Who could imagine that one visit to the local hospital could fuel a medical nightmare?
Aside from the original suspicion I was having heart problems, doctors started lining up appointments for an endoscopy and colonoscopy, though I suspect these were for a different malady, and the main event, an angiogram.
I didn’t have heart problems though it was possible I had angina, the reason for the angiogram, but I did have acute kidney failure which was interesting, to say the least, and possibly attributed to ipBrufen, though it was impossible to say if the medication for psoriatic arthritis, a venomous little pill called methotrexate, was or was not a contributing factor.
But is was great to learn that my psioratic arthritis could lead to heart attack, and lung issues, a few problems my original arthritis consultant conveniently forgot to tell me about.
No sooner than I was released from the hospital after this first set of maladies, I was back three or four days later with hospital-acquired pneumonia, a devil of a problem that requires some very invasive searches for the type of bug so it could be treated properly.
It led to five days of antibiotics, a considerable inability to breathe without help from an oxygen mask, and several CT scans with and without dye to get a better look at the problem.
If only that was all that was wrong with me.
The CT scan showed up a lump or lesion on my right thyroid which led to further investigation, an ultrasound, a biopsy, and a visit to the surgeon to be told it had to come out.
But that’s not all. No, I didn’t get a set of steak knives for being one the first ten this week to be diagnosed with anything, I was told my PSA reading was twice the average for my age, a clear indication I might have prostate cancer.
Wow. Just to sort of news you need to hear before the weekend. Worse perhaps than a rainstorm when camping in a floorless tent. I had to now wait for the results of a new blood test.
Ok. I get it that things are bound to go wrong when you get older, but what I object to is everything going wrong at once.
Perhaps when we stop the aging process a lot of these issues will go away, but I fear not. The human body is surprisingly robust for quite a long time despite our attempts to test it to the limits of endurance.
It is advice too late for me to make sure my misspent youth is not wasted on being stupid or believing I’m indestructible. The plain truth is, we are not, and I didn’t get the memo.
Now, I guess, it is time to actually do everything, or as much as I can, before I start to deteriorating further and not be able to do anything. I have a few good years before arthritis sets in and makes life more difficult than it already is.
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 realises 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.
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 prioritising.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
A body and a whole bunch of questions.
A full minute passed, with only one car passing, the rest of the time there was a strange sort of silence.
The man on the ground didn’t move. Whoever shot him had shot to kill. I took the few steps to stand beside him and could see the hole and the bloodstain of the wound. Shot in the heart, instant death.
Usually, if it was a sniper, it was a head shot. Less chance of missing a vital organ and leaving the target alive.
Odd too that it was just before he told me where some ‘evidence’ was located. And who the hell was this Alfred Nobbin?
I heard a car turn into the alley and come towards me. Halfway, it stopped, the engine switched off, and the doors opened.
Two men. Maury, my handler, and Severin, the instructor. Neither was carrying a gun, so neither had shot him. That meant someone else was still in play.
I said, “I had him, but someone shot him.”
Stating the obvious, Maury’s expression told me.
“You’re not dead.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t a target.”
“Today. Did he say who he was?”
“No.”
No hesitation or they’ll think I’m lying, which I am. I was not sure why, but was it because I detected a note of sincerity in the target’s tone?
“Checked for identification yet?”
“Just about to.” I knelt down and went through his pockets. Nothing. I told Maury that.
“Pity.” He hadn’t moved from where he stopped. Severin had been looking back up the alley, no doubt looking for where the bullet came from.
Had he reached the same conclusion I had, a balcony on the third floor of the left-hand building? The shooter would be long gone by now.
A white van pulled into the lane and pulled up behind Maury’s car. The cleaners.
It raided questions. How did Maury know we’d be here, and that the target would be shot dead? Or had he assumed I’d all but kill him in revenge for what had happened to the others.
What had happened to the others?
“The rest of the team,” I asked.
“Two dead, one critical. One safe. Let’s go. We need to have a debriefing.”
I took a last look at the body, the joined Maury and Severin in the car. I had questions of my own.
“A bad day’s work,” Severin muttered, as he drove off.
“But conclusive proof we have a traitor, the last thing we need right now.”
I was surprised they were discussing high-level matters that I considered above my pay grade. And, I had to say, it worried me.
Williams’ Restaurant, East 65th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.
We met the Blaines at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaines frequently visited and had recommended.
Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’. It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.
It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over. It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.
Aside from the half-frown, half-smile, Alison was looking stunning. It had been months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th anniversary that cost a month’s salary. On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to. She had adored it and me, for a week or so after.
For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.
She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars get on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds of silence, and many more gasps.
I even had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room. Once more, I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me. Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others out there who were more appealing.
Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight. She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.
More than once, I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”
Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together. It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement. Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.
The battle lines were drawn.
Jimmy was looking fashionable, with a permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and a designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it. Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.
The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out, she had straightened it. And took the moment to look deeply into my soul. It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.
Then it was gone.
I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me. A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.
When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.” It was not a question, but a statement.
I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’, but I accepted it with good grace. Sometimes, Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand. I guessed she was talking about the new job. “It was supposed to be a secret.”
She smiled widely. “There are no secrets between Al and me, are there, Al?”
I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.
I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al. I tried it once and was admonished. But it was interesting that her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not. It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.
Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil. As I understood it, the Blaines were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in. I didn’t ask if the Blaines thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.
And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realised I was looking at both of them. I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand. And yet, apparently, Alison did. I must have missed the memo.
“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”
No secrets. Her look conveyed something else entirely.
The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us. It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me. We were going to need it.
Then, a toast.
To a new job and a new life.
“When did you decide?” Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.
Alison had a strange expression on her face. It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind. Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.
Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realised it would be churlish, even silly, if I made a scene. I knew what I wanted to say. I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine or upsetting Alison. This was not the time or the place. Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.
Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing. If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decided there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control. “It’s the little things. They all add up until one day …” I shrugged. “I guess that one day was today.”
I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real? Or, I told you he’d come around.
I had no idea the two were so close.
“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me. I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points. It was all I could come up with at short notice.
“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted. “Alison was off to get some studying in with one of her friends.”
“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up and immediately got the ‘shut up, you fool’ look that cut that line of conversation dead. Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.
It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose. Care to join me, Al?”
A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend. “Yes.”
I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation. I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.
I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.
There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show. I was quite literally gob-smacked.
I drained my champagne glass, gathering some courage and turned to him. “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up. You know Alison is doing her law degree.”
He looked startled when he realised I had spoken. He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed. Or perhaps it was deliberate. She’d definitely had some enhancements done.
He dragged his eyes back to me. “Yes. Elaine said something or other about it. But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week. Perhaps I got it wrong. I usually do.”
“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.” I shrugged as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again. “This week or next, what does it matter?”
Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart. It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; she might have been telling me lies. If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?
We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”
“Trouble, I suspect. Definitely more money, but less time at home.”
“Oh,” raised eyebrows. Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details. “You sure you want to do that?”
At last, the voice of reason. “Me? No.”
“Yet you accepted the job.”
I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him. Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him. “Jimmy, between you and me, I haven’t as yet decided one way or another. To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”
“Barclay?”
“My boss.”
“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay who recently moved into the tower a block down from us. I thought I recognised the name.”
“How did Elaine get the job?”
“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”
“When?”
“A couple of months ago. Why?”
I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker. I felt sick, faint, and wanted to die all at the same moment. “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time. Too busy with work, I expect. I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”
I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted, and I knew I had to keep it together. I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down. I sucked in some deep breaths and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.
And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown. Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”
Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth. It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction. It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.
When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and me. I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, but it didn’t matter. If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact that I took over the dining engagement did. She knew well enough that the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket. She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.
But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points. Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine. She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.
Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly. I chose to ignore her and pretend nothing had happened, rather than tell her how much I was enjoying the evening.
She had her ‘secrets’. I had mine.
At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent-up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me. It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, that Jimmy came looking for me. I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse. When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was, but neither made any comment.
It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which, to a large degree, it was for the other three. But I had achieved what I set out to do: to play them at their own game, watching the deception once I knew there was one, as warily as a cat watches its prey.
I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree. It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.
We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaines back to the Upper West Side. But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer. She showed concern for my health and asked me what was wrong. It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.
She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it. Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.
And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.
It left me confused and lost.
I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.
And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.
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.
…
Back to the newspaper office
…
I went around to Boggs’s house on the chance that he might have come home, just as his mother was heading off to her night job. I raised the possibility that something might have happened to him but she didn’t agree, nor did she look all that concerned.
The fact he had experience in cave exploration and used to camping out with his father and later uncle Rico and had told he might not be back for a few days was not cause for concern, and we left it at that, telling her I would drop in again soon.
She didn’t seem to think that he might get into trouble considering the instability of some of the caves, nor the fact they have warning signs and or been boarded up to stop explorers concern her.
The possibility it could happen and had happened to others, bothered me, as was the fact he was starting to emulate his father with this obsession. If the story in the paper was anything to go by, at worst he could finish up just like his father, buried under a pile of rubble.
Did I believe that was where his father was?
I didn’t know what to think, because the waters were so muddied by people who were driven by self-interest.
There was so much more to this story, mostly driven by self-interest, revenge perhaps, and, worse, greed. It was perhaps a symptom of everything that had gone wrong in not only this town but what was happening on a much larger scale to the whole country. But, that was someone else’s problem. My concern was here, now, and saving Biggs from following the same destructive path his father had
And, to do that, I needed to know more. That meant, first thing the next morning, a trip to the newspaper office.
When I returned to the newspaper office Lenny was in his usual seat with a paper in hand, reading. Keeping up with the competition, he said, though the difference in circulation was counted in millions.
There was a woman behind the other desk.
“Staff journalist,” he said when he saw me looking at her. “And family. My wife, Jennifer.”
I’d not seen her before, and she didn’t come from here, or I would have recognized her.
She smiled, and there was something in that expression that struck me as familiar.
“Are you related to the Ormistons?”
It was a vague resemblance, after seeing so many pictures of the Ormistons, that everyone looked like them.
“It’s a name I don’t use anymore,” she said, “for obvious reasons. My grandfather stirred a lot of resentment.”
“And,” Lenny added, “it’s between us and these four walls, Sam.”
I nodded. I could understand the sentiment. And it explained Lenny’s depth of knowledge.
“Just to be clear, your grandfather didn’t find the treasure?”
She sighed.
Lenny said, sharply, “Sam!”
I shrugged. “Sorry. I had to ask.”
“No, he did not, and believe me, that’s a sore point with everyone whose lives he destroyed.”
“I can imagine. Does anyone know what happened to him, the real story?”
“There is no real story Sam. I tried to discover the truth and failed. For Jennifer’s peace of mind. We may never know what happened to him.”
“But surely you don’t believe he died in a cave somewhere?”
“It’s the most plausible.”
“And what about Boggs’s father?”
“He was a fool,” Jennifer said. “From what I remember of him, he was always insistent that the treasure was in a cavern up in the hills, accessible only by an underground river that flowed down to the sea. He originally thought it was the one the mall was built over, except every cave had a dead end.”
“Before or after the mall was built?”
“My father explored the cave system, with my grandfather, extensively, before the mall was built. There was no underground river.”
“How did the mall get destroyed in a flood then?”
“That was the Benderby’s cost-cutting the foundations. The flooding was man-made, not an act of nature like they said it was. That was just so they could claim the insurance. No one could really tell the difference, and the specialist the got to sign off on it lied. The same guy that turned up dead on Rico’s boat, by the way.”
“The Benderby’s cleaning up another mess, but their way.” Jennifer sounded, and probably had every right to be, resentful.
“Then there still could be an underground river somewhere along the coast?”
“If there is, I haven’t found it, and neither has Alex and that fancy boat of his. It’s another dead end, and like as not, another nail in the coffin of what was a fairy tale, to begin with. There was no treasure, just a fable invented by the Cossatinos.”
“Even so, it’s part of the folklore of this county and will have a place in the history I’m writing. I noticed over the years the treasure had a prominent place in the paper.”
“My father, and his before him thought it would be good for the town. You know, bring in tourists. It was my father’s idea to print treasure maps, and then the Cossatino’s embellished it but producing what they called ‘the real map’ each a slight variation on the other, commanding a special fee, and swearing the purchases to a promise of silence, and adding to the authenticity, demanding a 19 percent share of whatever they found. People lapped it up and my father said they’d made a fortune out of it. Boggs’s father hand-made the copies, and used that money to fund his own explorations. Everyone made money out of it, one way or another except Ormiston.”
A bitter irony if there was ever one. There was more money in the illusion of treasure than the actual treasure itself.
“And the so-called real map that Boggs reputedly found in the pirate’s hideaway?”
“No one ever saw it, except that one time it was authenticated age-wise, so no one ever got to see it. Boggs made sure of that, and never let it out of his sight. Now we’ll never know. I’m sure Boggs junior doesn’t have it, but with him, he’s as daft as his father was.”
“He had a lot of his father’s stuff he found in a box in the attic recently. I’ve seen some of it, but not an authentic map, so maybe your right.”
“Of course I am. When you have an idea of what this history of yours is going to look like, let me know. And I’ll publish it in parts if you want, maybe pass it on to the dailies. It might be worth something.”
“Thanks. I will. But more study first, you have the history of the place in that back room, maybe you should write something yourself. Being the journalist.”
“Too busy with births deaths and marriages, Sam, and the antics of the Benderby’s and Cossatino’s. You know that Benderby is demolishing the mall and putting a marina in its place? Talk of building a hotel, boosting tourism. Talking of running for mayor, you know, the first stop on the way to the presidency?”
“A crook for a mayor?”
“Wouldn’t be the first, won’t be the last. But one thing is for sure, that kind of news sells papers.”
It did, but I had a feeling the Benderby’s were all about creating a distraction, and something else was going on at that mall site.
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect them.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half-brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
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 prioritising.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Did he just witness an execution?
…
I could see the cogs in his mind turning over. Calculating what it would take to get past me.
Running would only help me.
Walking, well, he wasn’t going to get far.
A fight? He might be more experienced, but I was angrier, now controlled anger aided by rational thinking. There would be no blindly lashing out.
Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Self-defence.
We were ten yards apart when he stopped, moving to one side near the wall. I’d seen him looking for a weapon, but luckily none were on offer. Someone kept this laneway very clean.
A car had been parked at the end, and I’d seen him try the doors. Locked. It would not be available for his escape.
He glared at me. “You’re Jackson, right?”
A brief moment of shock. How did he know my name?
“Who I am is irrelevant.”
“So you say. But I can assure you this is all wrong.”
Rule number seventy, or something like that, the target will say anything to get you offside.
“You harmed my friends.”
“Then, you’re in big trouble if you regard them as friends. In this business, we don’t have friends.”
He was right in one respect. Having friends gave our enemies leverage. But without friends, the loneliness of the job could break you.
But, right then I wasn’t interested in his opinion.
When I didn’t answer he said, “This is a setup. I’m not the enemy; I’m one of you. I made a mistake, and now they’ve set the dogs on me.”
I didn’t ask why we were following him, that was above my pay grade, added to the fact I didn’t want to know. Knowing the perfidy of the target could compromise how I treated him.
“You’re the target, why I don’t care.”
“Look, I haven’t got much time. Find a man called Alfred Nobbin. I work for him. I found something I shouldn’t, which is why you are here, now. Tell him the evidence is ….”
I didn’t hear the bullet that killed him, but it came from behind me, hit him in the chest, its force sending him backwards, and he was dead before he hit the ground.”
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
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.”
Would you give up everything to be with the one you love?
…
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, a place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledgedthat something had happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive, she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realises is the love of his life.
The cover, at the moment, looks like this:
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry, the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end, both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
