‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself, as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters, Harry and Alison, other issues are driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.

Between observation, the less-than-honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, and she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, is that nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 83

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 instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

Alex is a problem

…

My mother didn’t return after the sheriff and Charlene left, and it didn’t bother me as much as it should.

What did bother me was the extent Alex, and no doubt his new best friend Vince, had muddied the water, but they did have a week to get their stories straight.

A point taken out of the interview with Charlene: any evidence of Boggs father or Ormiston had been removed, along with the pirate skeletons and anything also that could be identified.

No one would believe us if we said we saw them, we would be classed as delusional, and probably not without reason.

Another point, we had not been tied up when we were recovered, and there were no noticeable marks, or at least couldn’t be explained away. It was obvious they had come back, not only to cleanse the site but to make our deaths look more natural.

The last, for that moment, was the fact no one went looking for us after Alex said we had run away together.

The question that had to be asked, was what eventually prompted the police to start looking for us, and why was it in the cave system? I had not exactly alluded to where it was.

I heard the door to my room open and shut and rolled over, expecting a nurse.

It was Charlene, alone this time, leaning against the door.

“What are you not telling me?”

“What else is there to say? Apparently, Alex knows more about my situation than I do, so you have to ask yourself, how that’s possible.”

“You tell me.”

“So you can take anything I say to the Benderby’s so they can use it against me? I’m not surprised the Benderby’s have got you doing their dirty work for them. After all, your father is up for re-election, and needs their support to stay in office.”

A furrowed brow and dark look told me I was on dangerous ground. Implying the sheriff was in Benderby’s pocket wasn’t the best idea, even if it was rumoured to be true.

“What exactly are you implying?”

Brittle tone, time to back down. “Nothing. You managed to get a good result from a bad situation, except for poor Boggs. What happened to him?”

“Slipped and fell, the medical examiner believes. No signs of foul play if that’s what you’re asking?”

“Where?”

“On the rocks at the foot of the cliff leading up to the ledge and cave entrance, in full climbing gear. Had we not found him there, we would not have found you. We assumed since he didn’t find the treasure, he left, leaving you two behind.”

It fitted the story, no doubt seeded by Alex. And reasonably true, to a certain extent. He had left us, but not out of pique.

“You could say he was disappointed.”

“What happened, because I don’t understand why you didn’t leave at the same time.”

“Boggs was there for the treasure. We wanted to do more exploring, but ended up getting lost.”

It was a logical explanation and would fit her narrative. I didn’t see the point of throwing any curve balls.

I could see her processing.

“You mustn’t think very much of me Sam.”

“Whatever gives you that idea?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard one word of truth from you so far. I know something happened in that cave, and you were not the only people involved. Alex can’t lie to save himself, and Vince Cossatino, well, stark staring bonkers doesn’t begin to describe him. They’re mixed up in this somehow, and I can’t do anything about it unless you tell me the truth.”

“An old newspaper adage I once heard sums up what I think appropriately describes this situation you find yourself in. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. You can draw any picture you want, but we both know the person with the best lawyers will win the day, irrespective of what you think happened or what actually happened. It might be a different story if you found us dead, but you didn’t.”

“There’s Boggs. He didn’t make it, and I’m not convinced he fell to his death. I found a climbing expert to review the gear, the site, and the body. Boggs was left-handed wasn’t he?”

Perhaps I might have misjudged her, and her tenacity in investigating. But, there was a problem. “Ambidextrous when climbing, right-handed when playing most sports. The guy was an enigma at times, and a bit of a daredevil.”

“Still…”

“You’re going to need more than that before casting aspersions that will destroy his mother if she’s not already there.”

“I don’t get it, Sam. Why won’t you help me?”

“No point. We both know who runs this town, and always has. You were at school the same as I was, and Alex was always untouchable. You don’t want to make an enemy of him. I did and look where it got me.”

“I have a job…”

“The wrong job, or maybe the wrong place. There’s a reason why your father is not pushing this. Alex will get what he deserves, perhaps sooner rather than later.”

“You think the Cossatino’s will exact their own justice? That’s not going to happen. At the moment the Cossatino’s and the Benderby’s are like peas in a pod.”

That was disconcerting news, and I wondered how Nadia had taken that.

“How is Nadia, by the way?”

“She’s apparently taken a vow of silence. I suspect the first visit from her father was to warn her against making any accusations. She hasn’t told us anything, except how you convinced her that she would be rescued. It must have been terrible.”

Worse. Not knowing if anyone would come, and as time passed, that feeling this was your time to die. I had gotten to the point where I regretted wasting all those years after leaving school and doing nothing. The fact my mother needed me had made that decision all too easy, but now I realized, she hadn’t needed me, that she was contented with her two suitors and remaining just out of reach, playing them against each other.

A commotion outside the door took my mind away from those thoughts, and seconds later Alex came into the room.

“You shouldn’t be here, Alex,” Charlene said, standing between him and me.

“You don’t know your place, Charlene, and that’s not here. Go play detective somewhere else.”

“You want to be careful Alex.”

“Or what? You’ll get your father to sort me out?” He laughed. “So naive and stupid. We own him, and he’ll do what he’s told. As will you. Now, get out before I throw you out.”

I watched her consider how she was going to respond, even to the point of telling him off, but there was that hesitation, confirmation of what I’d just told her, which was far worse than I suspected. Then, a shake of the head, and, “I’ll be just outside, you do anything, I’ll be a witness “

Brave, but pointless. He shoved her out, and closed the blind, and the door.

“So Smidge, you’ve been spreading lies.”

“Have I ? What lies, specifically?”

“Your mother came around and told my father Vince and I tied you up and left you for dead “

“Rather accurate, don’t you think?”

“Lies, Smidge. The result of our differences perhaps, but whatever the reason, don’t repeat them again. Not if you want a ton of bricks to rain down on you, literally.”

So my mother had gone straight to Benderby. No surprise there, but was it because she cared, or was she reporting my comments?

“I wouldn’t be worried about me, Alex. You have bigger problems to deal with.”

“Oh? I don’t think so, if you’re referring to Nadia. We have a deal with the Cossatinos. If she says anything, they’ll deal with her.”

“In all the time you dated her, Alex, did she show you her true colours?”

“She’s just a stupid girl like all the rest. What are you talking about?”

There was no hint of concern, and that might just be his Achilles heel. If I could just sow a few seeds of doubt in his mind…

“I’d run Alex. As far and as fast as you can.”

The door crashed open and the Sheriff came in, red-faced and very angry.

“Get out Alex.”

“Do you need to be reminded who you are talking to?”

The sheriff apparently didn’t, and with one punch propelled Alex across the room and into the wall, before he crashed to the ground. He wisely stayed on the floor, as the sheriff was standing over him, ready for round two.

“My father will hear about this,” he said, pulling out his phone.

“He will. I have two witnesses who will testify you threw the first punch and were resisting a direct order to leave. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay put and shut your mouth.”

Alex did.

He turned to me. “Where’s Nadia?”

“Last I heard she was in a hospital bed.”

“She left “

“You talk to her parents?” Alex joined the conversation. Perhaps he was hoping that was the case. I didn’t think it was.

“They’re surprised. We have CCTV footage of her leaving, alone. I ask again, Sam, where is she?”

“What makes you think I would know where she is.”

“You were alone with her in that cave, in a near-death situation. People tend to confide their deepest innermost secrets at such a time.”

“Not with me. The girl is as much an enigma to me as she is to everyone else. But one thing she did say, she’s nothing like her parents, so much so, she reckoned they adopted her.”

“Not helping Sam.”

I looked over at Alex. “You should ask the sheriff to put you in protective custody, Alex.”

He snorted in disbelief, obviously remembering what I’d said earlier.

The sheriff picked up on it. “Why would you say that?”

“Sometimes it’s what is not said that is most telling.”

“Then you’re saying that Alex and Vince had something to do with you being left in that cave because for the life of me, I can’t understand why you didn’t just walk out of there. I don’t believe for one minute you got lost, Sam. Not you. I know you.”

He might, but Alex was still in the room and it was still unfounded allegations. But there was a slight look of panic on his face.

“Well, believe it or not, that’s what happened. I would appreciate it if you took Alex away, and stopped him from harassing me. As for Nadia, if she has any sense, she should go back to Italy. For what it’s worth, she won’t go back to the Grove, which isn’t home to her, but she might go back to her hotel room.”

I told him which hotel and the room number and told him to leave and take Alex with him. I suggested protective custody, just in case, but neither seemed to think he would need it, which left me with a curious notion, did the sheriff want Nadia to take care of a problem he couldn’t.

…

The 2am Rant: The colour purple

You would think, being one of a dozen colours that pip onto your head when asked, name a dozen colours, that it would be easy to find almost anything.

Wrong.

We are on a quest to find bridesmaid dresses in, you guessed it, any shade of purple.

We might as well be looking for gold nuggets. In fact, we’d have a better chance of finding gold than a purple dress.

And, seven stores later, five of which are specialty fashion boutiques, sorry, no one is doing purple. Maybe a dash here or there, but it’s lost in the overall dress that may have flowers or a Picasso abstract.

OK, so the dresses are for a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old, you would think you could go to a Target, or K Mart, or Cotton On, or perhaps the Guess type of store that caters to that 13 to 25 market.

Think again.

Purple, mauve, lilac, or any shade in between just isn’t on the rack.

I suddenly consider the notion of phoning a supermodel and then convincing her to wear every shade of purple every waking hour in public, thus setting a new trend.

I’m betting that within a week, every store on the planet will have purple clothes in stock.

Of course, there is only one flaw in the master plan. I don’t know any supermodels.

So, this search is going to have a bad ending. I’m guessing the bride’s decision for purple and white as the signature color scheme was made before discovering that practically nothing comes in purple.

No the way, it was originally lilac, but that is impossible, not unless there are about 3 years before the wedding and you can get to Hong Kong to have the dresses specially made.

We’ve got about three weeks.

Yes, there’s another thing about this wedding. From announcement to the big day, is six weeks. Logistically, it can’t be done. Practically, there’s going to be a ward in the mental hospital for the wedding party, even if they pull it off.

Meanwhile, it’s back on the trail. There’s one more level to trawl, in what is a very large shopping mall.

And for the first day after the easing of many of the drastic Covid restrictions, it seems everyone for miles around has descended on this very place.

Sigh!

Then, majestically appearing through the mist…

No, not sunshine! A purple dress.

I am all astonishment. And, it’s not just one, there are several.

Hold that thought…

Alas, we find the dress, but not the colour, well, not in that store. Now it’s a matter of phoning other stores to see if they have any purple stock.

I’ll let you know what happens next!

What I learned about writing: Writers need to have many alter egos

I have often wondered just how much or how little of the author’s personality and experiences end up in a fictional character.

Have they climbed mountains,

Have they escaped from what is almost the inescapable,

Have they been shot, tortured, or worse,

Have they been dumped, or divorced,

Have they travelled to dangerous places, or got locked up in a foreign jail?

We research, read, and I guess experience some or all of the above on the way to getting the book written, but it’s perhaps an interesting fundamental question.

Who am I today? Or, more to the point, who do I want to be today?

Or it can be a question, out of left field, in an interview; “Who are you?”

My initial reaction was to say, “I’m a writer.” But that wasn’t the answer the interviewer is looking for.

Perhaps if she had asked, “Who are you when you’re writing your latest story?” it would make more sense.

Am I myself today?

Am I some fictional character an amalgam of a lot of other people?

Have I got someone definite in mind when I start writing the story?

The short answer might be, “I usually want to be someone other than what I am now. It’s fiction. I can be anyone or anything I want, provided, of course, I know the limitations of the character.”

“So,” she says, “what if you want to be a fireman?”

“I don’t want to be a fireman.”

“But if the story goes in the direction where you need a fireman…”

“What is this thing you have with firemen?” I’m shaking my head. How did we get off track?

“Just saying.”

“Then I’d have to research the role, but I’m not considering adding a fireman anytime soon.”

She sighs. “Your loss.”

Moving on.

And there is that other very interesting question; “Who would you like to be if you could be someone else?”

A writer in that period between the wars, perhaps like an F Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, in Paris, or if it is a fictional character, Jay Gatsby.

He’s just the sort of person who is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery.

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 the eye socket to the mouth, and he was wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologised 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 recognise 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 went 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 tyres.

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.

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 realised I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6^th 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 was 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 through the back door if there were one.

Just in case.

…

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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 discreet 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 we 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-foot fall 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 of where he had gone.

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.”

…

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

First Dig Two Graves

A sequel to “The Devil You Don’t”

…

Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right

Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.

It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.

…

John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence after being so indifferent for so long.

They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable and calls on an old friend for help in finding her.

After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.

But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.

What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 26

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Maury drops in for a search

I moved to the doorway and switched off the light, sending the room back into inky darkness. Not good for the eyes, going bright light to instant dark. We stood together behind the door as it opened inwards, Jan ready with her gun.

The door opened slowly, at the same time letting light in from the corridor, making it easier to see.

Opened fully, the visitor tentatively stepped into the room, and once the shape moved past the door, I slammed it shut and Jan lunged with the gun.

I was not sure what result she was expecting but the person fought back, and as they turned to wrench the gun out of her hand, I let loose a punch, aiming for the head, and as hard as I could. I head a cracking sound followed by a thump as the body hit the ground.

When I turned the light back on, there were two surprises. The first, that I’d managed to knock someone out, and the second, Maury was back for a second look.

Why?

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be unconscious for very long. Jan had some twine in her room, I wasn’t going to ask why, and she tied his hands and legs together, trussed almost like a turkey.

We left him on the floor when he’d fallen. Unconscious, he was too heavy to move, or lift.

“Is this man Severin, Maury or Nobbin?” she asked. She’d saved the questions until after he’d been neutralized, and we’d taken his gun off him. Also, a knife. She’d also look through his pockets to see if he carried any identification. He didn’t, and I wouldn’t expect to find anything. At the moment I was the same, and since I threw the phone’s sim card, I was now completely anonymous.

“Maury,” I said.

“The attack dog?”

“Not able to attack us at the moment, but yes. I wonder why he came back?”

“We should ask him,” she said, “when he wakes up.”

We were sitting in the chairs, turned around to face Maury lying on the ground. He had wriggled, and realizing he was tied up, tried harder to escape the bonds, and then relaxed when he realized he couldn’t.

His eyes turned to us, and it felt like a death stare.

“This is a mistake,” he said. “untie these ropes and I might make an exception for you.

“Why are you here?” I asked him.

“That’s none of your business.”

“But it is mine. This is my flat, and you’re trespassing,” Jan said.

He switched his death gaze to her.

“I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To ask you if your next-door neighbor left anything here with you to collect at a later date.”

No doubt with a menacing attitude, which would end in violence because Maury was not the sort to take no for an answer.

“Most people would knock on the door, and politely wait until it was answered.”

Most people.

“I was told there would be no one at home.”

“And it couldn’t wait until I returned? I’m sorry, but you have broken into my flat and I’m going to call the police.”

He looked at me.

“That’s not a good idea. Tell her, Jackson.”

“I don’t work for you, or Severin, anymore. In fact, when I went back into the office, I got dragged aside and interrogated. No one seems to know who you and Severin are.”

“That’s because our operation was on a need to know basis. How do you think our business works? Not by telling everyone what you’re doing. Now untie me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“No,” Jan said. “Not until you tell us exactly who you are and who you work for, and why you deemed it necessary to murder O’Connell.”

Maury looked at me again, and there was no mistaking the anger.

“You do understand what the Official Secrets Act means, don’t you Jackson?”

“More or less. But it depends on who it is you speak to whether that’s relevant or not.”

Back to Jan.

“Who are you, then?”

“As you keep pulling out of your hat, it’s on a need to know basis, and, of course, we just tell everyone what we’re doing either. But one thing I’m sure of, we do not go around killing agents. As far as I can tell, O’Connell was working for an agency, possibly yours but I don’t think so, and in the course of his investigation, he came across some valuable information. Information, I’m told, you want. What is it and why?”

“Are you serious?”

He shifted his glare back to me.

“Seriously Jackson, who is this person?”

“Someone, I fear, who is going to cause you a great deal of grief if you don’t answer her questions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have to tall you or anyone else the nature of my business.”

I saw her shake her head. “I take it, that’s a no.” She shrugged and pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “Always the hard way with you people.”

“Sir,” she said when the call was answered. “I’ve got a character named Maury tied up in my flat. Breaking and entering for starters. Yes, I’ll be here.”

She put the phone back in her bag. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

All we had to do was hope that Maury didn’t have a backup.

An excerpt from “Strangers We’ve Become” – Coming Soon

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 that 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 neighbour 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 in 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 moved 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 into 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 were 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, and where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door. If I were 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 the 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 neighbours, 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 were 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 realised 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 were 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.”

…

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 82

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.