This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.

The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Things are about to get complicated…

---

“Turn around and head towards the trees, we’re not very far from you,” the voice in my head said.

I turned, saw the trees and moved towards them.

“Straight ahead.”

Then I could just see her, beside one of the tree trunks, under the cover of the canopy.

For the moment we would not be seen, but if someone was looking intently, we would be seen.

Jennifer was kneeling, her knees and weight keeping the assailant on the ground.  She handed me the gun, a silenced Baretta, with the distinct aroma of a discharged bullet.

Jennifer had pulled off the balaclava.  Jan.

Not working for Severin, but Dobbin.  Or someone else?

“Who ordered the hit?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Not entirely unexpected.

I pulled out my phone and dialled the number for the Detective Inspector that had been at Maury’s crime scene.  I knew there was going to be a need to call her in the not-too-distant future.  And Jan needed to be in a safe place where she couldn’t be got at.

“Who is this?”

My number would have come up as a ‘private number’.

“We met at the hotel where Maury died.”

“The spy?”

“Of sorts.  I’m sorry to say that his companion, Severin, is also now very dead in the rotunda at the Italian Gardens at Hyde Park.  I’d get someone down here before the body is removed or found by a member of the public.”

I heard a scream and deduced it came from the rotunda.

“Too late.  Hurry before the crime scene is contaminated.”

“Where are you?”

“Nearby.  And if you’re especially quick, we have a surprise for you.”

Two constables arrived in four minutes, most likely nearby for another reason.  The Detective Inspector and her Sergeant arrived within 20 minutes, but by that time Jennifer and Jan had retreated to the car, parked away from the gardens.

Anyone seeing us heading away would have picked us for three drunken fools escorting a friend who had passed out.  Jan had struggled to get free, and it had been necessary to subdue her.

I had wanted to ask further questions, but circumstances didn’t allow it.  Not yet.

Leaving Jennifer with Jan, securely tied up, but looking like she was sleeping of a long drinking session, I went back to the crime scene just as the Detective Inspector was coming out of the rotunda.

She recognised me and called me over to the tape that separated the public from the scene.  The forensic team had just arrived and was setting up.  I doubted she would let me into the crime scene area, but I had seen enough when I’d been there with Severin.

“Why are you here, and give me a good reason not to take you into custody.”

“He called me earlier and wanted to talk.  I think he found out Maury was dead, and he was next.  I didn’t kill him, but I know who did, but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to prove it.”

“That weedy little man that saved your ass the last time?”

“Richards or Dobbin?  Either or together or one of their henchmen.  Not sure, to be honest.  All I knop is it’s possible Maury was killed during an intense interrogation.  I suspect Severin was killed to silence him.”

“Because of what?”

“I believe it is about the existence of a formula for a biological weapon.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

…

I could not remember even the dreams started, it seemed it had been almost forever, but lately, they had taken on a new intensity.

They always started the same, I was standing at the bottom of a hill looking across a lawn, bordered by rose bushes, looking towards a very large manor house, three stories tall, with wings.

It was larger than anything I’d ever seen before, a house that was fit for a king or queen, or perhaps a lord.

For someone who lived in a village, son of the flour miller, and among the lower classes, it was a place I could never expect to see inside, nor walk about the grounds, only to look upon and wonder.

At first, the dreams had me looking at the house, whether in awe or dread, I could not say.  I didn’t venture forth, just stood there. 

In some dreams it was a bright sunny day, others overcast and cold, then others again, in pouring rain.  Always the same place, and likely the same time.

Then, after a while, the dreams changed slightly.  I was looking at the manor house at night.  The windows had lights, and shadowy forms moved back and forth in those windows.  Once a carriage arrived, but I couldn’t see who it was in it.  At night the house looked more majestic, but also it had an air of foreboding. 

But underlying every vision I had, I felt there was something familiar about it; that I had been inside, that I knew who the people were who lived there, and that for no particular reason, something awful had happened there.

After the first few dreams, I made a concerted effort to try and locate the place, venturing as far from my village as I could in a day, and could not find it.  It was not within the limits of my world.

When older, and was able to learn about manor houses, and the Lords and Gentry that lived in them, I ventured further afield but always with the same result.  It was as if it existed only in my imagination.

Then, when my mother died suddenly, the dreams stopped and it all faded from my memory.

It was then I learned from my father, that he was not my father.  He told me that my mother had been a lady in waiting for a wealthy family in one of the counties near the Scottish border when her family lived and that he was sending me to live with them.  There was more to that story, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.  He packed my few possessions and put me on the coach.

That trip took many days, and when I finally reached the village where my mother’s sister lived, her eldest son Jacob came to get me and take me to my new home.  It didn’t take long to realize in a small house with six other children, I was just adding to my aunt’s problems.

That first night, banished to an outhouse with two of the other boys, the dreams came back, only different.

I was still looking at the manor house, but it was from a rotunda in the middle of a newly planted rose garden, only a short distance from the house.  I was sitting, waiting.  At first, I was just waiting, and no one came.  I had no idea how old I was or what I looked like, but it seemed I was dressed in child’s clothes.  Was it an early memory of mine?

That didn’t explain why I was sitting in the rotunda.  I could not be a child belonging to the manor house, so I had to wonder if I was the child of a servant.  Several days after arriving, I overheard an argument between my Aunt and her husband, who was angry about me being sent to live with them, his point, there were too many of them to support as it was.  He then said that if my mother hadn’t been so stupid to take their little bastard as her own and they looked after their own problems, this wouldn’t be his.

I had no idea what that meant.  My mother had been my mother, not someone else.  She had always been my mother for as long as I could remember.  But it did make sense why my father, who was not my father, had sent me away.  But they never mentioned it again.

This lasted for a week, and then a new element was introduced.

A young woman.  She was not a servant, but smartly dressed, and appeared to belong to the family who lived in the house.  She was accompanied by a woman I assumed to be her mother or a guardian.  They arrived in a carriage, and I wondered if it was the same carriage I’d seen previously in another dream.  I was close enough to I could see her face, and she was very beautiful but looked very sad.  It was the same each night, reaching to point of her arrival, and no more.

Being old enough to work, I was sent to work in the fields surrounding a manor house some distance from the village.  There were about a dozen boys of my age in the group, supervised by one of the manor houses stewards.  It was hard and physical work, much more than helping my father in the mill.

It took several weeks before we reached a field that was close to the manor house, in fact, just over a hill, and on a break I climbed the hill to have a look.

It was the manor house in my dream.  A different aspect, but the exact house, the lawns, the roses, and the Rotunda.

How could it be possible I knew this place?

One afternoon the steward picked me to deliver a message to the manor house housekeeper, telling me I had to go to the back of the house and avoid being seen.  There was an arch, and passageway that led to a quadrangle where I would find her. 

Up close the manor house was huge.  I remained in the gardens skirting the rose gardens to the rear of the house where there were stables and outhouses.  I found the arch, and then a passageway, wide enough for a wagon to make deliveries.  For some odd reason, I knew exactly where to go.

It led to a quadrangle inside the manor, at least I think that was what it was called but I was not sure how I knew.  Once there you could see inside.  At one end a door was open, but no one was about.  As soon as I stepped into the open, a vision came to me. 

It was at night, but the quadrangle was lit by many torches.  A carriage and four black horses were waiting, and then I came out with a woman, my mother.  There were two other ladies, one old and the other the housekeeper, Mrs Giles.  The old lady referred to her as that.  After the old lady spoke to my mother, we got in the carriage, and then I looked out to see the woman in white, looking out the window, looking very forlorn.  I could never forget that look of utter despair on her face.

The quadrangle was different now, in daylight.  An empty wagon was sitting not far from the door having no doubt just been unloaded with the weeks’ supplies from the surrounding farms.

I could hear voices, so I put my head in the door and said, “Is there anyone here?”

I waited until a lady came up the passage and saw me.  It was Mrs Giles.  How did I know that?

“Are you the housekeeper?”

“I am.”  She came out the door into the square. And stopped suddenly, looking at me curiously.  “Why are you here?”

“The steward sent me with a message.”  I took the piece of paper out of my pocket and held it out.

She took it but didn’t read it.  “Where are you from?”

“The village.  I live with the Halls.”  I realised after I said it she probably had no idea who they were.

“Her sister was Josephine, your aunt?”

I remembered my father called her Jo, rather than Josephine.  “Jo, yes.  She was my mother.  She died a while back and I was sent here.”

“My.  That’s a story, isn’t it?  Well, off with you.  Message delivered.”

A shake of the head and she went back inside.

That day the dreams stopped.  Perhaps now that they all made sense, there was no need for me to see them again.

There was no doubt the manor house was a place I had been to before, my mother had come from these parts and might have worked there at one time before she came down to marry my father, which meant now I was old enough to understand, my father was not my real father.  The only part I didn’t understand was what the lady in white represented.

I continued to work in the fields for another month, when I came home, as I always did, at sundown.  It had been a long, hot day.

When I turned onto the lane that led to our house, I saw there was a carriage parked out front.  It looked familiar with the livery of the two men sitting up front, and the four black horses.  It looked a lot different in daylight.

The men paid no heed to me as I looked at the horses, patted one, and then went on to the house.

Inside, the housekeeper, Mrs Giles, was there with another lady, not in white, but pale blue.  She looked a lot happier than I’d seen her before in my dreams, but it was the woman in white.

She gasped when she saw me.

My aunt looked from her to me, then to Mrs Giles.  “This was not supposed to happen.  My sister up and died, and her no-good-for-nothing husband sent the boy here.”

The woman in white spoke, “That is irrelevant now.  He is here, and he will come to live with his family.”

“Who might they be Miss,” I asked.  This conversation was a little hard to follow or understand.

My aunt looked at the housekeeper, “If I may explain to the boy.  It might be better coming from me.”

The housekeeper nodded.

“My sister, Jo, whom you knew only to be your mother, was, but she was not your real mother.  A few years after you were born it was necessary to take you away and be raised.  It was never intended that you were to return here, but you have.  Your real mother is that lady in blue, the Lady Westmoreland, now the owner of the manor.  Since the circumstances that required your departure no longer exist, you are free to return.  If you want to.  I know it’s a lot to understand Leonard, but in my opinion, you would be better off going to live in the manor.”

I looked at the lady in blue.  “I know you, but I don’t know how or why.  I have seen you in my dreams.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to you.  You were sent away without anyone telling me where or who or with who.  That you have come back to me is a miracle, an answer to many prayers.”  She held out her hand and I went over to her and took it in mine.  I looked up into her eyes and knew instantly that she was my real mother.

I turned to look at my aunt.  “I will go with them if you don’t mind.  I can always come back and see you.”  Another glance at my mother, “Can’t I?”

“Yes, you can.”

The housekeeper said, “WE will complete the arrangements we agreed to earlier.  Does the boy have any possessions?”

“None that would be of use to him.”

“Then you should keep them.  We should be on our way.”

Once in the carriage, on the way to the manor, my mother said, “Your name isn’t Leonard, by the way.”

“I know,” said.  “It’s James.  And your name is Harriet Montague, is it not?”

“How do you know that?”

“My other mother, Jo, told me one day but said never to tell anyone else.  Ever.  Unless Harriet came for me.  She knew you would, one day.  Either that or I would find you.  Now, it no longer matters.”

I was back where I belonged.

…

©  Charles Heath  2023

This is rugged bushland not far from suburbia, though you wouldn’t know exactly where it is just by looking at the photograph

But, for the writer, this is an excellent setting.

For instance, once again we are out wandering in the bush, lost. It’s not hard to get lost, and stay lost if there are no recognizable landmarks, and given we all walk with a bias to one side or the other, and we have to avoid objects like trees, ravines, animals, and rocks, keeping a straight line is impossible.

But the question is, how did you get into the bush in the first place?

It’s not as if you would deliberately go there, just to if you can get lost.

No, my idea is that you have been kidnapped and drugged, then taken to a location either in the book of a car or just in the back seat with a hood, then dropped off and left to die

The criminals in this story are more efficient in getting rid of pesky witnesses.

Or maybe it’s something less sinister, like going out and counting the koalas in the bush, well, what’s left of the bush as the suburban spray takes more and more of the koala’s habitat.

And it could also be like the planet of the apes, the koalas start fighting back.

Stranger things have been known to happen.

Our first contact didn’t go so well

…

As soon as I stepped off the shuttle in the cargo bay, the third officer was waiting for me.

“The captain asked me to escort you up to his day room.”

Unusual. The captain could have just called me on the private communicator if there was a need for secrecy, if that was what this was.

“Any reason why he would send you?”

“Didn’t want you getting lost, sir.”

I knew I should not have admitted to him that I had got a little confused finding my way around, but that was because the dockyard people had blocked off several passageways.

“No. I guess not.”

The Third was a man of little humour, and particularly didn’t think any of my jokes were funny. On station, he was all serious and unamused.

Now, he had his serious face on, and I thought it best not to ask what to expect.

He took a different route to the bridge than what I would have taken, a much shorter and more direct route. It was obvious he had studied the plans of the ship and knew it backwards. I on the other hand, was not that prepared, but it meant I would have to.

He went as far as the door to the day room, and left me there. I didn’t need to announce myself, the doors just opened, whisper quiet, showing me the room I could expect one day when I got my own ship.

Or at the very least, I could dream.

The doors closed behind me, and I walked forward into the room proper, and first saw the captain sitting at his desk, and then a figure standing beside and back a step, behind him.

There was a weapon in his hand, but it was by his side.

And something else I noticed, the figure looked just like the three I’d seen on the other ship.

The captain saw me looking at him.

“This is the captain from the vessel that just arrived as those assailants on the cargo ship were ‘rescued’.

He, or she, looked human under the clothes and helmet, but could be almost anything.

“Does he…”

“Speak our language, yes, and a lot of others. And he would like our help.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

…

I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home.  A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers.  I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.

“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.”  She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.

It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor.  You should take up the competition ballroom dancing.  You two would kill it.”

“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants.  It’s worse than rugby.”

“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”

“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work.  I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”

“The joys of being a woman, Roger.  We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words.  I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.

If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare.  My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,

But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.

I was still coming down.  The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party.  A morning that was going to be in about five hours.

The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.

“Our ride,” Darcy said.  “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”

I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am.  I couldn’t sleep.

It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily.  It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom.  The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.

Why on earth did I go?

How could she possibly like me, let alone love me.  I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.

And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.

God, I was happier when I simply hated her.

My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’.  The torment begins.

“Who is it?”

“You know who it is.” 

Emily.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.  “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”

“It was the waltz.  I can’t sleep either.”

“What are we going to do.  I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”

“Haven’t you been in love before?”

I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?

“Not like this.  I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”

“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.”  Did I want that?  What did I want?  She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.

It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt.  That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.

“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”

“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”

“I don’t expect you to.  I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”

“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”

Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible.  It was, he said, a rite of passage.  Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.

I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.

But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others.  I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.

“You know why you’re not.”

Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation.  In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.

It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.

“OK, so I’m a little slower than others.  I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”

“There was a reporter at the ball.  She saw us together.  And she doesn’t like me, or my family.  I’m sure you’ll get ambushed.  It’s the price of having anything to do with us.  We’re not going to say anything.  You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others.  Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.

It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too.  It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil.  Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them.  It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.

“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”

“Some charity things.  All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that.  Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”

More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services.  My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.

“A good cause.”

“Some don’t think so.  Anyway, I’m tired now.  I’ll try not to run into you.  Night.”

Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less.  I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out.  She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.

I sighed.  Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.

…

©  Charles Heath 2023

Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.

That was particularly true in my case.  The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.

At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me.  I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.

The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters.  She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.

Routine was the word she used.

Her fellow detective was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible.  I could sense the raging violence within him.  Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.

After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.

But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.

The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.

For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.

They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts.  Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.

No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.

She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy.  Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution.  Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.

It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down.  I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess.  Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.

What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again.  It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.

And it had.

Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe.   I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.

We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee.  It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.

She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.

I wondered if this text message was in that category.  I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.

I reached for the phone then put it back down again.  I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.

© Charles Heath 2018-2020

This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.

The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Things are about to get complicated…

---

Before I left the building, I got Joanne to take me to the tech division, humorously comparing it the Q branch of James Bond fame, and getting a very stern response.

Also in the basement, it was a nerd in a white coat, in a small room, with shelves of boxes, and three computers on his desk.  I think he was just the IT guy, trying to look like he was someone important.

But, he did have a device that could scan for bugs and trackers and made me sign a dozen forms before I could take it with me.  A simple test discovered a tracker under the lapel of my jacket, almost invisible.

One of the departments, only used by the department, so it deepened the mystery.

Good to know that when I left the building no one could track me.

When I arrived at the Wimbledon building, Jennifer was waiting for me in the shadows, almost scaring the daylights out of me when she appeared.  It gave her a moment of amusement.

“No need to ask if you were followed?”

“Second only to you in avoiding tails.  I always thought you had a thing for me, such was your ability to follow me everywhere.”

“It was a passing thought, but we were told not to date fellow trainees.  It is good advice, and served as a distraction.  Luckily we were not distracted, or we’d be where our fellow classmates are now.”

She followed me into the building and up to the flat.

“Safe house?”

She recognised the hallmarks, the necessity of having another address.  Small, off the main roads, but still readily accessible.

“Got is while still in training, hoping I wouldn’t flunk out.  You?”

“Didn’t see the need, but now…”

“You can use this if you like.  I have a spare key.”

“Until I get my own.”

I got her the key.

Then, “Tonight, I’m going to see Severin.  He called me and asked to meet.  I suspect he knows about Maury, and if I was in his shoes, I would be worried I’d be next.  It will be interesting to hear what he says.”

“And my job?”

“Make sure he doesn’t bring anyone with him, so it’ll be a check of the perimeter.  I suspect he will bring along Jan.”  I’d sent her a photo of her for identification.  “There might also be another, Joanne, one of Monica’s people, but since I scrubbed the tracker, it’s unlikely.”  I showed her a photo of Joanne too, taken back at the office when she wasn’t looking.

I also brought out the scanner and ran it over her.

“What’s that?”

“Checks for bugs and trackers.”

She didn’t seem fazed, and the device didn’t register any trackers or bugs, so she had to be clean.  It was good that at least one of us was free to work without being instantly recognised.  If Jan was there, she would be taken by surprise.

“And if I find either of those two?”

“Neutralise them.”

“In plain sight?”

“Training.  You know how to improvise.”

I could see the wry expression on her face.  The training we got for that particular aspect did not go according to plan, and two of the ‘targets’ got knocked out, the searchers getting too enthusiastic.

Both Jennifer and I had been ‘targets’ too, but we were not found.

I looked at my watch.

“Time to go.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023