“We’re being hailed,” the communications officer said in her matter-of-fact tone.
“Not an alien then?”
The moment I said it, it sounded inappropriate.
“Definitely human, with an accent.”
I was not sure what I was expected to make of that.
“On screen.”
A bridge, not dissimilar to ours appeared, with the captain, or the person I assumed to be captain, standing in front of his chair.
“Whom am I addressing?” He asked.
I gave him my name, the ship, who we were, standard name, rank, and serial number stuff as per regulations.
“Where is the previous Captain?”
He seemed to have information about us, if not recent.
“Dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
OK, I didn’t think he was coming just to make small talk.
“Ship slowing, no signs of weapons charging,” I saw pop up on the screen. In situations like this, best not to communicate when there’s an open communication session.
Then, a new notice, “second ship following the first, moving at the same spot, arrival time 18 minutes.”
I looked at the inset on the master screen, and even at that distance and low-quality magnification, it definitely didn’t look like anything in our fleet.
It begged the question, were they running away?
“Are you alone?”
“No. But it’s not one of our ships.”
Not very helpful.
“I suggest you turn around and go back,” he added.
I saw him turn, as if someone beside him had spoken, or gestured.
“Sorry. We have to go. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
“Who are they?”
“People you don’t want to meet.”
The screen went back to being a window, and the vessel we’d just been in communication with came clearly into view, then vanished.
It was larger than our ship, but more streamlined, my first thought, like a sleek racing car.
“It seems we’re about to have our first encounter. Number one, stay on the highest alert, the rest of the crew, battle stations, quick as you can.”
To the navigator, “Did we get anything on that ship, scans, personnel, weapons, engines, anything?”
“A little. We can go through it later. If we’re still in one piece.”
If the oncoming ship was alien, it was an unknown quantity, and the navigator could be forgiven for thinking we might not be able to defend ourselves. Questions we should have asked the other ship were plentiful, and the surprise it caused caught us all offside when I should have been the exception.
There would be time later to analyze everything we did wrong, what I did wrong
Hopefully.
The alien ship was no longer a blurry blob in the distance, but an oddly shaped ship that bore similarities to our own.
I could only guess at the lifeforms aboard if there were any. It was a moment of thrill, fear, and intense expectation.
Those last few minutes of waiting disappeared as though they were seconds, and suddenly it was opposite us, in space, on station maintaining its distance. I had us brought to a stop after the other ship left, but in a state of instant readiness to depart just in case we were fired upon.
I was banking on the fact the aliens might be as curious about us as we were about them.
“Can we communicate with that vessel,” I asked, turning the senior communications officer, now on the bridge at the comms station.
“You can speak to them; we have all means of external communication open.”
He didn’t add that they might not understand what I said.
I shrugged. “We are from the planet Earth on a voyage of exploration and discovery with no other agenda other than to meet and talk to other civilizations.”
It sounded quite strange listening to a somewhat stumbling and unrehearsed greeting that was to be our first words to an alien species. I hoped that our credibility didn’t rest of those words.”
Silence.
“Any detectable activity aboard their ship?”
“Our scanners can’t penetrate their hull. Nothing noteworthy outside the hull, but, then, if we don’t know what we’re looking for…”
“We know where you are from and who you are.”
It was a crackling rendition, the sort of sounds I’d expect from a vintage radio broadcast.”
I looked at the comms officer.
“An ancient radio frequency once associated with AM radio, sir, 812 megahertz.”
Did that mean we were more advanced than them? I didn’t think so.
“Who am I addressing?”
This time the silence was broken by crackling, and what sounded like a tape recorder fast-forwarding. This went on for about five minutes.
Then, much stronger, and clearer, “Who I am is irrelevant. If you have similar intentions as the vessel before you, I strongly suggest you turn around and go back to your own galaxy.”
“They’ve moved to FM sir, not sure why they’re using such old technology”, the comms officer said quietly.
Two things popped into my head; from that proverbial left field, I once heard a language professor once pontificate on. The first, was from a scientist at the space training facility on what an alien race mighttry to communicate with us on, and that in his opinion would be the band waves we had been sending out into space for years. AM and FM in that context made perfect sense.
The second: how did an alien speak such good English?
“We have not, though I suspect that will not allay your fears. All humans, which is what we call ourselves, are not the same.”
“Yet your ship carries weapons.”
“For defense. If we are attacked, we will respond. I would expect no less from you.”
There was a minute or so of silence, time I was guessing for my counterpart to formulate his next move.
It came sooner than I expected.
A humanoid form appeared, not exactly like us, but much the same as the early humanoid robots we created at the start of our foray into robotics and for that matter AI.
“We have had much interaction with your kind, one way or another, and it has always ended badly. If you have no ill intentions towards up, will you accompany me back to my ship? I assure you, and your crew I have no ill intentions.”
It would be a huge leap of faith.
Number one, you have the ship. I’m going to take a short trip to the other vessel.”
“You should take a crew member, as per protocol.”
Yes, the instruction. If we were to were to meet an alien, it was not to go with them without one or more crew members.
“Unfortunately, he’s a stickler for regulations. I must go with another crew member, just in case.”
I didn’t add the ‘harm cones to me, and retribution will be meted out.’ I didn’t think at this delicate stage that would fly.
“No weapons then.”
“No weapons. Nancy Woolmer to the bridge immediately.”
She arrived within five minutes, and the moment she was in proximity, we were, I assumed, beamed aboard his ship.
Would you give up everything to be with the one you love?
…
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, a place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledgedthat something had happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive, she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realises is the love of his life.
The cover, at the moment, looks like this:
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
Investigations of crimes don’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get 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 neighbours 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 time I saw Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact that 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 that 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 that 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 became 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 other 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 realise 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.
I’d read about out-of-body experiences, and like everyone else, thought it was nonsense. Some people claimed to see themselves in the operating theatre, medical staff frantically trying to revive them, and being surrounded by white light.
I was definitely looking down, but it wasn’t me I was looking at.
It was two children, a boy and a girl, with their parents, in a park.
The boy was Alan. He was about six or seven. The girl was Louise, and she was five years old. She had long red hair and looked the image of her mother.
I remember it now, it was Louise’s birthday and we went down to Bournemouth to visit our Grandmother, and it was the last time we were all together as a family.
We were flying homemade kites our father had made for us, and after we lay there looking up at the sky, making animals out of the clouds. I saw an elephant, Louise saw a giraffe.
We were so happy then.
Before the tragedy.
When I looked again ten years had passed and we were living in hell. Louise and I had become very adept at survival in a world we really didn’t understand, surrounded by people who wanted to crush our souls.
It was not a life a normal child had, our foster parents never quite the sort of people who were adequately equipped for two broken-hearted children. They tried their best, but their best was not good enough.
Every day it was a battle, to avoid the Bannister’s and Archie in particular, every day he made advances towards Louise and every day she fended him off.
Until one day she couldn’t.
Now I was sitting in the hospital, holding Louise’s hand. She was in a coma, and the doctors didn’t think she would wake from it. The damage done to her was too severe.
The doctors were wrong.
She woke, briefly, to name her five assailants. It was enough to have them arrested. It was not enough to have them convicted.
Justice would have to be served by other means.
I was outside the Bannister’s home.
I’d made my way there without really thinking, after watching Louise die. It was like being on autopilot, and I had no control over what I was doing. I had murder in mind. It was why I was holding an iron bar.
Skulking in the shadows. It was not very different from the way the Bannister’s operated.
I waited till Archie came out. I knew he eventually would. The police had taken him to the station for questioning, and then let him go. I didn’t understand why, nor did I care.
I followed him up the towpath, waiting till he stopped to light a cigarette, then came out of the shadows.
“Wotcha got there Alan?” he asked when he saw me. He knew what it was, and what it was for.
It was the first time I’d seen the fear in his eyes. He was alone.
“Justice.”
“For that slut of a sister of yours. I had nuffing to do with it.”
“She said otherwise, Archie.”
“She never said nuffing, you just made it up.” An attempt at bluster, but there was no confidence in his voice.
I held up the pipe. It had blood on it. Willy’s blood. “She may or may not have Archie, but Willy didn’t make it up. He sang like a bird. That’s his blood, probably brains on the pipe too, Archie, and yours will be there soon enough.”
“He dunnit, not me. Lyin’ bastard would say anything to save his own skin.” Definitely scared now, he was looking to run away.
“No, Archie. He didn’t. I’m coming for you. All of you Bannisters. And everyone who touched my sister.”
It was the recurring nightmare I had for years afterwards.
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the thoughts, the images of Louise, the phone call, the visit to the hospital and being there when she succumbed to her injuries. Those were the very worst few hours of my life.
She had asked me to come to the railway station and walk home with her, and I was running late. If I had left when I was supposed to, it would never have happened and for years afterwards, I blamed myself for her death.
If only I’d not been late…
When the police finally caught the rapists, I’d known all along who they’d be; antagonists from school, the ring leader, Archie Bannister, a spurned boyfriend, a boy whose parents, ubiquitously known to all as ‘the Bannister’s, dealt in violence and crime and who owned the neighbourhood. The sins of the father had been very definitely passed onto the son.
At school, I used to be the whipping boy, Archie, a few grades ahead of me, made a point of belting me and a few of the other boys, to make sure the rest did as they were told. He liked Louise, but she had no time for a bully like him, even when he promised he would ‘protect’ me.
I knew the gang members, the boys who tow-kowed to save getting beaten up, and after the police couldn’t get enough information to prosecute them because everyone was too afraid to speak out, I went after Willy. There was always a weak link in a group, and he was it.
He worked in a factory, did long hours on a Wednesday and came home after dark alone. It was a half mile walk, through a park. The night I approached him, I smashed the lights and left it in darkness. He nearly changed his mind and went the long way home.
He didn’t.
It took an hour and a half to get the names. At first, when he saw me, he laughed. He said I would be next, and that was four words more than he knew he should have said.
When I found him alone the next morning I showed him the iron bar and told him he was on the list. I didn’t kill him then, he could wait his turn, and worry about what was going to happen to him.
When the police came to visit me shortly after that encounter, no doubt at the behest of the Bannister’s, the neighbourhood closed ranks and gave me an ironclad alibi. The Bannister’s then came to visit me and threatened me. I told them their days were numbered and showed them the door.
At the trial, he and his friends got off on a technicality. The police had failed to do their job properly, but it was not the police, but a single policeman, corrupted by the Bannisters.
Archie could help but rub it in my face. He was invincible.
Joe Collins took 12 bullets and six hours to bleed out. He apologized, he pleaded, he cried, he begged. I didn’t care.
Barry Mills, a strong lad with a mind to hurting people, Archie’s enforcer, almost got the better of me. I had to hit him more times than I wanted to, and in the end, I had to be satisfied that he died a short but agonizing death.
I revisited Willy in the hospital. He’d recovered enough to recognize me, and why I’d come. Suffocation was too good for him.
David Williams, second in command of the gang, was as tough and nasty as the Bannisters. His family were forging a partnership with the Bannister’s to make them even more powerful. Outwardly David was a pleasant sort of chap, affable, polite, and well mannered. A lot of people didn’t believe he could be like, or working with, the Bannisters.
He and I met in the pub. We got along like old friends. He said Willy had just named anyone he could think of, and that he was innocent of any charges. We shook hands and parted as friends.
Three hours later he was sitting in a chair in the middle of a disused factory, blindfolded and scared. I sat and watched him, listened to him, first threatening me, and then finally pleading with me. He’d guessed who it was that had kidnapped him.
When it was dark, I took the blindfold off and shone a very bright light in his eyes. I asked him if the violence he had visited upon my sister was worth it. He told me he was just a spectator.
I’d read the coroner’s report. They all had a turn. He was a liar.
He took nineteen bullets to die.
Then came Archie.
The same factory only this time there were four seats. Anna Bannister, brothel owner, Spike Bannister, head of the family, Emily Bannister, sister, and who had nothing to do with their criminal activities. She just had the misfortune of sharing their name.
Archie’s father told me how he was going to destroy me, and everyone I knew.
A well-placed bullet between the eyes shut him up.
Archie’s mother cursed me. I let her suffer for an hour before I put her out of her misery.
Archie remained stony-faced until I came to Emily. The death of his parents meant he would become head of the family. I guess their deaths meant as little to him as they did me.
He was a little more worried about his sister.
I told him it was confession time.
He told her it was little more than a forced confession and he had done nothing to deserve my retribution.
I shrugged and shot her, and we both watched her fall to the ground screaming in agony. I told him if he wanted her to live, he had to genuinely confess to his crimes. This time he did, it all poured out of him.
I went over to Emily. He watched in horror as I untied her bindings and pulled her up off the floor, suffering only from a small wound in her arm. Without saying a word she took the gun and walked over to stand behind him.
“Louise was my friend, Archie. My friend.”
Then she shot him. Six times.
To me, after saying what looked like a prayer, she said, “Killing them all will not bring her back, Alan, and I doubt she would approve of any of this. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Now I was in jail. I’d spent three hours detailing the deaths of the five boys, everything I’d done; a full confession. Without my sister, my life was nothing. I didn’t want to go back to the foster parents; I doubt they’d take back a murderer.
They were not allowed to.
For a month I lived in a small cell, in solitary, no visitors. I believed I was in the queue to be executed, and I had mentally prepared myself for the end.
Then I was told I had a visitor, and I was expecting a priest.
Instead, it was a man called McTavish. Short, wiry, and with an accent that I could barely understand.
“You’ve been a bad boy, Alan.”
When I saw it was not the priest I told the jailers not to let him in, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. They ignored me. I’d expected he was a psychiatrist, come to see whether I should be shipped off to the asylum.
I was beginning to think I was going mad.
I ignored him.
“I am the difference between you living or dying Alan, it’s as simple as that. You’d be a wise man to listen to what I have to offer.”
Death sounded good. I told him to go away.
He didn’t. Persistent bugger.
I was handcuffed to the table. The prison officers thought I was dangerous. Five, plus two, murders, I guess they had a right to think that. McTavish sat opposite me, ignoring my request to leave.
“Why’d you do it?”
“You know why.” Maybe if I spoke he’d go away.
“Your sister. By all accounts, the scum that did for her deserved what they got.”
“It was murder just the same. No difference between scum and proper people.”
“You like killing?”
“No-one does.”
“No, I dare say you’re right. But you’re different, Alan. As clean and merciless killing I’ve ever seen. We can use a man like you.”
“We?”
“A group of individuals who clean up the scum.”
I looked up to see his expression, one of benevolence, totally out of character for a man like him. It looked like I didn’t have a choice.
Trained, cleared, and ready to go.
I hadn’t realized there were so many people who were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. People that came and went, in malls, in hotels, trains, buses, airports, everywhere, people no one gave a second glance.
People like me.
In a mall, I became a shopper.
In a hotel, I was just another guest heading to his room.
On a bus or a train, I was just another commuter.
At the airport, I became a pilot. I didn’t need to know how to fly; everyone just accepted a pilot in a pilot suit was just what he looked like.
I had a passkey.
I had the correct documents to get me onto the plane.
That walk down the air bridge was the longest of my life. Waiting for the call from the gate, waiting for one of the air bridge staff to challenge me, stepping onto the plane.
Two pilots and a steward. A team. On the plane early before the rest of the crew. A group that was committing a crime, had committed a number of crimes and thought they’d got away with it.
Until the judge, the jury and their executioner arrived.
Me.
Quick, clean, merciless. Done.
I was now an operational field agent.
I was older now, and I could see in the mirror I was starting to go grey at the sides. It was far too early in my life for this, but I expect it had something to do with my employment.
I didn’t recognize the man who looked back at me.
It was certainly not Alan McKenzie, nor was there any part of that fifteen-year-old who had made the decision to exact revenge.
Given a choice; I would not have gone down this path.
Or so I kept telling myself each time a little more of my soul was sold to the devil.
I was Barry Gamble.
I was Lenny Buckman.
I was Jimmy Hosen.
I was anyone but the person I wanted to be.
That’s what I told Louise, standing in front of her grave, and trying to apologize for all the harm, all the people I’d killed for that one rash decision. If she was still alive she would be horrified, and ashamed.
Head bowed, tears streamed down my face.
God had gone on holiday and wasn’t there to hand out any forgiveness. Not that day. Not any day.
New York, New Years Eve.
I was at the end of a long tour, dragged out of a holiday and back into the fray, chasing down another scumbag. They were scumbags, and I’d become an automaton hunting them down and dispatching them to what McTavish called a better place.
This time I failed.
A few drinks to blot out the failure, a blonde woman who pushed my buttons, a room in a hotel, any hotel, it was like being on the merry-go-round, round and round and round…
Her name was Silvia or Sandra, or someone I’d met before, but couldn’t quite place her. It could be an enemy agent for all I knew or all I cared right then.
I was done.
I’d had enough.
I gave her the gun.
I begged her to kill me.
She didn’t.
Instead, I simply cried, letting the pent up emotion loose after being suppressed for so long, and she stayed with me, holding me close, and saying I was safe, that she knew exactly how I felt.
How could she? No one could know what I’d been through.
I remembered her name after she had gone.
Amanda.
I remembered she had an imperfection in her right eye.
Someone else had the same imperfection.
I couldn’t remember who that was.
Not then.
I had a dingy flat in Kensington, a place that I rarely stayed in if I could help it. After five-star hotel rooms, it made me feel shabby.
The end of another mission, I was on my way home, the underground, a bus, and then a walk.
It was late.
People were spilling out of the pub after the last drinks. Most in good spirits, others slightly more boisterous.
A loud-mouthed chap bumped into me, the sort who had one too many, and was ready to take on all comers.
He turned on me, “Watch where you’re going, you fool.”
Two of his friends dragged him away. He shrugged them off, squared up.
I punched him hard, in the stomach, and he fell backwards onto the ground. I looked at his two friends. “Take him home before someone makes mincemeat out of him.”
They grabbed his arms, lifted him off the ground and took him away.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman, early thirties, quite attractive, but very, very drunk. She staggered from the bar, bumped into me, and finished up sitting on the side of the road.
I looked around to see where her friends were. The exodus from the pub was over and the few nearby were leaving to go home.
She was alone, drunk, and by the look of her, unable to move.
I sat beside her. “Where are your friends?”
“Dunno.”
“You need help?”
She looked up, and sideways at me. She didn’t look the sort who would get in this state. Or maybe she was, I was a terrible judge of women.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Nobody.” I was exactly how I felt.
“Well Mr Nobody, I’m drunk, and I don’t care. Just leave me here to rot.”
She put her head back between her knees, and it looked to me she was trying to stop the spinning sensation in her head.
Been there before, and it’s not a good feeling.
“Where are your friends?” I asked again.
“Got none.”
“Perhaps I should take you home.”
“I have no home.”
“You don’t look like a homeless person. If I’m not mistaken, those shoes are worth more than my weekly salary.” I’d seen them advertised, in the airline magazine, don’t ask me why the ad caught my attention.
She lifted her head and looked at me again. “You a smart fucking arse are you?”
“I have my moments.”
“Have them somewhere else.”
She rested her head against my shoulder. We were the only two left in the street, and suddenly in darkness when the proprietor turned off the outside lights.
“Take me home,” she said suddenly.
“Where is your place?”
“Don’t have one. Take me to your place.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’m drunk. What’s not to like until tomorrow.”
I helped her to her feet. “You have a name?”
“Charlotte.”
The wedding was in a small church. We had been away for a weekend in the country, somewhere in the Cotswolds, and found this idyllic spot. Graves going back to the dawn of time, a beautiful garden tended by the vicar and his wife, an astonishing vista over hills and down dales.
On a spring afternoon with the sun, the flowers, and the peacefulness of the country.
I had two people at the wedding, the best man, Bradley, and my boss, Watkins.
Charlotte had her sisters Melissa and Isobel, and Isobel’s husband Giovanni, and their daughter Felicity.
And one more person who was as mysterious as she was attractive, a rather interesting combination as she was well over retirement age. She arrived late and left early.
Aunt Agatha.
She looked me up and down with what I’d call a withering look. “There’s more to you than meets the eye,” she said enigmatically.
“Likewise I’m sure,” I said. It earned me an elbow in the ribs from Charlotte. It was clear she feared this woman.
“Why did you come,” Charlotte asked.
“You know why.”
Agatha looked at me. “I like you. Take care of my granddaughter. You do not want me for an enemy.”
OK, now she officially scared me.
She thrust a cheque into my hand, smiled, and left.
“Who is she,” I asked after we watched her depart.
“Certainly not my fairy godmother.”
Charlotte never mentioned her again.
Zurich in summer, not exactly my favourite place.
Instead of going to visit her sister Isobel, we stayed at a hotel in Beethovenstrasse and Isobel and Felicity came to us. Her husband was not with her this time.
Felicity was three or four and looked very much like her mother. She also looked very much like Charlotte, and I’d remarked on it once before and it received a sharp rebuke.
We’d been twice before, and rather than talk to her sister, Charlotte spent her time with Felicity, and they were, together, like old friends. For so few visits they had a remarkable rapport.
I had not broached the subject of children with Charlotte, not after one such discussion where she had said she had no desire to be a mother. It had not been a subject before and wasn’t once since.
Perhaps like all Aunts, she liked the idea of playing with a child for a while and then give it back.
Felicity was curious as to who I was, but never ventured too close. I believed a child could sense the evil in adults and had seen through my facade of friendliness. We were never close.
But…
This time, when observing the two together, something quite out of left field popped into my head. It was not possible, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought she looked like my mother.
And Charlotte had seen me looking in their direction. “You seem distracted,” she said.
“I was just remembering my mother. Odd moment, haven’t done so for a very long time.”
“Why now?” I think she had a look of concern on her face.
“Her birthday, I guess,” I said, the first excuse I could think of.
Another look and I was wrong. She looked like Isobel or Charlotte, or if I wanted to believe it possible, Melissa too.
I was crying, tears streaming down my face.
I was in pain, searing pain from my lower back stretching down into my legs, and I was barely able to breathe.
It was like coming up for air.
It was like Snow White bringing Prince Charming back to life. I could feel what I thought was a gentle kiss and tears dropping on my cheeks, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Charlotte slowly lifting her head, a hand gently stroking the hair off my forehead.
And in a very soft voice, she said, “Hi.”
I could not speak, but I think I smiled. It was the girl with the imperfection in her right eye. Everything fell into place, and I knew, in that instant that we were irrevocably meant to be together.
I woke with what one might call metaphorical clouds hanging over my head.
The day before, everything was as normal as it could be, I had plans and intended to get on with my life, realizing that Violetta would be disappointed if she knew how moribund I’d become.
That was before Alfie had appeared out of nowhere, on a mission for a man I never wanted to see or work for again.
Never say never.
Now I had a target on my back and found myself in a very strange situation. Normally random events were exactly that, random. But it would not be when the time came for Juliet to accidentally see me, a coincidence surely.
But not.
For a long time, before I fell into a light, fitful sleep, I went through a variety of scenarios when I imagined we would run into each other, and concluded it would most likely be somewhere in St Marks square.
Then it was a matter of whether on not I would make it easy for her, and was still undecided when sleep came. Now, in the cold hard light of dawn, I decided it would be better to get it over with as quickly as possible.
I’d also decided that I was not going to give Larry any chance of success, as I had the element of surprise on my side.
I’d also forgotten about those pre-mission nerves, that mixture of fear and excitement when starting out, usually not knowing what was going to happen. Of course, I was a lot older now, and the world I once lived in had no doubt changed considerably, but not the people in it. They were the one constant, and most were predictable.
Larry certainly would be. Juliet would be less so, but knowing her end game would tip the scales in my favour. How I would deal with her would be dictated on that first meeting.
That too was the fuel for a different sort of feeling. I knew, back when I first met her, my judgement was impaired by a lot of different drugs, and I wasn’t quite thinking straight, but there had been a spark, and in different circumstances, the outcome might have been different. I was not sure what I felt right then.
But, I’d soon find out.
I took a water taxi to St Mark’s Square, or just a short distance from it, where the Statue of Bartolomeo Colleonix greeted all those who disembarked. From there it was a short walk on the promenade, and instead of heading towards the square, I went in the opposite direction, towards the hotel Juliet was staying.
Getting there early, I was hoping to see her leave the hotel and follow discreetly, waiting for the opportunity to ‘discover’ her. It was not a surprise to discover her ‘friend’ who greeted her at the airport had the same idea.
It was evident that Larry didn’t trust her to keep him informed, or the tail was insurance. Either way, it was a complication.
I found a 0lace to sit, one of many cafes along the promenade, in sight of the hotel entrance and her minder. Judging by the blank expression, it was possible he didn’t know me by sight, which could be useful.
My phone decided to announce an incoming message, and it was from Alfie. The identity of one of the men, muscle for a local crime boss, no doubt lent as a favour to Larry, was Giuseppe, last name irrelevant. The other, one of Larry’s lieutenants here to smooth the path for Larry’s arrival.
Giuseppe’s resume was short, mostly petty crimes, having graduated from peddling knock-offs to tourists. Judging by his body language, he was unimpressed with being a minder. And restless, because over the next half hour, he was up and down, pacing, and not happy, having exchanged words with several people who seemingly had walked in front of him.
Perhaps if I provoked him…
No time, Juliet chose that moment to emerge from the hotel. He was straight out of his seat and walked over to her. She was not pleased to see him, and I watched them engage in a heated exchange over the next five minutes, drawing attention to themselves, and odd glances from a few tourists. At what seemed the end of the argument I saw her shrug, and both headed towards the square together.
It was obvious Giuseppe’s instructions were to stay with her, which I imagine would make her job of a chance meeting all that harder.
I followed, discreetly, behind them.
She ambled, taking the time to look around, much like a tourist would, and basically, she was a tourist. I wondered if she had been to Venice before, and concluded she hadn’t, using her phone camera to take photos of the gondolas, the Canal, the colonnade, the bridge of sighs, and Doges palace; frequently stopping much to Giuseppe’s annoyance.
It took nearly an hour to cover a very short distance, ending up at a Cafe, one of those that jutted out into the square. She sat at one table, and Giuseppe sat at another, not far from her.
When his attention was elsewhere, watching a group of young female American tourists, I came up from behind and sat beside him, so engrossed in the girls he neither saw nor heard me arrive.
And the reason he almost jumped out of his seat when I said, in his language, “So, Giuseppe, what are you up to now?”
When he recovered, he glared at me. “Who are you?” It was not a polite tone.
“Trouble, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I’m minding my own business. You should too.”
There was an undertone and implied threat.
“Or what?”
I saw him glance over in Juliet’s direction. A waiter just delivered coffee and what looked like a cake.
“Who is she?” I asked.
He turned to look at me. “That’s none of your business.”
It was clear he didn’t know what I looked like and was relying on Juliet to identify me.
“It is if you’re the point man of a kidnap team. Is that what this is about.”
Giuseppe laughed. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’m going over to that woman you’ve been watching and tell her that she has an unwanted admirer, and then if I can find a policeman, I’m going to tell him you’re acting suspiciously.”
His expression told me that was the last thing he needed. I suspect his track record with the police along with a complaint involving a female tourist might just get him into enough trouble to make him think twice about hanging around.
On the other hand, it might not. I could see him hesitating, orders to stay versus trouble with the police. Trouble with the police won out.
He stood. “You have made yourself some difficulties, this isn’t over.”
I shrugged. “It will be if I see you loitering near her again.”
He had his phone in his hand as he left and was making a call before he’d taken 20 paces. The next person wasn’t going to be so easy to spot.
The navigator had left the object on screen allowing it to materialize as we got closer.
I had to marvel at the magnification the scientists had managed to produce for the scanners on this vessel, the first of a new class, and based on our experiences, no doubt later ships would have less of the quirks we had found so far.
Not that any were serious, or if they were, that common sense and prior experience couldn’t resolve. It was the reason why we had this chief engineer.
He had retired and was happily spending the rest of his life with the woman who had put up with all those absent years, until she died suddenly, and left him without purpose.
This ship had changed that.
I could see the outline of the distant ship and although it might not follow a standard design, it showed all the signs of coming from our planet.
Was that because we had no idea what a ship might look like from another planet or alien race? I still wanted to believe there were other life forms out there, but how much of that was hoping they looked like us?
“The system still cannot identify what type of ship it is, sir, but it doesn’t look alien.”
It didn’t, now that it was much clearer.
“Would you know if it was?”
“No, sir. Not really. Time to intercept, just under fifteen minutes. If they are intending to intercept.”
Number one just came out of the elevator and onto the bridge. He wasn’t rostered for this time, but I suspect he had been watching the drama unfold in his cabin.
“Suggest we go to code Red, just in case their intentions are not friendly.”
We had a weekly meeting of department heads to discuss what we would do in an alien encounter, other than shoot first, and talk later, usually the military first response to any problem.
Some ground rules were implemented, one of which was to keep fingers off the triggers of our weapons, until we had justification. It was noted we had no idea what kind of weapons they would have, or how good our shield systems would be, that would come after the first encounter.
But we did know the ship could withstand any attack from an earth-origin attack, from the nuclear bomb to cutting edge lasers. It was a little more problematic for the humans though.
“Agreed.”
Code Red, our highest alert, meant that Number one and I could not be in the same place, for obvious reasons. He would go down the attack room, where the bridge systems were replicated, along with an array of other units. It would be from there where a relation, or attack, would be managed.
And no, the lights in the bridge did not turn red, just dimmed. The only indication was a red bar running across the top of the viewing screen, on which the oncoming vessel was now clearly visible.
“It’s from earth, the scanners have identified the propulsion system, and from the scan analysis, it appears to be more advanced than just about everything back home.”
“The infamous Russian ship, do you think?”
“Doesn’t have to be. Anyone with enough money could have financed the project, though it would be hard to hide something like that. The question has to be, what’s it doing this far out, and, for all intents and purposes, returning.”
“We’re assuming again. Perhaps they were just going to the outer edge of our known galaxy so that they could say they were the first.”
There had always been that great space rivalry between the Russians and the Americans. Later, the Europeans and the Chinese had also thrown their hats in the ring, and it was possible this ship could be Chinese. They too had a burning desire to be the first, and there’d be no surprise if we found a Chinese or Russian flag on the first liveable planet outside our solar system.
But, right now, that was all ahead of us. At this moment, it was a little disconcerting to discover we would not be the first outside our known galaxy.
It seems that we can be completely focused on a single task to the detriment of all else, and, when that task is complete, suddenly we feel totally drained.
That’s how I feel right now.
The current year is almost half over… Where did the time go?
All I have to do is get past the publication of my next two books, take some time away from writing, and then I should be invigorated. Perhaps COVID had something to do with it because I found it very easy to get lost in and stay in my new imaginary world, rather than the horrible new world that had been thrust upon us, with more heads down and tail up, with nowhere to go, no travel to plan, and not able to go anywhere.
This is despite our fearless leaders telling us that COVID is no longer a problem, which it probably isn’t, but what do I care? And for computer programmers who never leave their semi-darkened lair, ordering pizza and Coke, it must have been a Godsend.
Given that I prefer to be at home, working on any number of stories, it usually is for me too.
But have I been working too hard, and it’s finally got to me? I mean, you can only write so much before the brain starts to fry? Or you disappear down that proverbial rabbit hole and gradually turn into the character.
I have been working on the two novels that needed to be completed, and they are finally there. And other than NaNoWriMo, which saw another go through the mill, I’m still writing a few pages a night, and another two that I have been working on here and there are now ready for the first edit.
This has all happened to the detriment of my episodic stories, which have lain idle for almost a year, but in recent weeks I picked up one or two and wrote two or three more episodes, just to keep it ticking over. Another has five episodes, and I hope to publish them soon. The last I’ve finally finished, and I am feeling pleased with myself. My editor has it now.
Something else that pleases me, and is entirely unexpected, is that I have sold several copies of my books in the last few months or so. I know I’m not about to be vying for the top of the bestseller list, but it’s still satisfying.
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 continued 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 of an 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 mould of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Philip Marlowe, but he’s not.
But I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled 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 imagine that 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 Brothers’ 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 it went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and I am at the editor for the last reading.
I have high hopes of publishing it in mid-2026. It even has a cover.
