Investigations of crimes don’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get 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 neighbours 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 time I saw Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact that 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 that 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 that 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 became 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 other 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 realise 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.
How Great Books Transform Us: Exploring the Wisdom of Russell Banks
“The mark of a good book is that after having finished, I’m a slightly different person. I think a little differently, I see the world a little differently…” — Russell Banks
We’ve all experienced it. You close the back cover of a novel, stare blankly at the wall for a few quiet moments, and realise that the room around you looks just a bit sharper, the air a bit heavier, and your own mind a bit more vast.
The late, great American novelist Russell Banks captured this phenomenon perfectly. Books aren’t merely entertainment; they are alchemical agents. They take our existing worldview, melt it down in the crucible of a compelling narrative, and recast it into something new.
In this post, we’re going to explore what it means to be transformed by literature, why the best books linger in our psychology long after we’ve turned the final page, and how reading deeply makes us more empathetic, aware human beings.
The Anatomy of a Transformative Read
What separates a forgettable beach read from a truly great book? It isn’t necessarily complex plotting or ornate prose. Rather, it’s resonance.
A transformative book acts as a mirror and a window.
The Window: It transports us into the minds, eras, and realities of people we would otherwise never understand. It grants us access to the interior lives of the marginalized, the eccentric, the historical, and the fictional.
The Mirror: It reflects our own hidden fears, secret joys, and moral ambiguities back at us, whispering, “You are not alone in feeling this way.”
When these two functions combine, our cognitive framework expands. As Russell Banks suggests, we don’t just consume a story; we assimilate it. We ingest the author’s perspective and let it rewrite our mental software.
Why Good Books Change How We Think
Neuroscience has begun to catch up with what readers have known for centuries: reading fiction literally changes your brain.
Studies in cognitive psychology show that when we read about an experience, the same regions of the brain light up as if we were experiencing it ourselves. If a character is running, our motor cortex activates. If a character is expressing deep grief, our emotional empathy networks fire up.
Over time, this simulation builds psychological muscle.
Enhanced Empathy: By walking in the virtual shoes of diverse characters, we become less insular. We realise that human motivation is complex, messy, and rarely reducible to “good vs. bad.”
Nuanced Worldview: Dogmatism thrives on simplicity. Great literature thrives on ambiguity. When a book forces us to sit with unresolved endings and morally grey protagonists, we become more comfortable with the uncertainties of real life.
Experiencing the “Banks Effect” in Everyday Life
Have you ever finished a book and noticed that your internal monologue has adopted a bit of the author’s cadence? Or perhaps you walked down the street and found yourself noticing the architectural details, the plight of a stray animal, or the quiet desperation of a commuter—things you would have otherwise walked right past?
That is the “mark of a good book” in action.
After reading Victor Hugo, you might find yourself viewing the institutions of society with a renewed passion for justice and mercy.
After reading Virginia Woolf, the ordinary moments of a Tuesday afternoon suddenly shimmer with hidden psychological depth.
After reading Russell Banks himself—known for his unflinching examinations of working-class American life—you may look at your neighbors with a deeper, more empathetic curiosity about the quiet struggles they carry.
How to Choose Books That Will Change You
If you want to read in a way that actively transforms you, intentionality matters. Here are a few ways to ensure your reading list leaves a mark:
Step Outside Your Comfort Zone: If you mostly read contemporary thrillers, try 19th-century Russian literature or contemporary post-colonial fiction. Read stories from cultures, economic backgrounds, and belief systems vastly different from your own.
Slow Down: Transformation doesn’t happen at 3x audiobook speed. Allow yourself to linger over sentences. Keep a notebook handy to jot down quotes and reflections.
Discuss What You Read: Talk about books with others. Articulating how a book made you feel helps cement the psychological shift it triggered inside you.
Final Thoughts: The Unfinished Self
We are works in progress, incomplete blueprints being continually revised by our experiences. And among the most potent experiences available to the human mind is the quiet, profound act of reading.
Russell Banks reminds us that the best stories don’t let us walk away unchanged. They chip away at our biases, expand our capacity for empathy, and leave us standing a little taller, seeing the world with fresh eyes.
What is the last book that changed who you are? How did it shift your view of the world? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
I’d read about out-of-body experiences, and like everyone else, thought it was nonsense. Some people claimed to see themselves in the operating theatre, medical staff frantically trying to revive them, and being surrounded by white light.
I was definitely looking down, but it wasn’t me I was looking at.
It was two children, a boy and a girl, with their parents, in a park.
The boy was Alan. He was about six or seven. The girl was Louise, and she was five years old. She had long red hair and looked the image of her mother.
I remember it now, it was Louise’s birthday and we went down to Bournemouth to visit our Grandmother, and it was the last time we were all together as a family.
We were flying homemade kites our father had made for us, and after we lay there looking up at the sky, making animals out of the clouds. I saw an elephant, Louise saw a giraffe.
We were so happy then.
Before the tragedy.
When I looked again ten years had passed and we were living in hell. Louise and I had become very adept at survival in a world we really didn’t understand, surrounded by people who wanted to crush our souls.
It was not a life a normal child had, our foster parents never quite the sort of people who were adequately equipped for two broken-hearted children. They tried their best, but their best was not good enough.
Every day it was a battle, to avoid the Bannister’s and Archie in particular, every day he made advances towards Louise and every day she fended him off.
Until one day she couldn’t.
Now I was sitting in the hospital, holding Louise’s hand. She was in a coma, and the doctors didn’t think she would wake from it. The damage done to her was too severe.
The doctors were wrong.
She woke, briefly, to name her five assailants. It was enough to have them arrested. It was not enough to have them convicted.
Justice would have to be served by other means.
I was outside the Bannister’s home.
I’d made my way there without really thinking, after watching Louise die. It was like being on autopilot, and I had no control over what I was doing. I had murder in mind. It was why I was holding an iron bar.
Skulking in the shadows. It was not very different from the way the Bannister’s operated.
I waited till Archie came out. I knew he eventually would. The police had taken him to the station for questioning, and then let him go. I didn’t understand why, nor did I care.
I followed him up the towpath, waiting till he stopped to light a cigarette, then came out of the shadows.
“Wotcha got there Alan?” he asked when he saw me. He knew what it was, and what it was for.
It was the first time I’d seen the fear in his eyes. He was alone.
“Justice.”
“For that slut of a sister of yours. I had nuffing to do with it.”
“She said otherwise, Archie.”
“She never said nuffing, you just made it up.” An attempt at bluster, but there was no confidence in his voice.
I held up the pipe. It had blood on it. Willy’s blood. “She may or may not have Archie, but Willy didn’t make it up. He sang like a bird. That’s his blood, probably brains on the pipe too, Archie, and yours will be there soon enough.”
“He dunnit, not me. Lyin’ bastard would say anything to save his own skin.” Definitely scared now, he was looking to run away.
“No, Archie. He didn’t. I’m coming for you. All of you Bannisters. And everyone who touched my sister.”
It was the recurring nightmare I had for years afterwards.
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the thoughts, the images of Louise, the phone call, the visit to the hospital and being there when she succumbed to her injuries. Those were the very worst few hours of my life.
She had asked me to come to the railway station and walk home with her, and I was running late. If I had left when I was supposed to, it would never have happened and for years afterwards, I blamed myself for her death.
If only I’d not been late…
When the police finally caught the rapists, I’d known all along who they’d be; antagonists from school, the ring leader, Archie Bannister, a spurned boyfriend, a boy whose parents, ubiquitously known to all as ‘the Bannister’s, dealt in violence and crime and who owned the neighbourhood. The sins of the father had been very definitely passed onto the son.
At school, I used to be the whipping boy, Archie, a few grades ahead of me, made a point of belting me and a few of the other boys, to make sure the rest did as they were told. He liked Louise, but she had no time for a bully like him, even when he promised he would ‘protect’ me.
I knew the gang members, the boys who tow-kowed to save getting beaten up, and after the police couldn’t get enough information to prosecute them because everyone was too afraid to speak out, I went after Willy. There was always a weak link in a group, and he was it.
He worked in a factory, did long hours on a Wednesday and came home after dark alone. It was a half mile walk, through a park. The night I approached him, I smashed the lights and left it in darkness. He nearly changed his mind and went the long way home.
He didn’t.
It took an hour and a half to get the names. At first, when he saw me, he laughed. He said I would be next, and that was four words more than he knew he should have said.
When I found him alone the next morning I showed him the iron bar and told him he was on the list. I didn’t kill him then, he could wait his turn, and worry about what was going to happen to him.
When the police came to visit me shortly after that encounter, no doubt at the behest of the Bannister’s, the neighbourhood closed ranks and gave me an ironclad alibi. The Bannister’s then came to visit me and threatened me. I told them their days were numbered and showed them the door.
At the trial, he and his friends got off on a technicality. The police had failed to do their job properly, but it was not the police, but a single policeman, corrupted by the Bannisters.
Archie could help but rub it in my face. He was invincible.
Joe Collins took 12 bullets and six hours to bleed out. He apologized, he pleaded, he cried, he begged. I didn’t care.
Barry Mills, a strong lad with a mind to hurting people, Archie’s enforcer, almost got the better of me. I had to hit him more times than I wanted to, and in the end, I had to be satisfied that he died a short but agonizing death.
I revisited Willy in the hospital. He’d recovered enough to recognize me, and why I’d come. Suffocation was too good for him.
David Williams, second in command of the gang, was as tough and nasty as the Bannisters. His family were forging a partnership with the Bannister’s to make them even more powerful. Outwardly David was a pleasant sort of chap, affable, polite, and well mannered. A lot of people didn’t believe he could be like, or working with, the Bannisters.
He and I met in the pub. We got along like old friends. He said Willy had just named anyone he could think of, and that he was innocent of any charges. We shook hands and parted as friends.
Three hours later he was sitting in a chair in the middle of a disused factory, blindfolded and scared. I sat and watched him, listened to him, first threatening me, and then finally pleading with me. He’d guessed who it was that had kidnapped him.
When it was dark, I took the blindfold off and shone a very bright light in his eyes. I asked him if the violence he had visited upon my sister was worth it. He told me he was just a spectator.
I’d read the coroner’s report. They all had a turn. He was a liar.
He took nineteen bullets to die.
Then came Archie.
The same factory only this time there were four seats. Anna Bannister, brothel owner, Spike Bannister, head of the family, Emily Bannister, sister, and who had nothing to do with their criminal activities. She just had the misfortune of sharing their name.
Archie’s father told me how he was going to destroy me, and everyone I knew.
A well-placed bullet between the eyes shut him up.
Archie’s mother cursed me. I let her suffer for an hour before I put her out of her misery.
Archie remained stony-faced until I came to Emily. The death of his parents meant he would become head of the family. I guess their deaths meant as little to him as they did me.
He was a little more worried about his sister.
I told him it was confession time.
He told her it was little more than a forced confession and he had done nothing to deserve my retribution.
I shrugged and shot her, and we both watched her fall to the ground screaming in agony. I told him if he wanted her to live, he had to genuinely confess to his crimes. This time he did, it all poured out of him.
I went over to Emily. He watched in horror as I untied her bindings and pulled her up off the floor, suffering only from a small wound in her arm. Without saying a word she took the gun and walked over to stand behind him.
“Louise was my friend, Archie. My friend.”
Then she shot him. Six times.
To me, after saying what looked like a prayer, she said, “Killing them all will not bring her back, Alan, and I doubt she would approve of any of this. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Now I was in jail. I’d spent three hours detailing the deaths of the five boys, everything I’d done; a full confession. Without my sister, my life was nothing. I didn’t want to go back to the foster parents; I doubt they’d take back a murderer.
They were not allowed to.
For a month I lived in a small cell, in solitary, no visitors. I believed I was in the queue to be executed, and I had mentally prepared myself for the end.
Then I was told I had a visitor, and I was expecting a priest.
Instead, it was a man called McTavish. Short, wiry, and with an accent that I could barely understand.
“You’ve been a bad boy, Alan.”
When I saw it was not the priest I told the jailers not to let him in, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. They ignored me. I’d expected he was a psychiatrist, come to see whether I should be shipped off to the asylum.
I was beginning to think I was going mad.
I ignored him.
“I am the difference between you living or dying Alan, it’s as simple as that. You’d be a wise man to listen to what I have to offer.”
Death sounded good. I told him to go away.
He didn’t. Persistent bugger.
I was handcuffed to the table. The prison officers thought I was dangerous. Five, plus two, murders, I guess they had a right to think that. McTavish sat opposite me, ignoring my request to leave.
“Why’d you do it?”
“You know why.” Maybe if I spoke he’d go away.
“Your sister. By all accounts, the scum that did for her deserved what they got.”
“It was murder just the same. No difference between scum and proper people.”
“You like killing?”
“No-one does.”
“No, I dare say you’re right. But you’re different, Alan. As clean and merciless killing I’ve ever seen. We can use a man like you.”
“We?”
“A group of individuals who clean up the scum.”
I looked up to see his expression, one of benevolence, totally out of character for a man like him. It looked like I didn’t have a choice.
Trained, cleared, and ready to go.
I hadn’t realized there were so many people who were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. People that came and went, in malls, in hotels, trains, buses, airports, everywhere, people no one gave a second glance.
People like me.
In a mall, I became a shopper.
In a hotel, I was just another guest heading to his room.
On a bus or a train, I was just another commuter.
At the airport, I became a pilot. I didn’t need to know how to fly; everyone just accepted a pilot in a pilot suit was just what he looked like.
I had a passkey.
I had the correct documents to get me onto the plane.
That walk down the air bridge was the longest of my life. Waiting for the call from the gate, waiting for one of the air bridge staff to challenge me, stepping onto the plane.
Two pilots and a steward. A team. On the plane early before the rest of the crew. A group that was committing a crime, had committed a number of crimes and thought they’d got away with it.
Until the judge, the jury and their executioner arrived.
Me.
Quick, clean, merciless. Done.
I was now an operational field agent.
I was older now, and I could see in the mirror I was starting to go grey at the sides. It was far too early in my life for this, but I expect it had something to do with my employment.
I didn’t recognize the man who looked back at me.
It was certainly not Alan McKenzie, nor was there any part of that fifteen-year-old who had made the decision to exact revenge.
Given a choice; I would not have gone down this path.
Or so I kept telling myself each time a little more of my soul was sold to the devil.
I was Barry Gamble.
I was Lenny Buckman.
I was Jimmy Hosen.
I was anyone but the person I wanted to be.
That’s what I told Louise, standing in front of her grave, and trying to apologize for all the harm, all the people I’d killed for that one rash decision. If she was still alive she would be horrified, and ashamed.
Head bowed, tears streamed down my face.
God had gone on holiday and wasn’t there to hand out any forgiveness. Not that day. Not any day.
New York, New Years Eve.
I was at the end of a long tour, dragged out of a holiday and back into the fray, chasing down another scumbag. They were scumbags, and I’d become an automaton hunting them down and dispatching them to what McTavish called a better place.
This time I failed.
A few drinks to blot out the failure, a blonde woman who pushed my buttons, a room in a hotel, any hotel, it was like being on the merry-go-round, round and round and round…
Her name was Silvia or Sandra, or someone I’d met before, but couldn’t quite place her. It could be an enemy agent for all I knew or all I cared right then.
I was done.
I’d had enough.
I gave her the gun.
I begged her to kill me.
She didn’t.
Instead, I simply cried, letting the pent up emotion loose after being suppressed for so long, and she stayed with me, holding me close, and saying I was safe, that she knew exactly how I felt.
How could she? No one could know what I’d been through.
I remembered her name after she had gone.
Amanda.
I remembered she had an imperfection in her right eye.
Someone else had the same imperfection.
I couldn’t remember who that was.
Not then.
I had a dingy flat in Kensington, a place that I rarely stayed in if I could help it. After five-star hotel rooms, it made me feel shabby.
The end of another mission, I was on my way home, the underground, a bus, and then a walk.
It was late.
People were spilling out of the pub after the last drinks. Most in good spirits, others slightly more boisterous.
A loud-mouthed chap bumped into me, the sort who had one too many, and was ready to take on all comers.
He turned on me, “Watch where you’re going, you fool.”
Two of his friends dragged him away. He shrugged them off, squared up.
I punched him hard, in the stomach, and he fell backwards onto the ground. I looked at his two friends. “Take him home before someone makes mincemeat out of him.”
They grabbed his arms, lifted him off the ground and took him away.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman, early thirties, quite attractive, but very, very drunk. She staggered from the bar, bumped into me, and finished up sitting on the side of the road.
I looked around to see where her friends were. The exodus from the pub was over and the few nearby were leaving to go home.
She was alone, drunk, and by the look of her, unable to move.
I sat beside her. “Where are your friends?”
“Dunno.”
“You need help?”
She looked up, and sideways at me. She didn’t look the sort who would get in this state. Or maybe she was, I was a terrible judge of women.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Nobody.” I was exactly how I felt.
“Well Mr Nobody, I’m drunk, and I don’t care. Just leave me here to rot.”
She put her head back between her knees, and it looked to me she was trying to stop the spinning sensation in her head.
Been there before, and it’s not a good feeling.
“Where are your friends?” I asked again.
“Got none.”
“Perhaps I should take you home.”
“I have no home.”
“You don’t look like a homeless person. If I’m not mistaken, those shoes are worth more than my weekly salary.” I’d seen them advertised, in the airline magazine, don’t ask me why the ad caught my attention.
She lifted her head and looked at me again. “You a smart fucking arse are you?”
“I have my moments.”
“Have them somewhere else.”
She rested her head against my shoulder. We were the only two left in the street, and suddenly in darkness when the proprietor turned off the outside lights.
“Take me home,” she said suddenly.
“Where is your place?”
“Don’t have one. Take me to your place.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’m drunk. What’s not to like until tomorrow.”
I helped her to her feet. “You have a name?”
“Charlotte.”
The wedding was in a small church. We had been away for a weekend in the country, somewhere in the Cotswolds, and found this idyllic spot. Graves going back to the dawn of time, a beautiful garden tended by the vicar and his wife, an astonishing vista over hills and down dales.
On a spring afternoon with the sun, the flowers, and the peacefulness of the country.
I had two people at the wedding, the best man, Bradley, and my boss, Watkins.
Charlotte had her sisters Melissa and Isobel, and Isobel’s husband Giovanni, and their daughter Felicity.
And one more person who was as mysterious as she was attractive, a rather interesting combination as she was well over retirement age. She arrived late and left early.
Aunt Agatha.
She looked me up and down with what I’d call a withering look. “There’s more to you than meets the eye,” she said enigmatically.
“Likewise I’m sure,” I said. It earned me an elbow in the ribs from Charlotte. It was clear she feared this woman.
“Why did you come,” Charlotte asked.
“You know why.”
Agatha looked at me. “I like you. Take care of my granddaughter. You do not want me for an enemy.”
OK, now she officially scared me.
She thrust a cheque into my hand, smiled, and left.
“Who is she,” I asked after we watched her depart.
“Certainly not my fairy godmother.”
Charlotte never mentioned her again.
Zurich in summer, not exactly my favourite place.
Instead of going to visit her sister Isobel, we stayed at a hotel in Beethovenstrasse and Isobel and Felicity came to us. Her husband was not with her this time.
Felicity was three or four and looked very much like her mother. She also looked very much like Charlotte, and I’d remarked on it once before and it received a sharp rebuke.
We’d been twice before, and rather than talk to her sister, Charlotte spent her time with Felicity, and they were, together, like old friends. For so few visits they had a remarkable rapport.
I had not broached the subject of children with Charlotte, not after one such discussion where she had said she had no desire to be a mother. It had not been a subject before and wasn’t once since.
Perhaps like all Aunts, she liked the idea of playing with a child for a while and then give it back.
Felicity was curious as to who I was, but never ventured too close. I believed a child could sense the evil in adults and had seen through my facade of friendliness. We were never close.
But…
This time, when observing the two together, something quite out of left field popped into my head. It was not possible, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought she looked like my mother.
And Charlotte had seen me looking in their direction. “You seem distracted,” she said.
“I was just remembering my mother. Odd moment, haven’t done so for a very long time.”
“Why now?” I think she had a look of concern on her face.
“Her birthday, I guess,” I said, the first excuse I could think of.
Another look and I was wrong. She looked like Isobel or Charlotte, or if I wanted to believe it possible, Melissa too.
I was crying, tears streaming down my face.
I was in pain, searing pain from my lower back stretching down into my legs, and I was barely able to breathe.
It was like coming up for air.
It was like Snow White bringing Prince Charming back to life. I could feel what I thought was a gentle kiss and tears dropping on my cheeks, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Charlotte slowly lifting her head, a hand gently stroking the hair off my forehead.
And in a very soft voice, she said, “Hi.”
I could not speak, but I think I smiled. It was the girl with the imperfection in her right eye. Everything fell into place, and I knew, in that instant that we were irrevocably meant to be together.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a 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
…
I’d expected more questions from her, but the ride in the train to Wimbledon, and then to the car, she had very little to say. There was no doubt she was intrigued by the offer, but there was some trepidation too.
But it didn’t auger well for her longevity if she trusted people this easily. I had expected a lot more questions if only to find out what the job was.
Then, by the time we reached my car, it seemed she had time enough to think about everything.
“How do I know you’re not going to kill me too?”
She was standing on the other side of the car, yet to open the door. I was about to get in.
I looked at her across the roof.
“I could have done that ages Ago if that was my intention.”
“Not in a public space unless absolutely necessary.”
She was quoting the manual.
“So, I’m about to take you to a quiet spot in the country and shoot you?”
“Unlikely. You don’t have a gun with you.”
“A knife then?”
“I’m sure you don’t have one of those either. Besides, there’s a few other ways that don’t require weapons.”
I was astonished this was the conversation.
“I asked for your help, and that wasn’t to practice my killing skills. But, where we’re going that might happen to either of us.”
“Where are we going?”
“To a residence in Peaslake. Do you know of it? It’s about an hour away, southwest, I think. I’m not expecting to find anyone, but I am looking for a USB drive.”
“This O’Connell character’s?”
“Yes.”
A few seconds passed as she took that in, then, “If you are not expecting anyone to be there, why do you need me?”
“Rule whatever number it was, expect the unexpected. And get back up if it’s available. And there are other people looking for these documents, and the USB. Not friendly people I might add. I have no idea if they have the same information I have, so I’m expecting the unexpected. We have worked together and you know me.”
We had performed several assignments together for training purposes, as each of us had with the other four. She hadn’t been the best, but she hadn’t been the worst.
I saw her shrug. Acceptance?
She opened the door and got in.
It took me 15 minutes to get to the A3 and head towards Guildford.
A few minutes later she asked, “What the hell did we sign up for?”
“What do you mean? I thought it was pretty straight forward. Something other than a dull as ditchwater 9 to 5 job behind a desk.”
“I mean, don’t you think it’s odd we do all of this stuff for 6 months, almost to the day, then get an assignment, and it all goes wrong.”
“That our instructors were frauds?”
“We didn’t know that, and apparently they didn’t either. Do you know if any of it was real?”
“Seemed to me it was. And we only have this Monica’s word that Severin and Maury are frauds. I mean, I was surprised to learn they allegedly didn’t exist, but you and I both know that in organizations like the security services have wheels within wheels, departments unknown to other departments, event MI5 or the police, so who’s to say what really happened.”
“And you say you now work for this character Dobbin, whose another department head. As is this Monica.”
Put like that, it seemed very confusing.
“There are others that I’ve run into, working for both Dobbin and for Severin.”
“You mean Severin is still out there?”
“Yes. He tracked me down.”
And when I said it out loud, it crossed my mind why he hadn’t come after her, but the answer to that was he might have thought I was the only one that O’Connell hadn’t killed.
“And he thinks you are still working for him?”
“It’s complicated. I’m kind of doing a soft shoe shuffle around all of them and trying to find out what the hell is going on while keeping them at arm’s length. That might go horribly wrong which is also a good reason why I need help. We really should find out what we got into.”
“I’d prefer not to. He hasn’t come after me.”
“He will. It’s only a matter of time. You’re in the system, and I have no doubt he has access to that system. You’ve just been lucky so far. And you equally know as I do, there’s no such thing as luck in our line of work.”
Another minute or so passed.
Then she said, “If you’re trying to scare the hell out of me, it’s working.”
It suits my mood and is bound to affect my writing.
There are days when you write like you feel.
Wet and miserable.
But as a major contradiction, I actually like the rain. The pattering of raindrops on the roof and on the leaves of the foliage outside the window, the droplets running down the glass of the windows.
It has a calming effect
Then there is the wind.
It can have the un-nerving effect, sort of like the wailing of a banshee.
Or a sort of humming sound as it blows through the electricity lines.
Or has the effect, of a cold day, of cutting through your clothes and chilling you to the bone, more so if you are soaking wet.
Or when the wind blows the rain sideways, and you can feel it on your skin like a shower of frozen icicles.
It’s the sort of weather for staying inside, rugged up by the fire with a large cup or mug of hot tea and cookies, reflecting on when the good weather will return.
It reminds me of a set of allegories I read about a long time ago,
Winter – sad
Spring – hope
Summer – happy
Autumn – reflective
Perhaps it is a little early for me to be reflective, because where I live, Autumn is just around the corner.
I first started writing by longhand, still do, in fact, then graduated to my mother’s portable typewriter, right down to the sticking keys and overused ribbon, then moved upwards into the electric world having a pair of IBM electric typewriters I bought from one of the places I worked as second-hand cast-offs.
Just remembering those days gives me the shudders, from the tangled ribbons and messy hands to using carbon paper, how many times before they were useless?
Then the age of the electric typewriter went the same way as the manual ones, simply because I could no longer buy ribbons for my IBM Selectric, so it, too, had to go the way of the dinosaurs.
It was a good thing, then, that computers and word processing software started at about the same time. Word Perfect, to begin with, and then, in the early days of Windows, Word, and others. Sometimes it was easier just to use the text editor, and for convenience, it’s often by choice to get ideas down, quick and dirty.
This was before the days of the internet, where you physically had to do something about finding inspiration. And that, sometimes, was more difficult that it seems. I do not have a writing room with large windows looking out on a rural or urban panorama. The window looks onto a fence, and the house next door.
So much for my dream of owning a castle and having a writing room on the second or third level, with astonishing views.
Which leads me to today. Enough with the reminiscing. I have all the tools I need to get on with the job, but that isn’t enough to switch on the brain and start typing perfect prose. I have to go in search of some inspiration.
It’s just that in that short distance, from, say, the couch where you were reading the latest blog posts in the WordPress reader, and the writer’s chair, your preparation for writing ends up getting confused at some of the blogger’s points because it’s hard to find anything relevant that backs up their assertions, or how things work for them.
I guess success form anyone’s standpoint, is what worked for them. In relaying that to others, two things come to mind. It worked for them, but in telling a million others, and they all take the same approach, no, sorry, it ain’t going to work no how. The other, there’s usually a fee attached to gain the knowledge, and, yes, the same proviso applies. If everyone does it, it ain’t going to work no how.
But, there you are, my attention has been distracted, and unless I’m about to indulge in writing a version of how to achieve success myself, which I haven’t so I’m not, I’m off track, with an out of balance mindset, and therefore unable to write.
Perhaps I should not read blog posts, but the newspapers.
Or not, because they all have an editorial policy that leans either and one way or another, which means their views are not necessarily unbiased.
I was a journalist once and hated the idea of having to toe the editorial line. Or as luck would have it, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. It lends to the theory that you can never quite believe anything the media tells you, which is a very sorry place to be when there are no external influences you can trust.
I’m coming around to thinking that it’s probably best left to the dark hours of the night when you would think all the distractions are behind you. After all, isn’t that what daytime is for?
When I woke I knew I was going to be on a world of pain. Whatever the head of operations was thinking when he sent Maria in as backup obviously forgot the last time he made the same mistake.
It got us both captured, simply because she wasn’t capable of remembering basic details of her cover story.
We all had bad days, but she seemed to have more than most. And I don’t know why operations thought that she could help me.
Not in that last delicate stage.
And it was there. The trade was being made, everyone had got over their jitters, and then Boris had to ask, why I’ll never know, where she said she came from, a question he had asked earlier with an answer that satisfied him, Bratislava.
The second time she hesitated, and that was the moment I realised she must have made it up and couldn’t remember the lie, saying, Vienna.
And two seconds later we had no trade and eight guns on us. I was surprised we were not executed there and then.
Instead I was in a dungeon, certainly underground, damp and dank. And cold enough to make me shiver, though I think my current situation had something to do with it as well.
At least I was not tied up, which in itself was a worry. I didn’t think Boris was underestimating my capabilities, because he didn’t seem the sort of adversary that would. He’d managed to survive a long time on the murky world of betrayal.
This had been our chance.
It was quite dark, and I could barely see anything, other than a shard of light coming from under the door at the top of the stairs. The floor space, or what I could discern of it, was almost entirely taken up by boxes stacked on boxes, and random items of furniture.
I was sitting in an old lounge chair, one of three. And when I looked harder, I could see Maria asleep in another, a short distance from me.
I suppressed the urge to strangle her.
It was not the first time we had been in this situation. Last time, we had simply been abandoned, with a ticking time bomb.
Literally.
Who knew one of her many talents was disarming bombs?
It didn’t make up for getting us put in the building in the first place.
She stirred, but didn’t wake.
Perhaps my anger was misdirected. I should strangle the operations officer who sent her to me after I had specifically said I would not work with her again, and that this mission needed only one person to see it through.
Or perhaps I should be disappointed in the Director, who told me that it would not happen a second time. Which led to the supposition; were they trying to get rid of me?
I heard a thump upstairs, followed by muffled voices and shuffling feet. Had someone come to look for us after missing the check-in after the deal was completed?
Surely operations wouldn’t compound the problem by sending an operative to rescue us.
The door at the top of the stairs rattled, then I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in the lock. It opened and a body was shoved through the gap, sliding down the stairs to the landing. Before the dust had settled, the door closed again.
How many other bodies were lying around down here?.
I got up, then fell back in the chair, my head suddenly spinning out of control. I’d obviously been drugged before being thrown or carried down.
The second time I was more cautious and slowly stood up. Less spinning, but still coming in waves, until after a few minutes it abated, and I could stand.
Another few minutes before I could get up the stairs and check the pulse of the new arrival.
None.
I guess my hand being covered in blood told me he or she was dead. It was hard to tell anything in the gloom. I went back down and took the extra few steps towards Maria.
I felt for a pulse but it was not necessary. A hand on my arm told me she was awake. She probably had been the whole time.
“Who is he?” She asked.
“If it is a he, no idea. And dead.”
“Why are we still alive?”
“We are of value to Boris.”
She took a moment to think about that, and perhaps how she was going to explain how this all went sideways.
“I’m sorry.”
I thought about that for a second. “Not as sorry as you’re going to be if we get out of this.”
Perhaps I was overreacting but I was still angry.
She sighed. “It was necessary.”
Of course. Enough time had passed for her to formulate a story, one that I might believe.
“That’s what you said the last time.”
She let my hand go. “Be that as it may, you pissed someone off and they sent me. Believe me, if I had a choice…” She sighed again, realising it wouldn’t matter what she said. “It wasn’t my idea. I told them that if you saw me again, you’d shoot me yourself.”
I had made a similar threat to the director and the head of operations, and I thought they got the message. I was wrong.
Or worse, this was how they removed troublesome operatives who had problems with working in a team. Especially after they sent me to the training camp to try and eradicate the lone wolf tendency.
That’s what they called it. The lone wolf tendency.
I flopped back in the chair and closed my eyes. I was still feeling scathing from the aftereffects of the drugs, and the disappointment of a botched operation. “Why was it necessary this time? And why was it necessary to send you, of all people?”
“They needed a distraction.”
They? Why would they need a distraction? Then I remembered a drinking session with one of the instructors, in a small inn near the training grounds, the day I discovered he was nursing old wounds.
Wounds that few people were aware of.
And the lamentable story of operations that were wheels within wheels, operations that operatives were given a part to play but not given the whole story, operations that came apart because the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.
We had to learn to compartmentalise and adapt. That sometimes we would come up against our own people playing a role, or that we would be working around the edges of a much larger operation. Sometimes we would be told enough; sometimes we would not.
My last operation I was not fully briefed and found myself being removed before it interfered in another much more important operation. To me, it seemed like bad planning.
Wheels within wheels.
This suddenly felt like one of those operations.
“What else is going on here?” Obviously they needed my exchange shut down. Why?
“You know better than to ask me. I know less than you. And like you I just do as I am told.”
“Last time it nearly got us killed.” Much the same as this time.
“That wasn’t the expected outcome, well, not mine anyway. You’ll be happy to learn that earned me a ticket to the lone wolf tendency programme. I prefer to work alone, and I get the feeling they’re punishing me.”
I wasn’t quite at the point where I would come to that conclusion, but it was a theory with merit. It would explain the extended hiatus ordered by the new director a year ago, rumoured to be part of a government oversight committee request for reorganisation and more transparency.
In covert intelligence operations?
We had to work in a vacuum, with little oversight and absolutely no transparency. The former director, the man who recruited me, believed in results, not pandering to oversight committees.
The door above us rattled again. I looked up as a key was inserted in the lock. I turned to tell her to disappear, but she had already. Silently.
The door opened and light flooded the room. I was standing in the middle of what might be called a halo of light.
All i could see was a shadowy outline at the top of the stairs.
“Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one you were talking to.”
“That was my imaginary friend. When I woke up I was alone. And then my new friend arrived. I was looking at the body, “but he’s not talking.”
He aimed his gun and fired off a round. I heard it hit the seat did just been sitting in.
“Where is she?”
I shrugged. “If there was someone here, then they’ve gone, because when I woke up, there was no one here. Come down, check for yourself.”
“Or I can just shoot you.”
“And then I would have no value. You tell me how I can help you, and I’ll do my best to get it.”
“I want to know where the girl is?”
“You and me both. I have more reason to strangle her than you, believe me.”
He came down a few steps and stopped on the landing. I caught the movement of a shadow behind the stairs, and then nothing. He had to come down a few more steps before she could attack.
If that was her plan.
The closer I got, the more clearly I could see him, but it was not anyone I recognised, and was not one of the men I’d been dealing with for the exchange.
Had we been taken to a different place? It didn’t explain why we were still alive. Boris was not the sort to keep people who crossed him alive.
“Where’s Boris? He and I still have business to conduct.”
“He is gone. Business done. You are lucky. You are both worth a great deal of money, the girl more than you. Now, enough small talk. Where is she?”
I shrugged. “There is no girl down here. I looked. Nothing but boxes, old newspapers, and furniture. And that man you killed. Who was he?”
“Your pathetic rescue mission.”
He took another two steps, and then crouched to peer through the stairs behind him. The next moment he was falling backwards down the stairs, the gun going off twice, both deafening. I grabbed the gun and yanked it out of his hand as it fired again and I could just feel the bullet graze my arm.
One kick took the fight out of him, just as another shadow appeared in the doorway. I had to move quickly just before a volley of shots rang out.
It took almost too long to get the gun in my hand and fire back, and I was only able to get a shot off because he hadn’t moved.
If he had the outcome would have been a lot worse. He fired again, but those were random shots, as he tumbled headfirst down the stairs and, falling on the body on the landing, dislodged it and together they landed on the floor at my feet.
I spent another bullet making sure he wouldn’t come back to life at an awkward moment.
Maria came out from behind the stairs and wrenched the gun out of the hand of the second gunman.
“You hesitated. Could’ve been the difference.”
She simply glared at me like I was a novice.
I shook my head. No point explaining glaring lights and drug aftereffects to her. Like the instructors said, there were no excuses, just dead people who missed their moment.
“You first.” I decided to see if she baulked.
She didn’t. The steps now clear we went up and then took up a position either side of the door. If this was a babysitting operation, there would be only two. If it was something else, there would be more.
She peered out; I did likewise. There was no one in the passage.
A few minutes later we established there was no one else in the building.
There were cell phones and vehicle keys on the table, along with half eaten food and drink. Our rescuer must have interrupted them.
Maria picked up one of the phones. “No security. The guy made a call to a burner about five minutes ago. I looked at the other. Equally insecure. It had three numbers in its call log.
There was a text, with our photos and instructions to wait until called. That call had been while outer captors had come to visit.
“We should leave,” I said.
We both heard screeching tyres of several vehicles.
“Too late. CCTV. Just noticed it,” she said. “No trust in the world any more.”
The next few seconds bracing ourselves, and then machine gun fire. Somebody decided they didn’t like us. That lasted a minute, then stopped. Glass, brick and wood settled and dust filled the air, thick enough to hide an onslaught.
That was the distraction so that another team could get around the back so they could attack on two fronts.
The phone in my hand rang.
Maria looked annoyed.
I answered it. Boris’ voice. “You apparently have angered your masters and they’ve put a price on both your heads.”
That was a shock.
“When?”
“As of the moment you broke out of the cellar. I was not the one holding you, but I’d be foolish not to take up the contract.”
“Thanks.”
“I propose a deal though. You get to walk away if you’ve got a half million. I’ll tell them you’re dead, or at least as dead as I want you to be, and you have to disappear.”
‘You want to play dead, live another day?”
“How much?
“Quarter million.”
“How dead is dead?”
“No going back?”
“They’re our people out there?”
“Apparently. Boris is offering us a way out.”
Another 30-second spray this time from the front and the back. More dust and disintegrating building materials. It wouldn’t be long before they came in and finished the job.
The shooting stopped. She said, “Take it. We’ll sort out the details later.”
“Done,” I said into the phone, just as movement came from the front, the full front on assault.
…
People do not get put on a hit list for no reason.
That reason sometimes can be very obscure.
Boris didn’t know what the reason was, only that it was an opportunity to make money. Ideology was far less of a motivation than becoming fabulously wealthy and Boris was well on the way.
He was, by self-confession, a businessman, and he had no feelings one way of the other about whether we lived or died.
And in doing business, he had no qualms about us coming after him after the dust had settled simply because he had a code of ethics. Twisted perhaps, but we discovered quite to our surprise he was a man of his word.
Better than some people we knew, or perhaps more appropriately. Who were more acquaintances, people we didn’t really know at all.
That quarter million bought us safety, an Academy Award-winning make-up artist who made us the best-looking corpses ever, and a ticket to a run-down, badly in need of repairs cottage somewhere in Tuscany.
We spent a lot of time covered in a different sort of building rubble, almost unrecognisable as out former selves and much liked by all those around us, although like anyone where someone new and strange moves in, they were initially wary.
Did we miss being agents pretending we were saving the world? Yes and no.
Did we find out why we were had a hit order on us? Accidentally.
I was in London about a year later. There was, by this time, no one who would recognise the old me, i had changed that much.
It was at a random cafe, and I saw a man named Giles, a relative of the Director- nepotism at its worst. He was an arrogant fool who honestly believed as the Director’s son-in-law, he had the same authority.
I cam out with a coffee in a take away cup and decided did but at his table. It was rather crowded.
“Alan Giles, isn’t it?”
His head snapped up from the paper he was reading.
“Who are you?”
“We did Uni together. Cambridge. You won’t remember me, but I was that extra in the table, the one everyone ignored unutilised they needed help with assignments and exams.”
“Name?’
“You won’t remember. No one else has.”
“Not surprising. Go away.”
It was like he was talking to a stray dog.
“You finished up in Department F. With your uncle. You were always banging on about how he needed someone ofvyourvextraordinary deductive powers. Police or something. You get that job?”
He would either tell me to mind my own business, or instead talk about himself, failing to understand the Official Secrets Act was there for a reason.
He looked at me like I was stupid.
“I run the department, have done for ages. Did a clean out, got rid of all the dinosaurs Uncle Peter kept on.”
“Fired them?”
“God no. You don’t fire them. That comes back and bites you later on. No. We found a more permanent solution. Well, I did. He was going to simply put them out to pasture.”
“Poor people.”
He shook his heard. “You don’t know the half of it.” He caught sight of someone behind me and folded his paper. “Got to go. Please don’t annoy me again, or there will be consequences.”
I got up just as a woman arrived. I recognised her. Alison, the Director’s personal assistant. “Who are you?”, then stopped for a second, giving me a curious look.
I’d only met her twice.
“Do I know you, you seem familiar.”
“No. You couldn’t. I was at University with Alan. He was an inspiration to all other average students.” I tried not to dip it on to much sarcasm, but I guess I failed.
“Be off with you,” he said.
I shrugged. “Nice meeting you again, Alan.”
It was. It answered a long-standing question. Who set the dogs on us?
…
When I got back home, Maria was in the middle of making her version of fettuccine carbonara, a dish I had to say was one of my favourites.
“Get it all done?” She asked.
A slight rearrangement of our banking. And a small unforeseen side job.
She looked up, that trademark flour coating on her clothes and smudge on her forehead. It was hard to say if she was a better spy than a cook or vice versa.
“What needed to be done, yes.”
It had given me a few days to ponder the new life we had, and how much it meant to be alive, when if truth be known, we should not be. It was hard to have to disappear and not put your head up.
And not be living that vicarious lifestyle.
Just before I left we had a heartfelt discussion about what we had then versus what we had now. I think both us needed something else, but neither of us felt we could trust any agency again.
And while we had a perceived target on our backs…
Except now…
She noticed the change in my demeanour. It was very hard to hide.
“What? Something happened, didn’t it?”
“It was a right place right time moment. The sort you only get once in a lifetime.
I left it there for a minute.
She was holding a wooden spoon and at the end of that minute looked like she was going through throw it at me. “What?”
“I ran into Giles.”
“The Director’s nephew? Slimy Giles?”
He held special significance for three of the female recruits. On a visit to the training facility he thought he could use his position, inviting them to dinner with benefits. It didn’t quite work out the way he would have liked.
Two were washed out; the third was standing opposite me.
“He picked the same cafe I did. He had no idea who I was, other than he believed he went to uni with me. I was asking him about the job, and he told me he was on a special commission to permanently remove the dinosaurs. His words. He sanctioned the operation that included a dozen good agents.”
“Tell me you returned the favour?”
I nodded.
“Good.” She sighed. “That target was off our backs. He was always going to be the stumbling block if we got bored with this life.”
“Are you bored?”
“No. Had we not been thrown together like this, and got the opportunity to discover a completely different life? I’m pretty sure I’d be dead now, going out in a blaze of glory. But sometimes I wake up and wonder if there was something else I could be doing. Every now and then.”
Boris had left a burner phone, and an offer that if we ever wanted a job, he might be able to help. She hadn’t mentioned it, but I could feel it was in her thoughts.
“Well, Boris…”
She smiled. I knew that smile, the cat that ate the canary.
One Day in Amsterdam? Make It Unforgettable with a Single Stop: The Canal Belt (Grachtengordel)
Why the Canal Belt is the Perfect “One‑Place” Destination
Amsterdam’s 17th‑century canal network is more than a series of waterways—it’s the city’s living arteries, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the backdrop for every postcard you’ve ever seen. When you have just 24 hours, the Canal Belt gives you:
Iconic scenery in minutes: Picture‑perfect bridges, narrow merchant houses with gabled facades, and the gentle sway of historic barges.
A compact, walk‑and‑ride playground: All of the city’s most photographed sights sit within a 2‑km radius.
Flexible pacing: Whether you have a tight schedule or a couple of spare hours, you can tailor the experience to your rhythm.
In short, the Canal Belt lets you soak up the soul of Amsterdam without hopping from one museum to another or battling long ticket queues.
The Quick‑Start Guide: From Schiphol to the Canals in 20 Minutes
Step
How to Do It
Approx. Time
1. Exit Schiphol
Follow signs to “Trains & Buses.”
–
2. Catch a Sprinter train to Amsterdam Centraal
Trains depart every 10 min; tickets €5.20 (single).
15 min
3. Walk or bike to the Canal Belt
The station opens directly onto the western edge of the Grachtengordel. A 5‑minute stroll or a 2‑minute bike ride gets you to the heart of the action.
5 min
4. Start your canal adventure
Choose a walking route or hop on a 20‑minute hop‑on/hop‑off boat.
–
Pro tip: Buy an OV‑chipkaart (public‑transport card) at the airport for smooth tram/bus rides later in the day. It costs €7.50 including a €2.50 credit, and you’ll need it if you decide to explore beyond the canals.
The Experience: A Two‑Hour Itinerary That Feels Like a Whole Day
10 Minutes – First Glimpse from the Bridge
Begin at Blauwburgwal, the narrowest bridge in the city (just 1.13 m wide). From here, you’ll see the quintessential Dutch row of twee-onder- één houses (two‑storey front, one‑storey back). Snap a quick photo – it’s the perfect “Welcome to Amsterdam” shot.
30 Minutes – Guided Canal Boat (or DIY Paddle)
Option A – Guided 20‑minute hop‑on/hop‑off boat Board at the near‑by Pier on Prinsengracht ( tickets €18, includes a narration). The guide will point out the Anne Frank House, Westerkerk, and the Nine Streets (De Negen Straatjes) while you glide beneath the iconic Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge).
Option B – Self‑Guided Paddle Rent a small electric boat from a dock near Kattenburg (≈ €25 for 45 min). You’ll have the freedom to stop at a quiet spot and dip your toes in the water – a photographer’s dream.
45 Minutes – Walk the “Golden Triangle”
After disembarking, wander clockwise through the three main canals:
Canal
Highlights
Photo‑Spot
Herengracht (the “Gentlemen’s Canal”)
Elegant merchant mansions, the Museum Van Loon interior (if you have time).
The twin‑arch Herenstraat Bridge.
Keizersgracht (the “Emperor’s Canal”)
Grand city hall, the Royal Palace glimpsed across the water.
The Kattenburg Bridge with its pastel houses.
Prinsengracht (the “Prince’s Canal”)
Bustling Albert Cuyp Market on the side, lively cafés.
The Leidsepoort arch framing the canal.
Take 10–15 seconds at each bridge; the changing light on the water creates a natural Instagram carousel.
35 Minutes – Café Pause + Local Treat
Find a seat at Café de Dokter (the smallest bar in Amsterdam, tucked in a historic house on Prinsengracht 2). Order a classic stroopwafel with fresh coffee. The tiny interior, with its antique wooden bar, feels like stepping back into a 17th‑century tavern.
10 Minutes – Souvenir Sprint
If you have a few minutes left before your next train, pop into the Bloemenmarkt (Flower Market) on Singel. Pick up a bundle of fresh tulips for a vibrant reminder of your day.
Practical Tips to Maximise Your Canal Belt Adventure
Tip
Why It Matters
Buy boat tickets online
Saves ~15 minutes waiting in line, especially during peak tourist season.
Carry a lightweight rain jacket
Amsterdam weather flips fast; a dry coat means you won’t miss that perfect photo.
Use a bike lock
If you rent a bike at the station, lock it at a designated rack before hopping onto a boat.
Set a “time alarm” on your phone
With limited hours, a gentle reminder will keep you on schedule for your onward flight.
Download “Amsterdam City Card” (optional)
Includes unlimited tram/bus rides and discounts on museums—handy if you decide to squeeze in a quick museum visit after the canals.
The Bottom Line: One Place, Endless Memories
If you have only a single day in Amsterdam, the Canal Belt offers the most condensed, authentic, and photogenic slice of the city. In just a couple of hours, you’ll:
Walk beneath historic bridges that have stood for centuries.
Glide along water that once powered the Dutch Golden Age.
Taste a traditional treat in a centuries‑old café.
Capture a visual story you’ll be able to share for years to come.
All you need is a willingness to wander, a camera (or smartphone), and a few euros for a boat ticket. The rest? Amsterdam will hand you its charm on a silver‑lined canal.
Ready to turn a layover into a love‑at‑first‑sight? Slip into the Canal Belt, and let the city’s watery veins carry you straight into the heart of Dutch culture—no extra days required.
Happy travels, and don’t forget to tag your canal photos with #OneDayAmsterdam so we can see your favourite moments!
We mostly understand that a park is an area set aside for recreation, and can have trees, flowers, a lake, and vast lawns. These parks are also sometimes called ‘gardens’.
A great example of a park is Central Park in New York.
Nearly every city has a park of some sort; some have more than one.
But the word park has several other uses. For instance,
You can park a car, or bike, or yourself; in other words, it’s a place where you stop for a while. For cars, it is a carpark.
You could say ‘it’s just a walk in the park’, which means that the job is going to be easy. I never understood that analogy because quite a lot of parks have difficult walks, and not so much ‘a walk in the park’.
It is also used to describe a place where animals are kept, other than calling it a zoo; it can go by the name of a wildlife park. Zoos, though, are more for cities. Wildlife parks can be quite huge, and many are found in Africa.
A park can also be used to describe a sporting arena or field.
You can park a bag in a locker.
You can park an idea in the back of your mind and come back to it later, or if you are like me, it disappears into the ether.
It can be an area of land around a manor house, but there are very few of those left now. The most notable of these are in England and were designed by a man called Capability Brown.
To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.
But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continued on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.
That, I think, is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much of an idea of where it’s going as the reader does.
It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years. Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?
My private detective, Harry Walthenson
I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mould of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Philip Marlowe, but he’s not.
But I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it. Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.
Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life. I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.
Then there’s the title, like
The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello
The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister. And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.
But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.
Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brothers’ Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then it went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and I am at the editor for the last reading.
I have high hopes of publishing it in mid-2026. It even has a cover.
10 Minutes – First Glimpse from the Bridge
30 Minutes – Guided Canal Boat (or DIY Paddle)
45 Minutes – Walk the “Golden Triangle”
35 Minutes – Café Pause + Local Treat
10 Minutes – Souvenir Sprint
