There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.
Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.
This is sometimes how we must feel when overlooked or ignored, like a nobody.
And some people will treat you like a nobody, i.e. someone who is just not important.
That’s just one use of the word.
Another might be…
Who did that to your room?
‘Nobody’ is the plaintiff’s reply. The infamous Mr Nobody. We’ve never met him, but he’s always there. And, what’s more, he seems to be able to be in more than one place at a time.
Then there’s that time when there’s nobody in the room, nobody agreed with me, hell, that happens all the time, and when I rang your phone nobody answered.
Nobody? Was I expecting Mr Nobody to answer? Surely the response should have been, ‘and you didn’t answer’.
Of course, let’s not delve too deep here, lest we might find out something we didn’t want to know.
I went to your house last night, but nobody was home.
How is it we refer to the people whom we know live in that house as ‘nobody’. Shouldn’t we be saying, ‘none of you was at home’?
It seems nobody is one of those words we often use in vain.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
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 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 neighbor 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 near 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 move 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 in 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 was 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 where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I was 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 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 neighbors, 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 was 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 realized 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 was 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.”
There is only one possible problem about starting a relationship in a city like New York, a melting pot of people from all over the country. It’s quite possibly the home of what could become long-distance relationships, mostly because in essence it’s a long distance between your hometowns.
But, for everyone, it’s never the first thing in your mind, that’s just trying to get through those first few weeks, then months, then the steps that get you to the point where it’s time to go visit either your or her parents and family.
It’s a thing that some stave off as long as possible, particularly if you know your family are going to be over-inquisitive or likely to make your life hell with precious little details you hope no one would ever bring into the light again.
And of course, you know that is utterly impossible.
Of course, if you haven’t been home for a while, it makes the announcement all the more poignant at home, especially if you’re bringing the new partner, the one you have been praising to the hilt.
It was never going to be a problem for me, my parents were always on a cruise to somewhere or other and never home, and my brothers, quintessential men of the world, were scattered around the globe and it had been ages since we’d all been together.
But that first Christmas together, I knew Gabby was going to ask me to go home with her. Like myself, she came from small-town America, a picturesque small city where opportunities were not as varied as those in the larger cities, where many migrated if they wanted better opportunities.
A lot often forget their origins, or more likely due to the pressures of establishing themselves in a new job, it took a while before going home. Gabby had let three or so years slip by, and after being, as she put it, implored by her mom to come home, she had relented.
And since my office has decided to close for the holidays, she knew I didn’t have an excuse not to go with her. And for better or worse, I turned up at the airport at the appointed time, and she was waiting. I didn’t know until later that she had fully expected me not to go, the result of the last trip she had organised with what had been ‘the one’.
On that occasion, she had told the now ex that there was only one thing he had to do once they arrived home. What she told me once the plane was in the air, “You will be meeting on various occasions my maternal grandmothers, Faith, Hope, and Charity. They are, how should I say, somewhat strange, but they’re harmless.”
Usually, the mother-in-law was the leader of the Inquisition, and the father-in-law was the one that’s happy to tell you what he would do to you if you hurt his ‘little girl’. Three essentially quirky old ladies were a new twist, and it was going to be interesting
I have always been a cautious fellow and very rarely dived into the unknown without a little investigation first. I mean, that’s what an investigative journalist does, isn’t it?
Of course, that could be construed as uncool when it came to your hired friend, but I wasn’t very good at relationships, and this one with Gabby was a surprise. She was different, but I knew that initial expectations were quickly dashed and over time completely shattered, or it could go the other way.
I had not expected she’d think our relationship was at the point where we would be meeting the parents, but to refuse would not be a good idea.
So, being the person I was, I wanted to know everything about her town, simply because it had a web page, the council, the sheriff, and upcoming Christmas activities.
It also had a sidebar about a certain Prom King and Queen, the town’s two most popular teenagers, and their plans, which were not the least of which was a long happy life together. Gabby Saunders and John Prince.
It wasn’t hard to see why they were the golden couple. John was the star of the football team; Gabby was the captain of the cheerleaders, and both families were prominent in the town.
Her father was the mayor and rancher, and John’s father was a farmer and agricultural industrialist. She had said little about her father other than he ran a ranch, and her brothers and sister were ranch hands
I asked why she thought she needed to chase a career in the city when there was a perfectly good job at home, all it got was a pout and and a mumbled reply about being something more than a cowgirl.
I did a quick scan of the local paper’s digital back copies with her name and found two very interesting items. The first, a month after the prom, was an incident involving Gabby and John that was remarkably short in detail, and it told me just how much pull each of their fathers had in that town.
The second, the prodigal daughter was leaving to go to New York to seek a career in fashion design, being a notable up-and-coming designer who designed and made clothes for her Aunt Faith to sell in her dress shop. That raised a question: Why was she now simply a personal assistant to a crabby old lady?
John, in the meantime, had stayed home and was actively working in the management of his father’s business, with no inclination to join his bride-to-be. He was happy enough, he was quoted, to bide his time whilst she shook off the desire to see what life was like on the other side. The other side of what, I wondered.
Was this the reason why she had stayed away from home so long?
I thought about that whole scenario, and it was going to be a fascinating dynamic when I turned up with what he believed was his girl. I came from a town like hers, and I knew how those ‘most likely’ scenarios worked. He still carried a torch, as the saying goes. She, apparently, was not.
I searched for a bed and breakfast to stay at if or when things started going south, and they would, no matter what she thought I felt about her. When I rang up, I got a charming young lady by the name of Pricilla, and when I mentioned Gabby, there was a sharp intake of breath. That was followed by a warning. The last chap Gabby brought home to meet the parents was virtually hounded out of town. He lasted two days.
I smiled to myself. This might just be fun. I asked her to be at the airport, just in case, and she said she wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Gabby was strangely subdued for most of the flight, unusual because she normally had what I called an effervescent personality.
I put it down to nerves, returning after so long away; and perhaps what lay ahead. I had not told her that I knew a little about her former life and planned to keep it that way.
She had said that her mother was coming to get us, but I fully expected to see John in his dilapidated pick-up where only two could sit in the front. Yes, Hollywood romance movies had a lot to answer for.
It was one of those airports where the steps went down the front of the plane, and you walked across the tarmac to a small building that served as the airport terminal. Alongside, a fence where people could line up to see who got off the plane.
I saw her scanning that fence line for her mother and not seeing her.
We went into the terminal, a modernised and extended interior, because of increased passenger numbers, or perhaps because a congressman lived nearby. That always helped.
I saw John before he saw her. I also saw Priscilla, who, catching sight of me, hung back.
We passed through the arrival gate into the main floor where about 30 people were waiting to greet arriving passengers, and the look on her face went from an impending smile to a scowl, and a mutter under her breath, “What the fuck?”
She never, ever swore.
“I hope that’s not directed at your mother,” I said.
She glared at me. “This is not what I hoped would be your first look at my hometown.”
Just as that was said, John loomed all six foot six two hundred and forty pounds of a devilishly handsome cowboy. It was not hard to see what she had seen in him. But appearances were deceptive.
He tipped his hat. “Hello, Gabby. Welcome home!”
She switched the glare from me to him. “Where’s my mother?” It was not the politest of tones.
“She was unavoidably detained. I offered to come in her place, and here I am.”
He had noticed but chose to ignore me.
In her annoyance, Gabby had forgotten to introduce me, so I just leaned against the handle of my suitcase and waited to see how this was going to play out. Since I was not supposed to know anything about her and him, I couldn’t say or do anything. Yet.
She had her phone out, calling her mother I guessed. I heard an answer on the other end, then, “Where the hell are you?”
A moment later, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. This is exactly why I haven’t been home in years, and if you have any more of these surprises in store, I will get back on the next plane out, and I will never come home again.”
There was a minute when her face made various contortions, and then she disconnected the call.
She looked like she was going to scream, but didn’t, just counted to ten under her breath, then looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. These things happen.”
“I’m afraid there’s another problem?”
“No room at the inn?”
Her face changed to one of surprise. “How…”
“Good hearing; your mother has a loud voice. Storms are unpredictable, and I did check last night to see what the weather conditions were going to be, and I was surprised we were allowed to fly in. That’s why I took the punt I might need somewhere to stay until your accommodation issues are sorted.”
Priscilla took that to be her cue. “Hello, Gabby.”
“Prissy.” It wasn’t a term of endearment.
“I told you I had no part in that.” Straight on the defensive. There was a mountain of issues that needed to be resolved, and I was now wondering if this trip was going to have a few unexpected surprises.
Even so, I knew despite everything I was witnessing now; Gabby was everything I could want in a partner, but she had issues. And if I could help…
Awkward silence. I broke it. “So, instead of becoming the next hot news item for the Gazette, if we stand here much longer, I suggest, John, you take Gabby home. Pricilla will take me to the B and B for a day or so, and I will get myself out to your place tomorrow.”
“This is not… “
“What you planned for. No. I fear the best-laid plans of mice and men can easily be waylaid in a small town like this. I suggest you take the time to reunite with your family, I’m sure John will be happy to drop you off and give you some space. He has the look of a boyfriend who hasn’t accepted that you’ve moved on.” I looked at him. “And I’m sure before the holiday is over you and I will have a chat about that. In the meantime, I expect you to be a gentleman.”
That look of surprise on her face deepened. “You knew?”
“I had an inkling. I come from a small town too, as you know, that had a similar situation. You are a gentleman, aren’t you John, not some creepy stalker?”
He was going to say something, but Gabby cut him off. “I bet you brought that shitty little truck?”
His expression told the story. “Best laid plans of mice and men, as you say David. There would have been no room in the cabin, and I would not expect you to sit out back with the pig shit.” She shook her head. “I truly feel sorry for you, John. I do. You and I will be having words on the way to my house.” Then a final glare in my direction, “I expect to see you tomorrow morning, David.”
In the end, I don’t think John wanted to be there. And I did see an enterprising young lady taking various photos of us. A reporter or photographer for the local newspaper? Or would our encounter go viral on the internet? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Priscilla had stood back and watched the fun. So did a dozen or so others who probably knew exactly who they were. We both waited until they had left the terminal building before moving on ourselves.
“You should just get back on the plane,” she said. “You still can. I know the airline staff.”
“It might seem a little rocky at the moment, but the test of a couple’s relationship is to be thrown from the frying pan into the fire. The whole episode feels like a hiccup moment in a romance movie. I’m guessing for a while that they were the star attraction given their school graduation and parents standing.”
“What did you read?”
“Nearly all of the back copies of the newspaper for a hundred years. Might as well be prepared.”
“Did it tell you that neither of them wanted to become a spectacle? That was Gabby’s mother, who had to take a simple childhood romance and turn it into headline news. It might have worked had John not believed the story. Yes, Gabby liked him, yes, they were cute together, but no, Gabby didn’t love him. After it was broadcast far and wide and their friendship was put under such a large microscope, it became too much. The only place for Gabby to go was as far away from here as she could get.”
“And he still doesn’t get it?”
“To be honest, John is not a man of the world. He lacks sophistication, he is a hopeless scholar but is a good football player. Good enough, but not that good. He played college football but not NFL as such and just faded into obscurity. He married twice, but his heart is not in it. He thinks the only girl for him is Gabby.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough if she is or isn’t. I’m not going to force her to choose.”
“Do you love her?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t? The girl I know from New York, that’s not her who got off the plane. It’s like we stepped through a portal into another world with another Gabby.’
“For a lot of people, it’s hell. if you come from a small town like this, you’ll know what it’s like. We keep getting told it’s going to get better.”
“It isn’t much better in the big cities, just more people and more problems. If I hadn’t met Gabby, I would have been going home myself permanently.”
“Farmer or rancher?”
“Ranch, though my older brother runs it while my parents see the world from a cruise ship, one long endless cruise, it seems. Still, it could be worse.”
“You’re right. That will be tomorrow morning when you meet the three witches.”
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 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 neighbor 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 near 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 move 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 in 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 was 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 where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I was 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 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 neighbors, 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 was 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 realized 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 was 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.”
Ever had an itch you can’t scratch; that’s a part of what you’ve written, you have reservations, and you’re not sure what to write in its place.
For a few days now the start, or maybe the end, has been swirling around in my head. To be honest, I don’t like the start, and I can’t get a feel for it. I have about five different starting points, but none of them feels right.
I’ve been thinking of writing it from John’s perspective, but there are so many peripheral characters that need to be drawn in, people he doesn’t really know much about, or some who have a vested interest in his current girlfriend if she could be called that.
So I thought I’d throw a few words down and see how they sit:
…
You would not know by looking at MaryAnne that she was probably one of the best assassins in the world. You would be more inclined to consider she was just another spoilt American brat on the loose on holiday.
She was certainly one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met.
And she was certainly one of the most deadly. I could personally attest to that having seen her in action.
I could also attest to the fact that somewhere under that hard, conscienceless exterior, there was a heart, and sometimes it was visible. After all, I was a target, her target, once, and I’m still alive thanks to her.
It was a small detail I omitted when I introduced her to my parents, but that was one little step on a long road that I thought was going somewhere.
Perhaps, after all this time, I’d misinterpreted the signs, and I was wrong.
We were sitting on the balcony of our hotel room on the 45th floor of the hotel we were staying in downtown Surfer’s Paradise, a mecca for holidaymakers from the rest of Australia, and overseas.
It was perfect for tourists.
The champagne was cold, and although it was a hot 35 degrees Celsius out in the sunlight, the mood on the balcony was as decidedly cool as the champagne.
Today was the six-month anniversary of the first day we had spent together as, well, I was not sure, now, what we were.
She turned to look at me. She was nothing like the Zoe of old, and I had finally gotten used to Mary Anne. It was an amazing transformation, but with it, I had thought she had finally shrugged off the Zoe persona.
She hadn’t. That hardened expression that I had hoped would be gone forever, had returned.
“It’s time to go back home, John.”
It was also that tone, the one when she spoke, that sent shivers down my spine, not the good shivers, but the one that told me trouble was ahead. Deadly trouble.
“I need to do something. Don’t get me wrong, this had been a delightful rest, and I could not ask for a better companion, but it is time. We both knew this was going to happen.”
I noticed her features had softened a little when she mentioned my name, but the message was the same. We had talked about this moment at the outset. There was always going to be a use-by date on this adventure, for me at least.
It was also the time when she would, she said, decide where I would fit, if I fitted, in her future. When we originally spoke about it, she was still unsure of her feelings towards me. Over time, I had also hoped that they would be the same as mine for her.
Perhaps I had been expecting too much.
“When did you decide?”
“About thirty seconds ago. That’s when I realized it doesn’t matter where we are in the world, I still want to be with you. So, how do you like the idea of going into the assassination business?”
…
I’m not sure what John might think of this development, but I think you will agree with me, so long as he is with Zoe, he’s happy.
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
Now that I’ve hit the age of 65, I now have to give some consideration to creating a will.
You know, that document that specifies which child gets what, or if you think any or all of them don’t deserve what’s left of the hard-earned millions, which cat or dog will inherit a fortune.
A will is both a reason for siblings or beneficiaries to kill to get a reward or the fact you have to make one so that the state doesn’t inherit your fortune.
This is only one use of the word.
Another might be that it’s possible to have something like the will to carry on.
Carry on what?
Life, a marriage, a business relationship.
Does it require will power, or is it a matter of where there’s a will there’s a way?
I will come over. I will turn up tomorrow.
In this sense, it is promoting futility.
Of course, seeing is believing.
And as a bit of self-serving advertising, I’m going to promote a new story, actually titled, The Will.
Inheritance can resolve monetary problems, and not only that, set one of the siblings up financially for life. All they have to do is wrest the family home from the dying fingers of a mother who had seen it all.
Into the mix comes the grandson, a man who sometimes is a son but mostly a grandson, someone who doesn’t fit in, who doesn’t want to follow family tradition, and who prefers to go to his grandmothers rather than going home to his family.
He is constantly appalled at his mother’s lack of respect for her mother and suddenly finds himself in the middle of a battle between his grandmother and her daughter, his mother, over the family estate.
Who will win?
That’s a question that will be answered when you read the book.
It often came as a surprise to anyone who knew me that I reached adulthood with anything that resembled sanity.
My parents died early in my life, when j was about seven, probably a good age, if it could be said that there was anything good about it, having been shoved in a boarding school, and having parents who travelled the world as diplomats. They had been interested in everything bar their son, so consequently I didn’t miss them as much as I should.
But…
What to do with a seven-year-old that no one really wanted. I remember sitting in the headmaster’s office waiting to be taken to the funeral. I didn’t know what to expect, all the headmaster had said was that my grandparents were coming.
That gave me a choice. My father’s parents, the severe, strict, bible-thumping minister and his wife, a more sinister-looking pair than anything I’d seen before and was positively petrified when we visited them twice a year.
Then there were my mother’s parents who lived in a castle, not the fairy tale sort, but one with over a hundred rooms and a dungeon, and places where children should never venture. Of course, telling a child no was the same as saying go for it, and that was a source of contention.
Needless to say, I knew who I wanted it to be.
Equally, I knew who I wanted to live with, but we always never got what we wanted, or so I had been told repeatedly by everyone.
So, until I was old enough to leave school and fend for myself, I had to split my time between the two, not that there was much left after school. And, yes, neither took me out of boarding school, deciding that a break in my routine would be a disaster.
Nobody thought to ask me my opinion.
When I left school, finally, it was with the necessary qualifications, but not necessarily life skills. Those were supposedly learned in the family environment. Of the two, if I strictly applied what I learned in those few brief weeks at home each year was, on one hand, eccentric based on based on the notion I would become a minister, or eccentricity based on the notion I would become lord of the manor.
At no time was it suggested I would become a diplomat, even though I had applied when my parents’ old boss who came to the funeral offered me a pass to join the ranks after graduation. You know, like father like son.
It gave me an escape, to get away from the stifling life I’d had for the past twelve years, standing at the station waiting for the train to take me away from basically everything I knew, and everyone, it seemed like the end of the world.
Perhaps then, had I not accepted an invitation to go on a holiday with Horace Arbuthnot Esq., my life might have turned out a lot differently.
Or not. After all, destiny is what it was because it was not written in stone.
Twenty years on, when looking back, it seemed almost an eternity.
That summer, the year I turned eighteen, was memorable for many reasons. I started out being introduced to Horace’s family and acquaintances as the eccentric Mr Alexander Wilberstone, the only son of highly regarded diplomatic problem solvers who disappeared mysteriously in the uncharted jungle of Africa.
The way he spun the tale was so much different from the reality of what happened, being gunned down on the back streets of Nairobi in a random drive-by shooting. I was, at that time, almost as mysterious as my parents, and the sort of character that added street cred to a lonely boy with no friends.
I didn’t tell him I was in the same boat, but since I was heading for the minister’s manse anything other than that was a godsend. Besides, I like Horace and the tales he spun to make his ordinary life far more interesting. And the fact he used my looks and charm to get girls to come and talk to us.
That was the second memorable thing about that year, Anna Louise Romano, an American girl with her family visiting Italian relations in Florence.
She had a friend who I eventually discovered had been planning to meet Horace in Italy and it only dawned on me later why he seemed to move about constantly seeking tourist attractions and after each visit, noticing his mounting despair.
That of course led to the third thing about turning eighteen, it unlocked my inheritance which was, when an old dusty lawyer in an old dusty office right out of a Dickens novel, told me one dusty afternoon in London. It was, to an eighteen-year-old, an unimaginably large sum to do whatever I liked.
Within reason, of course. The minister and the lord of the manor had taught me one thing; to be miserly.
Perhaps Horace had known about it. He certainly knew everything about everyone, ensuring he was not bullied or his friends, the advantage of which I recognised early on. He was always perpetually short on funds and was always going to pay me back, the mysteriously unavailable funds just about to drop when… well put any excuse you like in there.
I didn’t mind paying his way. Twelve years of friendship needed repaying. And I regarded it my job to ensure he got to meet the love of his life. As for myself, just enough time to fall hopelessly in love, to spend the most incredible four weeks of my life, and then watch her slip through my fingers like the sands of an hourglass.
Horace was lucky, though, in time, he convinced me that very little came to anyone being lucky. He married his girl, moved to Tuscany, started a vineyard and winery, and told me I had a home any time I wanted one.
I travelled the world, noted all the shortcomings of travel agencies, and everything else in between and created an app that solved firstly my problems and then everyone else’s and sold it for a staggeringly large sum, more staggering than the original inheritance, and on the very day of my thirty-eighth birthday moved into a quaint loft in Brooklyn, New York, to contemplate my next venture.
And as it happened, Horace and Beverly were in the city, and I was taking them to dinner, a sort of birthday party to celebrate everything. All that was missing was the girl I could share my life with.
I’d tried over the years, but there was never that one, not the Anna Louise Remano that I fell in love with and would never forget, as much as I tried to. But don’t get me wrong. I was happy. I had experienced in those few short weeks what many couples never could in a lifetime.
The restaurant was not far from the apartment, and I’d invited Horace to stay with me, far less expensive than a hotel, and easier for me to show them the city starting the next day. They had brought their children two remarkable but seemingly unrelated people who had ideas of their own that didn’t include being seen with us old people. I hired a nanny, much to their dismay. Until they met her.
We walked, the evening warm but not hot. It was an ideal time of the year. Horace was different. He’d lost weight and was looking fit and healthy, more than he had when he was a child. Life in the countryside, hard work, and finding the perfect partner had cast a spell on him. I was happy for him. His life had always been harder than mine.
But there was something. It was like he had a secret, and it was going to burst out of him. He was making small talk, and he only ever did that when he had a secret and was trying hard not to spill it
Until that moment…
When we reached the restaurant, he opened the door for me. Usually, it was the other way around. I gestured for Beverly to go first, but she hung back.
Had he invited one of our old friends, one I hadn’t seen for a long time. He’d been skirting around the old memories, the time we had been in Florence, taken the train to Piza and driven to Venice.
The mention of Venice had brought back a flood of memories, all of which involved what I had believed to be the love of my life.
Anna Louise Romano.
And the moment I stepped through that door, I knew she was there. It didn’t matter that the restaurant was crowded, I had that tingling sensation go up and down my spine.
And it was as if the crowd parted and there standing before me was the girl herself, all grown up and as beautiful as the first day I saw her.
Then he was beside me. “Surprise!”
“How? Where?”
“You were just two ships passing in the night, Alex. She’s recovering from a nasty divorce, so treat her with kid gloves. Who knows what might happen?”
