50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

A run in with Alex

…

It had been an interesting excursion, with discovery, but not so significant, it meant anything.  I went back to Nadia’s hotel room to collect the maps she had in the picnic basket so I could compare them with others because at least two of them had features I’d not seen before.

I was there only for the maps, then left.  It had been a long day and she was tired, and I was glad not to be working that night.  I also had been thinking about what Boggs was doing, and where, for that matter, he’d been.

I hadn’t seen Boggs for days, and worse, the last time I did see him, we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.  It was a long way to fall from when, what seemed less than a week, we were the best of friends.

It seemed his obsession with the treasure hunt had usurped any possibility of being civil or any understanding that there might be more pressing matters in my life, like having to help support my mother.

Perhaps he didn’t realize the nature of my necessity to actually get a job and bring some money onto a household that was struggling just to exist.

For that matter, I had to wonder just how he and his mother managed to exist now that Rico was behind bars with little chance of escaping a prison sentence.  Oddly, I felt sorry for him, but I was beginning to believe that Alex and the Benderby’s were responsible for the archaeologist’s death and had used Rico’s boat to stitch him up.

As for Boggs, there was that lingering doubt in his mind that I had crossed to the dark side, associating myself with Nadia, a sworn enemy, and treasure hunting rival. 

It was a thought that crossed my mind too and could be argued that she was just using me as a means of getting to the treasure for her family given that she might assume that I stood a better chance of deducing where it was because Boggs had a head start on everyone else, and was still stumbling around in the dark.

That she was willing to help, by means that could have only been facilitated by her family didn’t go unnoticed, and I was a lot warier now of sharing everything I knew with her.  I was not that naive to believe she was interested in me for any other reason.

It didn’t really matter because whether I would share any or all information with her or anyone else was largely irrelevant.  I was inclined to believe it didn’t exist, or if it had, it was more likely that someone had found it long ago, and like the Cossatino’s later on, promoted the myth for the purpose of exploiting people’s gullibility.

This was, I guess, one of those between a rock and a hard place moment.

A sudden itch on the back of my neck made me turn around and look back in the direction of her room, and I noticed a flutter where the curtain was.  Had she been waiting to see if I had gone?

I hated the idea of being suspicious of people’s motives, but the name conjured up all manner of expectations, and I could only imagine what it was like to live with that.  Would she ever live a normal life, or even know what normal was?

Did any of us?

“Smidge.”

A voice that would strike terror into the heart of anyone like me.

Alex.  Loitering outside the vicinity of Nadia’s hotel.  Was he spying on her?

“Alex.” 

Beside him was one of his father’s henchmen and it didn’t look good.

“What are you doing here?”

Had he just arrived on his way to see her, or had he been lurking in the shadows?  My money was on the latter.  He had been the jealous boyfriend once, and it was hard to see him changing.

Truth or dare?  Truth.  “I was visiting Nadia.  But I wouldn’t start assuming it was for any reason other than for her to be questioning me about Boggs’s progress on his treasure hunt, which, by the way, is zero.  My guess is you are having more success.”

“Why would you think that?”

“The flash boat on the water, I suspect you’re trying to find a trail of coins from bay to beach in the hope of establishing where it came ashore.  I’m sure you have some fancy metal detection going on from the boat.  So, any success?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?  I’m sure telling Boggs is hardly going to make his investigation move along faster than it is.  What would help is the captain’s logbook, and that I suspect was the archaeologist’s trump card, and he died before imparting its whereabouts.”

It was pure speculation on my part, but Alex always lacked a poker face, even back in school when he got into trouble.  His expression changed just slightly.  So, there was a logbook.

“Does your father know what you’re doing?”

“This had nothing to do with my father.”

“Perhaps I should tell him that, including your obsession with Nadia.”

Something I should have realized long ago, and just crystallized in my mind, though I was not sure why was the fact Benderby had become almost a regular visitor at our place.  If I thought about it, it explained why my mother had suddenly started taking more care of her appearance, and how it came to pass that I could get a job in a place where very few could. 

Benderby had always had an interest in my mother, and suddenly I realized they had been to school together, and the words of my father spoken once in anger made sense.  He was not her first choice.  She may have been Benderby’s first choice back then, but I doubted his family would have sanctioned it.

I wondered what Alex would have thought of that revelation.  Since his mother’s death, Benderby had started seeing more of her, and that had to add to Alex’s dislike of me.

“Not a good idea smidge.”

“Not a good idea to be calling me Smidge, Alex.”

A nod from Alex, the henchman took a step forward and grabbed my shirt, and then rammed into the wall.”

Alex laughed, and then suddenly went quiet.

Another voice joined the conversation.  “Tell your goon to let him go or I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”

Nadia.  Her tone scared me.

“You’re not that stupid,” Alex said in a tone that told me it scared the hell out of him too

“I’m a Cossatino, since when did stupidity rate a mention.  We’ve been doing stupid shit forever, and you’re about to join the party.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“Actually Alex, I do.  It’ll get rid of one big problem I have with you, and it’ll get rid of a serial pest.  People will thank me.”

I could see her now, behind him, dressed in black, and at first thought, she was a ninja.  I could see the knife at his throat, and as she moved it slightly, he jerked drawing blood.

“Let him go,” Alex muttered.

The goon let go of my shirt and stepped back.

“Now go, Alex.  Don’t come back.  And don’t annoy Smidge again, or you’ll have me to deal with.”

He looked me up and down with a look of distaste.  “This isn’t over.”

Nadia gave him a shove and stepped between him and me.

“It is, Alex.  I know what you did to that chap you dumped on Rico’s boat.  You might not have killed him, but you’re ultimately responsible for his death, and I’m sure the sheriff would like to hear about it.  So, go away Alex, and be a good boy and we’ll all keep our little secrets.”

Angry yes, sullen answered resentful, equally so, but reluctantly agreeable.  “If you say so.”

A nod to his goon and they left.

There was something else hanging in the air, that statement about keeling little secrets.  He’d kept something over her, she had admitted as much to me, but the tables had been turned.  But what it was she had over him, it was more than just the archaeologist.

“What was that about?”  I had to ask.

“The Benderby’s have lots of secrets Sam, not just Alex.  I played a card and it paid off.  He won’t bother you again, not seriously anyway.”

“Should I be thanking you, or have I just been dragged down a rabbit hole?”

Perhaps I might have worked it better because she did save me from a certain beating.

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

Stating the obvious, there was no easy way out of that question.

“You said it yourself.  You’re a Cossatino.  I want to believe you, and strangely, given history, I like you perhaps more than I should.”

“Good boys and bad girls, it’s usually the other way around.  I wanted to hurt him, believe me, and I meant it when I said we do stupid shit, but I’m trying to be better than that.  I want to be better than that.  It’s why I need to get away from this place.”

“Then why do you just go?  For that matter, why did you come back?”

“Unfinished business.”  She took my hand in hers.  “And I like being with you.  You have a way of making me feel like I can change.”

“You are different.”

“Am I though?  I don’t feel like it right now.”

“Well, I am grateful you came along.”

“Good to be a help for once.  What’s our next adventure going to be?”

“A picnic in the hills.  I want to look at a few caves.”

“The one where Ormiston reportedly went missing?  You seem to be on a very macabre Odyssey.  What did the newspaper archives turn up?”

“An interesting coincidence.  I’ll let you know when I’m free next.”

“I’ll be waiting.”  She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips, then leaned back to look me in the eyes.

What I wanted then couldn’t be put into words.

Thank God she blinked.

I kissed her on the cheek, shook my head slightly, and said quietly, ” You will be the death of me.”

“Maybe,” she said softly, ” but you will die a very happy man.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

I wandered back to my villa.

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

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

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

Who?

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

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

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

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

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

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

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

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

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

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

Silence, an eerie silence.

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

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

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

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

Or was I?

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

Still nothing.

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

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

Contract complete.

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

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

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

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

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

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

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

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

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

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

“Who employed you?”

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

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

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

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

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

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You need to go away now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I expected her to scream.  She didn’t.

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

“What happened here?”

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

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

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

“Do you have medical supplies?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Alisha?”

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

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

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

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

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

…

© Charles Heath 2018-2022