…

I remember the last conversation I had with my father the day he died.

It had taken three months of my life, giving up everything to make sure his last days were bearable, all with the expectation that it would be a thankless task he would not appreciate.  Three months of dismissive retorts, insults, insufferable behaviour, cryptic comments, and sometimes, in less lucid moments, ramblings about places he’d been, and discoveries made.

Neither of my brothers wanted anything to do with him, other than to wait for the selfish bastard to die and leave them their sufferance money, their expectation of an incalculable inheritance, and it was left to me, the youngest son, and in their eyes the one he cared about the most to take responsibility.

I didn’t have the heart, nor was I given the opportunity, to tell them I was not the golden boy they thought I was.  Or the fact there was no incalculable inheritance.

But there was that conversation, one I never expected to have.

I’d left the room for a break, heading to the hospital cafeteria for coffee and a croissant.  Amelia, one of two dedicated nurses looking after my father, was there, having a coffee before she started her shift.  We had become friends of a sort, each other’s go-to person when my father unravelled on us.

Yesterday’s revelations were about his will, and which one, if there was one, was current.  His mind changed weekly, including who was in and who was out, which made it especially interesting because he sometimes didn’t remember any of all of us.  Or the fact his wife, our mother, had died twenty years before after being dragged along on one of his archaeological adventures.

Yesterday, I was getting nothing, his rant about the child, not knowing I was in the room with him.  He simply didn’t recognise me.  Everything, he said, was going to Elroy, the eldest brother, who, apparently, was in the room with us.

The brain tumour was affecting him more each passing day, and symptoms and behaviour the doctors had told me from the outset, would demonstrate indescribable and at times confronting behaviour.  I think, in that three months, I’d seen it all.

“Another day, not another million dollars, eh Steven?”  She smiled.  She’d caught the last of the spray he gave me.  She was amused by my eligibility as a so-called wealthy bachelor, which changed from week to week.  This week, it was zero wealth, no eligibility.

“I was hoping to propose, but once again, I can’t afford the ring, the wedding, or the honeymoon.”

“You know what I expect, a soda can ring pull, my parent’s backyard, and a B and B in Yonkers.  If I’m lucky.  My parents might charge rent for using their backyard.”

We joked about it, but I’d thought more than once in the last few weeks to ask her on a date, but after telling me about her last breakup and the horrid man, she’d sworn off dating for life.  She was the only light in days of darkness.

“Everything comes to he or she who waits.  I’m sure the right one is out there somewhere.”

“We can only hope.  He had a quiet night, I’m told, and the end is near.  Twice the night nurse had thought he’d died.  Maybe he’s finally done.”

I could only hope.  “Got anything lined up for the weekend?”

She grimaced.  I knew that look.  Duty and obligation led to an inquisition.

“Going home to visit mum and dad, and see the perfect sisters with their perfect families, each with their perfect husband with perfect jobs, and why I’m not married, have no children in a dead-end job.  I sometimes wonder if I should ask you to pretend to be my perfect husband just to get them off my back.  What do you think?”

It was an idea that sent a shiver through me when it shouldn’t.

“I’m not perfect.”

“Nobody is, Steven, except in my family.  Tell you what, the more I think about it….”  Then she shook her head.  “I think I’m going mad.  I’ll see you later.”  She rushed off, and I was not sure if she was late starting or embarrassed by thinking out loud.

It was an idea.  Maybe I’d mention it later.

I opened the curtains covering the windows and looked at the frail man either asleep or feigning sleep.  It was hard to tell.  He was, after the ravages of age and illness, now only a fraction of what he used to be, a big, strong force of nature. 

I arranged the array of newspapers I’d brought with me, just in case he wanted me to read stories from them, or just one.  I had several Dickens novels, which I’d read to him at night.  He liked the classics and Dickens in particular.  I had a bottle of scotch, which we had a drink of sometimes.  Other times, I was not allowed because he thought I was too young.  It was amusing.

Every morning was a waiting game, where I would wait until he spoke to me unless one of the medical staff interrupted this charade.  It seemed to amuse him, and because he was dying, I played along.

Reading the newspaper while waiting, I found a story on page 6 of the local rag, my father’s description of it because he had never anything nice to say about it, or the reporting because the editor was an arch enemy if his, about his impending demise, and how he had been the counties most distinguished archaeologist and celebrity.  It refrained from mentioning he could be and often was abrasive.

“Alfred Biggins in serious condition.” Followed by a catchy subtitled, “Not expected to live.”

It was rather a belatedly written story written by a friend, of sorts; “stodgy”, so named because his journalistic talent was simply writing the facts.  It was a mishmash of everything he’d got from me in a bar the previous Friday in what he thought was a well-disguised interrogation. It was not.  Having every intention of trying to keep the wolves from the door, I managed to head off an assassination piece; those would come from various sources after his death.

“Is that you, Steven?”  My father was awake, and I braced myself.

I put the paper down and looked over to see him sitting up.  If I was to guess, he didn’t look ill or half mad at all, just his usual self.  “It is me.  What can I get you?”

“Nothing I can’t get for myself.  What are you doing here?  What am I doing here?”

OK.  Something was very wrong here.  This person in the bed was not my father.  “You have a brain tumour and you’ve been in a very bad way.  In fact, the night nurse had thought you’d died.  Twice.”

“Died?  Brain tumour?  There’s nothing wrong with me.  I feel fine.”

Then I remembered what the doctor had said a month or so ago when we went through a similar phase.  This moment of clarity wouldn’t last.

“Dad, believe me, you are unwell, and this is just a temporary remission.  The doctor will be here soon and will explain it.”

“Then if I’m ill as you say, where are your brothers?”

“They wanted nothing to do with you once you were put in here.  They delegated me to keep you company.  I’m sure you don’t remember any of this, but it’s been three months now, and it’s getting worse.”

He shook his head and went quiet.  It was as if he was taking in the enormity of it, or just that he didn’t believe it could happen to him.  A few minutes passed, and I wondered if he had slipped back into the fog.

Then he opened his eyes and looked at me.  “Yes.  Some of it I remember, firstly going down like a sack of potatoes in Cairo, waking up in some damn hospital with a witch doctor trying to peer into my soul.  Said I had a tumour and it needed to be seen to, said I had six months, at best to live. Of course, I laughed at him, came home, and then the last thing I know was falling over in the study at home.”

“It’s where I found you.  It was a day before I came home.  Scared the living hell out of me.”

“How long since that day?”1

“Three months almost to the day.”

“Plus the three before that, that’s the six months.  I’m on borrowed time.  There’s a journal in the study.  I don’t remember where I put it, but it’s in a safe place.  If I remember before I die, I’ll tell you, but I think that’s a long shot at best.  The will is in a copy of the 1933 Guide to Touring Egypt.  Basically the money goes to the other two, and the house goes to you.  They don’t need a house and they’d only sell it if I left it to them.  The money with more than compensate them.  I should change it and leave the money to a lost dog’s home, but it’s too late.  I’m sorry for a lot of things Steven, but what’s in the journal will make up for everything.  Two things, don’t tell anyone about it, or what’s in there.  Ever.  The other, watch out for Professor Moriarty.  Yes, I know it sounds stupid because he’s a foe of Sherlock Holmes, but I’m not joking.  The man is dangerous. and he’s after the same thing you are.  Now, be a good boy and get me some cold water.”

I looked at him, trying to fathom if he was having me on.  It wouldn’t surprise me.  Whether or not this was one of those lucid moments, or he was just a very good actor, I couldn’t tell.  But Professor Moriarty?  Please.  That was where I drew the line.  I took the jug and headed to the cold water dispenser.

Amelia passed as I was filling the jug.  “How is he today?”

“The weirdest thing.  Until he mentioned Professor Moriarty, I thought he’d woken and was lucid again.  Certainly, the conversation was better than anything we’d had before, even before being admitted to the hospital.”

“Maybe some of it was, and his mind just wandered.  Ask him again when you see him.  I’ll be there soon.”

I’d just picked up the jug when I heard a scream, and it sounded like it came from my father’s room.  I left the jug and ran.  I arrived at the same time as the doctor and two nurses, to see him trying to get out of bed, yelling, “He’s trying to get me, he’s trying to get me,  Help.”  He was literally fighting the doctor and nurse off.

Suddenly he went limp in their arms, and they managed to get him back on the bed.  With one look at him, the doctor immediately checked for a pulse.  A minute later, with a shake of the head, he looked at the clock on the wall.  “Time of death, 8:43 am.”  He turned to me.  “Your father just passed.  I’m sorry for your loss.  We’ll give you a moment alone with him.”

It grieved me in the sense that I had not been with him in his last moments alive.  But, it also surprised me that I didn’t feel more now that he was dead.  All those years of making us children a second priority perhaps had made us more immune from his loss than it should.  I sat for a minute and held his hand, quite cold, but not because of death.  His hands had always been cold.

It was then I noticed the piece of paper under the pillow, just showing.  I pulled it out.  He must have made a note in those moments of clarity.

I pulled it out and read it.

“If I am dead, then leave.  Now.  Don’t wait around because it will only invite trouble.  Go home.  Look for the journal.  Trust no one.”

I might have ignored that note had it not for the sound of raised voices coming from the nurse’s station, one being a man who was demanding to see my father.

A last look at him, a memory of a man who no longer looked like my father, and I left.  Just about to leave by the side exit I could hear the doctor saying, “You cannot be here, Professor Moriarty, and if you persist, I will call the police.”

…

© 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

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

When the room was empty and only Richards and I remained, he cut the ties that bound my hands and legs.

“Bad business,” he said.

I sat again, and flexed the muscles that had begun to stiffen up whilst tightly bound.

“I’m assuming you know a woman by the name of Jan?” I said. “She told me she was working for MI6 so I’m assuming you’re her handler.”

“When she chooses to be handled, yes.  Jan is just one of her names.  She’s currently missing, and I think we now know why?”

“Her work,” I nodded towards the body.

“God no.  She’s charged with chasing down leads and then calling the cavalry.  We had a tracker on this chap, found him, and had him in a safe facility awaiting interrogation, what we thought was safe at any rate, and Jan and another agent watching over him until the interrogation team arrived.  When the interrogation team got there everyone was gone, but with enough blood on the floor to paint a pretty clear picture.  Maury had been interrogated and killed there, dumped here, with no indication of the whereabouts of our agents.  She told me this guy and another trained you, and others, in rather strange circumstances.  A bogus operation. To what end?”

“From what I could tell, a single surveillance operation.  Me and a dozen others.  Cut loose after it failed, those of us that survived, that is.”

“A lot of effort to achieve nothing.”

“Pity we can’t ask him what it was about?”  I looked over at the body.  Maury was hardly recognizable.  Whoever carried out the interrogation had been either in a hurry or in a bad mood.

“Indeed.  She told me this chap called O’Connell was involved.  Now so?”

Another rule that popped into my head from the training: never share information with other agencies unless you absolutely had to.  I had no doubt if Dobbin was here, he would agree, but he wasn’t.

I wondered if I should tell him she had allegiance to another branch of the secret services, or mention Dobbin.

“He was the surveillance target.  We were charged with observing him, but not what he was suspected of.  I followed him as far as the exploding shop, got temporarily disorientated after the blast,, but managed to reacquire the target, following him to an alley where I spoke briefly to him before Maury and Severin arrived, and he was shot, apparently killed.”

“Either he was or he wasn’t.”

“The body disappeared.  My view is he is still alive, somewhere.”

“That explosion was supposed to be caused by a gas leak.”

“Standard operational doubletalk.  A journalist was killed, apparently in the shop waiting for the target.  It went up after the target passed, I’m assuming his tradecraft was to check first then go back.  Never got a chance.  I think now given the circumstances, the journalist was going to hand something off.  I’ve been asked a number of times by various people about a USB drive.  You know anything about it?”

“This is the first I’m hearing about anything about a USB drive.  You know what was on it?”

“Above my pay grade, I was told.”

“OK.  What about this Severin character?:

“All I have is a phone number, and that, I think we can both agree, will be a burner.”

“Agreed, but it might be useful.”

I gave it to him and he put it on his phone.

A new team of men in white suits arrived at the door, no doubt MI5 forensic specialists, and two more agents, bigger and tougher, what I would call the muscle.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to the office to answer a few more questions.  It’s not custody, but mandatory co-operation.”

“And if I refuse?”

“It might make their day if you know what I mean.”

I shrugged.  One I might be able to take, but not the both of them.  And they both looked like they would be happy to teach me the error of my ways if I tried to escape/

“That won’t be necessary.  I’m taking him with me.”

“Dobbin just came to the door, flashing an MI6 warrant card.

“I’ve been charged with cleaning this mess up.”

“And so you shall, but not including this agent.  Orders from above, reasons why, as they say, are above your pay grade.

I suspect the warrant card said Dobbin outranked him.  Did our people have fake MI6 IDs?

“This is highly irregular.”

“Call your boss, if you don’t like it.  I can wait.”

I could see the reluctance in his face.

He glared at me.  “Go, but don’t go too far.  I still might get clearance to have another chat.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modeled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I image back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.