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!
This wasn’t the 1920s or 1930s in Egypt where the Howard Carters of this world were making famous discoveries. It might have felt like that as we sat in the hotel room and she introduced me to the real world of archaeology, that one where time and effort often brought discouraging results and lack of progress, and then how she came to conclude that this unknown pirate that everyone and no one knew about, actually existed.
She was the only one to believe she actually existed and proceeded to explain why she thought differently to all the rest. The pirate, of course, was female, by the name of Charlotte de Barry. Born in 1624, she was of an age just as the golden age of pirates began. Reputed to have taken up with a pirate, she followed him back to his ship, disguised as a man, and learned the trade until her aspirations of captaining her own ship were realised. Pity then it was via a later Captain who had kidnapped and forced her to marry him, that harbouring a deep down hate for what he had done to her, she bided her time, and working with the crew finally killed him and took over his ship.
Was it a female crew? It was a question I wasn’t going to ask, but I suspect it was not. All the references were circumstantial, but there was a journal, not belonging to the captain, but the mate, chronicling their adventures, but the captain referred to in that journal was Captain Rodolph. Certainly, the story matched that of Charlotte.
Then there was an account of her in ‘A History of Pirates’, and again, it could be construed it was Charlotte. I wanted to believe it was true for her sake. The journal had one particular entry, rather long that detailed the burial of treasure to be collected later, in Jamaica, not far from Port Antonio in a place named, now, Frenchman’s Cove.
The thing is, as a work of fiction, it was entirely believable. I could write it, and it would be, as she said, a best seller because everyone wants to believe there’s treasure out there, somewhere.
When I asked her about the journal, she said it was a handwritten translation from a number of writing books that dated back to the late 1800s. She had considered the entries might be the work of a fertile imagination, but there were too many entries that had a ring of authenticity to them, that the writer had to be aboard a pirate ship.
Others had dismissed them as just that, fictional entries, but she had cross-referenced the dates with other known documents. A lot depended on their authenticity, and it begged the question of why someone else hadn’t taken the information. The person she’d bought them off had found them in an old chest up in the attic of her grandparent’s house in England, thought them to be just a work of fiction and put them out for sale in a garage sale. A lucky find, perhaps.
That didn’t mean I didn’t believe she made a tangible discovery. All it needed was some artifacts, and it would take on a whole new life, and that was where time and money played a huge factor. Like Howard Carter, those two items were running out.
This, by her own admission, was going to be her final attempt, and I was hoping it would be successful.
After making arrangements to be away for a few weeks and channelling the funds into an account accessible to both of us, we hopped on a plane and headed for Kingston, Jamaica, on the first leg of the trip.
We were planning to head off to the site near Port Antonio, a small Cove where they had to stop and make repairs after a battle at sea with a British frigate, and where the decision was made to offload the treasure into five chests and bury it.
The precise location was not exactly described in the journal, but there were references to landmarks that bore similarities. It was enough to go ahead and get the government documents required to explore. She had deliberately made it obscure by outlining a thousand more acres than was necessary.
Imagine then our surprise to find the Jamiesons, father and son, at the check-in counter having arrived the same time as us. It was the best hotel in Kingston, so perhaps not so much a surprise.
Jackson noticed us first. “Elizabeth, fancy meeting you here. Or not. This is your stomping ground. Found any pirate treasure yet. What’s it been, seven years? Did you break a mirror?”
I could see the expression on her face and the anger about to boil over. I stepped between them.
“I think that was a bit uncalled for, Jackson.”
“Why am I not surprised to see her with a trashy novelist. Couldn’t be an archaeologist, so you just invent stuff. I’m not surprised her university funds were cancelled. It’s going to real archaeology.”
It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. “Why are you here?”
“Haven’t you been reading the papers? We’ve found the location of the treasure. It took a week. Not seven years. I guess you’re as big a failure as your boyfriend here.”
She was going to remonstrate, but it wasn’t the place or the time. We needed facts if he had stolen her dig. I turned to her and said, “There’s no point discussing this while you’re angry, and we don’t know what’s happened, or if it’s the same dig. We’ll check in and then find out what’s going on.” I certainly didn’t want to argue with him here, now.
I could see the anger blazing in her eyes, and if I let her, I was sure that the police would end up being called. Instead, I hustled her away to a safe distance. Right then, I didn’t think her opinion of me went anywhere but down.
I saw Jackson say something to the father, and he looked over at us with an odd expression. Whether or not he had heard his son belittling us, he definitely looked uncomfortable, which to me was odd.
“Why did you do that. You know what this is about. He is not content to create his own miracle find. Now he’s trying to steal mine.”
“You don’t know that for sure. He might have found something else entirely. This place has more than one dig right now, and Pirates are in the news. Let’s check-in, go to the room, and then I’ll make a call. When my first book was published, I got a call from an editor of the paper here. I’ll call him and see what he has to say. Jackson said that it was in the news.”
I could see she was still angry but saving her from making a scene in the hotel lobby was better than the alternative and might play into their hands. I had to sigh in relief when she did as I asked.
“Do you have someone local you can call and see what’s happening at your site? I assume you shut it down before coming back?”
“Yes. I left Jimmie there. He lives nearby. Oddly, he hadn’t called to tell me anything.”
“Then perhaps it’s not your site Jackson was referring to. They could be somewhere else.”
I was hoping it was.
A half-hour later, a local newspaper in hand, and seeing a small story about the famous Egypt archaeologist who was in Kingston to make an announcement about his next exciting project, I arrived back in my room. I could see she was trying to phone her local assistant, just as I tracked down the editor.
He was delighted to hear I was in Kingston and asked if it was for a book signing.
“No. I’m not sure why my agent doesn’t schedule signings all over the world, it would certainly make a difference to the dark attic I seem to be continually stuck in, writing.”
“Really?” He seemed to believe me.
“No, not really, but some days I feel like it. Actually, I’m here because a friend of mine has been working on a dig of her own, investigating one of the few female pirates one Charlotte de Berry, and the myth of buried treasure.”
“A story no doubt you will be writing about.”
“Something like that. There is another archaeologist in town, we just ran into the Jamiesons downstairs, and I read in the paper there’s going to be a big announcement. Do you know what it is?”
“As it happens it’s about the same pirate. But no one believes it’s possible. One of our experts and believe me she knows everything about Pirates and Jamaica, says that whatever he turns up, it will have nothing to do with Charlotte de Barry, or anyone else. Any treasure buried or otherwise will not be found. “
“You say that with a lot of scepticism”.
“I read your story on the Jamieson Egypt dig and it dripped with scepticism. My impression is that you have proof, you just never played that card. They tried to stop the publication of your first book. Not the wisest of moves because it turned it into a best seller. It might have just disappeared into the ether had he not.”
A blunt but true assessment. I had thought it would not get any interest and end up on the remainder tables. Then came the lawsuit, and the reluctant publisher that had delayed the release, suddenly published and glad they did.
So was I with the three-book deal that followed.
“They simply saw that there was no merit to their case. But still, it could as you say disappear into the ether. When is the press conference?”
“Three days. They’re going to the site, do a preliminary investigation, and then tell the world. I fear this may be a gigantic hoax and it’s not what we want or need.”
“Then I shall put on my investigative journalist hat and see what it’s about. And you can have the story whichever way it turns out.”
“Thank you. We shall speak again.”
I disconnected the call and looked over at Elizabeth. She did not look happy. “What did you find out?”
“Jimmie has gone missing. I spoke to Fred, another chap I was working with, and he said that a large team of people arrived a week ago and set up about a mile away from my site, closer to the Cove. He says that the man in charge is Jackson Jamieson. I sent him a photo and he ID’ed him. I think Jimmie has sold me out. I told him I would be back with his money but apparently, he called the Jamiesons and said if the price was right, he’d tell them everything.”
“Including the place where you think the treasure is?”
“No. Only I know where that is. But if he rips up the site, then might just bulldoze over the top of it.”
“Can they do that?”
“How much money can they throw at it?”
A lot.
“Then we need to get there and see what’s happening for ourselves. They’ll probably go by helicopter. We’re going to have to drive there.”
“If we go tonight?”
“We could do that.”
“I’m sorry but this is just too much. I should have guessed something like this would happen. It’s all become a very cut-throat business, and I’m just not up for that end of it.”
“Well let’s wait and see. It all might be a storm in a teacup.”
An hour later, while Elizabeth was showering and changing her clothes, I said I was going down to tell the front desk we would be away for a few days. In reality, I told her a small lie.
There was one stop along the way. The presidential suite, where I knew the intrepid father and son archaeologists were staying. I didn’t have to ask the front desk.
Standing outside, I rang the doorbell, and a minute later, a man came to the door, what looked to me like a butler.
I’ve come to see Aristotle Jamieson. I don’t have an appointment but tell him it’s Leo Brightman, and it’s in his best interests to see me.”
“Very good. Please wait.” Then he shut the door again, leaving me out in the passage.
Five minutes passed before he returned. “Mr Jamieson will see you now. Follow me.”
It was like some of the very large apartments I had seen in New York when I was contemplating living there. A large living area, a passage to two bedrooms, and a study or meeting room that would double as a dining room.
He was sitting at one end of the table in the meeting room, documents, folders, a computer, and a phone set out neatly in front of him. The son was not in the room, thankfully. The butler closed the door behind me, and we were alone.
“If you’ve come to plead her case to withdraw, it won’t work. Her claim expired two weeks ago, and she should have renewed it.”
“That’s part of the reason I’m here, but not the only. To be clear, I was, and still am in fact, an investigative journalist. You will know this because a lot of my first book was based on my investigation into your Egyptian find. You tried to stop publication and force a few changes, but ultimately, I have you to thank for making me far wealthier than I would have been digging around looking for stuff that’s increasingly rare to find. So thank you.”
“And yet, I sense a but.”
“The but is a man named Antoine Gascon.”
I could see the flicker of recognition and the attempt to hide that tell.
“He died five years ago. A grubby little man who forged Egyptian trinkets to sell on the black market for extortionate sums to gullible fools.”
“He was murdered, you know. I investigated his death because I didn’t believe he had died accidentally. Turns out the toxicology report the police received wasn’t the real report.”
“Not my concern.”
“Not right now, but it will be. Six years ago, a week before his untimely death, he and I sat down and had an extensive interview. He showed me his workshop and the trial-and-error artifacts he created for you. Just so you know, there are numerous copies of this interview in the hands of various people who will make that information public under certain circumstances.”
“No one would believe it, because, as I said, he has been proved to be a liar and a cheat.”
“That may be, but when he told you he destroyed all the prototypes and moulds, and I know you or your son, he didn’t specifically say, was there when he did, the fact is he kept two, both of which you generously donated to the museum. When he made those, he made two identical artifacts, which experts will discover when they do a thorough examination. The location of them is in the recorded interview. Now you can keep up the charade, or we can do a deal. I’m not interested in making a mockery out of archaeology, but I do want something that will be very easy for you to grant. If that happens, then you won’t be reading about a certain scurrilous archaeologist.”
I could see he was wrestling with the idea of just bluffing me and sticking to his original story so that no one would believe Antoine. Had he not shown me the two artifacts, I would have done the same in his place. I would have liked to be able to read his mind.
After a small sign, whether of defeat, or pragmatism, he said, “And what guarantee do I get in return.”
“If you leave Elizabeth and her dig alone, the interview never sees the light of day. I don’t care what you do, just don’t destroy her one chance. You can join her, but it is her dig and her glory. You have yours and you can keep it. As I said, it’s in the best interests of everyone that the status quo remains. It’s up to you. We’re leaving for her dig site in a few hours. If she chooses to go where you set up your circus, they should be informed that it is her project and that they are working for her. Your collaboration will be appreciated. Your son, just keep him under control, he wasn’t particularly nice earlier.” I stood.
“Is that all? I assume you will not be destroying those tapes?”
“No. Just in case you change your mind in the future, or, if anything happens to you, your son decides to go off the reservation. What I’m asking for is no skin off your nose. We don’t have to be friends, but it would help if you simply played nice.”
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some years ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester
Still hiding away.
Like any wise, old, skeptical cat, he’s not believing the good news.
We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.
It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.
Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for al; the wrong reasons.
So, after broadcasting the news, that is, walking up and down the passage saying it was safe to come out, there’s still no sign of him.
But…
I have a cunning plan.
I bought a can of his absolute favorite food.
Come dinner time I’m putting it out.
Of course, food trumps fear every time.
He walks past me on his way to the tasty treats, the tail movements indicating he is not a happy cat.
The things I have to suffer at the hands of you humans, he mutters.
So, I say casually, we have guests for dinner.
He stops, turns his head in that dismissive manner of his.
What else can you do to me?
COVID 19, Grandchildren, I suppose you’re going to let me outside.
Do you want to go outside?
With COVID 19 lurking on every corner?
It’s under control.
Right. I’ve been watching TV. You do realize there’s good news and fake news, and there’s more of the latter than the former.
So, he’s going with the confuse the poor human with blather.
It’s working. I say, Go back into hiding. I was quite enjoying the silence.
After dinner, he says, ending the conversation with the angry tail swish. Yes, we are not amused.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Chasing leads, maybe
It was all over in the blink of an eye. The swat team had secured the scene, zip ties, and shoved me into a corner with two burly men standing over me, guns ready in case I tried to escape.
Before the next wave, I had time to consider what just happened. Obviously, Dobbin or Jan had set the scene. She lied about being able to track Maury, they found him, brought him back to the room, tortured him, and then killed him. The few seconds I had to look at the body showed signs of intense interrogation.
A side benefit was to stitch me up for the crime. The fact the police were at the door a minute after I’d arrived meant they had been waiting for me to come back. That pointed to Jan as the informant.
But to what end. If they considered I was the only one who could find the USB, why let me get caught by the police.
Jennifer would be safe. She had been in the foyer a full ten minutes before I arrived, and was sitting in a corner when I passed her. If they knew she was involved, she would have been missing. Hopefully, she would have seen the swat team arrive, and leave.
A few minutes after the swat leader spoke into his two-way radio, a middle-aged woman and a young man in his late 20’s arrived, the woman first, the young man behind her. A Detective Chief Inspect, or Superintendent, and Detect Sergeant. He was too well dressed to be a constable,. One old, one new.
The young man spoke to the swat leader, the woman surveyed the scene, looked at the body, then at me, shaking her head slightly.
I tried to look anonymous if not invisible. The fact they had found no ID on me would not count well for my situation, or so I had been told. Nor was the fact I preferred not to speak.
Never volunteer information.
A nod from her and the two swat guards took several steps back. She pulled a chair over from the side of the bed, and once three feet away, sat down.
“I’m told you are refusing to answer any questions.”
“Refusing to answer and simply not talking is not the same thing.”
“You do speak.”
“When appropriate.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my room, along with a young lady, who as you can see, is not here. That much you should have gleaned from the front desk.”
She pulled a card out of her pocket. “Alan, and Alice Jones. Not your real names I suspect., nor very original. Do you know who the man on the bed is?”
“He told me his name is Maury, not sure of his first name, but that wasn’t his real name. His other name was Bernie Salvin, but that might also be a fake. He was one of two men who were in charge of my training.”
“For what?”
“I suspect it might be above your pay grade.”
If she was shocked at that statement she didn’t show it. In fact, I would not be surprised if she had suspected it was likely it had to do with the clandestine security services. Torture victims were not an everyday occurrence, or at least I hoped for her sake they weren’t.
She gave a slight sigh. “And who do you work for?”
“There’s the rub. I have no idea. I’ve just been caught in the middle of a bloody awful mess.”
The second rule is always to tell the truth, or as close to it as possible so you don’t have to try and remember a web of lies, and trip yourself up at later interviews. And keep it simple.
“So, no one I should be calling to verify who you are?”
“No. Not unless you can revive the man on the bed. I’m only new, been on the job after training for about a week. I was part of a team running a surveillance exercise when a shop exploded and the target disappeared. I’ve been trying to find out what happened.”
Her expression whanged, telling me she was familiar with the event.
“Do you find out anything?”
“Only that the would be a body in the shop, a journalist, that was trying to hand over some sensitive information. I have no idea what it was, or who he was. The target, whom I suspected was there for the handover, is now also dead. So, quite literally, two dead ends. Do I look like someone who could do that to a man?” I nodded in the direction of the body.
“You’d be surprised who was capable of what. Do you have a real name?”
“I do, but I won’t be telling you. You have my work name, that’s as much as I can volunteer.”
“A few days in a dank hole might change that.”
“A few days in a dank hole would be like a holiday compared to the week I’m currently having.”
She smiled, or I thought it was a smile. “I daresay you might.”
There was a loud noise and some yelling coming from outside the door. A man burst into the room, two constables in his wake.
A man I didn’t recognize.
She stood. “Who are you?”
“Richards, MI5.” He showed her a card, which she glanced at. She’d no doubt seen them before.
“We’ll be taking over from here.”
“This person?” She nodded her head in my direction.
“Leave him. We’ll take care of him.”
“Johnson, Jacobs, let’s leave the room to them. We’re done here. Places to be, gentlemen.” She nodded in my direction. “Good luck, you’re going to need it.”
This book has finally reached the Final Editor’s draft, so this month it is going to get the last revision, and a reread for the beta readers.
…
So now the truth, or a version of it, is out there, Jack now needs to find out who this Jacob is.
Well, he thinks he knows who it is, but he needs some confirmation from his mother about what she apparently has been hiding from him all his life.
Of course, as expected, his mother is being elusive.
In the meantime, I’ve been playing around with the backstory, which, sometimes never finds its way into the book. It serves me to get a better understanding of a character, of several, in what some might call a background paper.
I also wonder if this type of scenario plays out in other families, and if they were, or are, referred to as the skeletons in the closet.
We didn’t have any in our family, well, none that I knew about, anyway. I’m sure there were, we just never got to hear about them.
I guess that’s why often members of a family will go searching the genealogical records, and find out if they are related to someone famous. My wife reckons that she is somehow related to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the writer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. On our side, we had a Luddite (who wasn’t really a Luddite – long story) transported to Van Diemen’s Land from England.
On an early morning walk, I discovered the Brooklyn Diner, a small restaurant tucked away in a street not far from Columbus Circle, perhaps a piece of history from the American past.
After all, if you’re going to take in the sights, sounds, and food of a country what better way to do it than visiting what was once a tradition.
This one was called the Brooklyn Diner. It had a combination of booths and counter sit down, though the latter was not a very big space, so we opted for a booth.
The object of going to a Diner is the fact they serve traditional American food, which when you get past the hot dogs and hamburgers and fries, takes the form of turkey and chicken pot pies among a variety of other choices.
Still looking for a perfectly cooked turkey, something I’ve never been able to do myself, I opted for the Teadition Turkey Lunch, which the menu invitingly said was cooked especially at the diner and was succulent. I couldn’t wait.
We also ordered a hamburger, yes, yet another, and a chicken pot pie, on the basis the last one I had in Toronto was absolutely delicious (and cooked the same way since the mid-1930s)
While waiting we got to look at a slice of history belonging to another great American tradition, Baseball, a painting on the wall of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field, long since gone from their home.
The Turnkey lunch looked like this
which didn’t seem to be much, and had this odd pasta slice on the plate, but the turkey was amazing and lived up to the menu description.
The Chicken Pot Pie looked like this
And looked a lot larger in reality than the photo shows.
But, sadly while it was not bad, it was a little dry, and could possibly do with using the more succulent thigh part of the chicken.
All of this was washed down by Long Island Ice Teas and Brooklyn Lager.
AS for the Diner experience, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.
Agatha must have realised that her life was in danger, whether she expected her condition would worsen, sending her back to the hospital, or whether she was dying, that was clear enough in the letter she left behind, but that letter also had a fairly detailed rundown on everyone in the organisation, every suspicion she had, and what she and Howard were planning to do about it.
It was perhaps the most frightening document he had ever read, and with each succeeding paragraph, page, character, situation, and fear, he was able to slip into her shoes and feel the pain, anguish, and disappointment filtering through, and her feelings became his motivation.
This is the plan:
Meet the press. Well, no, that wasn’t on the plan, but someone called a press conference, and he decided to crash it.
He had hoped meeting the General, one of the causes of her angst, would be later after he had time to prepare, but it wasn’t to be. He’d met formidable commanding officer once before, and had heard far more about him, and perhaps had been at the end of an order or two if not directly, but he was also privy to scuttlebutt, and if rumours were true…
It doesn’t go well.
He does meet the impertinent reporter again with an interesting surprise attached.
There’s the other office, another PA, and yes it’s a test of patience he wasn’t expecting, but he did have some information on her that smooths the encounter.
Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her fellow detective was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy. Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
It is an amazing coincidence that both times we have flown into New York, it is the day after the worst snow storms.
The first time, we were delayed out of Los Angeles and waited for hours before the plane left. We had a free lunch and our first introduction to American hamburgers and chips. Wow!
I had thought we had left enough time with connections to make it in time for New Year’s Eve, like four to five hours before. As it turned out, we arrived in New York at 10:30, and thanks to continual updating with our limousine service, he was there to take us to the hotel.
The landing was rough, the plane swaying all over the place and many of the passengers were sick. Blankets were in short supply!
We made it to the hotel, despite snow, traffic, and the inevitable problems associated with NYE in New York, with enough time to throw our baggage in the room, put on our anti cold clothes, and get out onto the streets.
We could not go to Times Square but finished up at Central Park with thousands of others, in time to see the ball drop on a big screen, exchange new year’s greetings, and see the fireworks.
Then, as luck would have it, we were able to get an authentic New York hotdog, just before the police moved the vendor on, and our night was complete.
The second time we were the last plane out of Los Angeles to New York. After waiting and waiting, we boarded, and then started circling the airport waiting for takeoff permission. We stopped once to refuel, and then the pilot decided we were leaving.
This time we took our eldest granddaughter, who was 9 at the time, and she thought it was an adventure. It was.
When we landed, we were directed to an older part of the airport, a disused terminal. We were not the only plane to land, at about one in the morning, but one of about four. The terminal building filled very quickly, and we were all waiting for baggage. The baggage belts broke so there were a lot of porters bring the baggage in by hand.
One part of the terminal was just a sea of bags. To find ours our granddaughter, who, while waiting, sat on top of the cabin baggage playing her DSI until the announcement our bags were available, walked across the top of the bags till she found them. Thankfully no one was really looking in her direction.
Once again we kept our limousine service updated, and, once we knew what terminal we were at, he came to pick us up. This time we arrived some days before NYE, so there was not so much of a rush. We got to the hotel about 3:30 in the morning, checked in, and then went over the road to an all-night diner where we ordered hamburgers and chips.
There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
