Category: Mystery

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Character refinement

I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.

This is part of the new first section is the one that involves Annalisa, and her boyfriend, Simmo:

 

Annalisa looked at the two men facing her.

Simmo, the boy on the floor, had told her that the shopkeeper would be a pushover, he was an old man who’d just hand over the drugs, rather than cause trouble for himself.

Where Simmo had discovered what the shopkeeper’s true vocation, dispensing drugs to the neighborhood addicts, she didn’t know, but it was not the first place like this they had visited.

She had always known Simmo had a problem, but he had assured her he had it under control.  Until a month ago, when he had tried something new.

It had changed him.

The breaking point came earlier that day when, seeing how sick he was, she threatened to leave.  It brought out the monster within him, and he threatened to kill her.  Not long after he had changed into a whimpering child pleading with her to stay, that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said before.

All he needed was one more ‘score’ to get his ‘shit’ together, and he would do as she asked, and find help.

She believed him.

He said he knew a place not far from the apartment, a small shop where what he needed was available, and said he had the money.

That should have been the first sign he was not telling the truth because she had been funding his habit until her parents cut off the money supply.  She suspected her father had put a private detective on to find her, had, and reported back, and rather than make a scene, just cut her off so she would have to come home or starve.  Her father was no better than Simmo.

And, as soon as they stepped into the shop, Simmo pulled out the gun,

Instead of the shopkeeper cowered like Simmo said he would, he had laughed at them and told them to get out.  Simmo started ranting and waving the gun around, then all of a sudden collapsed. 

There was a race for the gun which spilled out of Simmo’s hand, and she won. 

That was just before the customer burst into the shop.

It had been shortly before closing time.  Simmo had said there would be no one else around.

Wrong again.

Now she had another problem to deal with, a man who was clearly as scared shitless as she was.

This was worse than any bad hair day, or getting out of the wrong side of bed day, this was, she was convinced, the last day of her life.

She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down.  There was a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth and Simmo was making strange sounds like he was choking.

Any other time she might have been concerned, but the hard reality of it was, Simmo was never going to change.  She was only surprised at the fact it took so long for her to realize it.

As for the man standing in front of her, she was safe from the shopkeeper with him around, so he would have to stay.

“No.  Stay.”

Another glance at the shopkeeper told her she had made the right decision, his expression said it all.  Gun or no gun, the moment she was alone with him, he would kill her.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 41

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

——

Jackerby trusted no one.  He had been given orders by someone further up the ranks than Wallace and his people, someone who suspected that some or all of the Englishmen turned German turned Englishmen were traitors. 

The only men he could trust fully were those who had come with him in the glider, a dozen at most.  It’s why he had just completed a secret briefing with his second in command who would take over the operation if anything happened to him.

Not that it would, but he liked the idea of being prepared, and humoring the others into believing they were essential to the operation.  Eckhardt would be a good man in a crisis, battle scarred from the Russian front, and glad to be on this operation for obvious reasons.

He would do anything Jackerby asked, even kill Wallace and Johannsen if he was required to.

That might yet be necessary because Wallace didn’t seem interested in going after Atherton which made him think that Wallace wasn’t all that he appeared to be.  Atherton was a thorn in their operation and had to be eliminated.  The fact Wallace and Johannsen didn’t agree with him raised suspicions as to their motives.

Was there ultimately going to be a triple cross?

He had been lurking in the shadows when Wallace gave the drunken fool Leonardo his orders to go down to the village.  More defectors.  Jackerby couldn’t understand why anyone would want to leave the Reich, especially when they were winning the war, and, if it were up to him, he’d executer the lot of them not send them back.

But, orders were orders.

He went back to Eckhardt and told him he was going down to the village to observe Leonardo and his team in action, and that he was in charge of the men in his absence.

Eckhardt, on the other hand, knew that Jackerby, if he could find a way that would not cause them trouble, was going to eliminate Leonardo because they were a liability.  The plan was once Leonardo and his men were gone, Jackerby would take over rounding up the defectors.  Or, more to the point, they would go missing before reaching the castle.  There was only one that mattered, the rest were dead weight.  And once the prize had been captured, Jackerby would escort him home and collect the kudos for himself and his men.

The ultimate prize; leave to reunite briefly with their families and a cushy job in Berlin, away from the horrors of war in the trenches.

Leonardo and the five others that made up the resistance left the castle by one of the underground tunnels.  Leonardo knew of two, both of them shown to him by Carlo.  He knew that Carlo knew where more were, but Carlo was not particularly helpful at the best of times.

He also knew Carlo might be stupid enough to storm the castle, especially after what Leonardo had done to Martina, and, when it hadn’t happened, he suspected Atherton had appealed to him to wait.

Atherton, too, he knew had some idea of the layout of the castle, have been told to keep an eye on Atherton when he first arrived because he was reportedly an archaeologist.  Leonardo had, and reported back to Wallace that it appeared Atherton had been surveying the castle.  He had simply been told to keep Atherton under surveillance, and make notes of any discoveries, and particularly what Atherton was doing.

He had, not that it amounted to much.  Not when he realized Leonardo was following him.  Leonardo decided not to tell Wallace Atherton had rumbled him, just that he was roaming the passages looking for something.

It had worked so far and kept Wallace off his back, but it wasn’t going to last.

Bottom line, Leonardo had to find and kill Atherton before any trouble started, otherwise, it would be his neck on the block.

Jackerby followed.

It wasn’t hard to follow Leonardo because he and his man were the last people to know what stealth was.  He could hear them crashing through the forest between the castle and the village up to 250 meters away, he was making so much noise.

But, Jackerby thought, perhaps Leonardo didn’t need to worry about alerting his presence to Atherton, not if he was already working with him.

To Jackerby and his paranoia, it made sense.  Maybe he was going to meet with Atherton right now and do a deal with the defectors.  How many others had turned up at the village in the last week or so, and never made it to the castle?

He was right, Jackerby told himself, not to trust them.  Everyone, in the end, was an enemy of the Reich.

It took 20 minutes to reach the outskirts of the village, and when Jackerby could see the edge of the woods, and the barn and remains of the farmhouse just the other side of the tree line, he dropped back, found a suitable observation point, and waited.

Leonardo and his men had stopped at the back of the barn, and one of his men was about to go find the defectors.  The rest of Leonardo’s men would wait with him, and surprise their guests, before taking them back to the castle.

As far as “Jackerby was concerned, they would never reach the castle, and this time, he would take care of Leonardo, and the others.

It would be easy to say that Atherton had killed all the members of the resistance, and then got killed himself in a shootout with Jackerby.  It was a plausible reason for all the deaths, though he would have to come up with a suitable excuse for leaving the castle and following Leonardo and his men when Wallace had expressly forbidden it.

Wallace.

Perhaps if he got his hands on Atherton he’d ask him if Wallace was a traitor.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The cinema of my dreams – I wonder what it was like in the wild west – Part 4

Yet another photograph in what is a series pushes the story along

It’s a reminder of a past that I have only seen in old movies, which to me, adds a great deal of importance to the preservation of any material that gives us a sense of what it was like many years ago.

It doesn’t mean that what we see happening because films, like stories, are sometimes based on some fact but the majority of it is fictional padding, adding a picture of how it might have been.

To find out what really happened, it is possible to find archived newspapers and municipal documents going back a long time, quite often the fodder for many history books.

This is how we think the wild west was, at times quite a dangerous place to be. But, in the main, it was probably a lot more mundane, just trying to make a living off the land, battling the vagaries of weather, fighting off all manner of hazards, both predators and humans, or trying to eventually eke out a living after a gold strike brought thousands of would-be prospectors.

Towns came and went, mines came and went, each leaving the ghosts of their people and buildings behind.

As for my story, it’s probably going to be an amalgam of everything I’ve read or seen, but with my own spin.

So, the story so far – Our hero is away on a driving tour and had come to a covered bridge.

The thought that it might be a portal does cross his mind, but not being a believer, crosses it. Then, after a few miles comes across what seems to be a deserted, or ghost, town. But, it’s not deserted, the car’s gone and in its place, a horse.

…

I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings.

I didn’t remember going to sleep, which, for a moment, was a worry.

It was not a bed I was lying on. It was hard, like a wooden plank, and, looking up, the roof was very high above. A cathedral ceiling.

A church?

I dragged myself up into a sitting position and looked around. It is a church. A very old church made completely out of timber. The sort of church one might find in an old town.

“Ah, you’re awake?” A voice came from behind me, the sort I instantly reminded of a priest.

I turned. A man that had the requisite collar and shirt, but not your typical priest.

“Where am I?”

“Church. Fergus thought you’d died of fright. Have to say I thought that too, but Doc reckons you’re tired from a long ride. Where you from?”

I was going to say from New York, but I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I held that thought and just said, “Back east.”

“Running from what?”

Was everyone who landed on their doorstep running from something? At least I wasn’t dressed in a suit, just a flannel shirt, and jeans, with sturdy hiking boots. They were the only item of my apparel that could be out of place in this setting.

“A woman. She picked another man, one I thought was a friend.”

It was as close to the truth I’d get. There was a woman, it was just she didn’t like me as much as I did her. The both of us couldn’t stay, so I quit and left.

“Well, it’s too late to go on, the hotel’s out the door and thirty paces straight ahead. Tommy’s taken your horse to the livery stable.”

My interview was over.

“I’ll see you at the service in the morning.”

Odd, when I walked out the church door, the scene had changed from what I last remembered. At dusk, there were lights and people. Not many, but just enough to give the town an air of reality.

Until I saw two women walk past, in traditional 1860s dresses and bonnets.

This had to be a historical town that went that extra mile for reality. It had to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

A photograph from the inspirational bin- 34

This is the moon, unexpectedly observable in the late afternoon.

For me, the moon provided inspiration for an episodic story I have entitled, for now, ‘I always wanted to see the planets’.

It’s about a freighter captain who gets a gig as First Officer on an exploratory starship, who by a series of inexplicable events gets promoted to captain, and has to navigate not only the outer reaches of space, but new species.

But in the back of my mind there is that expression ‘shoot for the moon’, which could mean almost anything.

It could mean going for the unobtainable, whether it be a job, or the partner of your dreams. Failing can be heartbreak. Success might mean you’d be ‘over the moon’.

Them there’s travelling to moon, perhaps the next logical step for regular people, heading off the spend a week on a moon base hotel. I’m not sure what we would see out there in space; Perhaps a UFO?

Fictionalised, a moon base might just be the meeting place for various species, and being the mystery writer I am, what if there was a murder?

As always, the possibilities are endless.

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

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

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

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

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

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

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

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

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

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

Bring it on!

…

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

…

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 41

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

——

Jackerby trusted no one.  He had been given orders by someone further up the ranks than Wallace and his people, someone who suspected that some or all of the Englishmen turned German turned Englishmen were traitors. 

The only men he could trust fully were those who had come with him in the glider, a dozen at most.  It’s why he had just completed a secret briefing with his second in command who would take over the operation if anything happened to him.

Not that it would, but he liked the idea of being prepared, and humoring the others into believing they were essential to the operation.  Eckhardt would be a good man in a crisis, battle scarred from the Russian front, and glad to be on this operation for obvious reasons.

He would do anything Jackerby asked, even kill Wallace and Johannsen if he was required to.

That might yet be necessary because Wallace didn’t seem interested in going after Atherton which made him think that Wallace wasn’t all that he appeared to be.  Atherton was a thorn in their operation and had to be eliminated.  The fact Wallace and Johannsen didn’t agree with him raised suspicions as to their motives.

Was there ultimately going to be a triple cross?

He had been lurking in the shadows when Wallace gave the drunken fool Leonardo his orders to go down to the village.  More defectors.  Jackerby couldn’t understand why anyone would want to leave the Reich, especially when they were winning the war, and, if it were up to him, he’d executer the lot of them not send them back.

But, orders were orders.

He went back to Eckhardt and told him he was going down to the village to observe Leonardo and his team in action, and that he was in charge of the men in his absence.

Eckhardt, on the other hand, knew that Jackerby, if he could find a way that would not cause them trouble, was going to eliminate Leonardo because they were a liability.  The plan was once Leonardo and his men were gone, Jackerby would take over rounding up the defectors.  Or, more to the point, they would go missing before reaching the castle.  There was only one that mattered, the rest were dead weight.  And once the prize had been captured, Jackerby would escort him home and collect the kudos for himself and his men.

The ultimate prize; leave to reunite briefly with their families and a cushy job in Berlin, away from the horrors of war in the trenches.

Leonardo and the five others that made up the resistance left the castle by one of the underground tunnels.  Leonardo knew of two, both of them shown to him by Carlo.  He knew that Carlo knew where more were, but Carlo was not particularly helpful at the best of times.

He also knew Carlo might be stupid enough to storm the castle, especially after what Leonardo had done to Martina, and, when it hadn’t happened, he suspected Atherton had appealed to him to wait.

Atherton, too, he knew had some idea of the layout of the castle, have been told to keep an eye on Atherton when he first arrived because he was reportedly an archaeologist.  Leonardo had, and reported back to Wallace that it appeared Atherton had been surveying the castle.  He had simply been told to keep Atherton under surveillance, and make notes of any discoveries, and particularly what Atherton was doing.

He had, not that it amounted to much.  Not when he realized Leonardo was following him.  Leonardo decided not to tell Wallace Atherton had rumbled him, just that he was roaming the passages looking for something.

It had worked so far and kept Wallace off his back, but it wasn’t going to last.

Bottom line, Leonardo had to find and kill Atherton before any trouble started, otherwise, it would be his neck on the block.

Jackerby followed.

It wasn’t hard to follow Leonardo because he and his man were the last people to know what stealth was.  He could hear them crashing through the forest between the castle and the village up to 250 meters away, he was making so much noise.

But, Jackerby thought, perhaps Leonardo didn’t need to worry about alerting his presence to Atherton, not if he was already working with him.

To Jackerby and his paranoia, it made sense.  Maybe he was going to meet with Atherton right now and do a deal with the defectors.  How many others had turned up at the village in the last week or so, and never made it to the castle?

He was right, Jackerby told himself, not to trust them.  Everyone, in the end, was an enemy of the Reich.

It took 20 minutes to reach the outskirts of the village, and when Jackerby could see the edge of the woods, and the barn and remains of the farmhouse just the other side of the tree line, he dropped back, found a suitable observation point, and waited.

Leonardo and his men had stopped at the back of the barn, and one of his men was about to go find the defectors.  The rest of Leonardo’s men would wait with him, and surprise their guests, before taking them back to the castle.

As far as “Jackerby was concerned, they would never reach the castle, and this time, he would take care of Leonardo, and the others.

It would be easy to say that Atherton had killed all the members of the resistance, and then got killed himself in a shootout with Jackerby.  It was a plausible reason for all the deaths, though he would have to come up with a suitable excuse for leaving the castle and following Leonardo and his men when Wallace had expressly forbidden it.

Wallace.

Perhaps if he got his hands on Atherton he’d ask him if Wallace was a traitor.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The cinema of my dreams – I wonder what it was like in the wild west – Part 4

Yet another photograph in what is a series pushes the story along

It’s a reminder of a past that I have only seen in old movies, which to me, adds a great deal of importance to the preservation of any material that gives us a sense of what it was like many years ago.

It doesn’t mean that what we see happening because films, like stories, are sometimes based on some fact but the majority of it is fictional padding, adding a picture of how it might have been.

To find out what really happened, it is possible to find archived newspapers and municipal documents going back a long time, quite often the fodder for many history books.

This is how we think the wild west was, at times quite a dangerous place to be. But, in the main, it was probably a lot more mundane, just trying to make a living off the land, battling the vagaries of weather, fighting off all manner of hazards, both predators and humans, or trying to eventually eke out a living after a gold strike brought thousands of would-be prospectors.

Towns came and went, mines came and went, each leaving the ghosts of their people and buildings behind.

As for my story, it’s probably going to be an amalgam of everything I’ve read or seen, but with my own spin.

So, the story so far – Our hero is away on a driving tour and had come to a covered bridge.

The thought that it might be a portal does cross his mind, but not being a believer, crosses it. Then, after a few miles comes across what seems to be a deserted, or ghost, town. But, it’s not deserted, the car’s gone and in its place, a horse.

…

I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings.

I didn’t remember going to sleep, which, for a moment, was a worry.

It was not a bed I was lying on. It was hard, like a wooden plank, and, looking up, the roof was very high above. A cathedral ceiling.

A church?

I dragged myself up into a sitting position and looked around. It is a church. A very old church made completely out of timber. The sort of church one might find in an old town.

“Ah, you’re awake?” A voice came from behind me, the sort I instantly reminded of a priest.

I turned. A man that had the requisite collar and shirt, but not your typical priest.

“Where am I?”

“Church. Fergus thought you’d died of fright. Have to say I thought that too, but Doc reckons you’re tired from a long ride. Where you from?”

I was going to say from New York, but I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I held that thought and just said, “Back east.”

“Running from what?”

Was everyone who landed on their doorstep running from something? At least I wasn’t dressed in a suit, just a flannel shirt, and jeans, with sturdy hiking boots. They were the only item of my apparel that could be out of place in this setting.

“A woman. She picked another man, one I thought was a friend.”

It was as close to the truth I’d get. There was a woman, it was just she didn’t like me as much as I did her. The both of us couldn’t stay, so I quit and left.

“Well, it’s too late to go on, the hotel’s out the door and thirty paces straight ahead. Tommy’s taken your horse to the livery stable.”

My interview was over.

“I’ll see you at the service in the morning.”

Odd, when I walked out the church door, the scene had changed from what I last remembered. At dusk, there were lights and people. Not many, but just enough to give the town an air of reality.

Until I saw two women walk past, in traditional 1860s dresses and bonnets.

This had to be a historical town that went that extra mile for reality. It had to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It didn’t work.

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

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

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

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

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Zoe.”

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

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

“I might throw myself overboard?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I saw it coming.”

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

OK, that was unexpected.

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

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

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

It just started to rain.

 

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newdevilcvr6

An excerpt from “If Only” – a work in progress

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 Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible.  I could sense the raging violence within him.  Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.

After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.

But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.

The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.

For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.

They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts.  Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.

No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.

She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy.  Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution.  Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.

It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down.  I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess.  Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.

What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again.  It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.

And it had.

Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe.   I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.

We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee.  It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.

She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.

I wondered if this text message was in that category.  I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.

I reached for the phone then put it back down again.  I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.

© Charles Heath 2018-2020