Category: Mystery

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 25

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

In all of the goings-on, with Zoe chasing down old acquaintances in Bucharest, then moving on to Yuri, then Olga, we forget that Isobel and Rupert are on her trail, with Sebastian in tow.

It’s not so much Sebastian in charge anymore, not after going rogue and shooting his boss and John’s mother, an act that Rupert witnesses after following Sebastian on the hunch that he was up to something.

Rupert realizes that Worthington still presents a major problem, and on the basis that Worthington is going to realize it’s not Zoe shooting at him, Worthington has to be taken off the chessboard.

Unfortunately, he has to enlist Sebastian to get a crew together to kidnap him and take him to a safe house.

Meanwhile, Isobel, with a computer in hand, takes up vigil at the hospital with John’s mother, pretending she is her daughter.  There she tracks Zoe via her cell phone to an address in Zurich.

Then, miraculously John’s cell phone reappears and is active long enough for her to get a location, and see that a 96-second phone call is made to a phone in Zurich, Zoe’s.

Then it disappears again.

Isobel then calls Zoe and gives her the address.  It’s a short call.

Calls to Sebastian and Rupert mobilize them, and everyone is on their way to John’s location.

…

A to Z Blog Challenge – April 2024 – Theme Reveal

As I was last year, I’m hard at work getting 26 stories done

And I have to ask myself, why?

It is a great deal of work to write 26 stories of about 2,000 words in 30 days, but I have managed to do it for the last two years.

It takes a lot of people a month, sometimes, to write just 2,000 words.

Others will tell you they get 500 to 2,000 words down every day, but sometimes the quality or the relevance is sometimes questionable.

Over the last two years, I’ve been rather slack, and the desire to sit down and write has taken a back seat. On the whole, I’ve been feeling rather lazy and would rather find something else to do.

However, the last three months have seen an attitude readjustment, and I’m writing again more than one book at a time, and a series of episodic stories.

It seems my mind functions better when it has to juggle a lot of different stories.

So, look out, sometimes a character from one will turn up in another.

A bit like where FBI, FBI Most Wanted, and FBI International use the same characters across the three series, something I think is called a ‘crossover’.

So, expect to see a story every day but Sunday.

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 82

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some years ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

This is Chester.

It’s been a long summer, and it’s not only the heat that’s been bothering him.

It’s been school holidays, and along with many households where it’s not possible for parents to go on holidays, it falls to the grand parents to mind children. It’s a job I take seriously, and also a time to be spent with them before they grow up and disappear into the adult world.

Chester, however, only sees it from a cat’s point of view. To him, they’re trouble, but perhaps not without reason. They did torment him something terrible when they were young.

Of course, what he fails to realise is that children when young don’t quite understand animal etiquette, that is they should be treated with care.

But, I said in their defence, when you were a kitten you were an absolute monster, sinking your claws into everything, ruined lounge chairs and curtains, unravelled balls of wool, and, this was the cruncher, refused to chase mice.

Of course, as usual, when the arguement goes against him, those eyes close, and he pretends he’s asleep. It doesn’t fool me. But once that happens, no one scores any points.

And something else I’ve noticed, his memory is fading.

Of course, I didn’t tell him that they don’t officially go back till Wednesday, so he’s in for a surprise tomorrow morning.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 31

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.

Chasing leads, maybe

 

Was it too late to admit that I was way in over my head?

Of course, it should not come as a surprise that Jan would know of his alter ego if she was the friend she said she was.  Her name was on that scrap of paper with part of the address, and I should have guessed.

Again, my lack of knowledge and training was letting me down.

Now it seemed I had both Severin and Maury, Nobbin and Josephine, and Jan all working against me.

He had more enemies that I did, which begged the question, what the hell was he in to?  What could he possibly have found that was so damaging?

Perhaps I’d find that out if or when I found the missing USB drive.

In the meantime, I had to get back to the hotel before Jan did and try and keep a straight face.

But just as I started to put the seat belt on, another figure was walking from the road towards the front door.  A man, tall, with a purposeful stride.  

The light was still on so I would get to see who it was once he reached the door.  Then I saw the front door open, and Jan standing in it.  A second later I saw the face, just as he passed through the doorway and the door shut.

Severin.

She had lied.  So, why was it making me so angry?

I should have realized the whole Maury thing was a setup.  She hadn’t called her office, she had called Severin, and he can’t have been far away to get there in the time he had.

So, why didn’t he drag me off?

Easy.  So I would see the need to keep working with Jan, and in doing so, when I found the USB I’d tell her, and the next minute I’d get whacked over the head, and lose it.

Damn.

I was being played like a finely tuned fiddle.

But at least I knew about the car and had removed any evidence and the letters that were left on the ground inside the door.  It was something, and she would not find anything to help her, even if she knew he had a car.  It meant I was one step ahead of her.

After thanking a last look at the block, I left.  Better to find somewhere else to stay, just for tonight, and then go back to the hotel in Charing Cross and see if she returned.

I found a small hotel just off Bromley Road, a short distance down Avondale Road.  Out of the way and unassuming, with car parking that couldn’t be seen from the main road.  The late hour raised an eyebrow, but I used the excuse of getting in late from the airport.  After all, it was 02:30 in the morning and I was surprised there was anyone available on the front counter.

He gave me a room tucked away in a corner where there was only one entrance, and I could see anyone coming.  I wasn’t expecting anything, but just in case I had checked the car for a tracker.

None that I could find.

I needed sleep, but lying there staring at the ceiling, I replayed the arrival of Jan at the flat, followed by Severin.  It was a reminder that I should not believe or trust anyone.

It reminded me of the words of one of the instructors who said, one morning, quite abruptly, that we were about to become the loneliest people in the world.  If we trusted anyone, even if they were from our own side, it could mean one thing and one thing only.  Death.

We could not and should not trust anyone.

We should not believe a word of anything anyone tells us.

We should not recruit anyone from outside the service because unless they could be fully vetted, they could be your undoing.

We could not have friends, and certainly no romantic interests otherwise they would be used as leverage against us.

It was the worse hour lecture we’d been given, and the instructor had told us he had left the best till last.  It was time to decide whether we wanted to go on or bail.  Several had.

I didn’t think, then, it would be a problem.

Now, I was beginning to think otherwise.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 26

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

I’m going over the conversation Olga is having with John now that he is her prisoner.

On the first run through it seemed to make sense, but as we all know, when you read the conversation out loud, often it sounds terrible.

A question of, “Would I say that?”

Whilst snatching John off the street was a rather simple task, made easier by the fact he was not expecting it, Olga is not sure whether it is a big act.

Working with Irina has made her wary of everyone and everything, even more so since Irina had left her charge, but she knows just how much Irina evolved into the Zoe her son tried to keep on a leash, with spectacularly awful results.

Had she been training John to be like her?

Has Sebastian been training John to become a spy, or was he one already?  After all, why is someone like John, if he is that reputed computer nerd type, doing with a girl like Irina.

Her preference would have to be someone strong, authoritative, and masculine, like Alistair.  The problem was she hadn’t driven out all of the emotions in the time she spent with her.

So, sitting opposite each other, John and Olga try to do their individual assessments.

She finally admits that she doesn’t want to kill Irina, just rehabilitate her.

John, of course, is horrified at the thought of them brainwashing her, especially if they send her after him again.

It comes down to a single point.  Will he do as she asks, and invite her to come and get him?

Neither of them realizes Irina already knows where they are, and any plans Olga might have will be useless.

…

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – “The One That Got Away” – Day 1

Paranoia is my friend.

Take all the paper out of the file, throw it up in the air, wait until it all lands on the floor, and then take the first piece of paper nearest to you to start.

Perhaps fate is being kind to me because the sheet had the word paranoia on it.

To begin the story, we need to paint a picture of a successful woman running a charitable offshoot that manages the money her inheritance had bequeathed to be used for charitable purposes.

Why not just hand it over to a proper charity and let them do the dirty work?

She did once and found most of it went to administration and very little landed in the hands of those who needed it.

There’s no problem with that except …

Her father thinks there are better things to do, and she has spent considerable time and effort to dissuade her from doing so.

Perhaps his ultimate motive is to get a hold of her money because his own investments are not exactly faring well with the changes he made years before and he does have a wealthy lifestyle and image to keep up.

Then there’s the problem with the mysterious illness she had contracted, making it difficult to work, and necessitates the employment of a new head to administer the charity while she finds out why she’s ill and then recovering.

Her mistake is trusting her father to find the right man.

Then there’s her children, twins, and trouble with a capital T.

The real problem I’d of course that the illness manifests itself in unpredictable ways making her behaviour erratic, her moments of lucidly shorter and her stays in care longer, and her paranoia that someone is trying to kill her slowly taking over.

Who can she trust?

Her lawyer friend, or is he?

Her best friend, who seems above boats?

Her father, who is more interested in his own life than hers?

The new manager has his own agenda and a lot of money to play with.

Her children hate her because she abandoned them to boarding schools.

The doctors keep telling her they can’t find anything wrong.

Or the private detective she had hired to deep dive into all her so-called friends’ lives and find someone who could tell her what was wrong with her.

Oh, and lastly, find her ex-husband Michael, the only man she ever really loved, and whom she now realises she pushed away.

That first chapter of setting the scene has just become five or six.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

Searching for locations: Queenstown, New Zealand, from the top of a mountain

You take the gondola up to the Skyline and get some of the most amazing views.

Below is a photo of The Remarkables, one of several ski resorts near Queenstown.

You can see the winding road going up the mountainside.  We have made this trip several times and it is particularly frightening in winter when chains are required.

theremarkables3

In the other direction, heading towards Kingston, the views of the mountains and the lake are equally as magnificent.

theviewfromthegondolaquwwnstown

Or manage to capture a photo of the Earnslaw making its way across the lake towards Walter Peak Farm.  It seems almost like a miniature toy.

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It didn’t work.

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

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

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

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

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Zoe.”

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

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

“I might throw myself overboard?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I saw it coming.”

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

OK, that was unexpected.

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

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

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

It just started to rain.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

newdevilcvr6

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 26

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

I’m going over the conversation Olga is having with John now that he is her prisoner.

On the first run through it seemed to make sense, but as we all know, when you read the conversation out loud, often it sounds terrible.

A question of, “Would I say that?”

Whilst snatching John off the street was a rather simple task, made easier by the fact he was not expecting it, Olga is not sure whether it is a big act.

Working with Irina has made her wary of everyone and everything, even more so since Irina had left her charge, but she knows just how much Irina evolved into the Zoe her son tried to keep on a leash, with spectacularly awful results.

Had she been training John to be like her?

Has Sebastian been training John to become a spy, or was he one already?  After all, why is someone like John, if he is that reputed computer nerd type, doing with a girl like Irina.

Her preference would have to be someone strong, authoritative, and masculine, like Alistair.  The problem was she hadn’t driven out all of the emotions in the time she spent with her.

So, sitting opposite each other, John and Olga try to do their individual assessments.

She finally admits that she doesn’t want to kill Irina, just rehabilitate her.

John, of course, is horrified at the thought of them brainwashing her, especially if they send her after him again.

It comes down to a single point.  Will he do as she asks, and invite her to come and get him?

Neither of them realizes Irina already knows where they are, and any plans Olga might have will be useless.

…