A long short story that can’t be tamed – I always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress – 2

Two

I opened the door and was about to welcome them in when I saw a man, about six foot ten tall, 250 plus pounds, and tattoos leaking out of his overly tight collar and ill-fitting shirt.

Not the police.

“I think you have the wrong flat,” I said.

I went to close the door, but a size 20 shoe was blocking it.

“Where is Jake Mistrale?”

Heavily accented English, this man was a thug of the worst order. There was nothing polite about his manner. I needed to think quickly some way of getting rid of this man. He was more than likely the one who tossed the flat before we arrived.

“I’ll tell you what. We can keep talking, you could do something really stupid and break-in, and we can wait for the police to arrive. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to know who you are, and who you work for.”

“You are bluffing. There is no police. Where is Jake?”

“I have a question, where is Cecile?”

He looked surprised. “I do not know who this Cecile is.”

“I think she was Jake’s friend, and they are both missing, and I think you know where she is.”

We both heard the footsteps on the landing, just before reaching the floor. The man looked sideways in the direction of the stairs, then, without waiting to see who it was, started walking in the opposite direction. There must be another flight of stairs around the back.

Then two men appeared at the top of the stairs. These men definitely looked like the police.

Both seemed to be surprised I was outside in the passage, perhaps to greet them before stepping into the room. Another two, a man and a woman, dressed in protective clothing, followed them.

The first introduced himself. “My name is Detective Inspector Chandler.” The other man, now beside him, pulled out his warrant card, as Chandler said, “DS Williams.”

Hearing voices, or perhaps wondering what had happened to me, Emily came out into the passage.

“Ah, you must be Emily. I spoke to your father about two hours ago, and he said you should be here. Now, I will need you to remain outside while the forensic team does its magic.”

With that, the two forensic officers went in, and DS followed them, putting on a pair of rubber gloves.

“We didn’t touch anything, by the way.” She then pulled a photo of Cecile out of her bag and handed it to Chandler.

I was waiting to see if she mentioned the note Cecile left. If she did, I would hand it over, if she didn’t that would be our starting point. If we didn’t make any progress, I would give it to Chandler and let him get on with the job.

He looked at it. “I take it this is recent?”

Emily nodded.

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“We know she had a boyfriend named Jake who was not who she thought he was, that she was here a few days ago, and perhaps some of the others living here might know something. We were going to start knocking on doors, but now that you’re here, we’ll get out of your hair and let you do your job. I’ve put my phone number, and James too, just in case you can’t get me.”

Chandler turned to me. “Where do you fit in?”

“Jake’s last name was Mistrale, by the way. As for me, I’m an old family friend. I received a text message a few days ago, which seemed rather odd, so we came over to see if everything was alright. As you can see, when we saw this, things are not alright.”

“Do you have that phone with you?”

I did but I was not sure I wanted to give it up, but a glare told me I had to. I found the text message and gave him the phone.

“Can we hang on to this until tomorrow?” He gave me what looked like a business card with his address on it. “You’ll be able to pick it up tomorrow morning. I’ll get the tech guys to see if they can trace where that message came from.”

“No problems,” I said with a measure of reluctance. Although it was unlikely, she might try to call or text again.

“Now, there’s nothing more you can do here. I’ve got your numbers, and I expect I’ll see you tomorrow morning, by which time we should have made some progress.”

Nothing left to say, he went into the flat.

“Time to go,” Emily said. “We have to get back to the hotel.”

It was loud enough that Chandler would hear her, but I knew what she meant. Time to go to the hotel that featured in the note.

When we reached street level and outside of the block of flats, I had to ask, “Why didn’t you mention the note?”

“Because we would have to give it to him and lose the one clue we had. If it doesn’t pan out then we can say we forgot about it, no harm done. Telling him would only stop us from the investigation, and, if the police go there, anyone who might be able to help us would be less likely to help the police.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it was a valid point.

“So, where is this hotel?” She asked with a touch of impatience in her tone.

“A fair distance away tucked away not far from Whitehall and past, if I’m not mistaken, Horseguards Parade. We might get to take in a bit of British history in the process.”

…

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 12

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.

Was I working for a ghost?

I sat in that room for an hour.

I had no doubt someone was on the other side of the mirrored wall, watching me, analysing my body language. I hoped I hadn’t given any indication that Nobbin was a name that I recognised, or knew, but I was still new to this game, and as much as I tried to perfect it, I still didn’t think I had a poker face.

More than likely I had a ‘tell’.

There was something else I had to worry about, and that was what approach this Dobbin would take. For instance, did he know that I had met up with the man in the alley, and stretching that big if, did he know who the man in the alley was, and was he one of ours.

Of course, that was another problem I had, and that was recognising who ‘ours’ were. It seems the people I knew, were not the same people who were really running the place.

Or, paradoxically, were these people, interlopers, trying to get intel on the group I was supposedly working for. But they hadn’t disavowed me, so I must be working for someone they approved or knew of.

An hour and a half, and I was beginning to think this might be another game by my previous interrogators. I was glad not to be on the other side of the mirror, trying to work out what I was ‘telling;’ them. Once, I’d got up and stared directly into the mirror, thinking I might be able to see who was behind it. I also thought of tapping it to see if I could get a reaction.

And, in fact, I was about to do that very thing when Nobbin walked through the door and closed it behind him.

I saw him do a quick check of the room, from the floor to the roof, and stopping briefly at the mirror, before sitting down.

“We probably have an audience for this discussion,” I said, inclining my head towards the mirror.

“You might be right, but I did ask for a clean slate, and if anyone is considering recording or viewing this interview, there will be dire consequences.” Looking at the mirror, he added, “I made that very clear at the highest level.”

He then looked back at me. “Your name, I believe, is Sam Jackson?”

“Yes.” My current working name, that is. Once deployed to the field we started using aliases, and my first and current alias was Sam Jackson. But how they made the passport look old and used for that legend was interesting, yet not a question anyone would answer.

“You were recently assigned to a surveillance team, for this man.”

He’d brought a folder with him and pulled out a photograph of the man I’d cornered in the alley.

“Is that him?”

Was there a right or wrong answer here?

“Yes.”

“Who was leading this operation?”

“A man named Severin.”

“Describe him.

I did.

It evoked no reaction. Nobbin had a poker face. In fact, I was beginning to think it was etched in stone.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked.

“No. But we will find out. Thank you for your time.”

He stood, gave me one last look, and left the room.

I waited a minute, and then followed him out, where a security officer was waiting to escort me out of the building.

On the steps outside, security pass returned, I wondered if that was then end of my tenure with that organisation. Or whether I actually had any tenure in the first place.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 6

Day 6 – Writing exercise

Writing exercise

You’ve got a habit of being in the wrong place, don’t you, Sam? But this time…

…

Everyone was busy.

The morning meeting, where the boss sat at the head of a long table, and the writing staff sat, waiting for either a bollocking or an assignment, had travelled along the usual path.

The boss was the typical editor, loud, opinionated, and acerbic. Very few could remember him being complimentary.

I sat at the end of the table, the opposite end, and as far away from him as I could get. He hated me more than any other.

I looked around.

Whether or not they liked their assignments or the request for a rewrite, it was hard to tell. No one wanted to be seen shirking.

Yes, he called it shirking if you were not pounding the keyboard, working on tomorrow’s news today.

And because he hated me, I was last, got the full-on death stare and then in those oily words dispensed with forced amiability, “Jacobs, you got the dead guy, what’s his name, Rickard, Richard…”

“Ricardo,” a mousey voice called out, his current ‘favourite’.

“That dead guy. A thousand scintillating words.”

Then the expansive glare around the table, “Well, what are you lot waiting for?”

Al, just up from me, muttered, under his breath, “A written invitation.” As he did in every meeting.

Another obituary. Another nobody that needed life breathed into the corpse.

A gopher dropped a file on my desk as he went past, not stopping. Not worth the five minutes of hell from the boss about wasting time on idle chatter.

A single page, a name, and an address. Several notes that highlighted a nothing life. Too young to have a life. Too young to die. Too young for scintillating words.

Cause of death? Heart failure.

His photo belied the notion that he had anything remotely wrong with his heart. Adonis himself would be jealous.

Coroner’s report? Heart failure, cause unknown.

Not obese, not too thin, none of the danger signs that he was heart attack material, I knew my way around a medical report and this one?

Something was not right. Was the boss testing me, see if I could see if there was anything more?

Of course, I’d been down this path before and come a cropper. No, the boss took anything I requested with a grain of salt.

“Just report the facts. Don’t embellish, don’t add your suspicions, ten times out of ten you’re going to be wrong.”

And infurioratingly he was right.

Which meant I had to get creative.
…

The name Freddie Ricardo brought up 100,000 plus hits on the search engine, but I found one entry that pointed to an Instagram page that loaded, then disappeared.

Like completely disappeared, returning a 404 error when I tried to reload it. Someone had deleted it just after I found it.

Why?

Who would care?

From the fleeting look I got of it, it was just a guy’s page that had photos of him and friends guzzling beer and either hunting, fishing or acting stupid.

Very unaccountant-like.

Next step, go to the address.

A suburban street, quiet, an old house, run down and in need of repair, garden overgrown. Two car wrecks in the front yard, and an antique car in the driveway.

I sat outside the house for an hour, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. The car suggested someone was inside, but they didn’t look out the windows, and they didn’t turn any lights on.

At the end of the hour, I got out of the car and walked over to the front door. The fence was falling over, the gate off its hinges, held up by the weeds and growth around it.

The door had peeling paint, but the lock and handle were new. The verandah boards were rotting and in places broken. They creaked as I walked on them.

I knocked. No answer.

I checked the car in the driveway. A fine film of dust covered it, telling me it hadn’t moved in days, maybe a week.

One of the neighbours came out and looked over.

“Who are you?” It wasn’t a polite question.

“Does Freddie Ricardo live here?”

“Did. Who wants to know?”

“I’m from the newspaper, asked to do a small piece on him.”

“No need. He wouldn’t want it.”

“Anyone else live here?”

“His sister. She ain’t here at the moment. I’m keeping an eye on the place. Now, I suggest you leave.”

A sister. Rather a large omission in the briefing paper provided. Research was slipping.

“Fair enough.”

A last look, I went back to the car. I waited, but the neighbour didn’t leave his porch. When he reached for his cell phone, I left.

…

Before going back to the office, I went to the city administration building and met up with an acquaintance who got me a copy of the deed for the house.

It had belonged to the parents, then was handed down to the elder daughter, Bethany. There were only two of them, Bethany and Freddie. He didn’t have a stake in the house.

I ran Bethany’s name in the search engine, and it brought back a few thousand hits, the first with a picture of a brother and sister on the front porch.

The second was a photo of her in a gondola in Venice with a man, Italian perhaps. She didn’t look happy.

From what I could see, the brother and sister were not similar, so maybe step-siblings.

Bethany also had titles to three other houses in the city. Perhaps she lived at one of those addresses and let her little brother stay at the address I called on.

Another acquaintance looked up the car registrations, and for the other cars the siblings had, of which there were four, including one for Freddie.

It was not mentioned in the police report at the crime scene, nor was it at the house, so it might still be somewhere else.

I had another five pieces of paper to go with the photo of the victim and the coroner’s report. It didn’t amount to much.

…

I thought about inventing a thousand words and making him a traitor, but the boss would see through it.

The alternative wasn’t much better; tell him I had nothing, well, suspicions.

I knocked on the door, and he growled something unintelligible. Not a good day.

“What have you got?” He didn’t look up.

“Missing car, expensive. Job belies the income to have it. Looks belie the cause of death.”

“And you infer?”

“Drugs, using, selling. Has a sister in Italy, or not? Needs a deep dive.”

“Is that it?”

“Been to the house. Looks like a mess, but I checked the values. It’s a gold mine for someone.”

“No one home?”

“Not for a week.”

“Talk to your police friends, see if they’ve got a rap sheet. Police miss the car?”

“Not in their report, not where he died.”

He looked up. “Find it, find the sister, talk to the neighbours. Go.”

No third degree, so sarcasm, just barked orders. But I wasn’t going to count the chickens just yet.

…

3am was always the best time to surprise people. My father once said that the best time to get answers was when people were unprepared.

He had been a policeman and kicked doors in at or just before dawn. Disorientation, gear, terror at dawn. Worked a treat.

I wasn’t kicking the door in. I was visiting.

And hopefully the house was still empty.

The back window was unlocked and opened easily. I was able to get to the back because of a quirk in the planning of the estate. The house had a narrow walkway behind it, a public thoroughfare.

At 3 a.m., no one would be about.

I hope.

There wasn’t. The back fence was as bad as the front, with a gap wide enough to squeeze through. The back yard was worse than the front, three cars hidden by undergrowth.

Tripped once and crashed into a car. It hurt

It took a few minutes to get inside. It smelled badly of wet paper and damp. The floorboards creaked. Several pilot lights were giving off just enough light to see by, once my eyes adjusted.

Signs of recent habitation. Fast food wrappers, health drinks, cigarette butts, and beer cans. Half-eaten food with mould. A week, perhaps longer, since anyone was there.

Upstairs.

The reason for the bad smell.

A body, not the sister, but a woman.

No sign of a bag. Dead, checked while trying not to be sick, downstairs, found the bag, wallet, ID. Jessie Walker. This was the residential address; her car was outside.

Long enough to find nothing else. If the place had been tossed, it was done by a professional.

I left.

Found a phone booth and called the police to report the body.

I got back to my car to find two men waiting. There wasn’t much use in running.

“At it again, Sam?”

The two cops that my father had asked to keep me on the straight and narrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t insult us, Sam. You know what we’re talking about. You can’t be poking around crime scenes.”

How did they know where I’d been? I’d only just called it in.

They knew. I’d known my father had not exactly been clean, not as clean as he said he was, and besides, clean cops were not murdered in a mob hit. No, these were two acolytes.

“How do you…”

Lance, the more senior of the two, shook his head. “Tsk, task, Sam. Wrong place, wrong time. Don’t make a habit of it now, will you, son?”

I shook my head in that obedient fashion they liked.

“Good boy.” Borg patted me on the head like I was a good boy. I was anything but. A chip off the old block.

“Good lad. Leave this one alone.”

A parting pat on the back, and they left. Was I going to heed good advice? No. I waited for an hour, and then I started searching for details on the internet.

Jessie Walker was famous. Over a million hits in the search engine, and fascinating in death as much as she was in life. For a police commissioner’s wife of three weeks.

She looked so much more interesting alive when splashed all over the front page of the city daily. In death, she would barely rate a second glance.

And what did she have to do with Freddie and Bethany Riccardo? Tomorrow was not going to be a good day.

…

What I learned about writing – The art of effective self editing

Mastering Self-Editing: 10 Practical Techniques for Polished Writing

Self-editing is a vital skill for any writer. Whether you’re crafting a blog post, an academic essay, or a novel, the ability to refine your work independently can elevate your writing from good to exceptional. While peer feedback is invaluable, mastering self-editing ensures your drafts are clear, cohesive, and compelling before sharing them with others. Here are 10 practical strategies to enhance your self-editing process.

1. Step Away, Then Return with Fresh Eyes

Before diving into edits, take a break from your work. A few hours—or even a few days—can provide a new perspective. Distance allows you to approach your text as a reader, making it easier to spot inconsistencies, redundancy, or awkward phrasing. Rushing into edits while still in your “writing mindset” often causes you to overlook errors.

2. Read Aloud to Detect Rhythm and Flow

Reading your work aloud engages your senses differently. By hearing the words, you can identify clunky sentence structures, awkward word choices, and unintentional repetition. For example, a phrase like “The man who lived in the house was tired” might sound better as “The man in the house was tired.” Use this technique to fine-tune your writing’s cadence.

3. Leverage Technology, But Stay Sceptical

Grammar-check tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor are handy for catching typos and readability issues. However, these tools aren’t infallible. They might suggest grammatically correct but contextually odd changes. Use them as a starting point, then double-check with your own judgment. For instance, a tool might flag “I am” as redundant in a sentence when it’s actually necessary for clarity.

4. Tackle One Task at a Time

Editing is more effective when broken into focused tasks. Start with big-picture elements like structure and argument clarity, then move to line edits for sentence flow, and finally proofread for grammar and typos. This approach prevents overwhelm and ensures no detail is missed.

5. Trim the Fat: Delete Unnecessary Words

Concise writing is powerful. Remove redundant phrases like “in order to” (simply “to”) and vague fillers like “very” or “that.” For example, “She was a tall, slender woman” becomes “She was tall and slender.” A short list of common redundancies can help you systematically cut fluff.

6. Reverse Outline for Structure Checks

For longer pieces, summarise each paragraph in a separate document. This reverse outline helps identify plot holes, repetitive sections, or tangents. If your summary reads like a disjointed list, your draft likely needs reorganisation.

7. Maintain Consistency with a Style Sheet

Track key details like character names, technical terms, or formatting in a reference sheet. For example, if a character’s surname is “McGraw” in one chapter and “McGregor” in another, this tool ensures consistency. It’s especially crucial for novels or complex projects with recurring elements.

8. Seek Peer Feedback Strategically

While this post focuses on self-editing, one round of trusted feedback can illuminate blind spots. Share your work with peers who understand your goals and ask targeted questions: “Does the argument hold?” or “Is the tone consistent?” Use their insights to prioritise edits.

9. Use the Pomodoro Technique for Focus

Self-editing can feel marathon-like. Break it into shorter, intentional sessions: 25 minutes of focused editing followed by a 5-minute break. This method combats burnout and keeps your mind sharp for small details like punctuation or word choice.

10. Audit Passive Voice and Weak Nouns/Verbs

Overusing passive voice (“The cake was eaten”) can weaken prose. Replace with active voice (“She ate the cake”) unless passive is intentional. Similarly, swap weak verbs like “made a decision” with stronger alternatives like “decided.”

Conclusion: Sharpen Your Craft with Purpose

Effective self-editing is a balance of technique, patience, and critical thinking. By incorporating these strategies, you’ll refine your writing’s clarity, impact, and professionalism. Remember, even well-known authors like Maya Angelou and Stephen King relied on meticulous editing to shape their masterpieces. Start with one or two techniques, practice consistently, and watch your confidence—and your writing—grow.

What self-editing hacks have worked for you? Share your tips in the comments below!

This blog post blends actionable advice with relatable examples, offering writers a roadmap to polish their work independently. By prioritising structure, focus, and critical distance, you’ll transform self-editing from a chore into a rewarding part of your creative process.

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6^th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

newechocover5rs

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up. Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him. It’s just a matter of time.”

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe” available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1