I wandered back to my villa.

It was in darkness.  I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there.  I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either.  Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.

Who?

There were four hiding spots and all were empty.  Someone had removed the weapons.  That could only mean one possibility.

I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.

But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch.  One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage.  It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief.  It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.

It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely.  It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.

The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground.  I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side.  After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks.  It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that.  I’d left torches at either end so I could see.

I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch.  I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end.  I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door.  It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.

Silence, an eerie silence.

I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting.  There wasn’t.  It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.

I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was.  Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.

That raised the question of who told them where I was.

If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan.  The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental.  But I was not that man.

Or was I?

I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness.  My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void.  Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly.  A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.

Still nothing.

I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job.  I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door.  If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in.  One shot would be all that was required.

Contract complete.

I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door.  There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting.  It was an ideal spot to wait.

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

I felt it before I heard it.  The bullet with my name on it.

And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea.  I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.

I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part.  The second was still breathing.

I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives.  Armed to the teeth!

I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian.  I was expecting a Russian.

I slapped his face, waking him up.  Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down.  The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally.  He was not long for this earth.

“Who employed you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile.  “Not today my friend.  You have made a very bad enemy.”  He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth.  “There will be more …”

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

I would have to leave.  Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess.  I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.

Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally.  I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.

A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved.  Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?

I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm.  I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.

If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation.  Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.

No police, just Maria.  I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.

“You left your phone behind on the table.  I thought you might be looking for it.”  She held it out in front of her.

When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”

I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”

I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.

“You need to go away now.”

Should I tell her the truth?  It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.

She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity.  “What happened?”

I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible.  I went with the truth.  “My past caught up with me.”

“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss.  It doesn’t look good.”

“I can fix it.  You need to leave.  It is not safe to be here with me.”

The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened.  She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.

I opened the door and let her in.  It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences.  Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge.  She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.

I expected her to scream.  She didn’t.

She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous.  Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about.  She would have to go to the police.

“What happened here?”

“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me.  I used to work for the Government, but no longer.  I suspect these men were here to repay a debt.  I was lucky.”

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

I nodded.  “Upstairs.”  I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs.  Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back.  I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.

She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound.  Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet.  It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.

When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”

No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.

“Alisha?”

“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you.  She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.  Will you call her?”

“Yes.  I can’t stay here now.  You should go now.  Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”

She smiled.  “As you say, I was never here.”

…

© Charles Heath 2018-2022

…

It’s one thing to put a date in your diary; it’s something else to remember it’s there.

And then it’s something else entirely if you lose the device the calendar is on.

Of course, in this modern day and age, there’s this thing called the cloud, and any and all of your devices can connect to it, so really, there is no excuse.

Is there?

It was one of those things, you know, four inseparable friends at university, all going through the ups and downs of life, love, learning, and success and failure.  Two boys, Jake Sever and me, Albert Mendall, and two girls, Gillian Rogers and Melanie Monk.

We had lived separately, together, in relationships, and in the end, as friends.  After graduation, there was the party, the celebration, the reminisces, and the parting.  There were no romantic attachments, at least not one I was aware of, and each of us had applied for and got jobs in various parts of the country.

We all promised to catch up once we were settled, and all put an entry in their diaries to meet at the Empire State Building on Christmas Eve in two years’ time, a nod to Gillian’s favourite film, and just in case we lost track of each other. 

That final farewell was, for me, poignant, particularly with Gillian.  We had one of those on-again-off-again romances, it started out well enough but Gillian had always thought there had to be more, and as each succeeding romance of hers failed, for one reason or another, it brought us back together.  The last, she believed she had found the one, and when she left, with Derek, the one, I felt more than a little sad.  For me, she was the one, and it would be a long time before I found another.

Fast forward a year, and I had had sporadic communications from the others, all pursuing their dreams, their lives taking turns they could never have predicted.  Jake has literally married the boss’s daughter, the company he chose to work for a family-owned business.  Melanie had gone from being a forensic accountant to a footloose and fancy-free nanny doing the tour of Europe with a wealthy American family with three young children.  It was she said the only way to finance her travel bug.  Gillian had married the man of her dreams, Derek, and was living in a castle in Scotland.

That left me.

Of the four, I was the one with the most nebulous plans, having taken the first opportunity that presented itself.  I could do anything, but what I really wanted was to be a journalist, a stepping stone to becoming a writer, and then, if the planets lined up, a best-selling author.  That may have been possible if Gillian and I had remained together because she was my muse and fiercest critic.  Without her, that dream had lost its shine.

Now I was languishing at my desk, working for a weekly magazine that was one of the last of its kind in the American Midwest, on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids.  I liked the place the moment I arrived, but there had always been a big if hanging over the job and staying there, so I had diversified into becoming an English Literature teacher part-time at first, but now looking very much like my new vocation.

I’d just finished a feature story on the gradual disappearance of reading and writing skills in schools when I realised, I was running late for class.  I dropped the story on the editor’s desk, ran out the door, jumped in the car, and sped off, thinking that I would make it with five minutes to spare.

That was, until another driver, also running late, failed to stop at a T intersection, and just seeing the oncoming car out of the corner of my eye and gave me no time to react.  I didn’t even have time to say a prayer.

When I woke, I was in unfamiliar surroundings, though the combination of disinfectant, pale-coloured walls, and curtains surrounding the bed were all a dead giveaway I was in the hospital.

I didn’t know why, but a cursory glance showed no visible signs of injury, so I had to wonder if it was something else, like a heart problem.  I had palpitations recently, the first time since I had been much younger.  It had not been serious then, but the doctors had not ruled out, then, it might return one day.  Had that day come?

Inevitably, my waking brought visitors, a doctor, and a nurse.

And not surprisingly it was the first question I was expecting, virtually a cliche, asked by the doctor, “How are you feeling?”

I answered it with a question, “How should I feel?”

He looked almost amused.  “OK.  Let me ask you another question, and this time, an honest answer, not another question.  What is your name?”

An honest answer?  Did I have more than one name?  That should be easy, except…  I couldn’t remember, or was it I didn’t know?  Surely everyone knew their name.  Or was that the reason her asked, that he knew that I didn’t know or that I could not remember.

He could see that I was having trouble.

“I should know the answer to that question, shouldn’t I.”

“Normally I would expect in normal circumstances you would, but yours are not normal circumstances.  You were in a very bad car accident, so bad that we had to put you into an induced coma.  It was supposed to be a week, two at the most.  Instead, it’s turned out to be nearly a year.  To be honest we had no idea when or if you would come out, and when you did, how you would be when we woke you, but loss of memory is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for.  Your name, by the way, is Albert Mendall.”

“Then what else don’t I know?”

“Most likely for the past three weeks, once you started waking, it’s been a rather intense time for you.  Chances are you don’t remember any of it, but it’s fairly standard for long-term coma patients to take time to recover.  We kept you sedated for the last three days, gradually allowing you more wake time, and come to terms with your recovery.  All in all, this is the outcome we hoped for.  It could have been very, very different.  You’ve lost a lot of weight, and you’re going to need a month or two before you will be able to move around.  Other than that, you will have time to work on those memories.  What is your last memory?”

“Going to work, I think.  Going somewhere in a car, that much I can remember.”

“Family?”

“Nothing.”

“Friends”

“I knew people at University, faces but not names.  I know what I studied, Literature, but beyond that, not a lot.”

“You were a teacher, in fact, one of your colleagues has been dropping by every week just in case.  She’s here now if you’d like to see her?”

“It might jog something, but I hope she isn’t offended if I don’t remember her.”

“I’m sure she won’t be.  We’ve kept her apprised of your recovery.”

It made me think perhaps there had been more between us, but I couldn’t remember working as a teacher let alone anyone that I may have worked with.  It was going to be interesting if it sparked anything.

Eileen Westmacott did not look like a schoolteacher.  When she put her head in the door and asked if it was alright to come in, I thought she was looking for someone else.  She looked more like a model, or actress though I had no idea why I thought that.

She came in, crossed to the bed and sat in the chair, perhaps giving me the time to examine her and see if I could remember.  If I had known her, I would remember her.  I didn’t.

“How are you?  Oh, sorry.  Typical silly question to ask in a hospital.”

She had a shy manner and put her hand to her mouth as if she wanted to put the words back in.  Her manner and her smile lit up the room.

“The doctors tell me I’m fine, except that I have no idea who I am, other than the name Albert Mendall.  I’m very sorry I can’t remember you because I feel as though I should.  I know this is a dumb question, but were we…”

“We were very good friends, Al, and things were going in the right direction.  We were going to have dinner the night of your accident and talk about our future together.  I was on the verge of taking a role in a television series.”

“Did you…”

“Yes.  I managed that and came back every week to see how you were.  Tiring, but in the end it satisfied my desire to be an actress, and harsh enough to make me realise it requires someone more hardened and single-minded than me to pursue it.  Teaching ratty teenagers is far easier I can tell you.”

“Did you give it up?”

“No.  Just took a break from it, and wait until the series is aired, successfully or a failure.  It seems failures are far more common than we’re led to believe.  Besides, you gave me a reason to come back home.”  She reached out and took my hand in hers.

It was like an electric shock and sent a wave of feelings through me.  And a few memories surfaced.

“Oh, God!  I did something to hurt you, didn’t I?  I can see you, crying.  It was me, wasn’t it, and a woman named Gillian.”

“What do you remember?”

“Fragments.  I said something really stupid, but I can’t remember anything else, except I hurt you, and you cried.  I’m sorry.  I rather think now, before all this I must have been some sort of bastard.  You said we were going to talk about it the night of the accident.”

“It’s more complicated than that.  You were not a bastard.  I wanted to talk to you about the acting role, and you said that it might be better if I pursued my dream and put us on hold.  You’d just got a letter from Gillian, an old University friend, who obviously meant a great deal to you, and you were going to see her, and I said a few things I regret now, mostly because I think I was the reason why you had the accident.  If we had not argued the night before, you would not have stayed up to finish that article for the paper, you were tired, and … well, you know the rest.”

“I don’t remember anything about her other than her name.  If she and I were meant to be together, she would be with me?”  Another memory popped into my head.  “She never seemed to be satisfied and went off with a guy called Derek something or other.”

“Whom she divorced.  It was the reason for the letter.  She came to see you, I brought her here, and she stayed for a few days, then left.  I sent her an update each month but never got a reply.  I can send a message to her and tell her you’re awake if you like.”

“What would be the point.  I don’t remember her.  I don’t remember anything, other than it seems I was horrible to you, and I was pining after a girl I could never be with.”

“I think you are being a little harsh on yourself.”

“I’m so sorry.  Perhaps you should come back tomorrow when I’ve had some rest if those memories have surfaced, maybe some others will.”,

She stood.  I saw a tear escape one eye and trickle down her cheek. 

“You were the only one who believed in me, Al.  The only one, and for that, I will always be grateful.  And despite what fragments of memory you have, you were never horrible to me, you were probably the only one who was totally honest.”  She leaned over and kissed my forehead.  “I’m glad your back, and if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”

It was not as if after a year of being ‘absent’, you can leap out of bed and do a quick circuit of the hospital corridors.  It took three days to work my way from the bed to a wheelchair, the most time taken disconnecting me for all the monitoring, and IV tubes.

It took another week to get out of the room and venture further afield.  The physio visited me every day, working on a regimen that might see me on my feet in a month.  A month?

No more memories came, not in the next three weeks, and neither did Eileen.  While it made me feel sad, I had to expect it because all I could remember was not being the person she expected me to be, or that’s what I assumed.

The other thing was that I didn’t call her.  I went to, several times, but hadn’t I disappointed her?  What would be the point of doing it again?

Exactly a month to the day, another woman put her head in the door and asked if she could come in.

I thought she was another physio, or perhaps the hospital psychiatrist because I was sure I would be having issues with missing the world for a whole year.

She sat down in the same chair Eileen had sat in.

But her opening gambit wasn’t to ask me how I was.  Instead, she asked, “Do you know who I am?”

First off, the face was not familiar, and yet I knew it should be.

Then I remembered Eileen asking if she should send Gillian word of my walking.

“You must be Gillian.”

“You remember me?”

“No.  I think we were at university together.

“We were.  We lived together, off and on, for most of that time.  In the end, we had an argument, split up, and you came here.”

“You got married, didn’t you?  I have had a couple of flashes, one being you married a man called Derek.  I didn’t remember the argument.  How is Derek?”

“Dead, I hope.  I can state with some authority, the grass isn’t greener on the other side.  He wasn’t you.”

“Well, sadly, I don’t remember who he was, and even worse I don’t remember who I am now.  I’ve been told I was a teacher and a part-time journalist.  It’s been a year, they probably think I left town or died.  What I feel like right now is like I died and come back with a clean slate.  One thing I do know, is I don’t deserve it.”

“There is nothing you remember about us?”

“Nothing.  Did I hurt you?  I’ve been having a few memories where I don’t think I was a very nice person.”

“No.  You were always the kindest and most forgiving person I knew.  I’m sorry that you have ended up like this.”  She stood.  “I should not have come.  I wish you well Albert.”

Then she was gone.

Two weeks later the doctors decided I could go home.

It appears I had a home, a small two-bedroom house in a quiet street, bought from the proceeds of a story, well, several stories, I had sold to a magazine, and on the back of it a sizable advance from a book publisher.

In that year in limbo, my book had been published and I  wasn’t quite the number one bestselling author yet, but my career, I was told, was only just beginning.

Something I did remember … the follow-up novel to the first.

That was the first surprise.

When the nurse wheeled me out into the pick-up area, Eileen was waiting, leaning against a rather expensive European import.

“Your car awaits, literally.  It is your car.  The insurance company replaced the one that was wrecked in the accident.  Good thing it was this type of car, it basically saved your life.”

“Where have you been?”

“Working out the details of becoming your guardian until you’re back on your feet.”

“I can walk.”  I got out of the chair and stood, albeit a little wobbly.

Eileen had come over and taken me by the arm.

“Like I said until you are back on your feet.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.  Besides I had to quit my teaching job.  They are making a series two and asked me to come back.  With a lot more money.”

“Good for you.  How long before the departure?”

“A few months.  Problems with the other actors.  They all thought it would fail.”

She helped me into the car.  It had that new car smell, the one that costs a lot of money.

“By the way,” I said, once she was out in traffic, “I remembered two more things, one which might be of interest to you.  The first, you played each one of the seven women characters in my next book, taking my ideas of them and becoming them.”

“Which one did you like the most.”

“The one I had a dream about, Mary-Anne.”

“I should hope so, she is the wife of the character you based on yourself.”

She smiled at the thought. 

I would remember that portrayal as long as I live, crash or no crash.

“The second, you were not the cause, directly or indirectly, for my crash.  Gillian was.  She called me that morning while I was in the car, and when I went to pick the phone up, I dropped it on the floor and took my eyes off the road for just a few seconds.  It was a few seconds too long.”

“You distinctly remember that, out of everything else?”

“She came to see me two weeks ago.  Perhaps she was looking for the old Albert, the one that took her back every time her romance hit a rock, and then happily left when something new came along.  I’d called her the day before and told her I was no longer that person, that I had moved on.  I was going to ask you to marry me at that dinner.”

She had a wider smile now.  “I know.  I found the ring when I was looking for something else.  The answer’s yes by the way.  While you’ve been on vacation, that’s what we’re going to call your time away, by the way, I moved in and did a little redecorating.”

“Anything else I don’t know about.”

“Probably a zillion things, but the most important, you have a daughter,  she’s four months old, and her name is Mary Louise, after both our mothers.  How does the first day of the rest of your life feel?

There were tears and no words.

She squeezed my hand.  “I know how you feel.  We’ll be home soon.”

…

© Charles Heath 2023

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.

Before we embarked on the great driving expedition, for which I was beginning to think might be harder than it seemed to Boggs’ one-track mind, we decided to go and check out the mall, and if, indeed, there was an underground river, or, at the very least, if his flooding theory was correct. 

We were going to need very old clothes, and when I left the next morning, my mother noticed it.

“I’m going to do some gardening with Boggs.  He came up with this notion we could help out tat the old folk’s home.”

“That’s a nice thought.”

And it was a lie I knew would eventually come back to bite me.  My mother hadn’t exactly told me to stop seeing Boggs, because she was beginning to think his mental capacity had been diminished after the beating.

It was a logical and perfectly acceptable reason for his odd behavior.

I went directly to Boggs’ house, and he was waiting for me.  From there it was about twenty minutes, to a spot where he knew the surrounding fence had a hole big enough for us to crawl through.

It was odd seeing the place again, sitting out a few miles from the town, looking forlorn.  At the front entrance, off the road specially built between it and the town, there were miles of cyclone fencing, with signs alternately telling people to keep out on threat of prosecution for trespass, and more recently, hazard signs proclaiming the whole area was unsafe.

From where we’d stopped, we could see the carpark, enough for hundreds of cars, a bus terminus, a taxi rank, and the front façade of the shopping center, mostly looking like the front of a castle, with towers and ramparts.

There had been auxiliary plans for a medieval theme park at one stage, that would have blended in with the mall buildings, but that had to be abandoned, even though the land allocated to it was stable.  Or so a surveyor said.

We continued on until we reached the side leading to the marina.  From this vantage point looking one way, there was the ocean, and the other, the damage to the side of the mall buildings, the cracks, and, in places, where the roof had collapsed.

This would be the first time I’d set foot in the place since it had been a mall.

It had been popular, and there was always plenty of people shopping, eating and drinking, going to the cinemas, or just having a day out.  There had also been a museum dedicated to the naval days.

Now there was nothing.

It was ironic that as many of the castles in the British Isles that had been reduced to rubble, that was exactly what was going to happen here if someone didn’t take a bulldozer to the lot and level it out.

And that might happen sooner rather than later.  This was reputed to be the site of many a disappearance of a local person.  Three girls, two men, and a boy were supposedly hidden somewhere inside the mall, but the bodies had never been found.

I was thinking of those missing people when I said, with a degree of trepidation, “Do you really want to do this?  I mean, if you’re sure there’s an underground waterway here, I’ll happily take your word for it.”

Boggs just shook his head.  “You’re the last person I’d expect to chicken out.”

“It not that.”

“Isn’t it?  I can go by myself if you’re worried about getting hurt.”

“No.  You and me together.  I have to learn to fight those fears.”

Another look, then, “OK.  “Just a little further.”

Another minute or so, we reached a large rusting cylinder which had an almost illegible sign on it say the tank held inflammable liquid.  I tapped on the metal and it sounded empty.  I guess as part of the shut down they would have had to drain the tank.  I followed the tangle of pipes that ran slightly downhill for about 20 yards and then saw the opening in the fence Boggs had referred to.

We left our bikes behind the tank, among some bushes.

We then walked down to the fence line where the pipes passed through, and Boggs pulled back the chain wire.  A closer look showed it had been cut halfway up, making it easy to slip by, easier if there were two people along for the visit.

“Did you cut the fence,” I asked him.

He didn’t answer.  I guess he wanted me to think he had.

“Have you been here before?”

“Through here, yes.  A few times.”  He held the wire away and I climbed through.  I did the same for him on the other side, and he joined me.  The two halves melded back together so from a distance no one could tell the fence had been tampered with.

From the fence, we had to cross the access road to the marina, and across a carpark, now overgrown with weeds, and bushes, with the odd tree springing up through the cracks in the concrete.

The wall, when we reached it, was where several large cracks joined, and part of the wall had fallen away leaving a hole large enough to crawl through.  I put my head through the crack and could barely see anything.  There was light coming from the seaward side, but on the other, it was inky darkness.

There was also a very disturbing aroma, like freshly laid concrete crossed with the smell of a garage repair shop.  Years of spilled oil and grease.

“Is it safe?”  I asked.

Boggs shrugged.  “It could all fall down at any moment.  You read the signs on the fence.  Basically, this is, on one hand, cheating death.  On the other, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.”  Then, without another word, he went through the gap and inside. 

A few seconds later, I could see the light from his cell phone.

I shrugged.  If anything happened, like the building falling on me, I probably wouldn’t feel it.  And he was right, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.

I followed him inside and slid down the broken concrete and bricks to a dirty but solid-feeling floor, where Boggs was waiting, the light from his phone pointed in the direction of a storefront.

And looking at a dummy still dressed in clothes left behind.

I couldn’t help but think I’d seen that style of clothes somewhere before.

© Charles Heath 2020

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman that piqued his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here: http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

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

—

I gave it about five minutes before I think I started breathing again and then headed back to Jennifer.

Or where I thought I had left her.

She wasn’t there. I think, in the end, it didn’t surprise me. She had been reluctant from the start so if I had to guess, she had done a bunk. This was not her fight, nor mine, but she had a ticket out. Why would you want to come back after being betrayed by the likes of Severin and Maury?

I hope she left the car behind.

Now that I was here there was no point leaving, so I took a few minutes to search the surrounding area, just in case she was still here, just someplace else, and when she wasn’t, I quickly and silently made my way back to the side of the house with the open door from a different direction.

There was another set of French doors, these curtained, and with an overhead light above the doorway, so I kept my distance in case there was a movement activator, another which looked to be a servant’s entrance at the back. Neither door looked to be an easy viable entrance.

The original side door was still unlocked, with no lights or movement inside.

I waited, then opened the door wide enough to slip through. Again, I waited in case there was a silent alarm, then when nothing stirred, slipped through and closed the door behind me.

On the other side of the door, it was quite dark, except now I could see, on one wall, the dying embers of a fire. Someone had been in the room earlier and most likely gone to bed.

It meant the house was occupied.

It also meant I had to be careful.

On the other side of the doors, it was a lot warmer. Again I waited a few minutes, just in case someone came, and, when they didn’t, I pulled out a small torch and turned it on.

In front of me were two chairs and a table, one I would have walked into without a light. The walls had shelves and those shelves were filled with books. Some behind glass doors, others not. There was another chair by the fire, and beside it, a stack of cooks, and a table with had an empty glass and a bottle, and a pair of reading glasses.

The downstairs reading room.

I cross the room slowly, hoping there were no squeaky floorboards, to be expected in an old house like this one. The timber flooring was exposed only at the edges of the room, the rest of the floor covered in a large, discolored, and fraying carpet square.

It was old, like everything else in the room.

I was tempted to have a look at how far the books dated back to but resisted the urge. I was looking for information on the owner.

At the doorway to what looked like a passage, I turned off the torch and peered out. It was not exactly dark, my eyes had adjusted to the low-level light from low wattage lights about a foot above the floor.

Lights to help guide the way at night.

Left, rooms, right, rooms, at the end of the passage a wide doorway leading towards the other side of the house. Larger rooms perhaps.

I turned right and headed towards the front, and they stopped at the doorway to the next room. I’d deliberately walked on the carpet runner in the middle of the passage, and just managed to catch my foot when one part of the floor creaked softly.

The room next door was almost the same as the one I’d entered by, with chairs and shelves but only on two sides. This room had a long window and no French doors.

On one side there was a writing desk, open, with papers scatted on the writing surface. I quickly crossed the room to it, switched on the light, and checked.

Bills. In the name of Mrs. Marianne Quigley. This had to be Adam Quigley’s mother, and by deduction, O’Connell’s mother.

Proof I was in the right place.

Then I heard the squeak of a floorboard followed by the clicking sound of a gun being cocked.

“Don’t move, or I’ll shoot. Hands in the air. And don’t make me ask twice.”

Hands up it was.

—

© Charles Heath 2020-2022