friend means, but for the record, we were once, but like he said, my cavorting with Nadia put an end to that.”

“Before that, then.”

“You know as well as I do what the Boggs’s are about, father and son alike.”

“He was looking for fabled treasure.”

“Scaling a rock face? I hardly think so. He does rock climbing, caving, and a variety of things I have no interest in. The Grove shoreline has some of the best rock climbing in the state. The question you should be asking is how did such an experienced climber finish up half-dead on the beach.”

I wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

“What were you doing on the beach when you discovered him?”

“Cavorting with Nadia.”

It sounded salacious, and I wished on that moment it had been. It provided the distraction I needed and made me consider her next gambit because I think I knew why we were in that room.

After a moment or two of silence, I added, “No chance of pinning a trespass charge on me then.”

She took a deep breath, a sigh from a person who knew she was not making any headway, or however she thought this conversation was going to go, it had been blown off course.

“Look, I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying to do my job and find out what happened. We have no problem with Boggs’s conducting a treasure hunt, so long as he doesn’t break the law. Old man Cossatino said Boggs was trespassing, which technically, he was. Do you know why Boggs would think the treasure is located on The Grove?”

“It’s not.”

Time to diffuse this line of questioning.

“You know this or you’re just guessing?”

“There is no treasure, just the Cossatino’s promoting a myth. Pirates may have sailed by, but I’m sure this wasn’t the place to leave their booty. There’s plenty of once uninhabited islands in the Caribbean they could have used.”

“In other words, you really have no idea?”

“I’m a realist, and I’ve told Boggs he should be one too.”

“I hope that will include telling him that trespass is a crime, and if he keeps doing it, we will be forced to arrest and charge him.”

“I’ll tell him anything you want me to.”

“Just that.”

A thought popped into my head, one I probably should have thought of earlier, or perhaps it was because an opportunity presented itself.

The mall, and Alex.

“I have a tip for you, one that might help the case of the dead professor on Rico’s boat. First of all, Rico didn’t do it.”

“He has form and he’s done something similar before.”

“Kill a professor?”

“Shakedown a mark with violence. Only this time he went too far.”

I shook my head. “He didn’t do it. No, that more in Alex Benderby’s department.”

“Alex. You must be kidding. He just acts tough.”

I shrugged. “Being naive about Alex will get you into trouble. Alex is anything but harmless, and I can attest to that, school days and beyond. But, here’s some advice you might want to act on before the evidence is destroyed. There’s a room in the mall on the second level where the mall cops hung out. Back of the second one along there’s a safe. At the back of the top desk drawers, there is a post-it note with the combination. I think that’s where you will find a diary that the professor had before it was taken off him.”

“How do you know about this.”

“I overhead a conversation, remember I work for the Benderby’s and in Alex’s domain, the warehouse.”

“You know what they say about eavesdroppers…”

I shook my head again. “Did the professor’s autopsy and the analysis of the boat show he was killed there?”

That question was met with a furrowed brow, but there was enough expression change to tell me he wasn’t killed on the boat.

“You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

“Don’t have to. You’re going to need to work on your poker face. I think that Alex lured the professor down here with the pirate’s diary perhaps offering a large sum of money as an incentive to share, and when he wouldn’t play nice, they encouraged him to change his mind. I suspect they tried too hard, and the old professor had a heart attack. Alex never was the patient type.”

“It makes a good story.”

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. I’ll have a go at trying to dissuade Boggs from anything illegal, but you know what the lure of fabulous riches can do. Is the case of Boggs’s father still open?”

“If you mean, is it a cold case, yes, but there’s very little to go on. The evening before he disappeared, he proclaimed he’d found the final resting place of the treasure trove, though he didn’t exactly say where. At the time he was working for Cossatino, making treasure maps for the gullible. Later, outside the hotel in the car park, he was confronted by one of those gullible people, who demanded his money back, a scuffle then fight broke out. By the time the fight was broken up by a passing patrol, we believe that Boggs had sustained severe injuries, serious enough that it’s possible he died of them after blacking out or falling to his death. They dredged the river from the hotel to the sea, but it may have been too late, and he’d been swept of to sea on the tide. The other guy was charged, held in connection with Boggs’s disappearance, but ultimately released through lack of evidence or a body. There may never be a resolution, nor Boggs ever being found, a sad state of affairs for the family.”

It was a sad tale, but one with some information I’d not heard before, and I didn’t think Boggs knew, or I’d he did, had failed to tell me. The fight in the car park, and the fact it could have led to his death. I guess that didn’t fit well with the treasure hunter myth that Boggs junior had built up about his father.

Being killed by a disgruntled punter was not exactly fit the Boggs ethos.

“Not exactly a fitting end, was it?”

“Defrauding people is not exactly going to make you friends, especially when the maps are fake, and they’re all different, purportedly made by the same pirate. He knew what he was doing, and ultimately paid for it.”

Cold, but true.

“Then let’s hope Boggs doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. I hope you consider investigating the mall room because I think you’re going to find something there, even if it doesn’t directly point the finger at Alex.”

“I’ll tell the sheriff, it’s ultimately his decision, not mine.”

“Good. Now, if you have finished, I have a job to go to.”

…

The 2am Rant: My grandchildren are now working in their first job

It’s hard to believe that both the 20-year-old and the 17-year-old have joined the workforce and started on their path of working for the next 50 to 60 years. The 14-year-old is about to start in the next few weeks. How quickly they grow up.

They seem quite amused at the thought, and not without reason, and are not really considering the idea. Not yet, anyway.

The novelty is still quite new, and it has a sense of excitement, but this will no doubt wear off in the coming months. After all, as new workers, they only have to do between 3 and 5-hour shifts.

I guess the fact they decided to work at such a young age reminded me of my experience, way back when I was the same age.

Unlike them, who will be afforded to opportunity to remain in school to the end, Year 12, and possibly the chance to go to University, in my case we did not have the money to continue education beyond Year 10, and there was no question of ever going to University. Only the rich could afford that, and we were anything but rich.

Instead, I guess hating school helped facilitate my departure, and the notion that I would have to pay my own way forced me into working.

Of course, it helped to live in a small country town, and my father had a job that brought him in contact with everyone who was anyone and thus got offers to work in whatever profession I chose.

I ended up in the Post Office, what I considered the easiest of jobs, originally employed as a telegram delivery boy, and mail collector from the post boxes scatted about the town. As you can imagine, there were not many telegrams to deliver, so other duties included sorting mail, and then mail delivery. Yes, I became a postman!

Then, after a few months, I became the night switchboard operator, and with a host of other operators, had some of the most interesting and varied conversations imaginable.

It was a bit of a wrench when we finally moved from the country town back to the city.

When we did, my father bought a small business, and for a year or so, I became a shop assistant.

That lasted for a year or two until I was 17. Realising that a lack of education was going to make it difficult to ever get a good-paying job, I took the opportunity to go back to night school while I had the chance, and it necessitated finding another job to help pay for it.

That was packing books for a wholesale bookseller, part of a small team hidden away in the basement of a very old building. It might not be the best-paying job or the best working conditions, but I suspect it was the universe telling me something.

That job, and being surrounded by books started me off on a journey of reading and eventually writing.

What I learned about writing: Writers must read

If there is one thing I cannot resist is walking into a book store wherever it might be.

It usually elicits a groan from everyone I’m with because for them, watching grass grow is a more fascinating exercise.

But…

The best bookshops are the pop-up ones that appear in various shopping centres where there are empty spaces, and these have a wide variety of books for just $7 each.

And there are lots of bargains…

As you can see, I have been on a few bargain hunts lately and like any writer’s room, tucked away with the boxes of drinks, gardening equipment and everything else that just doesn’t fit in the house, are the piles of books awaiting being put into the shelves

As you can see, the shelves are almost full so it’s going to be an uphill battle to find spaces for them.

By the way, there are eight such book cases on the surrounding walls, as well as a new one, recently discarded from the lounge room, to house the reference books

Along with a few stuffed bears.

The job of putting books on shelves falls to the grandchildren, whom I am trying to convince that when they get older, they should too embrace the idea of having a reading room, which my writing room will also be when I eventually get to throw out the accumulation of years of discarded homewares.

Perhaps one day next year…

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 227/228

Days 227 and 228 – Writing Exercise

…

In my opinion, security was only as good as the people charged with maintaining it.

I had a security Chief, and he had minions. I was not interested in the who, only that when he told me the house and grounds were secure, they were.

If you were to ask me, total security was impossible. No one could be relied on to be one hundred percent focussed on the job, not when there were so many distractions.

I didn’t expect miracles. I simply expected a modicum of professionalism.

In that I was disappointed.

…

I lived alone.

I never used to, but sadly the woman I married was not who I expected her to be.

Discreet.

I didn’t mind if she had other friends, so long as it never became public. Even then it might not have bothered me, but it being a business rival, and involving stolen secrets, that was a step too far.

We did not part amicably.

And I don’t think I would ever trust another woman with any part of my life other than as an amiable acquaintance.

Thus my life, as described in a recent Sunday newspaper magazine article about me, was reclusive and a ‘frightful waste of an eligible bachelor’.

It was the last thing I considered myself to be, but it didn’t stop certain people from extolling the virtues of their unmarried daughters, or my friends from finding some available friends of theirs as a blind date.

They said it was a shame I didn’t have, at the very least, a full-time companion to accompany me as a plus one.

I actually thought that myself.

It was, in fact, the very reason I was still awake at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling and asking a rhetorical question: what was wrong with me?

And it was quiet enough to just hear a slight bump, like a book falling onto the floor.

Or it could have been my imagination.

Or it could have been once the clod hopper security guards doing his rounds in the dark.

Not for the first time.

I was awake anyway, so I must as well go down and see what was going on. I’d been meaning to talk to Jameson, my head of security, and the guards assigned to the night shift.

I changed into gym clothes and shoes and, keeping the lights off, did my best to creep downstairs, remembering to avoid the fifth, eleventh and twentieth steps because they creaked.

The door to the study was ajar. That was not how I left it. Obviously the security guard had come and gone without shutting the door after him.

I was going to pull it shut when I decided I would go in, finish some business and then try to get some sleep.

I stepped in, shut the door behind me and switched on the light.

It was a surprise – no, more of a shock – to see I was not alone, and my companion was not a security guard but an intruder. Dressed in black from head to foot.

There was only one way in and out: the door. The windows didn’t open, though I had been contemplating changing that.

My eyes might have been playing tricks, but I swear my intruder was a woman.

She looked at me. Surprise, but not fear.

Did she have a companion somewhere? I would have to be careful. I said, “Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the police.”

“I haven’t stolen anything yet.”

It was a woman. Youngish.

“What were you after?”

I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with a thief who might turn violent at any moment.

“Not sure yet. Something of value. You’re that rich you wouldn’t miss it.”

“What if it had sentimental value?”

“You people don’t have hearts, just bank vaults. You wouldn’t know what sentimental is.”

“And you do?”

“It comes with being poor.”

I looked her up and down. Nothing about her screamed poorhouse. I recognised the outfit as being one the women wore at the gym I visited once a month. They were not inexpensive clothes she was wearing.

I shrugged. “Do you want me to give you a million pounds so you can become one of us, the un-sympathetics.”

“That would be a cop out and wouldn’t count.”

“Would you like me to find something worth a million pounds to leave with and become one of us?”

“The fence wouldn’t give me face value. It would have to be worth a lot more, but even then I’d get screwed over the interpretation of what its value is.”

“I could come with you…”

She laughed. “I see what this is. You keep chatting while the security or police come. I’d better go.”

“Empty-handed?”

“Shit happens. Especially to me. Your security is shit too. I’d sack the lot of them and get someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Like you?”

“You’re annoying, you know that?”

“It’s been said. Call me in the morning; we can talk about a job.”

She simply shook her head and barged past me on her way out.

The aroma of lavender lingered long after she had gone.

…

It was probably the most honest conversation I’d had with someone under the age of 50. I was still sitting behind the desk in my study, trying to imagine what it was she was after.

It was not just random objects worth money.

She had been sent to get something specific. It meant she would be back to try again. Or someone else who wouldn’t leave without it.

At eight, I went out to the cottage just inside the front gate where the head of security lived and ran his operation. He had been recommended to me, and when interviewed had talked the talk

Now I had a breach.

I knocked; he seemed surprised to see me.

“Sir? You up and about early.”

“What happened last night?”

He was about to say nothing but must have caught the edge of my tone.

“I heard there might have been a breach in the main house. This morning the monitors are down, and a quick check shows some of the leads have been cut. No alarms were disabled or triggered. How did you know?”

“I had a conversation with a possible cat burglar last night. I checked, and she hadn’t taken anything, but had she not dropped something on the floor, I would not have discovered her in the house.”

He invited me in, and we went to the control room.

His man was idly watching about ten screens.

“When was this?” He asked.

“About half past one in the morning.”

There were more cameras than screens. The operator ran through the camera feeds from one in the morning to two, in fast-forward, and when he got to camera 16, overlooking the area that led up to the patio that adjoined mt study, a blurry figure in dark clothing was barely discernible against the dark background.

It was as if they knew the limitations of the system.

You would not have seen it unless you were looking for it, and four hours into the night shift, your attention wandering towards the land of nod. But odd, no alarms went off

It explained how the intruder got into my study.

And earned a termination notice for the night operator, and an apology. It would have been moot if I’d been killed.

“I’ll see that it never happens again.”

I just glared at him and went back to the manor house.

…

I had breakfast in the drawing room, also a reading room, and where I took friends and relatives when they visited. It was much more informal than the room we used for formal guests

This morning it was just Elsie, the breakfast server, and I, though I preferred to put food on my own plate, let her pour the coffee, and let her scowl at me when I did let her do her job.

“I heard there was a prowler.”

News travelled fast in a house like mine.

“A charming young lady cat burglar. I asked her if she wanted a job.” I took a plate back to the table, and she followed with the coffee. I waited until she poured a cupful.

“Why would you?”

“She circumvented our security system.”

“Anyone could.” Then she realised what she said. “Sorry, I didn’t quite mean it like that.”

She did, but I’d let it pass. Elsie was prone to speaking before thinking, sometimes an endearing quality. The housekeeper, Mrs Jones, wanted to let her go, but I liked her, so she stayed.

A knock on the door. Abigail, one of two personal assistants, put her head in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a caller who says she wants to finish what you started earlier this morning.”

The cat burglar. Now that was a surprise. She came over and gave me the cell phone. Both women left the room.

“Miss Burglar,” I said, “What can I do for you?”

“You mean what you said earlier?”

“Subject to a satisfactory interview, yes.”

“Where do I meet you?”

“Back here. Only this time, don’t try to break in. I have a front door; you can knock on it, and someone will answer it.”
–
“Later, then.”

She disconnected the call.

My first thought, she needed better access to steal whatever it was she needed to. It meant she was not doing this because she wanted to, but because she had to. Which meant someone had leverage.

My day just got less boring.

…

Just Jennifer arrives shortly before lunch, driving a beat-up Mini, a more modern version of an old Morris Mini I once drove.

She parked it with a flourish outside the front door, scuffing up the gravel surface and incurring a few wrathful remarks from the head gardener, a rather irascible Irishman called O’Rafferty.

She came to the front door, and Riley, the head of the household and head butler, answered it. He did not suffer fools gladly, nor any others.

He had an old blunderbuss which he used to threaten church hawkers and door-to-door salesmen. I had to bail him out of jail once.

He escorted Just Jennifer to the lunch room, which was still the drawing room used for all daytime meals, and afternoon high teas.

He announced her as Just Jennifer, told her to enter, and then closed the doors behind him. Elsie was standing by the servery, fully aware of who Just Jennifer was.

Just Jennifer looked around the room, at Elsie in her finest morning servery clothes, the array of food and then me.

“This is ridiculous. Do you know how many starving people there are?”

“Within the 10-mile radius of this house, yes. We provide meals for as many who ask, as well as school lunches for every child who wants one. Whatever is not used is given to several nearby homeless shelters where staff volunteer their services. I visit them when I can.”

I said that not for the idea of getting acknowledgement; very few people were aware of what we did, and I preferred to keep it that way. Someone once told me I couldn’t save the world, but I could help those nearby.

“I’m disappointed,” she said.

Surprising. ‘Why?”

“Because I wanted to believe you were a heartless bastard.”

“It’s a free world.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

I shook my head.

“Sit down and tell Elsie what you want, and she’ll get it for you.”

“I can do it myself.”

“That’s what I said, and Elsie took it badly. She likes her job, and she’s very good at it. And gets more appreciation than she did when she worked in a snobby men’s club in London.” I looked over in her direction, and she made a face that was less than the scowl she wore five minutes ago.

Just Jennifer sat and told Elsie what she would like.

Elsie served her first, then poured me a fresh cup of tea, then went back to her station.

“Is this what it’s like all the time?”

“No. Sometimes I go down to the London residence. Sometimes I go away for the weekend, you know, a change of scenery.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

“What woman could put up with all of this?”

“I could.”

“For about a week, yes. A month tops. Then you slowly go mad. You love the idea of it. That novelty wears off very quickly, once the media get a hold of you and then never let you alone.”

“If I work for you?”

“They’ll just ignore you. Maybe as the hired help some enterprising reporter will offer you a large sum of money to betray me.”

“How big a pile?”

“A hundred to a thousand pounds. They seem to think that’s a lot of money to someone like their impression of impoverished employees being taken advantage of.”

“What sort of job would you give me, given you know my talent? And how much?”

“Are you looking for a job?”

“Since I failed last night, yes. How quick people are to condemn you after one failure.”

“We live in a fickle world. The job: personal bodyguard, which means basically all day, every day. The pay: you get to live and eat free wherever we go, a dress allowance because you have to look the part, and an offshore account where you can deposit money for your retirement. A lot of money. I am buying your discretion.”

“No time off?”

“When nothing’s happening, yes, plenty of time off. Which happens more often than not. You have to sign an NDA, and not break it. Everyone who works for me does.”

“Nothing bad; I have a line I don’t cross.”

I would like to see that line because breaking and entering and stealing seemed pretty bad to me.

“Nothing bad. I hire an assassin to take care of those problems.”

She looked horrified.

“I don’t, but it’s a thought. Some of those reporters cross lines and get away with literal murder. I guess it goes with the territory. You need time to think?”

“Over a second sandwich, perhaps.” She looked at Elsie and nodded.

…

I didn’t believe for a moment she had come for a job, or that her one mistake had cost her her reputation.

She had come on a pretext, and hoping I’d be foolish enough to show her around. It wasn’t the first subject she broached, but it came after the second sandwich.

And I hated to admit I liked her audacity. Whatever she had been looking for, she had run out of time and needed a second visit. And a list of possible places.

After all, I did have three separate safes in different places, scattered about the manor house, excluding a smaller one in my room. I kept a gun there.

Just in case.

But as for what she was after, I couldn’t guess. I was surprised I hadn’t got a call from Proctor, head of the London residence, about any break-ins.

I spoke to the lawyers earlier, and he said that it was probably an art thief, and that there were several canvases that were worth a lot to private collectors.

It had to be that.

I took her on a tour of the house and showed her the art collection, including the expensive pieces, but she didn’t seem that interested, or acted the part very well. I did notice the surreptitious glances at the internal CCTV cameras and security within the house. Maybe later I would ask her where the pitfalls were.

We ended up back in the drawing room, now cleared and back to being just a drawing room.

Abigail was waiting for me, a pensive expression meaning there was a problem.

“Can I have a private moment?”

“Is it top secret stuff?”

I knew what it was about, and it wasn’t.

“Not particularly.”

“Then don’t worry about Jennifer. What is it?”

“Your plus one for tomorrow night. Miss James is unable to get back in time from Santorini. Shall I tell them you will be going alone?”

“Who can resist the Greek Islands in Summer?”

I looked over at Jennifer, who was trying her best to appear like she was ignoring us. “Fancy going to a boring party.” I looked at Abigail. “Whose birthday is it again?”

“Lord Berenson.”

“Ah, yes. Lady Berenson had been trying to get me to take an interest in Tabitha.”

“It’s about time you settled down.”

“You are starting to sound like my mother.”

“She asked me to look after you.”

“And you have.” I turned back to Jennifer, who was now looking at us. “Care to go as my plus one. It’d give you an excellent look at how the job would work, or not.”

“A plus one is not a bodyguard.”

“It is if you don’t want anyone to know you’re a bodyguard.”

Abigail simply shook her head. “Let me know what you decide.” And left.

“Who is she?”

“My principal private secretary, and de facto mother, apparently. Are you interested in going? We’ll have to get you a dress because it’s a proper to-do, and dancing. You do dance?”

“What sort of dancing?”

“Stuff an orchestra produces. There’s no dangling disco balls and loud thumping noise that passes for music. The cream of society will be there. If you decide not to stay with me, you can research other wealthy prospects.”

“I’m done with that.”

“Are you in or out?”

“One night to test the water. See if I like it or hate it.”

“Great.” I picked up the phone and called Abigail.

…

I wasn’t sure what sort of game I was playing, only that it could end badly.

But it wouldn’t be any worse than the last time I was disappointed, given that I was the subject of the deception.

Maybe I wanted to unmask her.

Maybe I liked what I couldn’t have.

Maybe I was just tired of the life I was pretending to lead. I understood now why my father collapsed under the weight of responsibility, trying to be everything all at once, and ending up master of nothing.

It was easy to say that I had to be an example to everyone. That I learned quickly was impossible.

That I wanted to marry a simple girl with simple tastes and live in a simple house … no, none of that was possible. Not when you have millions of people perched on your shoulders waiting for you to stumble.

My older brother ended his own life buried under the pressure of expectation, and my sister disappeared to New Zealand, leaving me the mess to clean up. My parents died of natural causes, way before they should have.

I looked around the room and remembered that morning before my brother died, looking every bit the normal, self-controlled businessman who could absorb any amount of pressure and come out smiling.

I had no idea what he intended to do, only that a call from the police the next morning saying they had found him dead in his apartment. An overdose. He had never taken drugs in his life. At least not that I ever knew about.

I closed my eyes, then opened them.

Just Jennifer was still there. Looking a million pounds in the dress Abigail had ‘found’ and sent for a fitting.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jennifer had tried not to show any feelings until the dress arrived. One look, I thought, and she was hooked. It was like Cinderella at the ball.

“It’s a peek into a world I could never be a part of. All I’ve ever seen is the photos in magazines.”

“The photos lie. That world is full of bitter and nasty people who look down on everyone. Well, most of them. You don’t get to be as wealthy as they are without smashing a few heads along the way.”

“Do you?”

“I represent old money. My forebears smashed the heads for me. I just direct where it goes, the custodian till the next generation.”

“You have no children.”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of relatives who want me dead so they can claim the inheritance.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’ll have your bodyguard close.”

“They fix up a room for you?”

“It’s bigger than my flat, and that’s just the bedroom. It’s like living in a fairy tale.”

I thought that too when I was old enough to realise where I’d landed.

It was late, and it had been a long day. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Trying to think about exactly what Jennifer was after was doing my head in.

I had hoped that keeping her close she might let something slip, but she had dodged all my questions so deftly I had to admit she might be smarter than me.

I had even considered the possibility she was an assassin hired by the obscure members of the family to kill me so they could get their hands on the inheritance.

The idea of inviting her into my room seemed just a little too forward, and a typical male thing when it came to considering a relationship, much the same as some would after a night in a pick-up bar, something I would never do.

My brother was one who fervently believed that was where he would find the woman of his dreams, rather than the austere and matronly types our mother found for us. Nobility, she said, must marry nobility, her being the daughter of a Count.

I agreed with my brother, only I didn’t have his confidence, or his nerve to simply ask a woman if she wanted to have sex with him.

If she did come in, what would I do? It was as much on my mind as why she was here.

Closer to just before dawn, I was lying in the dark, looking at objects just barely illuminated by the glow of the digital numbers on the clock.

The door cracked a little before it opened just enough to let a slim body pass. It closed again, silently.

I hoped death would be swift and silent.

Her white nightdress attracted the green light of the clock, enough to show part of her. She stopped beside the bed, between the clock and me and looked down.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?”

Of course. She had been listening for rhythmic breathing.

“How can I possibly sleep with you just down the corridor?”

“It should be easy. I don’t mean anything to you.”

“Except as a plus one. Why are you here? To drive a dagger into the devil’s heart?”

“I thought we established you were heartless?”

I reached out and took her hand in mine. I could feel a slight tremor, though that could have been me as much as her. It has been a while since the last time I was this intimately involved. Or not.

She didn’t pull her hand away.

“Really, why are you here?”

“Morbid fascination. I didn’t come to steal anything. I just wanted to see your house, the life you lead, the person you are, not what they write about you in the media. You frightened me when you found me. I thought you would call the police and have me arrested. You didn’t. That’s when I knew I had to see you again. I’m nobody.”

“Well, later today you’ll be somebody. If you want to be somebody. I’m not joking when I say that your life could change dramatically, and not for the better. There’s always a cost; it’s whether you want to pay it. I have no choice. You do.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“There’s a lot of that going around. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Let me stay for a bit. I’m sure I heard ghosts rattling in the corridor.”

“It’s possible. I’ve heard a few strange things in my time here. Probably my disapproving parents. Sure. There’s room for four in this bed.”

She pulled back the covers and slipped in. There was space between us.

“I’m not carrying a hidden weapon. It’s not possible in this nightdress I was given, and I don’t bite. I reserved that for my sisters who were horrible to me for a long time.”

“Are you a car burglar?”

“Not a very good one. You were my first victim. And probably my last. I’m thinking of taking up a career of being a plus one. I’ll let you know how that goes. Tomorrow, or perhaps it’s now, later today.”

She rolled over, facing away from me, then moved closer, then took my hand and held it closer to her.

“Good night.”

The only thought I had was that if she had come to kill me, I’d be dead now. Either from a knife, but more likely from having a heart attack.

It was an interesting thought.

…

In a word: Holiday

Some call time off from work whether it is for a day, a few days, a couple of weeks, or maybe longer, a holiday.

Or leave, leave of absence, annual leave, or long service leave.

Others may call it a vacation.

It depends on what part of the world you live in.

But the end result is the same, you do not go to work, so you stay home and do all those things that have mounted up, you drive up, and for some reason, it is always up, to the cabin, for a little hunting shooting fishing, or you get on a plane or a ship and try to get as far away from home and work as possible.

That’s called going overseas. It seems if there is an ocean between where you go and where you live, no one will be able to disturb you.

Sorry, I bet you didn’t leave that mobile phone or iPad at home did you?

But, of course, there are a few other obscure references to the word holiday.

For instance,

It can be a day set aside to commemorate an event or a person, a day when you are not expected to work, e.g. Memorial Day, Christmas Day, or Good Friday. In Britain, they used to be called Bank Holidays.

It can be a specified period that you may be excused from completing a task or doing something such as getting a one-year tax exemption, which might also be called a one-year tax holiday.

Yes, now that is an obscure reference, particularly when no tax department would ever grant anyone an exemption of any sort.

An excerpt from “Strangers We’ve Become” – Coming Soon

I wandered back to my villa.

It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door, so I could see to unlock it.

I looked up and saw that the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup, and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.

Who?

There were four hiding spots, and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.

I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.

But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbour and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

There were three entrances to the villa: the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room, which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.

It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were in the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.

The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa, behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I moved aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.

I closed the door after me and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage, which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.

I stepped into the darkness and closed the door.

I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.

Silence, an eerie silence.

I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.

I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.

That raised the question of who told them where I was.

If I were the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.

Or was I?

I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.

Still nothing.

I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked, and where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door. If I were not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk in. One shot would be all that was required.

Contract complete.

I sidled quietly up the passage, staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.

And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.

I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me, and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.

I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!

I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.

I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.

“Who employed you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today, my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed, and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.

Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect the dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.

A half-hour passed, and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

Two thoughts: it was either the police, alerted by the neighbours, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?

I stood and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.

If it were the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.

No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.

“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.

When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”

I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”

I looked at my arm and realised it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.

“You need to go away now.”

Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she were any sort of law-abiding citizen, she would go straight to the police.

She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”

I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”

“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”

“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”

The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.

I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.

I expected her to scream. She didn’t.

She gave me a good, hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.

“What happened here?”

“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed, though I was not sure why it might interest her.

She helped me remove my shirt and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.

When she’d finished, she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”

No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.

“Alisha?”

“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”

“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”

She smiled. “As you say, I was never here.”

…

Another excerpt from ‘Betrayal’; a work in progress

…

My next destination in the quest was the hotel we believed Anne Merriweather had stayed at.

I was, in a sense, flying blind because we had no concrete evidence she had been there, and the message she had left behind didn’t quite name the hotel or where Vladimir was going to take her.

Mindful of the fact that someone might have been following me, I checked to see if the person I’d assumed had followed me to Elizabeth’s apartment was still in place, but I couldn’t see him. Next, I made a mental note of seven different candidates and committed them to memory.

Then I set off to the hotel, hailing a taxi. There was the possibility that the cab driver was one of them, but perhaps I was slightly more paranoid than I should be. I’d been watching the queue, and there were two others before me.

The journey took about an hour, during which time I kept an eye out the back to see if anyone had been following us. If anyone was, I couldn’t see them.

I had the cab drop me off a block from the hotel and then spent the next hour doing a complete circuit of the block the hotel was on, checking the front and rear entrances, the cameras in place, and the siting of the driveway into the underground carpark. There was a camera over the entrance, and one we hadn’t checked for footage. I sent a text message to Fritz to look into it.

The hotel lobby was large and busy, which was exactly what you’d want if you wanted to come and go without standing out. It would be different later at night, but I could see her arriving about mid-afternoon, and anonymous among the clientele the hotel attracted.

I spent an hour sitting in various positions in the lobby simply observing. I had already ascertained where the elevator lobby for the rooms was, and the elevator down to the car park. Fortunately, it was not ‘guarded’, but there was a steady stream of concierge staff coming and going to the lower levels, and, just from time to time, guests.

Then, when there was a commotion at the front door, what seemed to be a collision of guests and free-wheeling bags, I saw one of the seven potential taggers sitting by the front door. Waiting for me to leave? Or were they wondering why I was spending so much time there?

Taking advantage of that confusion, I picked my moment to head for the elevators that went down to the car park, pressed the down button, and waited.

There was no car on the ground level, so I had to wait, watching, like several others, the guests untangling themselves at the entrance, and keeping an eye on my potential surveillance, still absorbed in the confusion.

The doors to the left car opened, and a concierge stepped out, gave me a quick look, then headed back to his desk. I stepped into the car, pressed the first level down, the level I expected cars to arrive on, and waited what seemed like a long time for the doors to close.

As they did, I was expecting to see a hand poke through the gap, a latecomer. Nothing happened, and I put it down to a television moment.

There were three basement levels, and for a moment, I let my imagination run wild and considered the possibility that there were more levels. Of course, there was no indication on the control panel that there were any other floors, and I’d yet to see anything like it in reality.

With a shake of my head to return to reality, the car arrived, the doors opened, and I stepped out.

A car pulled up, and the driver stepped out, went around to the rear of his car, and pulled out a case. I half expected him to throw me the keys, but the instant glance he gave me told him he was not the concierge, and instead he brushed past me like I wasn’t there.

He bashed the up button several times impatiently and cursed when the doors didn’t open immediately. Not a happy man.

Another car drove past on its way down to a lower level.

I looked up and saw the CCTV camera, pointing towards the entrance, visible in the distance. A gate that lifted up was just about back in position, then clunked when it finally closed. The footage from the camera would not prove much, even if it had been working, because it didn’t cover the lift lobby, only what was in the direction of the car entrance.

The doors to the other elevator car opened, and a man in a suit stepped out.

“Can I help you, sir? You seem lost.”

Security, or something else. “It seems that way. I went to the elevator lobby, got in, and it went down rather than up. I must have been in the wrong place.”

“Lost it is, then, sir.” I could hear the contempt for Americans in his tone. “If you will accompany me, please.”

He put out a hand ready to guide me back into the elevator. I was only too happy to oblige him. There had been a sign near the button panel that said the basement levels were only to be accessed by the guests.

Once inside, he turned a key and pressed the lobby button. The doors closed, and we went up. He stood, facing the door, not speaking. A few seconds later, he was ushering me out to the lobby.

“Now, sir, if you are a guest…”

“Actually, I’m looking for one. She called me and said she would be staying in this hotel and to come down and visit her. I was trying to get to the sixth floor.”

“Good. Let’s go over to the desk and see what we can do for you.”

I followed him over to the reception desk, where he signalled one of the clerks, a young woman who looked and acted very efficiently, and told her of my request, but then remained to oversee the proceeding.

“Name of guest, sir?”

“Merriweather, Anne. I’m her brother, Alexander.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my passport to prove that I was who I said I was. She glanced cursorily at it.

She typed the name into the computer, and then we waited a few seconds while it considered what to output. Then, she said, “That lady is not in the hotel, sir.”

Time to put on my best-confused look. “But she said she would be staying here for the week. I made a special trip to come here to see her.”

Another puzzled look from the clerk, then, “When did she call you?”

An interesting question to ask, and it set off a warning bell in my head. I couldn’t say today, it would have to be the day she was supposedly taken.

“Last Saturday, about four in the afternoon.”

Another look at the screen, then, “It appears she checked out Sunday morning. I’m afraid you have made a trip in vain.”

Indeed, I had. “Was she staying with anyone?”

I just managed to see the warning pass from the suited man to the clerk. I thought he had shown an interest when I mentioned the name, and now I had confirmation. He knew something about her disappearance. The trouble was, he wasn’t going to volunteer any information because he was more than just hotel security.

“No.”

“Odd,” I muttered. “I thought she told me she was staying with a man named Vladimir something or other. I’m not too good at pronouncing those Russian names. Are you sure?”

She didn’t look back at the screen. “Yes.”

“OK, now one thing I do know about staying in hotels is that you are required to ask guests with foreign passports their next destination, just in case they need to be found. Did she say where she was going next?” It was a long shot, but I thought I’d ask.

“Moscow. As I understand it, she lives in Moscow. That was the only address she gave us.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I know where that is. I probably should have gone there first.”

She didn’t answer; she didn’t have to, her expression did that perfectly.

The suited man spoke again, looking at the clerk. “Thank you.” He swivelled back to me. “I’m sorry we can’t help you.”

“No. You have more than you can know.”

“What was your name again, sir, just in case you still cannot find her?”

“Alexander Merriweather. Her brother. And if she is still missing, I will be posting a very large reward. At the moment, you can best contact me via the American Embassy.”

Money is always a great motivator, and that thoughtful expression on his face suggested he gave a moment’s thought to it.

I left him with that offer and left. If anything, the people who were holding her would know she had a brother, that her brother was looking for her, and equally that brother had money.