Category: Mystery

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s final draft – Day 14

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

…

We’re still in Bratislava with Zoe making a few repairs, having been injured in the getaway from the hotel, where bullets were flying around indiscriminately.

In a nondescript hotel near a railway station, the favourite accommodation for assassins, maybe, there’s enough time for John to get the message Zoe is not happy with him bringing along a hit squad.

And, they’re on the news, that is to say, they know who it is that’s on the news, the blurry figures are too indistinct for anyone else to identify them. It was disconcerting to be called criminals fleeing the scene of a crime.

Back in London, Sebastian is about to have a set to with Worthington, who has decided Sebastian is too close and might compromise his black op, so he’s sending him to Paris.

It’s here we learn that Sebastian has both Isobel and Rupert locked up in the cells in the basement, awaiting interrogation, and Worthington orders him to send them home.

Of course, Sebastian is not going to do anything of the sort.

He knows they know where John is, and by implication, where Zoe is, and wants to know.

In the first edit, I suspect I will have to mention Sebastian ‘arresting’ Rupert and Isobel just to keep continuity, and no unfathomable surprises later on.

…

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s final draft – Day 14

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

…

We’re still in Bratislava with Zoe making a few repairs, having been injured in the getaway from the hotel, where bullets were flying around indiscriminately.

In a nondescript hotel near a railway station, the favourite accommodation for assassins, maybe, there’s enough time for John to get the message Zoe is not happy with him bringing along a hit squad.

And, they’re on the news, that is to say, they know who it is that’s on the news, the blurry figures are too indistinct for anyone else to identify them. It was disconcerting to be called criminals fleeing the scene of a crime.

Back in London, Sebastian is about to have a set to with Worthington, who has decided Sebastian is too close and might compromise his black op, so he’s sending him to Paris.

It’s here we learn that Sebastian has both Isobel and Rupert locked up in the cells in the basement, awaiting interrogation, and Worthington orders him to send them home.

Of course, Sebastian is not going to do anything of the sort.

He knows they know where John is, and by implication, where Zoe is, and wants to know.

In the first edit, I suspect I will have to mention Sebastian ‘arresting’ Rupert and Isobel just to keep continuity, and no unfathomable surprises later on.

…

‘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 there are other issues 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 he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

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, 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, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

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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

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 61

Evan and Juliet are a team

…

It didn’t take long to sort out what we were going to do next.  Alfie, Francesca, and Cecelia were going to look at the remaining properties and find out where the Countess and Mrs Rodby were being held.  Once found, surveillance until I’d done my part.

I didn’t have to tell Cecelia what to do if Francesca caused any problems, but Alfie muttered under his breath, which I took to mean he didn’t like the idea of being a nursemaid.

I had my own problems to deal with.

Juliet and I were going to see Dicostini.  I was not sure how I was going to approach him, but I was hoping the fake countess would be there.

Alfie was surprised that I would take Juliet with me given her history, and the trouble she had caused us in Venice, but I had to admit that a lot of the trouble she got into wasn’t necessarily her fault.

Larry had used her brother as leverage so she would do his bidding.

Vittoria concocted a story that I almost believed myself, so why wouldn’t she want to believe her father might have been a count and not a footman or gardener.

After consulting with the briefing team back in London, they had a set of targets to investigate and left.

While we had been discussing tactics Juliet had gone to have a shower, clean the wound on her head properly and change into clean clothes.  If she hadn’t been the person I knew, and it was for the first time, she would have warranted a second look.

Not that I was interested in having second looks at any woman, including Cecelia, because I had to get my mind back in the game.

“I was listening, you know,” she said after the others had gone.

She picked up the notepad computer with the file of Dicostini and read it.  After five minutes she looked over at me, and said, “This guy is a five-star loser you know.  And five-star losers, when desperate, are very unpredictable.”

“That’s your psychoanalysis of him, is it?”

“It was one of the fields I studied in med school.  And,” she sighed, “that feels like an eternity ago.  Life was so much simpler then, eighteen hours shifts, no sleep, get legless drunk, turn up the next day for more of the same.”

“No shagging in the storeroom?”

“You’ve been watching too many TV shows.  I was not the promiscuous sort, that was the purview of some nurses.  By and large despite the insanity, people behaved.

“No crush on another doctor?”

“Again, TV stereotype, Evan.  And despite what you might think, not with the patients either.  Especially not with the patients because you can’t get emotionally invested and still do your job.  You were an exception, but as you are aware, I broke it off quickly before it got too far.  I’m sorry, but it should not have started in the first place.”

“Was that the start of your spiral?”

“No.  That came later, when one of my patients died, and I was blamed for it.  It wasn’t me.  I got another doctor to cover, but she didn’t stay for the full shift.  Then she lied and got one of the other interns to back her story.  I got suspended, and then it all went to hell in a handbasket.”

“What happened to her?”

“She killed three others before they decided enough was enough.  The truth eventually came out, but they didn’t reinstate me, or offer an apology.  Bastards.”

I could see why anything other than the life she had been handed would be better, but it seemed it just didn’t get any better.

“You don’t have any other dirty secrets waiting to come out of the woodwork, do you?”

“Not today.”

I don’t know whether that was good or bad, whether she was joking or not.

I drove to the Dicostini farm and went back to the surveillance position that Cecelia had set up previously.  I’d brought the sniper rifle and high-powered binoculars.  I gave the binoculars to Juliet.  It would not surprise me if she knew how to use the rifle.

“What are we doing?”

“Watching and waiting.  I want to see if the fake countess is in there, and I suspect this might take a while.  I’d get settled in for a long session.”

“Is this one of those famed stakeouts?  Where are the snacks and coffee?”

“TV stereotype.  There’s water in the bag.”

We took turns to watch the residents, Dicostini, his wife, his children, farm hands, people helping out in the house, and visitors, but not fake countess.

“You think she might have gone to where they’re holding the real one?”  Juliet asked the question I’d been asking myself.

“It’s possible.  It’s also possible she won’t show herself in daylight.”

We both heard the rustling at the same time, and she shrunk back further into the undergrowth.  Someone was coming, whether they were looking for us, or just taking a short cut to the road, or simply patrolling just in case.  I was surprised no one came to check that spot Cecelia had taken.  It was one of two places that had a clear view of the house, without anyone in the house being able to see us.

I got us, and moved silently to a position behind two trees and waited.  If the knew about this spot then they would have to walk past me.

A minute later a man appeared, one I hadn’t seen before.

He was trying not to disturb the undergrowth and was moving stealthily.  On the edge of the cleared patch, he spotted the rifle, and said, to himself, “I thought I saw a flash.”

Just as he raised his radio, I hit him as hard as I could with the gun, and thankfully he went down and didn’t move.

I quickly got the tape for a gag and rope to tie him before he regained consciousness.  He was big and would be hard to tackle in a fair fight.  Juliet came out to see what was happening.

“Put some tape over his mouth, but not his nose.”

“After hitting that hard, why would you care?”

She ripped off a length of tape and put it over his mouth.

“I don’t.  I didn’t want to upset you, being a doctor and everything.”

“Do I look like a doctor?”

“You will be one for as long as you live Juliet, whether they let you practise or not.”

She glared at me.

“And get eyes back on that house.  It’s getting dark soon and we don’t want to miss her if she’s there.

I tied him to the tree so he couldn’t escape, and reapplied the gag so he couldn’t make much noise.  If he told anyone what he was doing, it wouldn’t be long before someone came looking for him.

…

© Charles Heath 2023

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 59

Aftermath of a kidnapping

…

“You knew what was going to happen?”

“Of course.  Did you think you were dealing with rank amateurs?”

“Maybe my boss did.  Who are you two really?”

“We’re the sort of people who kill people like you, then go down the pub and have a few pints and laugh about it.”  It was almost a treat to see Cecelia acting so cavalier.

I glanced up at her, and her expression told me this was just another role, she was playing the bitch from hell.  And so much more dripping venom than Anna would ever muster.

That statement, of course, delivered in the deadpan voice of a deranged killer had the desired effect.  Francesca was suitably frightened.

“It was not my idea.  I just do as I’m told.”

“That’s what the Germans said at the Nuremberg trials.  Didn’t save there for being shot or hug or whatever.  Can I shoot her now?”  I almost laughed at the sincerity.

Francesca looked at me.  “You only told me because you knew what I’d do?  I told you who we were working for?”

“Who your boss told you to tell me.  Now we’re going to find out the truth.  I hope he told you the truth because if he didn’t, he isn’t going to be your boss for much longer.”

“Finally,” Cecelia sighed.

I almost laughed.  She was playing the role too well.

Alfie’s voice returned.  “What were you expecting?”

“Another party stepping in the rescue the countess.”

“How…”

“She can’t afford to have Anna find out who she really is.  Not yet.  Not until it is fait accompli/”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“At the appropriate time, which is now.  Let it go for now.  I know who’s got her.  And I know where she will go though not the exact location yet.  We have more work to do.”

“Who are you talking to?” Francesca asked.

“I have a plethora of friends Francesca, a plethora of friends.”

What happened next was like watching a bad stage play unfold in an unexpected manner.

Vittoria decided to turn up after the party had ended.

Seeing the door half open she blundered in and ended up with Cecelia’s gun in the back of her head, the door closing, and Francesca slowly getting back up off the floor.

Cecelia told Vittoria to walk slowly into the room and not try anything.  Vittoria was smart.  She did as she was told.

Francesca did the same.  She knew she had to humour me.  Then her phone rang.

“That will be your boss.  Answer it on speaker.”

She pulled it out of her bag and did as she was told.

“Sir.”

“What the hell is going on?”

I decided to answer that question for her.  “I might ask the same of you.  Had you just simply come and asked me, we could have sorted this out together, but no, you had to do it your way.  Now you have nothing.”

“Neither have you.”

“No.  What happened was exactly what I wanted to happen.  It gave me three valuable pieces of information.  Now you get nothing.  Go back to Rome and leave the professionals to get this done.  I am keeping Francesca with me.  She is the one concession I’m granting you.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Then you will have to explain to her family how you got her killed because unless you agree, she will not leave this room alive.  Make up your mind.  My assistant has no patience and an itchy trigger finger.”

I counted to ten under my breath.  Francesca was getting more terrified by the minute.

“This is not acceptable, but I agree, only under extreme duress.  If anything happens to her, I will hold you personally responsible.”

“Agreed.  She will keep you posted.”

Francesca disconnected the call.

“It was a good job while it lasted,” she muttered.

“You’re a private detective and an art historian.  I’m not sure which day job you should not give up, but you can do better.  Now, enough retrospection.  We have work to do, and more feet on the ground.  Alfie, back to our hotel for a meeting.”

I heard him mutter, so I took that to mean he would be there soon.

In all the excitement I had forgotten about Juliet, and when I looked over to where she had been standing, near the countess before they took her, I saw her on the ground, just moving.

I went to her and knelt down to check on her head.

There was a bloody gash on the back of it, and it appeared one of the intruders had hit her.  Then I realised that I had seen her try to grab the countess back from one of the intruders and the other hit her with the butt of his gun.

She turned her head and looked at me with glassy eyes.  “What happened?”

“You tried to be brave, and as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.”

“And a lot of good that did.  She’s not here.”  That was the result of her quick search.

“Never take on impossible odds.  Bad for your health.  Stay there and I’ll get a wet cloth.  You’re going to have a bad headache for a while.”

Vittoria had taken in the scene, seen her daughter, and yet it was me who got to her first to help.  It only reinforced my assumption about her.  No one could be that callous towards their daughter.

“Where’s the countess?” she asked, finally realising she was not there.

“Masked gunmen took her away,” I said.  “I believe they were taking her to Anna Von Burkehardt.  That’s going to be some reunion, don’t you think?”

The look on her face was priceless.

© Charles Heath 2023

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s final draft – Day 13

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

…

Today we are in Bratislava in Slovakia.

John has found Zoe after playing a little cat and mouse in the streets near the hotel. Back at the hotel, they just get back to the room when a member of Worthington’s hit team arrives and comes off second best.

Of course, the rest are stationed at the obvious exits, and it takes some effort to get away.

Even that escape is fraught with danger, but with all the cunning she can muster Zoe makes sure they get back to Vienna.

With Worthington’s hit team hot on their train, a diversion in the main railway station helps aid their departure.

By now, two things are certain:

Worthington is behind the latest attempted hit, and they are both in the firing line, and

John had to decide whether or not he wanted a life always looking over his shoulder.

No prizes for guessing his choice!

…

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s final draft – Day 12

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

…

Today we are in Vienna, at the hotel where Zoe was staying trying to get information out of the hotel staff. This leads to a contact on a riverboat that goes from Vienna to Bratislava in Slovakia.

Yes, we’re off to Bratislava, chasing Zoe down.

In the background, we have the shadowy Worthington, pulling endless strings, gathering information on her whereabouts for John. He had deduced that if John can find her, she will pause long enough for Worthington’s hit team to get there.

John does not realize he has ulterior motives, but, then John doesn’t fully understand the spy business.

John also tasks his newfound private investigators to track her down, and Isobel doesn’t disappoint.

Then, a photo of her from Worthington arrives, she is discovered, and, as you can surmise, all hell breaks loose.

I’ve always wanted to go to Bratislava, ever since I saw it in a James Bond movie. That showed it had trams, and I’m one of those people who love trams, trains, buses, and anything that reeks of travel.

I would also like to hop a boat and travel up the river, perhaps from Vienna to Bratislava, or beyond.

One day.

…

‘The Devil You Don’t’ – A beta reader’s view

It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.

John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.

So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?

That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.

What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

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

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