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.
I took a moment longer to study the differences in the maps, trying to see what our edge was.
“So, according to this map, Alex would be looking for a stretch of shore with two rivers going inland, which you say are no longer there.”
“I do because they’re not. Well, they’re not visible these days from the seaward side, and not really visible from shore either because I think one of the two might have started where the mini marina is.”
The mini marina wasn’t as marina as such, rather an area of seawater surrounded by a promenade with a bridge over the entrance from the ocean, and a lot of expensive Italian tiles. It was part of the redevelopment of the old marina when the shopping mall had been built.
“Wasn’t that the old marina, which was part of the old navy yard for PT boats?”
Everyone knew the potted history of the town and the navy yard that put it briefly on the map. There had been an inlet where a marina was built in the early days. Then with war looming, the navy was looking for a place to build PT boats, carry out repairs to medium-sized warships, and train PT crews.
“One and the same. There’s very little in the archives about what happened back then, but I did manage to find a document, mentioned in my father’s notebook, about the navy set up a base. Attached to it was a geological report that stated two facts, the first, they would be building over a watercourse which at the time was believed to be underground, and secondly, deep foundations would be required. In the event all of it was ignored, they built the port and it was operational up until the end of the war.”
After which as everyone knew they shut the facility down, put up fences and signs with the words hazardous and dangerous, and trespassers would be shot, and it sat there like a festering eyesore until a plan was mooted to turn the site into a mall.
It was a favorite place for us children to go and play, having the fearless mentality that every child was born with. Yes, there were hazards on the grounds, in for form of rusting metal and hundreds of barrels holding what must have been hazardous material, but best of all, there were two nearly intact boats moored there, and I remembered being captain at least once on a vessel that had taken on everything the enemy had.
“And then they built a mall.”
He nodded. “My father always said that it was doomed to failure. There’s a section in his notebook about an earlier plan to rebuild the marina with facilities to repair those new larger ocean-going yachts that proliferate in Bermuda and places like that, only he couldn’t find anyone to back the project. The Benderby’s at the time didn’t like the idea, and since they basically owned the town nothing was going to happen without their approval.”
The mall, however, was something the Benderby’s could get their hooks into, in the building of it, then a slice of every business that moved in. It would also be good for employment, and people employed mean customers for their other criminal activities. Deals were made with the Cossatino’s and everyone was happy. For a few years anyway.
That’s when a newspaper expose on the mall was published.
Exposes were never plucked out of thin air and presented, there had to be a catalyst. There had been allegations of corruption regarding all aspects of the mall, from planning through the opening day, and especially in the building. Allegations of payoffs to get approvals, substandard materials used, and the worst allegation, that the builder had not properly cleaned up the site before building commenced.
All of this came to a head when, not long after the tenth anniversary of opening, large cracks started to appear in the floors and walls, so bad that nearly half the mall, that part that had been built over the old navy base, had to be closed, and now was in danger of collapse.
The mini marina, the focal point for the mall, had also been closed because the pool had become polluted from the old navy base waste that had been improperly disposed of in the foundations rather than being properly removed and stored in a special dump. But there had also been other problems like excess water continuously flooding the lower level carparks, and flowing into the sea pool making it unusable, and at times, very smelly.
Boggs’s father had discovered at the same time as his research for the treasure maps, that the water came from the underground river that had been mentioned in the geological report made before the naval base had been built. Just because it hadn’t been there at the time, didn’t mean it wasn’t there at all. It just depended on rainfall back up in the hills, and the year the problems started for the mall coincided with the wettest period for the area in more than 50 years.
His father’s notebook was a goldmine of information, Boggs said.
“It appears there was a lake right where the map says it was, about a hundred years ago. Since then an earthquake caused a fault line that drained the lake and makes a river instead. That river ran from the hills to the sea. Until someone decided to build on the old lake, raised the level and piped the river underground, and drawing from it for the towns and sounding areas water supply. That in effect reduced the water flow from the lake to the sea to a trickle, or rather a stream.
“But every now and then when it rains heavily and for a long period, the stream becomes a river, and it backs up until with nowhere else to go, it floods the mall carparks. The lowest level carpark is actually the lowest depth of the river, and it comes out at the sea where the pool now is. Unfortunately, with the old naval waste rotting in those old rusting barrels, it collects that waste and not only stinks up the mall but also the pool area which is why it’s now closed.
“And the bad news is, it can’t be fixed. But that’s got nothing to do with our quest. It’s just an aside to our quest, proving that three of the landmarks on the treasure map actually existed once, and in some form still do. The thing is, neither the Benderby’s or the Cossatino’s will realize that which means we have a clear run at getting past the first hurdle and with any luck we will be able to identify the river from the hills which is the starting point.”
A simple job, no doubt in Boggs’s mind. He never had any trouble coming up with hair-brained schemes, only the logistics to carry them out. This one required proper transport because there was no way we’re going to be able to cycle there and back in a morning, the only time I had free for exploring.
“How do you propose we do this?”
“Rico’s car. It’s sitting in the marina carpark. The keys for it are on his boat.”
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.
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.”
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at 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
…
Darkness fell in a noticeably short time, and we left the pub at about six. In the hour so we have been there I’d been keeping a close eye on the comings and goings, and in particular, if O’Connell came in, or someone else that might look like him.
He hadn’t, nor had any mythical family members. Well, it had been a long shot.
Jennifer hadn’t volunteered anything more to the conversation and sat working her way through a piece of fried fish and a bowl of chips. Neither had looked appetizing. I would have bet she’d have the chicken, but I was wrong, and probably it wasn’t going to be the first time.
“Do you have a gun?”
It was after ten minutes of silence. It worried me that she didn’t ask how far it was or how long it would take. And then, out of nowhere, the gun question.
“No. Why would I have a gun.?”
“We were issued with weapons. I still have mine.”
“Did you bring it with you?”
“No. Like I told you, I didn’t think I was still working for the Department. They didn’t ask for it back, so I didn’t give it to them.”
“Or the identities?”
“No. It was odd though; they didn’t ask about them either.”
“Maybe they were going to wait a while and then ask you back.”
This was a weird conversation to be having. By this time we were in Peaslake Lane, and not far from the house I pulled over to the side of the road, under a tree.
The houses were set back in a rural setting. Between the darkness and the undergrowth, the chances were we could get to the house without being seen. From where I was sitting, no windows or doors were visible.
I made sure the car’s internal light didn’t go on the moment the door was open.
“Are you bringing your cell phone?”
“Why. I’m not envisaging having to call anyone, nor am I expecting a call.”
I shrugged, and slipped mine into a pocket where I could easily reach it I needed to.
I got out of the car, and she followed. She left he bag in the car. The first sign of training kicking in; eave all un-necessary baggage behind. Perhaps having a gun might have been a good option if we ran into trouble.
Oddly enough, now that I thought about it, Monica hadn’t asked for mine back either, but it was sitting at home in a safe, along with the five other identities Severin had issued each of us with.
I locked the car, equally as silent and invisible as she joined me.
“Which house?”
“Three along. Follow me and keep your eyes and ears peeled.”
I didn’t have to tell her, but it didn’t hurt to emphasize the importance of stealth. There were people home in other houses, lights in windows just discernible through the trees, one house a window without a curtain, a view into the dining room, but there was no one at the table.
If we were visiting them, perhaps we’d be in time for dinner.
The house we were looking for was in darkness from our approach.
“You keep an eye open this side, and I’ll go around the other, then come back. I’ll see if there’s an easy entry point.”
“What if someone is home?”
“Doesn’t look like it from here, and I’ll be surprised if there is.”
A moment later she had disappeared into the shrub line and I was heading across the front of the house, heading for the other side. I kept well away from the front door, just in case there was a motion light, or worse, a motion detector that might set off a silent alarm.
But, that might already have happened, and if it had, no one had made a move inside.
Down the side was walls and windows, no doors or French doors leading out into the garden. None of the windows were at a decent height for us to clamber through, and if we had to, it was going to be difficult.
I continued on, around the back, where there was more success. French doors leading onto a patio, and then the lawn. In the corner was a greenhouse, and next to that a rose garden. Or at least that was what both looked like in the dark.
The moon, for the moment, was hidden by dark clouds.
Perhaps it would rain, though it had not been in the forecast, but, this was England, and it could rain at any time, especially when you didn’t want or need it. There was no light, or motion sensor over the French doors, so I crossed the patio and looked through the doors.
I had expected curtains, but these hadn’t been completely drawn. No large light or lamp on, but there were indicator lights, several red and one a particularly bright blue, casting a rather long shadow over furniture and what looked to be a carpet square.
Out of curiosity, I tried the door.
It was open.
Then I had the blind panic moment of thinking it might be alarmed.
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.
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.”
I spent years listening to my brother, the perfect child in my parents’ eyes, tell me just how good life was.
For him.
He landed on his feet. One of those students who had no learning difficulties graduated top of his class, was in the right place at the right time to get a dream job, and, yes, you guessed it, the dream wife.
His favourite line every time we met, usually at a very exclusive restaurant, or after celebrating the purchase of a new car or apartment, was “You could have all of this too…”
And, wait for it, “if only…”
His mantra relied on one factor, we both had the same genes and in his mind, we had the same possibilities in life. To him it was simple. And after years of the same, over and over, I began to wonder why it wasn’t so.
The simple fact was that we were as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese.
It was one of those quirks that appeared in families. The progeny although produced by the same father and mother quite often were totally different, even when they looked so similar.
George and I were not alike in appearance although my mother always said I had my father’s hair and nose, whereas George was the spitting image of him.
My two younger sisters Elsa and Adelaide, though two years apart were almost identical twins and looked like our mother.
Our mother, long-suffering at the hands of her husband had died five years ago, and my father, in what was the longest deathbed scene ever, had finally died, the previous evening with all his children in attendance.
I was surprised my father wanted me there, and equally so when he usually spoke to me as though I was dirt under his feet. That he treated me better this time I put down to the fact in dying he had become deranged. The others, George, Elsa, and Adelaide simply ignored me.
His death was the end. I had no reason to stay, less reason to talk to my siblings, and muttering that my duty was done, left.
I never wanted to see any of them again.
…
Of course, we never really get what we wish for.
She had never deigned to come and see me before, and our meetings could be counted on the fingers if one hand, her wedding, my 21st birthday, fleeting as it was, and the death of our father, three times in fifteen years. Nor had I met the two mysterious children they had and wondered briefly what George had told them about me.
I could guess.
Two days later. I was getting ready to go back to my obscure job, the one George said was beneath a man of my talents, without qualifying what those talents were, when the doorbell rang.
Unlike my brother’s apartment building with a concierge and security staff, visitors simply made their way to the front door. I was on the third floor, and the lift was out of service, so it was someone who wanted to see me.
I looked through the door viewer, I didn’t have the CCTV option, and saw it was Wendy, George’s perfect wife.
I could tell she didn’t want to be knocking on my door, much less come into the salubrious apartment, in a building that should have been condemned a long time ago.
I could just ignore her, but she looked increasingly agitated. People sometimes lurked in the corridors, people who looked like jail escapees.
She just pushed the doorbell again when I opened the door. She didn’t wait for me to ask her in, stopping dead in the middle of the one other room I had other than a bedroom.
I could see it written all over her face, this, to her, was how the other half lived. I closed the door but didn’t move.
“How can you live here?” The tone matched the shock on her face.
“When you ignore the faded and peeling wallpaper, the mould on the roof, and the aroma of damp carpets, it isn’t so bad. There are far more of us living like this than you can imagine, almost affordable. My neighbour has the same apartment but has three kids and a wife.”
She shook her head.
“Why are you here Wendy? I can’t believe George would send you down here to do his dirty work.”
“George didn’t send me. He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Then how did you know where to find me?”
“Don’t ask. The funeral is in three days’ time. You should be there?”
“Why? Everyone hates me. Even your kids hate me, and I haven’t even been formally introduced.”
“Just come, Roger. You don’t deserve to live like this, no one should.”
“It’s the real world, Wendy. Not everyone can afford weekends at Disneyland, and apartments overlooking Central Park.”
She crossed the room back to the door and I opened it for her. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do think too hard. After all is said and done, he was your father.”
Sadly, that was true.
…
I was having dinner in the diner not far from my apartment block, when Alison, a waitress I’d known for a year or so, and like me, could not catch a break, came over to offer a second cup of coffee.
I was a favourite, not everyone got seconds.
“I heard your father died,”: she said.
It was the end of the shift and just before closing. The last of the customers had been shooed out.
“My life hasn’t changed with him in it, or not.”
“He was your father.”
I shrugged. “You free tomorrow?”
“Why, you finally asking me out on a date?”
“If going to a funeral is a date, yes. The service will be boring, the people way above our station in life, and my brother and sisters will be insufferable, but there’ll be good food and top-shelf booze at the wake. Date or not, want to come with me?”
“Why not? I’ve never had real champagne.”
She lived in the same apartment block, and I’d walked her home a few times. “Pick you up at 10?”
She nodded. “I’ll even behave if you want me to.”
…
Alison looked stunning in her simple black dress. She was wearing more black than I was, and looked like she was going to a funeral. She had turned the drab waitress into something I didn’t realize lurked beneath the surface.
She did a pirouette. “You like?”
I smiled, which was something given the way I felt about everything to do with my family. “I do, very much.”
We took the train to Yonkers, upstate, where the family home was, and where my father had gone to die, as he put it. I’d lived there, in the mausoleum until I was old enough to escape. The catholic church would no doubt be gearing up for the service. It was due to start at 11:30, and we made it with a few minutes to spare.
I planned it that way, I did not want to sit with the rest of the family up front.
“You should be sitting with the others,” Alison said, not understanding why I wouldn’t.
“You haven’t met them yet. When you do, you’ll know. Besides, I find it better to sit in the last row. You can escape quickly.”
She shook her head, and we sat. Not in the last row, she was adamant she would not. It was about halfway up, on the same side as the family were situated. From there, I could watch George and Wendy, and my two sisters looking very sombre, receive the guests.
There were quite a few, I counted nearly a hundred. My father may have been awful to me, but a lot of people respected and liked him.
Soon after we sat two young girls came and sat in the seats in front of us.
Then they turned around and looked at me, then Alison, then back at me.
“Daddy said you wouldn’t come,” the elder of the two said.
“Are you his daughters? If you are, you could ask him why I’ve never seen you.”
“He thinks your eccentricity would rub off on us.”
Alison couldn’t contain herself at that remark. “Your father actually said that to you?”
“Not directly. They’ve been talking about him since my mother went and asked you to come. He doesn’t really think much of you, does he?”
An astute child.
“I left home and became a motor mechanic. We are supposed to be bankers, lawyers or doctors. If you got a car you want to be fixed, then I’m your man. You want advice on money, don’t come to see me.”
“Are you coming to sit with us?”
“I don’t think your mother and father could handle the shame. No, we’ll stay here and leave them in peace.”
I watched Wendy glance in the direction of her girls, they came almost running to rescue them from the monster.
The elder girl looked at her mother when she arrived, breathless. “He’s quite normal you know.”
I had to laugh. Wendy looked aghast. She glared at the girl, then her sister. “Come, the pair of you. Enough of this nonsense.” She grabbed their hands and almost dragged them away.
I could see George up the front of the church, glancing down in our direction. The fact he didn’t come said a lot. It was clear neither of them wanted me sitting with them, and that was fine by me.
“They’re lovely girls, Roger.”
“The first time I’ve seen them, but they don’t seem to belong to my brother. They don’t have his arrogance or her disdain.”
“I’m sure, now they’ve met you, it won’t be the last time. It seems odd that Wendy, that was Wendy, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Then it seems odd that she would ask you to come and then treat you like that.”
“No, not at all. I’ve only met her three or four times, and that’s her. I won’t tell you what she thought of my apartment.”
The service took an hour and various people got up to say nice things about a man who was not very nice, but that was the nature of funerals. He was dead now, so there was no need to live in the past.
I didn’t intend to.
I had intended to leave and go back home after the service, but now I’d decided to go to the wake at the old house. It would be nice to show Alison where I grew up and give her some context as to why I hated my family so. I was willing to bet my room would be the same as it was the day I left.
And it would be good to see Alex and Beatrice, the manservant and housekeeper again. There were more parents to me than my mother and father. There were sitting up the front of the church and hadn’t yet seen me.
What I hadn’t noticed during the service, was that a woman had come in and quietly made her way to our pew and sat down. She had given me a curious look, one that said I know you, but can’t place who you are.
But that wasn’t the only odd thing about her. I had the feeling she was related in some way, that sort of feeling you had when you met someone who was family but you didn’t really know them. It was hard to explain. Perhaps she was one of my mother’s friends, there were a few in the church, and they, like me, had a strained relationship with my father.
He had not treated her very well, in the latter stages of her life before she died.
Just before the service ended Alison leaned over and said quietly, “The woman next to you. You and she are related in some way. She has the same profile, perhaps an aunt.”
As far as I knew my mother was an only child, she certainly never spoke of having a sister, in fact, she rarely spoke about her family at all. Now I thought about it, it was all very strange.
The service over we could all finally stand and stretch. The woman slowly stood, then turned to me.
“You are Roger, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Shouldn’t you be up the front with the rest of the family?”
“No. I’m the black sheep. I didn’t like my father all that much, and he certainly hated me, so it’s a miracle I came. Perhaps you should introduce yourself to my brother, George.”
“I’m not here to see him, Roger, I’m here to see you.”
“Were you a friend of my mother’s? I know there are a few here, keeping their distance like I am.” This woman was trouble, I could sense it.
“Yes, and no. I knew your mother briefly. I knew your father better, I used to work for him a long time ago.
“Like I said, you’re probably better off talking to George. I rarely saw him when I was a child, and when I did, he ignored me, and as soon as I could I left, and only saw him on a few occasions since.”
“Do you know why he was like that? Did he treat George the same way?”
“No. George was always the favourite son who could do no wrong, the heir apparent.”
“Then I’m sorry to hear that. That was not how it was supposed to be.”
It’s the obvious items in the photograph that you see first, or that your eyes go to first.
The ocean, the beach, the buildings. You can see a shopping mall with MacDonald’s sign above it.
Yes, it’s late afternoon, and you can see long shadows of the buildings.
So, if I asked you what did you see in this photo, what would your reply be?
From a thriller writer or murder mystery writer’s point of view, it’s what you don’t necessarily see.
So, for the purposes of the story, the opening line for the world-weary detective, handing the photo to his partner, “What’s is it you can’t see in this photo?”
A partner that hadn’t been on the job very long, in from the suburbs, and had seen little more than break and enters car theft, and school kids hi-jinks.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“You want to be a detective, or be looking for old ladies cats?”
His partner takes the photo in hand and looks at it again. There has to be a reason why the old man had given it to him, or perhaps there wasn’t and he was just playing with him again.
No, he thought, there has to be something…
And then he saw it, quite by accident. A hand, a gun, and following the line of fire, at the end, what looked like someone in the bushes.
In a photo taken from a higher floor of the building over the road, looking down on what was supposed to be a rooftop recreational area.
Only there had been no report of a missing person or a gunshot wound in the last seven days.
“When was it taken?”
“Two days ago?”
“And no reports of a shooting, or a body?”
“No. And yet the person who took this swears he saw a body, but by the time he came back, there was nothing.”
The detective handed his partner a second photo. Time-stamped five minutes later. With no gun and no body.
And when I woke up, I realised that I had just had a very bad dream. Or don’t they call bad dreams nightmares?
Can you diagnose yourself as having depression?
Of course, if you were to tell someone else, in one of this very serious tones, “I think I have depression” they will ask you what you’ve got to be depressed about.
It’s a good question. My first answer would be, “why did the doctor put my on anti depressants?” You know the stuff they give you, some derivative of serapax,
Then, if you tell anyone you’re on that stuff, they turn around and tell you just how bad it is and get off it right now.
That’s all very well, but you tell them you still have depression, and so the argument goes on.
But…
These days, they use low doses of anti depressants to manage pain, and in my case back pain. The first pill they gave me was lyrica, which slowly took my memory away so that I couldn’t remember what anyone had said earlier in the day.
I thought I had early onset Alzheimer’s, or worse, dementia.
So I got off that, got the pain back, and moved to anti depressants. Now I’m seeing things.
That might help with the imagination for writing stories sometimes, but telling people you see the patterns on tiles moving is not a good start to any conversation.
Back to depression, though. It might be caused by being locked down and not being able to go anywhere, but that has never bothered me because I hate going out.
It might be a result of my childhood coming back to haunt me, and, believe me, you would not want the childhood I had, but it’s a maybe. A lot of old people find their past creeping up on them, and what happened 60 years ago seems more relevant than what happened 60 minutes ago.
You might think you’re badly done by, that everyone else is responsible for the mess you made of your life, if it is indeed a mess, but no, that isn’t true. My life is exactly what it’s meant to be, though how I got here remains the biggest of mysteries.
It’s why I’m writing the autobiography of a very ordinary nobody.
OK, that might be a hint, thinking I’m a nobody. After all, when I go out I always feel like I’m invisible.
A friend of mine tells me he always cries when there’s a sad part of a film on, and that’s his determination of depression.
I do too, but I don’t think it’s that.
After all, I did psychology and should understand the nuances of the human psyche, what makes us happy, what makes us sad, what makes us us.
So, rightly or wrongly I’ve stopped taking the anti depressants.
If suddenly my blog suddenly stops, you’ll know I’ve made the wrong decision.
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.
It was an understatement to say I was dreading going to Boggs’ place.
In fact, in the hour it took to get through the morning chores I had time to consider how and why I was in this position. Boggs was a friend. We were friends at school and as best we could we had each other’s back when the bullies came out to play.
At times that didn’t amount to much because as everyone knows, bullies hunt in packs. Six against two wasn’t much of an equation. And it those days, the teachers spent more time hiding from the students than being in front of them.
It was simply a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
It didn’t feel like that, not for a very long time.
But, in the end, misfortune can make strange bedfellows, and in a town that depended on a single industry, it soon became apparent that there were more people against the Benderby’s and the Cossatino’s than for, and in small-town politics, that was more than an evening up. Out of school and separated from their acolytes, both Alex and Vince found that whatever influence they had once, was now gone, and all that was left was a grunt, and we were basically left alone.
Boggs was the dreamer.
He had idolized his father and when he went missing it broke him.
This map thing was the first signs of Boggs finally coming back to life, but the problem was, it was all pinned on false hopes. The Sherriff was right. Boggs was in over his head, playing with the two most vicious families from around here, and it was bad enough that his father had fallen foul of them, the Sherriff was not about to see his son go the same way. I was going to try and talk Boggs out of it.
Yet, on the other hand, it was people like us who needed a win, just to show there was still hope in this place. With threats every day that the factory might have to close, there were dark clouds hanging over everyone’s head.
If the factory closed, there was going to be a very large hole in the local economy and a lot of people in financial trouble. I’m not sure how finding the treasure might solve all of that, but I suspect Boggs’ had something up his sleeve.
I knocked on the door and his mother answered. She looked harried. She was a nurse and looked as though she just got home from the night shift at the hospital.
“Boggs is in his room.”
“How are you this morning?”
“Tired. And an afternoon shift, which I might not get to if I don’t get some sleep. You know where he is. Try not to make any noise.”
“Will do.”
I came in and closed the door, watching her dash off down the passage to the other end of the house.
She could not work endless double shifts for much longer, but like all of us, it was not out of desire but necessity. She had implored Boggs to get a job and help, but he seemed oblivious to the problem. I’d tried to speak to him, but he had that insufferable way of just not listening.
Boggs was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring at the ceiling.
“If only. I could use it right now to find something that’s missing>”
“Your cell phone?” Boggs was always misplacing something, of forgetting it. I’d lost count how many times he’d misplaced his phone.
“No. An underground river.”
OK. That was out of left field. I had no idea any rivers were missing, or, in fact, they could actually go missing.
Apparently, they could.
“There’s two,” he said. 300 years ago five or take this part of the coastline had several rivers that ran down from the mountain range. What we now call the hills on the edge of the coastal plain. There was also a lake, not very large, but it used to have several streams flow into it all year round and had an aqua flow that came out along the coastline.”
“And you figured all of this out from what? A copy of the treasure map.”
The moment he started quoting rivers, streams, and lakes, I remembered each of those geographical features appeared on several of the map versions. I had suggested, rather comically, that it would be funny if the treasure was buried in the lake.
It wasn’t all that funny. It was also possible.
“Imagine this. Drop anchor out to sea, in other words on the other side of the natural sandbar that formed at the seaward side of the river, get in the longboats and row inshore to the lake, across the lake, up another river to the base of the hills. Then do a little exploring, north or south, and find a cave. I reckon the treasure was buried in a cave. We know there are caves up there, not many, but I think there used to be more.”
“Someone already did a survey with some rather fancy electronic equipment with the same idea in mind. He found three, not very long, and certainly without treasure. Two had substantial falls inside, which is why they were buried.”
“There’s more.”
He jumped up off the bed and went over to the robe and opened the door. Tacked on the back was a copy of an ordnance survey map of this part of the coastline, and a tracing of the treasure map, to the same scale on top.
“As you can see, I think ‘I’ve found the correlation between the real, and what was real 300 years ago.”
Except there’s no rivers and no lake. And no sand bar as I recall. There was a small marina in what might have been where the river met the sea, but that’s gone. They filled it in and build a shopping mall on it. A huge, now half empty, shopping mall. A modern wonder 40 years ago that was supposed to bring business and shoppers to the town. For a few years it did, until another town 50 miles away got the same idea, sold the land for half the price, and made the rents a quarter of what they were here.
They called it progress.
We called it piracy.
“Then we can hardly row our boat inshore and up the stream, if it’s not there.”
I hated to state the obvious.
“But,” he said, looking like the cat who’d swallowed the canary. “What if it is still there, but we just can’t see it?”
