John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly, he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
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 prioritising.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Did he just witness an execution?
…
I could see the cogs in his mind turning over. Calculating what it would take to get past me.
Running would only help me.
Walking, well, he wasn’t going to get far.
A fight? He might be more experienced, but I was angrier, now controlled anger aided by rational thinking. There would be no blindly lashing out.
Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Self-defence.
We were ten yards apart when he stopped, moving to one side near the wall. I’d seen him looking for a weapon, but luckily none were on offer. Someone kept this laneway very clean.
A car had been parked at the end, and I’d seen him try the doors. Locked. It would not be available for his escape.
He glared at me. “You’re Jackson, right?”
A brief moment of shock. How did he know my name?
“Who I am is irrelevant.”
“So you say. But I can assure you this is all wrong.”
Rule number seventy, or something like that, the target will say anything to get you offside.
“You harmed my friends.”
“Then, you’re in big trouble if you regard them as friends. In this business, we don’t have friends.”
He was right in one respect. Having friends gave our enemies leverage. But without friends, the loneliness of the job could break you.
But, right then I wasn’t interested in his opinion.
When I didn’t answer he said, “This is a setup. I’m not the enemy; I’m one of you. I made a mistake, and now they’ve set the dogs on me.”
I didn’t ask why we were following him, that was above my pay grade, added to the fact I didn’t want to know. Knowing the perfidy of the target could compromise how I treated him.
“You’re the target, why I don’t care.”
“Look, I haven’t got much time. Find a man called Alfred Nobbin. I work for him. I found something I shouldn’t, which is why you are here, now. Tell him the evidence is ….”
I didn’t hear the bullet that killed him, but it came from behind me, hit him in the chest, its force sending him backwards, and he was dead before he hit the ground.”
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
A run in with Alex
…
It had been an interesting excursion, with discovery, but not so significant, it meant anything. I went back to Nadia’s hotel room to collect the maps she had in the picnic basket so I could compare them with others because at least two of them had features I’d not seen before.
I was there only for the maps, then left. It had been a long day and she was tired, and I was glad not to be working that night. I also had been thinking about what Boggs was doing, and where, for that matter, he’d been.
I hadn’t seen Boggs for days, and worse, the last time I did see him, we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. It was a long way to fall from when, what seemed less than a week, we were the best of friends.
It seemed his obsession with the treasure hunt had usurped any possibility of being civil or any understanding that there might be more pressing matters in my life, like having to help support my mother.
Perhaps he didn’t realize the nature of my necessity to actually get a job and bring some money onto a household that was struggling just to exist.
For that matter, I had to wonder just how he and his mother managed to exist now that Rico was behind bars with little chance of escaping a prison sentence. Oddly, I felt sorry for him, but I was beginning to believe that Alex and the Benderby’s were responsible for the archaeologist’s death and had used Rico’s boat to stitch him up.
As for Boggs, there was that lingering doubt in his mind that I had crossed to the dark side, associating myself with Nadia, a sworn enemy, and treasure hunting rival.
It was a thought that crossed my mind too and could be argued that she was just using me as a means of getting to the treasure for her family given that she might assume that I stood a better chance of deducing where it was because Boggs had a head start on everyone else, and was still stumbling around in the dark.
That she was willing to help, by means that could have only been facilitated by her family didn’t go unnoticed, and I was a lot warier now of sharing everything I knew with her. I was not that naive to believe she was interested in me for any other reason.
It didn’t really matter because whether I would share any or all information with her or anyone else was largely irrelevant. I was inclined to believe it didn’t exist, or if it had, it was more likely that someone had found it long ago, and like the Cossatino’s later on, promoted the myth for the purpose of exploiting people’s gullibility.
This was, I guess, one of those between a rock and a hard place moment.
A sudden itch on the back of my neck made me turn around and look back in the direction of her room, and I noticed a flutter where the curtain was. Had she been waiting to see if I had gone?
I hated the idea of being suspicious of people’s motives, but the name conjured up all manner of expectations, and I could only imagine what it was like to live with that. Would she ever live a normal life, or even know what normal was?
Did any of us?
“Smidge.”
A voice that would strike terror into the heart of anyone like me.
Alex. Loitering outside the vicinity of Nadia’s hotel. Was he spying on her?
“Alex.”
Beside him was one of his father’s henchmen and it didn’t look good.
“What are you doing here?”
Had he just arrived on his way to see her, or had he been lurking in the shadows? My money was on the latter. He had been the jealous boyfriend once, and it was hard to see him changing.
Truth or dare? Truth. “I was visiting Nadia. But I wouldn’t start assuming it was for any reason other than for her to be questioning me about Boggs’s progress on his treasure hunt, which, by the way, is zero. My guess is you are having more success.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The flash boat on the water, I suspect you’re trying to find a trail of coins from bay to beach in the hope of establishing where it came ashore. I’m sure you have some fancy metal detection going on from the boat. So, any success?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m sure telling Boggs is hardly going to make his investigation move along faster than it is. What would help is the captain’s logbook, and that I suspect was the archaeologist’s trump card, and he died before imparting its whereabouts.”
It was pure speculation on my part, but Alex always lacked a poker face, even back in school when he got into trouble. His expression changed just slightly. So, there was a logbook.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
“This had nothing to do with my father.”
“Perhaps I should tell him that, including your obsession with Nadia.”
Something I should have realized long ago, and just crystallized in my mind, though I was not sure why was the fact Benderby had become almost a regular visitor at our place. If I thought about it, it explained why my mother had suddenly started taking more care of her appearance, and how it came to pass that I could get a job in a place where very few could.
Benderby had always had an interest in my mother, and suddenly I realized they had been to school together, and the words of my father spoken once in anger made sense. He was not her first choice. She may have been Benderby’s first choice back then, but I doubted his family would have sanctioned it.
I wondered what Alex would have thought of that revelation. Since his mother’s death, Benderby had started seeing more of her, and that had to add to Alex’s dislike of me.
“Not a good idea smidge.”
“Not a good idea to be calling me Smidge, Alex.”
A nod from Alex, the henchman took a step forward and grabbed my shirt, and then rammed into the wall.”
Alex laughed, and then suddenly went quiet.
Another voice joined the conversation. “Tell your goon to let him go or I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”
Nadia. Her tone scared me.
“You’re not that stupid,” Alex said in a tone that told me it scared the hell out of him too
“I’m a Cossatino, since when did stupidity rate a mention. We’ve been doing stupid shit forever, and you’re about to join the party.”
“You don’t want to do this.”
“Actually Alex, I do. It’ll get rid of one big problem I have with you, and it’ll get rid of a serial pest. People will thank me.”
I could see her now, behind him, dressed in black, and at first thought, she was a ninja. I could see the knife at his throat, and as she moved it slightly, he jerked drawing blood.
“Let him go,” Alex muttered.
The goon let go of my shirt and stepped back.
“Now go, Alex. Don’t come back. And don’t annoy Smidge again, or you’ll have me to deal with.”
He looked me up and down with a look of distaste. “This isn’t over.”
Nadia gave him a shove and stepped between him and me.
“It is, Alex. I know what you did to that chap you dumped on Rico’s boat. You might not have killed him, but you’re ultimately responsible for his death, and I’m sure the sheriff would like to hear about it. So, go away Alex, and be a good boy and we’ll all keep our little secrets.”
Angry yes, sullen answered resentful, equally so, but reluctantly agreeable. “If you say so.”
A nod to his goon and they left.
There was something else hanging in the air, that statement about keeling little secrets. He’d kept something over her, she had admitted as much to me, but the tables had been turned. But what it was she had over him, it was more than just the archaeologist.
“What was that about?” I had to ask.
“The Benderby’s have lots of secrets Sam, not just Alex. I played a card and it paid off. He won’t bother you again, not seriously anyway.”
“Should I be thanking you, or have I just been dragged down a rabbit hole?”
Perhaps I might have worked it better because she did save me from a certain beating.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
Stating the obvious, there was no easy way out of that question.
“You said it yourself. You’re a Cossatino. I want to believe you, and strangely, given history, I like you perhaps more than I should.”
“Good boys and bad girls, it’s usually the other way around. I wanted to hurt him, believe me, and I meant it when I said we do stupid shit, but I’m trying to be better than that. I want to be better than that. It’s why I need to get away from this place.”
“Then why do you just go? For that matter, why did you come back?”
“Unfinished business.” She took my hand in hers. “And I like being with you. You have a way of making me feel like I can change.”
“You are different.”
“Am I though? I don’t feel like it right now.”
“Well, I am grateful you came along.”
“Good to be a help for once. What’s our next adventure going to be?”
“A picnic in the hills. I want to look at a few caves.”
“The one where Ormiston reportedly went missing? You seem to be on a very macabre Odyssey. What did the newspaper archives turn up?”
“An interesting coincidence. I’ll let you know when I’m free next.”
“I’ll be waiting.” She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips, then leaned back to look me in the eyes.
What I wanted then couldn’t be put into words.
Thank God she blinked.
I kissed her on the cheek, shook my head slightly, and said quietly, ” You will be the death of me.”
“Maybe,” she said softly, ” but you will die a very happy man.”
There’s a quiet magic in the best fiction—a kind that doesn’t announce itself with flashy prose or intricate plots, but lingers long after the last page is turned. You close the book, set it down, and somehow feel… heavier. Not weighed down, but fulfilled—as though you’ve absorbed something essential, something that wasn’t there when you began.
Great fiction writers don’t write for themselves. They write for you—the reader. And the greatest among them give you more than entertainment or escape. They give you something.
What Is That “Something”?
It’s not always easy to name. It might be a sudden clarity about human nature—why your father acted the way he did, or why forgiveness is harder than anger. It could be an aching empathy for someone unlike yourself, conjured through a character so vividly drawn that their pain feels like memory. It might be the unsettling truth that you’re not as alone in your fears or dreams as you thought.
That something is the residue of real art: emotional weight, intellectual insight, or a quiet shift in perspective. It’s the feeling you get after reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved, or finishing a Chekhov story, or stepping out of the world of George Eliot’s Middlemarch. You’re changed. You carry the story with you, not as memorised lines, but as lived experience.
And that’s the hallmark of a true artist: they offer their work not as a monument to their own genius, but as a gift to the reader’s soul.
The Writer’s True Purpose: Not Self-Expression, But Soul-Transmission
So many aspiring writers believe their job is to express themselves—to pour out their thoughts, traumas, or clever wordplay onto the page. And while honesty and authenticity matter, the goal cannot stop there. Great fiction isn’t exhibition; it’s invitation.
When you write to express yourself, the work orbits inward. But when you write for the reader, it expands outward—reaching, resonating, transforming. The best writers understand this intuitively. They labor not to impress, but to impact. They revise not for elegance alone, but for emotional precision—because they know a single well-placed sentence can alter someone’s understanding of love, loss, or what it means to be human.
Think of Harper Lee handing Scout Finch to the world—not as a self-indulgent character study, but as a lens through which generations would confront race, justice, and moral courage. Or consider Kazuo Ishiguro, whose restrained narratives coil around memory and dignity, leaving readers quietly devastated—and wiser.
These writers didn’t write to soothe their own egos. They wrote to give you something to carry.
Your Work Is Not About You—And That’s the Point
If you’re writing fiction to be seen, praised, or validated, you’re writing in the wrong direction. Real art doesn’t seek applause. It seeks resonance.
When you shift your focus from What do I want to say? to What does the reader need to feel, see, or understand?, your writing transforms. Your characters deepen. Your themes gain weight. You begin to sculpt stories that don’t just entertain, but endure.
Every choice—of voice, of silence, of detail—becomes an offering. The description of a worn kitchen table isn’t just set dressing; it’s a vessel for memory. A character’s hesitation isn’t just pacing—it’s a reflection of universal doubt.
This reorientation is humbling. It asks you to let go of the need to be clever, shocking, or profound on the surface. Instead, it calls you to serve the story—and, through it, the reader.
Walk Into the Light, Leave With Weight
The finest novels, the unforgettable stories, don’t leave you lighter. They leave you fuller. You walk into them seeking diversion, and you walk out carrying a new emotional memory, a truth you didn’t have before.
So if you’re serious about writing fiction that matters, remember this: your work is not yours. It never was. It belongs to the reader—the one who will read your words late at night, who will underline a passage, who will feel less alone because of something you wrote.
Let that be your compass. Write not for your name on a cover, but for the weight you leave in someone’s chest. Because great fiction doesn’t just live on the page. It lives in the reader—long after the book is closed.
I remember the days when our town was like a sleepy hollow surrounded by prairies and mountains.
We had everything we needed, and the town grew at the pace that matched the natural population growth. It was quite literally that sort of town where everyone knew everyone else.
The Murphys ran the sheriff’s department, the Watersons were mayors or civic officers, the Ravellers ran the bank, and Blacks started as the blacksmith and now took care of the farm machinery and engineering. We were, for all intents and purposes, self-sufficient.
Then, little by little, that autonomy started to disappear. The fast food outlets came; a shopping mall was built, and then realtors came and built estates, claiming our town was just the place to live, away from the city rat race.
Then times changed, and the economy failed, and people found themselves struggling. It was not just us; it was everywhere.
That’s when the Montgomerys came.
…
My father was conservative, not exactly against change, just change that radically affected his way of life. He and a few others opposed the mall, the resort being built on the old Anderson ranch, and the radical redesigns of the main street.
He had watched the fast food places turn the children away from the people food, the new hotels turn the people into gamblers and drinkers, and the out-of-towners who were moving into the new estates increase the crime rate. . And the new people brought the drug scourge.
In five years the sheriff’s office had gone from a shop front with the sheriff and two deputies to ten deputies and three detectives, and a modern two-story building with a compound and jail space for twenty.
In those same five years, the original families that built our town started leaving.
My father deplored what was happening, even more so when there was nothing he could do about it. Our Sunday family gathering had turned into a gathering of the so-called founding fathers, dwindling rapidly.
Most had either died out or sold out. And in the case of my generation, with the advent of the internet and the ease of getting information, most have left to seek their fortune in the big cities, tempted by the fortunes that could be made.
He also resisted the buyout offers of his land, now very prime real estate, and held up a multi-million-dollar new resort being developed by the Montomery Corporation run by Archibald Montgomery.
A self-made man, he was quite literally larger than life. No one knew why he left New York, only that he landed in our town by mistake and took a shine to it.
His foothold started with building a castle on the old Herbertson ranch, the first of the old guard to sell out. From there he regaled the old founders with parties and then offers, buying up properties for cents on the dollar, legally and sometimes not.
He went from hero to monster in the blink of an eye. About the same time, it was realised he had bought half the town and surrounding farms. And with that sort of influence, he all but owned the mayor and the sheriff.
Then there was Archie Montgomery junior.
I finished high school with him, the eldest son, and the heir apparent. He believed he owned the town, and everything else, and everyone was his slave to do his bidding.
Those who didn’t found themselves on the wrong end of the stick.
That’s how the Thompsons, my family, became the thorn in the side that neither the father nor the prodigal son wanted or needed.
And both were the subject of conversation at lunch.
…
I looked around the tables at the twenty-two members left from the founding fathers group. The latest casualty: the town sheriff for the last 20 years, just getting voted out and replaced by one of Montgomery’s acolytes.
He was glad to retire, just not about who replaced him. The mayor, or ex-mayor, was sitting next to him, having been deposed on the same election day. Politically, the wind had shifted, and the representatives in Congress that had protected us for so long had been swept away, replaced by, well, my father had an expression that wasn’t repeatable.
Montgomery had finally won, as he said he would.
Jacob Waterson, sixth-generation resident, the last of a long line of town mayors, was sad. He had seen what was happening, and like the rest of us, could do nothing about it.
“It’s time we all just left and left them to it. We can only hold out so long. I mean, if torching the Franz property was a message, then who will be next?”
Old man Franz had refused to sell. Then suddenly his place burned down with him in it, and the investigation came back that old man Franz had basically caused the fire himself. Old wiring and out-of-date appliances. He had been warned.
The thing is, he had the wiring replaced. He just didn’t tell those who needed to know except us. It was like he knew what was going to happen.
“That fire was not caused by an electrical fault.”
The ex-sheriff was adamant and was checking the crime scene himself. No one in the county was interested, a measure of how far Montgomery’s influence had reached.
“That would be me, I’m guessing,” my father said. “Those hundred head of missing cattle turned up on the other side of the country, sold to a meat processor, with our brand overstamped. It was very cleverly done, almost unnoticeable.”
I’d seen the photos sent by the meat works when they noticed an irregularity. Too late to stop the slaughter. Too late to do anything about it.
“It’s time. We’re retiring in Florida. We got just enough to buy a condo and spend a few years cruising. Take the offer and get out, Jake.”
The sheriff was still recovering from an ambush attack that left his deputy dead and him a hospital case. He would have gone back to work if he was fit, but then he lost the election.
The campaign to depose him was very dirty. Politics was threaded through even the minor elections, and that was driving the politicised landscape, a problem we never had before the developers and new arrivals.
Pity.
I guess it was time for all of us to retire.
The conversation focussed on who was next, not what we could do about it, and I think that was the measure of our impotence. There was just not enough of us to make a change.
That’s when a lone voice at the table spoke, my sister Marianne. “They haven’t won; they were never going to win.”
An odd ethereal silence fell over the room.
“In a sense they have,” our father said.
“Not where it matters, as they will soon discover.”
“What do you mean?” Her mother looked worried. Marianne had suffered a bad few months recently with the Montgomery juniors’ bullying.
The daughter was as bad as the son.
“I put a curse on the whole family “
That was something else about Marianne that had worried me. A week or two ago I had accidentally walked in on her and four of her friends sitting inside a pentagram chanting what sounded like Latin.
Several books around them had what were supposedly spells, one she said would bring down hellfire and damnation on the Montgomeries.
Wishful thinking, I’d said, but if it made her feel better…
“Yes, dear,” her mother said. She was going to, as she had in the face of increasing agitation, just ignore it as a phase.
Then added her two cents’ worth to the conversation, “Perhaps it’s time we moved on. Nothing lasts forever, as much as we hoped it would.”
I was sure a few of those sitting around the table hoped the curse would work.
The silence lasted about another minute and a half before Harvey, one of the ranch hands, came bursting into the room and went over to our father. I heard him mutter in his ear, “There’s a fire in the town, it’s bad.”
Several of the men around the table were volunteer firefighters, surprised they hadn’t got the callout.
In a matter of seconds, Marianne and I were the only two left in the room. I would have joined the exodus, but I suspected there was more to this curse thing.
She had a curious, if not demonic, expression.
“What did you do?” A very bad feeling came over me.
“We ensured that Montgomery will never forget that despite his blind faith in his invincibility, he is as vulnerable as anyone else. Wealth and power cannot prevent the inevitability of moral justice.”
Now she was scaring me. Her conversations were scathing at best, every sentence starting or ending with a like or but.
She stood. “Come.” She held out her hand towards me. “Let us go and witness the very essence of retribution.”
I found it impossible to resist the invitation.
Perhaps she was a witch.
…
A crowd had gathered. Deputies had put up a tape line to keep them back.
As we got close, we could see the smoke billowing into the air, and on the breeze, that acrid aroma of the smoke.
The fire was in the library, attached to City Hall, old sandstone buildings built at the turn of the last century, but they were a fire hazard, so much wood and paper.
Flames were coming out of the windows and the roof. Three fire engines were fighting a losing battle, fire hoses snaking in all directions and men running, dressed in fireproof suits and breathing apparatus.
As we took up a position between two of the new families, their kids more interested in the fire trucks than the fire, we were joined by several of her friends, the girls who had been with her in the pentagram.
None spoke, but I got the feeling they knew something about what was happening.
Then we all heard a shout, coming from outside the front entrance to the library, where a firefighter in full protective gear stumbled out the doorway. “There are people inside. I heard the screams; there’s nothing we could do. It’s horrible.”
He collapsed, and two other firefighters came over and helped him over to the ambulance.
I knew then that it had to be a member or members of the Montgomery family. How they got in there, why they were in there, if they were in there, was a question more than just me would be asking.
Especially if they died in that fire.
And whether it was proven that the fire was not from natural causes and was started by someone.
I looked at my sister. Her expression was unreadable, the sort of expressionless face one would expect from a poker player. Her friends were not so good at hiding their feelings.
“You called this retribution,” I said quietly beside her.
I watched two suited firemen go into the building, and the come back out just as flames leapt through the door after them.
It was followed by a heavy cracking sound, and I think that was the roof crashing down.
No one was going to be saved, whoever was in there.
“God answered our prayers. The Montgomerys are a scourge on the landscape. If it was them, then it’s good riddance. I’ve seen enough.” She looked at the other girls. “Let’s go to the church and pray for their souls “
…
It was two days before the fire died out and the investigators went in. It took a week after that for a partial report to be leaked to the townsfolk.
Apparently my sister’s only fault was that she had cursed the family, and everyone knew she was not a witch, so she was taking credit for something she hadn’t done.
The problem was, there wasn’t anyone who could be found in the residue, as it had been expected they’d find bones or partial bones.
The firefighters had sworn he heard cries for help behind the wall of flames.
The thing is, they couldn’t find anyone, missing or otherwise, in the wreckage. But missing people there were: the whole Montgomery family.
Their cars were missing, and key possessions were missing, and their bank accounts were emptied. There was just no reason why they should leave now.
The thing is, people who had been aligned with the Montgonerys took a step back and then decided they were no longer aligned with them, and came to the former mayor and asked him to reinvent the town, back to the way it was.
No, we didn’t exactly get our town back; we had gone down a path there was no coming back from. We just had to live with it, and keep going.
And for a while it was good.
Then rumours circulated that the Montgomerys had died in the fire, all of them. Despite reports that the Montgomeries had been seen in the next County the day after the fire was extinguished.
Nothing made sense, and it became town folklore.
Until…
…
I was sitting in the lawyers’ office; the one overlooking the park outside city hall. The one they had renovated after that eventful fire sixty years ago, almost to the day.
Robert Penthaven, son of the son of the man who tended my father’s affairs, had called me and said there were details about my sister’s passing that needed clearing up.
The last time I had to sit in the chair was after my father died and my sister and I inherited the ranch. She wasn’t interested, having long moved away, but retained her interest in it.
I thought it was to formalise the passing of her interest to me. I was passing mine to my son, who thankfully wanted to be a rancher and not relocate to the city.
I’d waited almost a half hour and thought I’d nodded off because, as softly as he tried to close the door it woke me with a start.
“Sorry,” he said, dropping into the more comfortable chair behind the desk. “Simple things take much longer these days.”
He opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a file, a quite thick file. An envelope was clipped to the cover. He unclipped it and slid it across the table. “For you, after she died.”
“Words from the grave.”
“Or grave words, maybe. She was a curious one, your sister. I never quite knew when she was joking or when she wasn’t.”
“Did she tell you she was a witch?”
“Among other things. She once said she was the keeper of secrets, and one in particular, one that she said she would take to the grave. We are all a bit like that; things happen, and we wish to forget. Perhaps that letter might shed some light.”
“Or tell me it’s time to stand on my own two feet. Older siblings are like that.”
I picked up the envelope and held it in my hand. One sheet, three at the most. The question was whether I wanted to read it.
I shrugged and opened it. Robert stood. “I’ll be outside if you need me.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
I unfolded the sheets. Two. Written in her spidery writing, almost illegible. She had wanted to be a doctor and settled for nurse practitioner.
She would have made a great doctor.
Kyle,
There are beginnings, there are endings, and all the rest is the consequences of life.
Sometimes it is not the life you wanted, but simply the life you get according to your choices.
I never knew what I really wanted, but it wasn’t to be raped by Archie Montgomery. Nor did any of my friends. We became The Five, who could have become victims.
We did not.
We decided to rid the world of a problem.
This is not a confession. We did not sin against natural justice. A thoroughly bad person was tried in God’s eyes and received the punishment he was due.
He burned in hell.
The shame of it was that his family tried to save him, and died in vain. It was not what we wanted; we had nothing to do with their deaths, and had they left well alone, they would have lived.
I can’t say they’re in a better place.
I can’t say we ended up in a better place, but as far as I’m concerned, I have atoned for my sins.
He never hurt another girl.
That family never hurt another soul.
Our town did not miss them, as they did not miss The Five. It was no longer our town.
If they ever pull down the library and dig new foundations, they will find them, all seven. Let’s hope that it’s not in your lifetime. It won’t be in mine, or the rest of The Five.
We have all moved on, hopefully to a better place.
Keep the secret or not, it’s up to you, but I suspect that age-old statement ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ might be appropriate here.
May your life be happy and content. The ranch is yours to leave to Kyle Junior, as it should be.
Meg.
I think I sat there staring at the pages without seeing them, feeling the tears running down my cheeks, now understanding the enigma my sister had become.
If she had told me that fateful night we were standing outside the burning library, I would not have believed her, and I don’t think I did now. There was a long list of those who wanted all of the dead. It would be easy to claim responsibility now when I couldn’t cross-examine her.
Would you give up everything to be with the one you love?
…
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, a place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledgedthat something had happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive, she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realises is the love of his life.
The cover, at the moment, looks like this:
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
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.
I remember the days when our town was like a sleepy hollow surrounded by prairies and mountains.
We had everything we needed, and the town grew at the pace that matched the natural population growth. It was quite literally that sort of town where everyone knew everyone else.
The Murphys ran the sheriff’s department, the Watersons were mayors or civic officers, the Ravellers ran the bank, and Blacks started as the blacksmith and now took care of the farm machinery and engineering. We were, for all intents and purposes, self-sufficient.
Then, little by little, that autonomy started to disappear. The fast food outlets came; a shopping mall was built, and then realtors came and built estates, claiming our town was just the place to live, away from the city rat race.
Then times changed, and the economy failed, and people found themselves struggling. It was not just us; it was everywhere.
That’s when the Montgomerys came.
…
My father was conservative, not exactly against change, just change that radically affected his way of life. He and a few others opposed the mall, the resort being built on the old Anderson ranch, and the radical redesigns of the main street.
He had watched the fast food places turn the children away from the people food, the new hotels turn the people into gamblers and drinkers, and the out-of-towners who were moving into the new estates increase the crime rate. . And the new people brought the drug scourge.
In five years the sheriff’s office had gone from a shop front with the sheriff and two deputies to ten deputies and three detectives, and a modern two-story building with a compound and jail space for twenty.
In those same five years, the original families that built our town started leaving.
My father deplored what was happening, even more so when there was nothing he could do about it. Our Sunday family gathering had turned into a gathering of the so-called founding fathers, dwindling rapidly.
Most had either died out or sold out. And in the case of my generation, with the advent of the internet and the ease of getting information, most have left to seek their fortune in the big cities, tempted by the fortunes that could be made.
He also resisted the buyout offers of his land, now very prime real estate, and held up a multi-million-dollar new resort being developed by the Montomery Corporation run by Archibald Montgomery.
A self-made man, he was quite literally larger than life. No one knew why he left New York, only that he landed in our town by mistake and took a shine to it.
His foothold started with building a castle on the old Herbertson ranch, the first of the old guard to sell out. From there he regaled the old founders with parties and then offers, buying up properties for cents on the dollar, legally and sometimes not.
He went from hero to monster in the blink of an eye. About the same time, it was realised he had bought half the town and surrounding farms. And with that sort of influence, he all but owned the mayor and the sheriff.
Then there was Archie Montgomery junior.
I finished high school with him, the eldest son, and the heir apparent. He believed he owned the town, and everything else, and everyone was his slave to do his bidding.
Those who didn’t found themselves on the wrong end of the stick.
That’s how the Thompsons, my family, became the thorn in the side that neither the father nor the prodigal son wanted or needed.
And both were the subject of conversation at lunch.
…
I looked around the tables at the twenty-two members left from the founding fathers group. The latest casualty: the town sheriff for the last 20 years, just getting voted out and replaced by one of Montgomery’s acolytes.
He was glad to retire, just not about who replaced him. The mayor, or ex-mayor, was sitting next to him, having been deposed on the same election day. Politically, the wind had shifted, and the representatives in Congress that had protected us for so long had been swept away, replaced by, well, my father had an expression that wasn’t repeatable.
Montgomery had finally won, as he said he would.
Jacob Waterson, sixth-generation resident, the last of a long line of town mayors, was sad. He had seen what was happening, and like the rest of us, could do nothing about it.
“It’s time we all just left and left them to it. We can only hold out so long. I mean, if torching the Franz property was a message, then who will be next?”
Old man Franz had refused to sell. Then suddenly his place burned down with him in it, and the investigation came back that old man Franz had basically caused the fire himself. Old wiring and out-of-date appliances. He had been warned.
The thing is, he had the wiring replaced. He just didn’t tell those who needed to know except us. It was like he knew what was going to happen.
“That fire was not caused by an electrical fault.”
The ex-sheriff was adamant and was checking the crime scene himself. No one in the county was interested, a measure of how far Montgomery’s influence had reached.
“That would be me, I’m guessing,” my father said. “Those hundred head of missing cattle turned up on the other side of the country, sold to a meat processor, with our brand overstamped. It was very cleverly done, almost unnoticeable.”
I’d seen the photos sent by the meat works when they noticed an irregularity. Too late to stop the slaughter. Too late to do anything about it.
“It’s time. We’re retiring in Florida. We got just enough to buy a condo and spend a few years cruising. Take the offer and get out, Jake.”
The sheriff was still recovering from an ambush attack that left his deputy dead and him a hospital case. He would have gone back to work if he was fit, but then he lost the election.
The campaign to depose him was very dirty. Politics was threaded through even the minor elections, and that was driving the politicised landscape, a problem we never had before the developers and new arrivals.
Pity.
I guess it was time for all of us to retire.
The conversation focussed on who was next, not what we could do about it, and I think that was the measure of our impotence. There was just not enough of us to make a change.
That’s when a lone voice at the table spoke, my sister Marianne. “They haven’t won; they were never going to win.”
An odd ethereal silence fell over the room.
“In a sense they have,” our father said.
“Not where it matters, as they will soon discover.”
“What do you mean?” Her mother looked worried. Marianne had suffered a bad few months recently with the Montgomery juniors’ bullying.
The daughter was as bad as the son.
“I put a curse on the whole family “
That was something else about Marianne that had worried me. A week or two ago I had accidentally walked in on her and four of her friends sitting inside a pentagram chanting what sounded like Latin.
Several books around them had what were supposedly spells, one she said would bring down hellfire and damnation on the Montgomeries.
Wishful thinking, I’d said, but if it made her feel better…
“Yes, dear,” her mother said. She was going to, as she had in the face of increasing agitation, just ignore it as a phase.
Then added her two cents’ worth to the conversation, “Perhaps it’s time we moved on. Nothing lasts forever, as much as we hoped it would.”
I was sure a few of those sitting around the table hoped the curse would work.
The silence lasted about another minute and a half before Harvey, one of the ranch hands, came bursting into the room and went over to our father. I heard him mutter in his ear, “There’s a fire in the town, it’s bad.”
Several of the men around the table were volunteer firefighters, surprised they hadn’t got the callout.
In a matter of seconds, Marianne and I were the only two left in the room. I would have joined the exodus, but I suspected there was more to this curse thing.
She had a curious, if not demonic, expression.
“What did you do?” A very bad feeling came over me.
“We ensured that Montgomery will never forget that despite his blind faith in his invincibility, he is as vulnerable as anyone else. Wealth and power cannot prevent the inevitability of moral justice.”
Now she was scaring me. Her conversations were scathing at best, every sentence starting or ending with a like or but.
She stood. “Come.” She held out her hand towards me. “Let us go and witness the very essence of retribution.”
I found it impossible to resist the invitation.
Perhaps she was a witch.
…
A crowd had gathered. Deputies had put up a tape line to keep them back.
As we got close, we could see the smoke billowing into the air, and on the breeze, that acrid aroma of the smoke.
The fire was in the library, attached to City Hall, old sandstone buildings built at the turn of the last century, but they were a fire hazard, so much wood and paper.
Flames were coming out of the windows and the roof. Three fire engines were fighting a losing battle, fire hoses snaking in all directions and men running, dressed in fireproof suits and breathing apparatus.
As we took up a position between two of the new families, their kids more interested in the fire trucks than the fire, we were joined by several of her friends, the girls who had been with her in the pentagram.
None spoke, but I got the feeling they knew something about what was happening.
Then we all heard a shout, coming from outside the front entrance to the library, where a firefighter in full protective gear stumbled out the doorway. “There are people inside. I heard the screams; there’s nothing we could do. It’s horrible.”
He collapsed, and two other firefighters came over and helped him over to the ambulance.
I knew then that it had to be a member or members of the Montgomery family. How they got in there, why they were in there, if they were in there, was a question more than just me would be asking.
Especially if they died in that fire.
And whether it was proven that the fire was not from natural causes and was started by someone.
I looked at my sister. Her expression was unreadable, the sort of expressionless face one would expect from a poker player. Her friends were not so good at hiding their feelings.
“You called this retribution,” I said quietly beside her.
I watched two suited firemen go into the building, and the come back out just as flames leapt through the door after them.
It was followed by a heavy cracking sound, and I think that was the roof crashing down.
No one was going to be saved, whoever was in there.
“God answered our prayers. The Montgomerys are a scourge on the landscape. If it was them, then it’s good riddance. I’ve seen enough.” She looked at the other girls. “Let’s go to the church and pray for their souls “
…
It was two days before the fire died out and the investigators went in. It took a week after that for a partial report to be leaked to the townsfolk.
Apparently my sister’s only fault was that she had cursed the family, and everyone knew she was not a witch, so she was taking credit for something she hadn’t done.
The problem was, there wasn’t anyone who could be found in the residue, as it had been expected they’d find bones or partial bones.
The firefighters had sworn he heard cries for help behind the wall of flames.
The thing is, they couldn’t find anyone, missing or otherwise, in the wreckage. But missing people there were: the whole Montgomery family.
Their cars were missing, and key possessions were missing, and their bank accounts were emptied. There was just no reason why they should leave now.
The thing is, people who had been aligned with the Montgonerys took a step back and then decided they were no longer aligned with them, and came to the former mayor and asked him to reinvent the town, back to the way it was.
No, we didn’t exactly get our town back; we had gone down a path there was no coming back from. We just had to live with it, and keep going.
And for a while it was good.
Then rumours circulated that the Montgomerys had died in the fire, all of them. Despite reports that the Montgomeries had been seen in the next County the day after the fire was extinguished.
Nothing made sense, and it became town folklore.
Until…
…
I was sitting in the lawyers’ office; the one overlooking the park outside city hall. The one they had renovated after that eventful fire sixty years ago, almost to the day.
Robert Penthaven, son of the son of the man who tended my father’s affairs, had called me and said there were details about my sister’s passing that needed clearing up.
The last time I had to sit in the chair was after my father died and my sister and I inherited the ranch. She wasn’t interested, having long moved away, but retained her interest in it.
I thought it was to formalise the passing of her interest to me. I was passing mine to my son, who thankfully wanted to be a rancher and not relocate to the city.
I’d waited almost a half hour and thought I’d nodded off because, as softly as he tried to close the door it woke me with a start.
“Sorry,” he said, dropping into the more comfortable chair behind the desk. “Simple things take much longer these days.”
He opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a file, a quite thick file. An envelope was clipped to the cover. He unclipped it and slid it across the table. “For you, after she died.”
“Words from the grave.”
“Or grave words, maybe. She was a curious one, your sister. I never quite knew when she was joking or when she wasn’t.”
“Did she tell you she was a witch?”
“Among other things. She once said she was the keeper of secrets, and one in particular, one that she said she would take to the grave. We are all a bit like that; things happen, and we wish to forget. Perhaps that letter might shed some light.”
“Or tell me it’s time to stand on my own two feet. Older siblings are like that.”
I picked up the envelope and held it in my hand. One sheet, three at the most. The question was whether I wanted to read it.
I shrugged and opened it. Robert stood. “I’ll be outside if you need me.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
I unfolded the sheets. Two. Written in her spidery writing, almost illegible. She had wanted to be a doctor and settled for nurse practitioner.
She would have made a great doctor.
Kyle,
There are beginnings, there are endings, and all the rest is the consequences of life.
Sometimes it is not the life you wanted, but simply the life you get according to your choices.
I never knew what I really wanted, but it wasn’t to be raped by Archie Montgomery. Nor did any of my friends. We became The Five, who could have become victims.
We did not.
We decided to rid the world of a problem.
This is not a confession. We did not sin against natural justice. A thoroughly bad person was tried in God’s eyes and received the punishment he was due.
He burned in hell.
The shame of it was that his family tried to save him, and died in vain. It was not what we wanted; we had nothing to do with their deaths, and had they left well alone, they would have lived.
I can’t say they’re in a better place.
I can’t say we ended up in a better place, but as far as I’m concerned, I have atoned for my sins.
He never hurt another girl.
That family never hurt another soul.
Our town did not miss them, as they did not miss The Five. It was no longer our town.
If they ever pull down the library and dig new foundations, they will find them, all seven. Let’s hope that it’s not in your lifetime. It won’t be in mine, or the rest of The Five.
We have all moved on, hopefully to a better place.
Keep the secret or not, it’s up to you, but I suspect that age-old statement ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ might be appropriate here.
May your life be happy and content. The ranch is yours to leave to Kyle Junior, as it should be.
Meg.
I think I sat there staring at the pages without seeing them, feeling the tears running down my cheeks, now understanding the enigma my sister had become.
If she had told me that fateful night we were standing outside the burning library, I would not have believed her, and I don’t think I did now. There was a long list of those who wanted all of the dead. It would be easy to claim responsibility now when I couldn’t cross-examine her.
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.
