Category: Mystery

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

Now available on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Williams’ Restaurant, East 65th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.

Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’.  It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.

It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over.  It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.

Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning.  It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th anniversary that cost a month’s salary.  On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to.  She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.

For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.

She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.

Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room.  Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me.  Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.

Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight.  She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.

More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”

Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together.  It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement.  Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.

The battle lines were drawn.

Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it.  Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.

The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it.  And took the moment to look deeply into my soul.  It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.

Then it was gone.

I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me.  A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.

When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.”  It was not a question, but a statement.

I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace.  Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand.  I guessed she was talking about the new job.  “It was supposed to be a secret.”

She smiled widely.  “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”

I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.

I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al.  I tried it once and was admonished.  But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not.  It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.

Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil.  As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in.  I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.

And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them.  I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand.  And yet, apparently, Alison did.  I must have missed the memo.

“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”

No secrets.  Her look conveyed something else entirely.

The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us.  It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me.  We were going to need it.

Then, a toast.

To a new job and a new life.

“When did you decide?”  Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.

Alison had a strange expression on her face.  It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind.  Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.

Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene.  I knew what I wanted to say.  I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison.  This was not the time or the place.  Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.

Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing.  If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control.  “It’s the little things.  They all add up until one day …”  I shrugged.  “I guess that one day was today.”

I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real?  Or; I told you he’d come around.

I had no idea the two were so close.

“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me.  I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points.  It was all I could come up with at short notice.

“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted.  “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”

“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead.  Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.

It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose.  Care to join me, Al?”

A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend.  “Yes.”

I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation.  I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.

I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.

There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show.  I was quite literally gob-smacked.

I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him.  “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up.  You know Alison is doing her law degree.”

He looked startled when he realized I had spoken.  He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed.  Or perhaps it was deliberate.  She’d definitely had some enhancements done.

He dragged his eyes back to me.  “Yes.  Elaine said something or other about it.  But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week.  Perhaps I got it wrong.  I usually do.”

“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.”  I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again.  “This week or next, what does it matter?”

Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart.  It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies.  If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?

We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”

“Trouble, I suspect.  Definitely more money, but less time at home.”

“Oh,” raised eyebrows.  Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details.  “You sure you want to do that?”

At last the voice of reason.  “Me?  No.”

“Yet you accepted the job.”

I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him.  Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him.  “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another.  To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”

“Barclay?”

“My boss.”

“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us.  I thought I recognized the name.”

“How did Elaine get the job?”

“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago.  Why?”

I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker.  I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment.  “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time.  Too busy with work I expect.  I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”

I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together.  I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down.  I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.

And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown.  Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”

Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth.  It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction.  It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.

When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I.  I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter.  If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did.  She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket.  She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.

But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points.  Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine.  She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.

Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly.  I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.

She had her ‘secrets’.  I had mine.

At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me.  It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me.  I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse.  When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.

It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three.  But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.

I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree.  It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.

We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side.  But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer.  She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong.  It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.

She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it.  Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.

And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.

It left me confused and lost.

I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.

And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

Sunday In New York

In a word: Ghost

Have you seen one?  I haven’t.  Yet.

I’ve stayed in a few places where ghosts were purported to be roaming the passages at night, but apparently not the night I was staying.

And that’s something else that I have a problem with, why is it ghosts only come out at night, or is that just the perception I have got from reading up on the subject.

Maybe my view of ghosts is somewhat stilted, after all, I think my first introduction to ghosts was watching The Centerville Ghost, a movie I saw on t.v. when I was very young.

You have to admit Hollywood’s perception of ghosts is quite interesting.

But…

Do you think they are real?  Do I think they are real?

I think I would have to be presented with some fairly solid evidence they exist, but perhaps not to the point of meeting one.

There are, it seems countless examples of ethereal forces, you know, wind blowing where there’s no wind or draught outside, room temperatures dropping for no apparent reason, knocking, rattling of chains, strange noises like low moaning.

And yet…

There are hotels you can stay in such as the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where it’s possible to run into Sid Vicious.

Sorry, not staying there any time soon.

Then there’s the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles where it’s possible to run into Marylin Monroe, who lived in room 229.

That could be an interesting encounter.

Another is the Westin St Francis in San Francisco where the actress Virginia Rappe died while attending a party held in Fatty Arbuckle’s room, Arbuckle’s room, who was later accused of assaulting and murdering her, and whose career tanked after the incident.

Her ghost is seen moving about the hotel tearing her hair out.  It seems all of the spectral activity occurs on the 12th floor.

Good to know if I decide to stay there.  I wonder if they have a 13th floor?

Perhaps in too old to be running the gamut of paranormal experiences, the old heart is not as strong as it used to be.

The A to Z Challenge – 2023 — M is for Memories

…

It was just a simple conversation, or so I thought.

You know how it is, stuck in a long queue, waiting for service when you strike up a conversation with the person in front of the person or behind.  Random strangers, never seen before, perhaps will never see again.

The plane had arrived late, along with the three others in quick succession, all with over 300 passengers, and being that time of night, not so many service staff.  The line was quite literally a mile long and not moving very fast. 

It was apparent the person in front of me, who looked like a university professor, had to be somewhere else and was getting impatient.

“This is ridiculous. You would have thought they’d know about the hold-ups, that every plane would arrive at the same time, and make the appropriate adjustments.”

It was a common sense thing, but apparently not deemed so by airport management.  It was the same the world over. 

“At least you won’t have to wait for your baggage.  It’ll be on the carousel by the time we get out of here.”

He sighed, pulled out a cell phone, and dialled a number, most likely the person picking him up.  They didn’t answer, and as he jammed his finger on the disconnect button, he muttered, “Fiddlesticks.”

One second, I was thinking what an odd thing to say, the next, nothing.

When I opened my eyes I was looking at a roof, in unfamiliar surroundings, with two ambulance staff leaning over me, saying, “Mr Giles, Mr Giles,” while gently shaking me by the shoulder.

My first thought was, who was Mr Giles?  I looked at one, “Where am I?”

“JFK airport, New York.”

“How, why, when?”

“You collapsed, waiting in line to pass through immigration.  The security staff called us.”

“Who is Mr Glies?”

“That’s you.”

“No, it isn’t.  My name is Jeremy Watkins.”

“Not according to your passport and ticket information.  Samuel Giles.”

No.  I’ve never heard of him.  Nor did I have any idea why I was in New York, where I came from or why I was there.  Seeing the guards surrounding me, I realized airport security staff were naturally paranoid about terrorist attacks, and given my situation, I had just become a number one suspect.

This was not going to end well.

Within five minutes of saying what I’d just said, I was taken to a room somewhere within the innards of the airport, the paramedics having determined there was nothing physically wrong with me, saying it was just a reaction to a long flight, tiredness, and stress from waiting.

All the time, I’d been flanked by three airport security staff, followed by two uniformed officers of the NYPD.  When I got to the room, a man was waiting.  He looked as tired as I felt.  My baggage was on one side of the room, and it had been thoroughly searched.  The paramedics’ work was done, and they left.  The airport security guards were also dismissed, but the two uniformed officers remained, one in the room and one outside the room.  If I tried to escape, I would not get very far.

He pointed to a seat opposite him, and I assumed I was meant to sit.  Once I had, he said, “Now, Mr Giles slash Watkins, just who the hell are you?” 

I didn’t think he was from the FBI, but just to make sure I asked, “Who are you?”

He glared at me, perhaps considering he didn’t have to tell me anything, then changed his mind.  “Detective Barnsdale, NYPD.  Someone up there,” he pointed to the roof, “Decided to make this my lucky day.  Make it easy for both of us.  I’d tend to believe you were hallucinating if you’d banged your head when you collapsed, but the medics tell me you didn’t.  I can only assume this is some sort of prank.  If it is, then I suggest you give it up.  Otherwise, if I escalate this, it’s going to get ugly.”

If he was trying to scare me, it was working.  “My name is Jeremy Watkins.  If you have access to the internet, you can look me up.  I’m an author, not exactly a runaway best-seller, but I make enough.  I don’t know how I got here, or why I’m here, and as much in the dark as you why my documents say I’m someone else.”

He brought out his cell phone and pushed a few buttons, typed in my name, and waited.  Then, his expression changed, and another glare at me.  “OK, it looks like you.  Give me some titles of your books.”

“It happened in Syracuse, the end is nigh, and the girl with blue eyes.”

A shake of the head.  “Not exactly conclusive proof. You could have looked it up and remembered them.  But you look exactly like him.”

He went back to his phone and picked up the driver’s licence with that name and address and typed that name in.  Another expression change, one that suggested he’d found nothing.  “So you are telling me you know nothing about this Sidney Giles from Houston.  It’s your photo, and this licence looks real.  And this boarding pass says you came in from Houston.”

“I can’t explain it.  No.”

He sighed.  “OK.  Take me through your last 24 hours.  What do you remember?”

That was the problem, I could not remember anything beyond the fact I had just finished a class where I’d been trying to get completely disinterested teenagers to write a story about their ideal day out, and being met with derision.  The bell rang and they all left, leaving me somewhat shattered, sitting at the desk contemplating why I’d chosen this career path.

Then Marjorie, the other English teacher who had conducted my orientation, came in and asked me how my first class went.  I couldn’t remember what I said, but the next memory was in a bar, she was there, and we were talking about writing, and the fact she was hoping to finish her first book soon, and was asking if I wanted to read it.

“I’m not sure if it’s the last 24 hours, but I’m apparently a new teacher at a college in Syracuse somewhere, who took his first class, not very successfully, I might add.”

“Nothing to indicate how you got to Houston, and then here?”

Another memory popped into my head, a rather disconcerting one.  I was with Marjorie, and we were talking about writing thrillers and how sometimes she playacted her character’s roles, the latest, an assassin who had been hypnotised believing she was someone else entirely, fitted out with a complete change of identity and then travelling to a particular city to carry out her assignment.  Who said art imitated life? This was the other way around.

“You remembered something, didn’t you?”

“I think whatever it was, it’s just a figment of my writer’s mind.  It’s too far out there to be believable.”

“Try me.”

“Apparently, I was discussing aspects of another author’s latest work in progress, where the main character is hypnotised into thinking they are someone else.  That’s just too far-fetched, isn’t it?”

The detective picked up his phone and called security and asked if there was any CCTV of the incident.  Five minutes later, a guard came with an inadequate and handed it to him.  “It’s your lucky day,” he said.

The detective looked at the footage not once but about ten times.  “The coverage shows you talking to the man ahead of you in the queue, and then suddenly just collapse.  I’m sure he says something to you, a word that sounds like Fiddlesticks.”

The next thing I knew, he was shaking me by the shoulder, and I was on the floor, totally disorientated.

“What happened?”

“You fainted.  Can you tell me who you are?”

“Sure.  Sidney Giles.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2023

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 8

A trip back through memory lane.

…

We were diverting to Venus, sitting out there on screen, lonely as a cloud, if there could be clouds in space.

So, I wondered if the Captain had a special reason why I should head the team going to the freighter.

It was an opportunity to take one of the new class of shuttles, reported to be faster, more stable, and larger so that we could carry more people and cargo. It would be overkill today.

The crew assigned to collect the cargo was aboard, and my co-pilot for want of a better name was Myrtle, an officer that joined the ship with me, and had excellent qualifications.

We were going through the preflight, ready to lift off.

“First time?”

“In a shuttle, no. In space, real space, more or less.”

I don’t think I wanted to know what more or less meant.

“There’s nothing to it.”

The captain’s voice came over the speaker, “You’re cleared for departure, they’re expecting you imminently.”

“Very good, sir.”

It was never a gentle lift-off, unlike landing, and that initial jerk was an annoyance. Then engaging the thrusters, we began to move forward slowly towards the cargo door, and at the synchronised time, the doors opened and there was nothing but empty space before us.

Outside, we increased speed, turned, and flew under our ship, just to get a look at it, something I knew the people aboard might be interested in seeing, then onto the Aloysius 5 drifting off our port bow.

“Do you see what I see?” Nice to see Myrtle wasn’t blind.

“I do, and that’s worrying.”

What was it? A scorch mark on the side of the Aloysius 5, in a place where we couldn’t see it from our ship, and a direct hit on one of the exhaust manifolds. That would stop a ship dead in its tracks without wrecking it.

“Captain,” I said, hoping he was listening.

“Number one?”

“I think we have a problem.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

From typewriters to computers to distraction

I first started writing by longhand, still do, in fact, then graduated to my mother’s portable typewriter, right down to the sticking keys and overused ribbon, then moved upwards into the electric world having a pair of IBM electric typewriters I bought from one of the places I worked as second-hand cast-offs.

Just remembering those days gives me the shudders, from the tangled ribbons and messy hands to using carbon paper, how many times before they were useless?

Then the age of the electric typewriter went the same way as the manual ones, simply because I could no longer buy ribbons for my IBM Selectric, so it, too, had to go the way of the dinosaurs.

It was a good thing, then, that computers and word processing software started at about the same time.   Word Perfect, to begin with, and then, in the early days of Windows, Word, and others.  Sometimes it was easier just to use the text editor, and for convenience, it’s often by choice to get ideas down, quick and dirty.

This was before the days of the internet, where you physically had to do something about finding inspiration.  And that, sometimes, was more difficult that it seems.  I do not have a writing room with large windows looking out on a rural or urban panorama.  The window looks onto a fence, and the house next door.

So much for my dream of owning a castle and having a writing room on the second or third level, with astonishing views.

Which leads me to today.  Enough with the reminiscing.  I have all the tools I need to get on with the job, but that isn’t enough to switch on the brain and start typing perfect prose.  I have to go in search of some inspiration.

It’s just that in that short distance, from, say, the couch where you were reading the latest blog posts in the WordPress reader, and the writer’s chair, your preparation for writing ends up getting confused at some of the blogger’s points because it’s hard to find anything relevant that backs up their assertions, or how things work for them.

I guess success form anyone’s standpoint, is what worked for them.  In relaying that to others, two things come to mind.  It worked for them, but in telling a million others, and they all take the same approach, no, sorry, it ain’t going to work no how.  The other, there’s usually a fee attached to gain the knowledge, and, yes, the same proviso applies.  If everyone does it, it ain’t going to work no how.

But, there you are, my attention has been distracted, and unless I’m about to indulge in writing a version of how to achieve success myself, which I haven’t so I’m not, I’m off track, with an out of balance mindset, and therefore unable to write.

Perhaps I should not read blog posts, but the newspapers.

Or not, because they all have an editorial policy that leans either and one way or another, which means their views are not necessarily unbiased.

I was a journalist once and hated the idea of having to toe the editorial line.  Or as luck would have it, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  It lends to the theory that you can never quite believe anything the media tells you, which is a very sorry place to be when there are no external influences you can trust.

I’m coming around to thinking that it’s probably best left to the dark hours of the night when you would think all the distractions are behind you.  After all, isn’t that what daytime is for?

Except that’s when the ghosts come out to play.

I think.

Was that the lounge room door opening?

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 47

Here’s the thing…

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 hundred square miles, that must have run up the coast close to Patterson’s Reach?” I asked.

Patterson’s reach was about five miles to the north, a small town, where there was little fishing done and allegedly a lot of ferrying drugs being dropped off by large ships coming along the offshore shipping lanes.  No one could prove it, and every trap set by the coast guard had failed to find any evidence.  That meant that someone was tipping them off.

It was also the domain of the Cossatino’s who discouraged anyone else from living there.  It was said that Cossatino owned all of the lands the town sat on and the people who lived there worked for him.

“Only as far as Patterson’s reach and then inland for about 20 miles, about as far as the Faultline and perhaps the closest point between the foothills and the sea.  Ormiston had bought all the land thinking that the treasure was buried on it.  You see, he had a map too, long before Boggs senior had started forging them for the Cossatino’s.”

And in hearing that it begged the question, who had first found the original map?  If Cossatino found it, then getting Boggs senior to forge a lot of useless maps would hide where it really was.

What if Boggs ‘original’ map was yet another elaborate forgery, given to him by Cossatino to create others?  I put that thought to one side.

I wondered if Boggs had been to see her, to get some background.  If there was going to be an expert on the treasure, if it existed or not, she would know.  In fact, she probably knew old man Ormiston.

“Does that map still exist?”

“Perhaps.  It was not found in his effects after he died.  Spent his last years in an asylum.  It wasn’t not finding the treasure, or losing his fortune that sent him mad, it was Alzheimer’s, poor old man.  Whatever documents that were found when his relatives cleaned the place out were brought to the library to be stored, cataloged at some point, and one day when someone decides to write a history of the area, no doubt they want to see the collection.”

“I couldn’t look at the papers?”

“Are you interested in writing a local history.  I’m sure your hunt for the treasure and the many fruitless other expeditions looking for it would make a very entertaining chapter.”

“Maybe I will.”

If that was what it took to look at the documents.  There might be something interesting to be found.  Especially if he kept a diary.  I thought it best not to ask, and fuel suspicions.

“Elmer said there might be relations of Ormiston still around here?”

“Yes, I did say that which I now regret.  There are, but I don’t know who they are.  I knew his wife’s family name was Maunchen, and that the Maunchens came from California originally, and there’s nothing to say they didn’t go back.  Certainly, the wife would be deceased by now, and they had three daughters, all of whom would have married, and changed names.  You’d have to go digging through wedding records in at least a dozen parishes.  If you were thinking of investigating.”

“Sound like too much hard work.  Besides, the treasure doesn’t; exist.  I’m only helping Boggs to keep him from doing something stupid.”

“Like father, like son, unfortunately.  You do realize the father made some outlandish claim in the hotel one night that he had found the clue to where the treasure was buried.   Trouble was, he was prone to making outlandish claims, and by that time, a drunkard.  He went missing the next day, and has never been seen since.”

“You think he found it?”

“No.  But I’m guessing someone thought he had and killed him trying to find out.  We’ll never know.”

“A lesson to be learned then.  I’ll keep an eye on Boggs junior just in case he’s thinking of making an equally outlandish claim.”

“You do that.”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a form and handed it to me.

“What’s this for?”

“A request to look at the archives.  You have to register, and I have to give you a special card, the key to the history of Arkwon County.”

Where it said signature, I signed it.

“You fill out the rest.  When do you want me to pick up the card?”

“Monday next week.  In the meantime, be careful.”

She said it like she knew I would be walking into trouble.

…

© Charles Heath 2020

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope the day would improve.

The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers.  Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier.  I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village.  I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.

I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed.  In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passenger’s attention.  Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.

I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back.  He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury.  He looked at her ticket then nodded dismissively, and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway.  I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.

From what I could see there was something about her.  It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile.  I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone.  Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.

She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model.  I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris.  The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.

Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.

She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on.  I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me.  I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin.  My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.

I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast.  With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination.  It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight.  It would give me enough time to sample the local fare, and take a tour of the medieval village.

Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch.  After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward.  I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and let the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.

It didn’t work.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked, and what part I played in it.  And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out.  What was wrong with me?

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land.  There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.

Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would need to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later a keen military mind.  If nothing else I could ride a horse, and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.

I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no-one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared.  I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.

Computers were the new vogue and I had an aptitude for programming.  I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which although I hated the subject, I excelled in.  Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.

About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.

Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks.  It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.

Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited the qualifications I had, and the rest, I think I intimidated the interviewer simply because of who I was.  In that time I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist, and through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.

And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues.  I knew that in building a relationship compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise and what had happened was always going to be the end result.

It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing.  There was a certain expectation I had to fulfill, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented.  The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged.  Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian.  He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties.  He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns.  He was one of the lucky ones.

I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa.  From that moment, my obscurity disappeared.  It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses.  He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.

Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door.  There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.

Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa?  For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her when she had a certain air of unpredictability.  That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future.  She just failed to see how much he was using her.

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

I thought about calling her.  It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.

I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move.  The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red.  It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific.  In fact, her sublime beauty was the one other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact her hair was short, rather than long, and jet black.

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

A few minutes later several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid.  I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.

I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes, before retracing my steps to the front of the ship and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water.  It was almost mesmerizing.  There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa, and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.

Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”

I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned.  The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close me without my realizing it.  How did she do that?  I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.

“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping.  I hear the water is very cold.”

Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck.  There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her particularly around the eyes, and of her hair which was jet black.  An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtle, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.

Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory.  The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent, and fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.

Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate.  Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes.  My first thought, then, was to be careful.

“No.  Not yet.”  I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak.  And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.

The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanor as a little warmth reached her eyes.  “So that’s a maybe.  Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”

It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.

“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away.  Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped she turned to face me again.  She did not move closer.

I realized then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket.  “Thanks for your concern …?”

“Zoe.”

“Thanks for your concern, Zoe.  By the way, my name is John.”

She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease.  “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”

“I might throw myself overboard?”

“An idiotic notion I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Then she tilted her head to one side then the other, looking intently at me.  “You seem to be familiar.  Do I know you?”

I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings.  If she was, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me.  Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.

“Probably not.”  I also didn’t mention the fact she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.

She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realized who I was.  “Yes, I remember now.  You made the front cover of the Economist.  You sold your company for a small fortune.”

Of course.  She was not the first who had recognized me from that cover.  It had raised my profile considerably, but not the Sternhaven’s.  That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family.  I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.”  Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.

“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky.  It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”

The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times which had made that exact comment recently.

“But I am boring you.”  She smiled again.  “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts.  I am sorry.”

She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.

“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me.  It had been Sebastian on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money.  He was not very subtle when he described their methods.

But I knew he was right.  I should have let her walk away.

She stopped and turned around.  “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”

A sudden and awful thought popped into my head.  Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit.  “Are you a reporter?”

I was not sure if she looked surprised, or amused.  “Do I look like one?”

I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment.  “People rarely look like what they are.”

I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave.  Instead she astonished me.

“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot.  To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true.  Aside from the fact this excursion was probably a bad idea.  And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”

I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignoring their natural instinct.  I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.

“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.  I was supposed to be traveling with my prospective bride.  I think you can imagine how that turned out.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“She’s in the cabin?”  Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment then came back to me.  She seemed surprised I might be traveling with someone.

“No.  She is back in England, and the wedding is off.  So is the relationship.  She dumped me by text.”

OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her?  I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.

She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge.  No walking the plank today.  She moved towards it and sat down.  She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair.  Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.

I wondered, if only for a few seconds if she used this approach with anyone else.  I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.

She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us.  After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message.  It is difficult, the first few days.”

“I saw it coming.”

“I did not.”  She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her.  “But it is done, and I moved on.  Was she the love of your life?”

OK, that was unexpected.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry.  Sometimes I ask personal questions without realizing what I’m doing.  It is none of my business.”  She shivered.  “Perhaps we should go back inside.”

She stood, and held out her hand.  Should I take it and be drawn into her web?  I thought of Sebastian.  What would he do in this situation?

I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet.  “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.

It just started to rain.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

newdevilcvr6

The A to Z Challenge – 2023 — M is for Memories

…

It was just a simple conversation, or so I thought.

You know how it is, stuck in a long queue, waiting for service when you strike up a conversation with the person in front of the person or behind.  Random strangers, never seen before, perhaps will never see again.

The plane had arrived late, along with the three others in quick succession, all with over 300 passengers, and being that time of night, not so many service staff.  The line was quite literally a mile long and not moving very fast. 

It was apparent the person in front of me, who looked like a university professor, had to be somewhere else and was getting impatient.

“This is ridiculous. You would have thought they’d know about the hold-ups, that every plane would arrive at the same time, and make the appropriate adjustments.”

It was a common sense thing, but apparently not deemed so by airport management.  It was the same the world over. 

“At least you won’t have to wait for your baggage.  It’ll be on the carousel by the time we get out of here.”

He sighed, pulled out a cell phone, and dialled a number, most likely the person picking him up.  They didn’t answer, and as he jammed his finger on the disconnect button, he muttered, “Fiddlesticks.”

One second, I was thinking what an odd thing to say, the next, nothing.

When I opened my eyes I was looking at a roof, in unfamiliar surroundings, with two ambulance staff leaning over me, saying, “Mr Giles, Mr Giles,” while gently shaking me by the shoulder.

My first thought was, who was Mr Giles?  I looked at one, “Where am I?”

“JFK airport, New York.”

“How, why, when?”

“You collapsed, waiting in line to pass through immigration.  The security staff called us.”

“Who is Mr Glies?”

“That’s you.”

“No, it isn’t.  My name is Jeremy Watkins.”

“Not according to your passport and ticket information.  Samuel Giles.”

No.  I’ve never heard of him.  Nor did I have any idea why I was in New York, where I came from or why I was there.  Seeing the guards surrounding me, I realized airport security staff were naturally paranoid about terrorist attacks, and given my situation, I had just become a number one suspect.

This was not going to end well.

Within five minutes of saying what I’d just said, I was taken to a room somewhere within the innards of the airport, the paramedics having determined there was nothing physically wrong with me, saying it was just a reaction to a long flight, tiredness, and stress from waiting.

All the time, I’d been flanked by three airport security staff, followed by two uniformed officers of the NYPD.  When I got to the room, a man was waiting.  He looked as tired as I felt.  My baggage was on one side of the room, and it had been thoroughly searched.  The paramedics’ work was done, and they left.  The airport security guards were also dismissed, but the two uniformed officers remained, one in the room and one outside the room.  If I tried to escape, I would not get very far.

He pointed to a seat opposite him, and I assumed I was meant to sit.  Once I had, he said, “Now, Mr Giles slash Watkins, just who the hell are you?” 

I didn’t think he was from the FBI, but just to make sure I asked, “Who are you?”

He glared at me, perhaps considering he didn’t have to tell me anything, then changed his mind.  “Detective Barnsdale, NYPD.  Someone up there,” he pointed to the roof, “Decided to make this my lucky day.  Make it easy for both of us.  I’d tend to believe you were hallucinating if you’d banged your head when you collapsed, but the medics tell me you didn’t.  I can only assume this is some sort of prank.  If it is, then I suggest you give it up.  Otherwise, if I escalate this, it’s going to get ugly.”

If he was trying to scare me, it was working.  “My name is Jeremy Watkins.  If you have access to the internet, you can look me up.  I’m an author, not exactly a runaway best-seller, but I make enough.  I don’t know how I got here, or why I’m here, and as much in the dark as you why my documents say I’m someone else.”

He brought out his cell phone and pushed a few buttons, typed in my name, and waited.  Then, his expression changed, and another glare at me.  “OK, it looks like you.  Give me some titles of your books.”

“It happened in Syracuse, the end is nigh, and the girl with blue eyes.”

A shake of the head.  “Not exactly conclusive proof. You could have looked it up and remembered them.  But you look exactly like him.”

He went back to his phone and picked up the driver’s licence with that name and address and typed that name in.  Another expression change, one that suggested he’d found nothing.  “So you are telling me you know nothing about this Sidney Giles from Houston.  It’s your photo, and this licence looks real.  And this boarding pass says you came in from Houston.”

“I can’t explain it.  No.”

He sighed.  “OK.  Take me through your last 24 hours.  What do you remember?”

That was the problem, I could not remember anything beyond the fact I had just finished a class where I’d been trying to get completely disinterested teenagers to write a story about their ideal day out, and being met with derision.  The bell rang and they all left, leaving me somewhat shattered, sitting at the desk contemplating why I’d chosen this career path.

Then Marjorie, the other English teacher who had conducted my orientation, came in and asked me how my first class went.  I couldn’t remember what I said, but the next memory was in a bar, she was there, and we were talking about writing, and the fact she was hoping to finish her first book soon, and was asking if I wanted to read it.

“I’m not sure if it’s the last 24 hours, but I’m apparently a new teacher at a college in Syracuse somewhere, who took his first class, not very successfully, I might add.”

“Nothing to indicate how you got to Houston, and then here?”

Another memory popped into my head, a rather disconcerting one.  I was with Marjorie, and we were talking about writing thrillers and how sometimes she playacted her character’s roles, the latest, an assassin who had been hypnotised believing she was someone else entirely, fitted out with a complete change of identity and then travelling to a particular city to carry out her assignment.  Who said art imitated life? This was the other way around.

“You remembered something, didn’t you?”

“I think whatever it was, it’s just a figment of my writer’s mind.  It’s too far out there to be believable.”

“Try me.”

“Apparently, I was discussing aspects of another author’s latest work in progress, where the main character is hypnotised into thinking they are someone else.  That’s just too far-fetched, isn’t it?”

The detective picked up his phone and called security and asked if there was any CCTV of the incident.  Five minutes later, a guard came with an inadequate and handed it to him.  “It’s your lucky day,” he said.

The detective looked at the footage not once but about ten times.  “The coverage shows you talking to the man ahead of you in the queue, and then suddenly just collapse.  I’m sure he says something to you, a word that sounds like Fiddlesticks.”

The next thing I knew, he was shaking me by the shoulder, and I was on the floor, totally disorientated.

“What happened?”

“You fainted.  Can you tell me who you are?”

“Sure.  Sidney Giles.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2023

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 50

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

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

Chasing leads, maybe

Just because you have a security card with your name on it doesn’t mean you are cleared.  Yesterday, maybe, but today?  Anything can happen in 24 hours, much like the political landscape.

When I walked in the front entrance and up to the scanning gate, I was just another employee coming into work.  I ran my card through the scanning device, and the light turned red.

It failed.

In the time it took for me to scan it a second time, a security guard had arrived from the front desk, and a soldier, armed and ready was standing behind me.

I didn’t doubt for one minute he would shoot me if I tried to run.

“What seems to be the problem?”  The security guard was polite but firm.

“My card that scanned the last time and worked, doesn’t seem to work now.”

I could read his expression, ‘you just got fired, and are trying to get back in.”

“Let me try.”

I gave him the card, he looked at it, no doubt to see if there was any damage, then tried it.”

“Have you any other means of identification?”

Now, here’s the thing.  This was the office full of spies and support staff all of whom could be using assumed names, different guises, or just plain secretive with their private information.  Luckily I had a driver’s license with the name on the card, but not much else.

I thought about telling him about the place he was guarding, but I doubted he would listen.

He looked at both, then handed back the license. 

“Come with me over to the counter and we’ll see if we can sort this out.”

It was not a request, nor was I unaccompanied.  I now had a soldier permanently attached to me.

When we all arrived at the desk, he joined another guard behind.

“Who is your immediate superior?”

It was a toss-up between Dobbin and Monica.  Since Dobbin spent a lot of time in his car or appeared to, I said it was Monica.

I watched him search slowly through the phone list until he found her number, then called her.

He had his back to me when they spoke, but it wasn’t for long; after a minute, perhaps two, he replaced the receiver and turned back.

“Ms. Shrive will be down in about five minutes.”  He pointed to a row of chairs against the wall, remnants from the last world war.  “If you would like to wait over there, sir.”

He didn’t hand back my card.

The wait was more like a half-hour, but I had become engrossed in an old copy of Country Life, and an article that made me consider retiring to the country in an old thatch cottage beside a babbling brook somewhere in the Cotswolds.

Until I read the price. 

The arrival of Monica came at a fortuitous moment.  Coming to the desk.

“Nnn, I was hoping you would drop by sooner rather than later.”

“My card doesn’t work.”

“Oh, that’s because we revoked it.”  She held out another in her hand.  “We’ve replaced it with one with better access, or as we say jokingly, you’ve moved up in the pay grade scale.”

I took the card and went to put it in my pocket.

“You need to register your presence, so I’m afraid you’ll have to go out and come back in again.”

I did as she asked, this time greeted by the friendly green light.  The soldier seemed disappointed that I was not free of his attention.  The security guard on the desk had alt=ready forgotten I existed.

“Come.”

I followed Monica to the antiquated elevator, we stepped in, closed the door and she pressed a button for the third and fourth floors.  It seemed creakier than usual this time.

“I’m assuming you have come in to use the computer resources?”

“Yes.”

“Good thing then we upgraded your access level.”

“And is there someone who manages access to CCTV footage?”

“Yes.  Same floor, four.  Her name is Amelia Enders.  Tell her what you need, and she’ll find it.  I assume it will have something to do with the surveillance exercise of yours.”

How could she guess, or had she been already investigating?”

“Come and see me when you’re finished.  I live on the third floor.  Literally.”

The elevator stopped on the third floor with a creak and a thump.

A smile and she headed off down the passage.

If I wasn’t mistaken, she had that cat who ate the canary look, and it worried me.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022