Category: Mystery

“Possibilities” – a short story

How many choices could one person have?

Usually, from a very early age, you have some idea of what you intend to do with your life.

Those early choices of fireman, policeman, doctor, fighter pilot, slowly disappear from the list as the education requirements become clearer, and their degree of impossibility.

Then you have to factor in academic achievement or failure, hone situation, what blows life has dealt you, and your financial ability to fund any it all of your hopes and dreams, especially for that all-important university education, and even then, it has to be the right one.

Then there are the family aspirations where parents really want you to follow in their footsteps, as a doctor or a lawyer or in the military.

And if you get past all that, and everything has fallen into place, and you’re ready to head out on that highway of life, you should be fully imbibed with the knowledge and the drive to make everything happen.

…

Now I was lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling wondering at what point it all went wrong.

Right on the starting line where everything I had worked for was about to come to fruition, it had all come to an abrupt halt.

My memory got as far as driving home from a work party where we had been celebrating the company’s most recent success, and my progression to the next level of management, when a car failed to stop at a stop sign and T-boned me.

The car was a write-off. I was still not sure what happened to me, but I had heard someone say, in that murky twilight of pain medication, that if I was a horse, they would have to shoot me. It was the only thing I remembered between the car hitting mine and waking up in the hospital bed.

But that was not all the story, and I had plenty of time to mull over everything that had happened in that last week. There was a certain symmetry to it all, as if one event led to the next, and then the next, and it was the last straw, on the last day, that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

…

And here’s the thing.

I would not have been in that accident had I not taken the car. I wasn’t going to, I had intended to take the train to a friend’s place and stay there for a few days, what the boss had told me would be a well-earned rest.

Even then, I might have not taken the car, except for a cryptic text message I received from my sister, about needing to be ‘rescued’ from a bad date.

Nothing unusual for her, she was currently on a dating site binge, and after half a dozen bad experiences, I thought she had given up.

That was the thought that ran through my head as I watched her curled up in the chair next to the bed, half asleep.

Her first words, on arrival, and when she was allowed to see me, was to apologize, believing it had been her fault. She knew I hated driving in the city, so coming to get her, as I always did, had been preying on her mind, and I could see the tangible effects of it in the worried expression, and unkempt manner which was so totally unlike her.

“It was simply an accident, and could have happened to anyone,” I told her.

“You were going to Jeremy’s, I should have sorted my own problem out for once. IT’s not as if I couldn’t just call up an Uber, and now look what’s happened. I’m so sorry.”

She wouldn’t accept that it was not her fault, nor would she leave until she knew I would be OK. I didn’t understand what she meant by that because in the three discussions I had with the head doctor, I was going to make a full recovery.

He had used the work lucky more than once, and seemingly the sequence of events, and other factors like the car safety features, the angle the car had struck, and where, the fact the other driver had to dodge a pedestrian, all of it played a part.

Had they not, quite simply I would be dead.

My sister and her dating was only one aspect of how my life was being driven.

Another memory returned, from that week, that of another text message, from a girl I used to know back at University.

Erica.

She was what some might have called a free soul. She didn’t conform to what I would have called normal. Her clothes sense was somewhat odd, she always looked as though her hair needed combing, and she never had any money.

And, for a while, she lived with me, in a small, cramped room ideal for single University students on a budge, but not for two. Yet, for some strange reason, she never seemed to get in the way, or mind the closeness of our existence.

In that short period, she became my first real love, but she had said that while we were together, it was fine, but she was not seeking anything permanent. Nor, she said, did she believe in monogamy. Until she left, studies completed, I wanted to believe she would stay, but a last lingering kiss goodbye and she was gone.

Now, the message said, she wondered if I was still free, and like to meet. Of course, ten years of water had passed under that bridge, so I was not sure where it would go. I hadn’t replied, and the message was still sitting on my phone.

That invitation, however, had been n my mind moments before the crash, and I had to wonder, thinking of her, contributed to it.

Then, on top of all that, there were my parents. Married for 40 years, and the epitome of the perfect marriage.

Or so I thought.

That morning, before I went to work, I had called in to see them after my mother had called the day before saying she wanted to talk to me about something.

Before I knocked on the door, I could hear yelling from behind the door, and it seemed the perfect marriage had hit a rocky stretch.

Or simply that my father had chosen to have an affair, and had been caught out by the simplest of means, my mother answered his phone when he was out of the room thinking it was important work matters, only to discover it was his ‘floozie’.

No guessing then why my mother had called me. After hearing all I wanted to, and not wanting to face an angry couple I just headed on to work.

My mother had yet to come to the hospital to see me. My father had been, but he made no mention of her, or anything else, except to tell me if there was anything I wanted, all I had to do was ask. Then he left, and hadn’t come back.

Then, last but not least, were the rumors.

The owner of the company I worked for was getting older and didn’t have an heir. One thing or another had managed to foil his succession plans, and in the end, he did not have a son or a daughter to pass the reins to.

With the latest success, the company was about to have a bigger profile which meant more work, and plans to open branches in other cities. It was too much for one man, now in his 70s, and looking to wind down.

A rumor had started about a week before the accident that he was looking to sell, and there were at least half a dozen suitors. There was supposed to be an announcement, but it hadn’t happened while I was at work, but, considering how long I’d been in hospital, and the two weeks in an induced coma, anything could have happened.

Louisa stretched and changed positions.

“You look better,” she said.

“Relative to what, or when?”

“Half an hour ago.”

I shook my head. Sometimes Louisa was prone to saying the oddest stuff. “What’s the deal between our parents. Dad was here for all of five minutes. Where’s our mother?”

“She left.”

OK. Blunt, but plausible. “Why?”

“Dad was being an ass.”

“Does she know I was in an accident?”

“I told her.”

“So, you’re seeing her?”

“She calls. I don’t know where she is. I think she might have gone to stay with one of our aunt’s.”

I sighed. Louise had an awfully bad memory, and I was sure one day she was going to forget who I was.

There were four sisters, mother the youngest. She had a love-hate relationship with the middle two, so the best bet would be the eldest sister, Jane. Jane was also the crankiest because she hated children, never got married, and was set in her ways.

Then, there was something else lurking in the back of my mind. Another item I’d overheard when I suspect I was not meant to be listening.

I might not have a job to go back to if the company had been sold, I might not have a home to go back to if my parents had split up, and I might not be able to do anything for a long, long time. Recovery might be complete, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight.

I had a sister who blamed herself for my accident, and an old girlfriend who wanted to see me, though I suspect not like this, broken and useless. What else could there be?

Oh, yes. Another snipped from the shouting match behind the door. And an explanation why my father had all but abandoned me. My mother had also had an affair, and his son, well he was not his son.

No surprise then I had a father who didn’t want to know me.

What else could go wrong?

There was movement outside the room, and raised voices, one of which was saying that whoever was out there couldn’t go into the room. It didn’t have any effect as seconds later, a man and a police officer came in. The officer stood by the door.

Louisa looked surprised, but didn’t move.

The man, obviously a detective, came over. “Your name Oliver Watkins?”

It was, and hopefully still is. “Yes.”

“I need you to answer some questions.”

“About the accident?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then realized what I was referring to. “No. Not the accident. About the embezzlement of 50 million dollars from the company you work for. It seems you didn’t cover your tracks very well.” He turned around to look at Louisa, “You need to leave now, miss.”

“I’ll stay.”

He nodded to the officer, “You leave now, or he will remove you.”

She looked at me, a different expression, “You didn’t tell me you were a crook, Olly.”

“Because I’m not.”

The officer escorted her from the room and shut the door.

The detective sat in the recently vacated chair. “Now, Mr Watkins. It seems there is such a thing as karma.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest.  Then, inexplicably, she disappears.  That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 63

This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.

The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, 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.

Things are about to get complicated…

Two events happened simultaneously.

The door opened, a figure dressed in black appears and Jennifer grabbed her from behind and took her weapon then shoved her to the ground in the middle of the room, at the same time the USBs exploded in the microwave oven.

I went over to the figure and removed the balaclava, whilst Jennifer closed the door after a quick glance outside.

It was Jan. Why wasn’t I surprised.

“Just whose side are you on,” she said, grimacing, and holding her shoulder after it hit the floor very hard.

“You’re lucky it was Jennifer.  If it had been me, I might have strangled you by accident.  Why are you here?”

“The same as you?”

“No, in this flat.  I never told you anything about Jo.”

Jan looked over at the other woman sitting up against the wall, not exactly looking too well now.  She would need an ambulance soon.  Jan, probably sooner.

“It might have prevented this if you had.  It’s probably the only reason why you’re still alive, we needed you to lead us to her.  That’s Anna, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And the data drives?”

“Kind of destroyed, which is where such information should end up.”

“It was not yours to do that.”

“No.  But left in the hands of people like you, where would it end up?  I’m sorry, but with all the lies and deception going on, I couldn’t trust anyone to do the right thing.”

My phone rang.

I looked at the screen.  Private number.  No prizes for guessing who.

“Dobbin?”

“What is going on in there?”

“Target practice.  Want to come and join the fun?”

“Is Jan alright?”

“She’ll live for now, but she is going to need medical assistance soon.  It’s up to you.”

“I’m coming up?”

“If you bring anyone else, they’re dead.”  I hung up.

I went over to the microwave, took out the remnants of the drives and flushed them down the toilet.  Just in case.

When I came back there was a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” I said to Jennifer.  “But if there is anyone else, shoot them.

Gun ready, I opened the door.  He had his hands where I could see them.  “Come in and join the fun.”

Jennifer had him covered, just in case.

I closed the door.

Dobbin looked at Anna.  He knew who she was.

“O’Connell is next door, dead.  Did Jan shoot him?”

“Hello, I’m in the room, Sam.  I did not.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“You have this all wrong, Sam.  We are not the bad guys,” Dobbin said.

“Well, if you are, and you’re lying, which is about all you have done since I first met you, you won’t be.  The USBs have been destroyed.”

Of course, in that instant, I realised that I may have been played again.  Anna had given up the location too easily, despite the threats of bodily harm, which if push came to shove, I might not have followed through on.  And if Anna surmised that, what was to stop her from having decoys just in case she was found?  Come to think of it, she didn’t seem very disappointed when I destroyed them.

A woman capable of torturing and murder was capable of anything, and she had proven herself very capable so far.

And, worse, Dobbin didn’t seem too upset at the news.

This was rapidly becoming a no-win situation.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

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

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

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

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

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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

They all start with –

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

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

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

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

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

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

There was nowhere for him to go.

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

Where was he going?

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

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

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

“How far away?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or so we thought.

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

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

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

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

I looked up.  Nothing.

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

Then where did he go?

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

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

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

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

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

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

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

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

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

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

InspirationMaybe1v1

In a word: bark

Yes, this is exactly what a dog does, sometimes annoyingly all night, that sharp explosive cry of a dog or, believe it or not, a seal

Much better if the dog is a guard dog, because then you need it to bark when there is intruders

Then there’s another form of bark, that which grows on a tree, and makes excelled burning material, if not a little smoky, for a BBQ.

Ot that the bark of some trees can be used as material for carving, and of others, like the paperbark, to make was seems like paper to write on.

Then there are expressions that start to make you think, concerning this word, such as:

He was a boss that liked to bark orders.  I had one like that, almost looked like a dog too.  Never could ask someone kindly.

He was barking up the wrong tree.  Never seen a dog do this, but many people gave so the literal meaning is to waste your time looking in the wrong place

Then there’s bark or barque, the name of a certain type of boat or masted ship with three or more masts, dating back to sailing days

And then, just top it all off, someone goes and says your barking mad.  Probably just after you were barking up the wrong tree, looking for the barking dog on a barque.

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

I wandered back to my villa.

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

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

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

Who?

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

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

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

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

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

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

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

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

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

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

Silence, an eerie silence.

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

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

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

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

Or was I?

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

Still nothing.

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

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

Contract complete.

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

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

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

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

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

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

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

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

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

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

“Who employed you?”

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

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

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

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

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

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You need to go away now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I expected her to scream.  She didn’t.

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

“What happened here?”

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

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

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

“Do you have medical supplies?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Alisha?”

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

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

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

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

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

…

© Charles Heath 2018-2022

strangerscover9

“Oh, my God!” – a short story

I was one of six people who answered a house-sitting ad.  What stood out was the money, as was intended.

When I arrived at the interview, held in an accountant’s office downtown, there was no suggestion that it was a trick, or there were ulterior motives.

Just $5,000 for a week’s work.  Move-in, act as a security guard, and check all entrances and exits, and all rooms that had windows to the outside every four or so hours, particularly at night.

The reason?

The owner had to maintain residence in the house for the week, as he was going away, under a clause in the sale contract.  The reason for hiring civilians, that it was too expensive to get live-in people from a security company.

The owner freely admitted he was a cheapskate.

But for someone like me, the $5,000 was a lot of money and would help pay beck everyone I owed money to.

I earnestly pleaded my case, submitted myself to a background check, and then waited to hear back.

When I didn’t hear anything by the due date I figured some other lucky person had pleaded a better case, then, exactly a week later I got the call.

The next day a courier delivered the keys to the house and the address.  My week started at exactly 9am the next morning.

…

The cab dropped Mr off at the front gate of the house, only it wasn’t a house so much as a mansion, and one that had seen better days.

It was at the end of the street, behind two large gates, and a high brick fence.  I could see the driveway on the other side, and just make out the house behind the unkempt shrubbery.

I had a bunch of keys, and it took a few attempts to find the one that fitted the lock and chain preventing the gates from opening.

I just unlocked it when another car pulled up in the same place my can had, and a young woman got out.  She rescued her sports bag from the trunk and paid the cabbie.

“Who are you,” she said.

“The caretaker for the next week.  I might ask the same question.”

“The ex-wife with nowhere to go.”

No one mentioned an ex-wife that was part of the deal.

“I wasn’t told anyone else would be here, so it would be best you left.”

I slipped the lock back in place and stood my ground.  She could be anyone.

She pulled out her phone and rang a number.

A heard the voice on the other end say hello.

“You can tell your deadhead caretaker that I’m staying for a few days.”

Then I watched her expression turn very dark, and then the words, “I have nowhere else to go, and it will only be a few days.”  Then silence and an accompanying ground, ending with, “You don’t want me to come after you because you know how that will end”.

She listened, then handed the phone to me.

“Hello.”

“I’m the owner requesting the service.  You are not responsible for her, but if she becomes a problem, lock her in the basement.”

Then he hung up. It was not the best of answers to the problem.

“Are you going to open the gate?”

I shook my head and then pretended to fumble through the keys looking for the right one.  “You know this place,” I asked without turning around.

“No.  The bastard didn’t tell me about a lot of the stuff he owns.”  Her tone bristled with resentment.

I ‘found’ the key and opened the lock and started pulling the chain through the fence.  I could feel her eyes burning into my back.

When I swung open the gate, she barged past and kept walking.  I stepped through, and immediately felt the change in the temperature.  It was cold, even though the sun was out and I could feel an unnatural chill go through me.

By the time I closed and relocked the gate she had gone as far as, and round a slight bend in the driveway.  I thought about hurrying to catch up, but I didn’t think it mattered, she didn’t have a key.  Or perhaps I hoped she didn’t have one.

I headed towards the house at a leisurely pace.  I didn’t have to be there in the next instant, and I wanted to do a little survey of the grounds.  If I was checking windows, then I needed to know what the access might be like through any of them.

As I got closer to the house, the overgrowth was worse, but that might have been because no one could see it from the roadside, or through the iron gate.

Accessibility via the gardens would-be problematic for anyone who attempted it because there was no easy access.  It was one less immediate problem to deal with.

The driveway widened out into a large gravel-covered square outside the front of the house.  It had an archway under which cars could stop and let out passengers undercover, ideal for ball goers, which meant the house had been built somewhere during the last century.

There were aspects that would warrant me taking a look on the internet about its history.

She was waiting outside the door, showing some exertion, and the mad dash had been for nothing.

“I take it you have a key?”

I decided to ignore that.  I hoped she would disappear to another part of the house and leave me alone.  I had too much to do without having to worry about where she was, or what she was doing.  It seemed, base on the short time I spoke to him, that the owner had a mistake marrying her if they were in fact married.  Ex could mean almost anything these days.

Again, I made a show of trying to find the right key, though in the end it was hit and miss, and it took the fourth of fifth attempt to find it.

The door was solid oak, but it swung open easily and silently.  I had expected it to make a squeaking sound, one associated with rusty hinges.  This time she was a little more circumspect when she passed by me.  I followed and closed and locked the door behind me.

Inside was nothing like I expected.  Whilst the outside looked like the building hadn’t been tended to for years, inside had been recently renovated, and had that new house smell of new carpets and painted walls.

There was a high vaulted roof, and a mezzanine that was accessed by a beautifully restored wooden staircase and ran around the whole upper floor so that anyone could stand anywhere near the balustrading and look down into the living space, and, towards the back, the kitchen and entertaining area.

The walls had strategically placed paintings, real paintings, that looked old, but I doubted were originals, because if they were similar to those I’d seen in a lot of English country estates they would be priceless, but not left in an empty building.

I had also kept her in the corner of my eye, watching her look around almost in awe.

“What do you think these paintings are worth?”

Was she going to suddenly take an inventory?

“Not a lot.  You don’t leave masterpieces in an abandoned house.  I suspect nothing in here would be worth much, and really only for decorative purposes so the owner can have a better chance of selling the place.  Empty cavernous buildings do not sell well.”

“What are you again?”

“No one of any particular note.  I’ve been asked to look after the place for the next week until it is handed over to the new owners.  Aside from that, I know nothing about the place, nor do I want to.  According to the note I got with the key, there are bedrooms off that mezzanine you can see up there.”  I pointed to the balustrading.  The kitchen has food, enough for the few days I’ll be here, but I’m sure there’s enough to share.”

“Good.  You won’t see me again if I can help it.”

I watched her walk to the staircase and go upstairs.  The mud map told me there were bedrooms up of the mezzanine, and also across from this area.  There was another large room adjacent to this, a games area or room big enough to hold a ball, a part of the original house, and which led out onto the side lawns.  I’d check later to see what the access was like because I suspected there would be a few doors that led out from the hall to the garden.

When she disappeared along the upstairs passageway, I headed towards the next room.  IT was large, larger than that next door, and had another grand staircase leading down to the dance floor.  I guess the people used to stay in rooms upstairs, get dressed, then make a grand entrance down those stairs.

I hadn’t expected this house to be anything like the old country estates, and it was a little like icing of the cake.  I would have to explore, and transport myself back to the old days, and imagine what it was like.

…

She was true to her word, and I didn’t see her the next morning.  I was staying a world away from her.  I was in the refurbished old section and she was staying in the newly renovated and modernized part of the house.

I did discover, on the first day of getting my bearings and checking all of the entrances and windows ready for my rounds, that above the bedrooms on the second floor of the old section, there was a third floor with a number of smaller rooms which I assumed were where the servants lived.

I stayed in one of those rooms.  The other main bedrooms, with ornate fireplaces and large shuttered windows, smelled a little too musty for me, and I wasn’t about to present someone with an open window.  The views from the balconies were remarkable too or would have been in the garden had been kept in its original state.

In the distance, I could see what might have once been a summerhouse and promised myself a look at it later.  A long day had come to a tiring end, and I was only destined for a few hours’ sleep before embarking on my first-midnight run.   I was going to do one at eight, after eating, another at midnight, and another at six in the morning.  I’d make adjustments to the schedule after running the first full night’s program.

…

I brought my special alarm with me, the one that didn’t make a sound but was very effective in waking me.  It was fortuitous, because I had not been expected someone else to come along for the ride, and didn’t want them to know where and when I would be doing the rounds.

It had taken longer than I expected to get to sleep, the sounds of the housekeeping me awake.  Usually a sound sleeper, perhaps it was the first night in different, and unusual surroundings.

I shuddered as I got out of bed, a cold air surrounding me, a feeling like that when I walked through the gate.  I had the sensation that someone was in the room with me, but in the harsh light after putting the bedside light on, it was clearly my imagination playing tricks.

I dressed quickly and headed out.

The inside of the house was very dark, and the light from my torch stabbed a beam of light through what might have been an inky void.  The circle of light on the walls was never still, and I realized that my hand had acquired a touch of the shakes.

Creaking sounds as I walked across the flooring had not been discernible the previous night, and it was odd they only happened at night.  A thought that the house may be haunted when through my mind, but I didn’t believe in ghosts or anything like that.

The creaking sounds followed me as I started my inspection.  I headed downstairs, and once I reached the back end of what I was going to call the ballroom.  Before I went to bed the previous evening, I drew up a rough map of the places I would be going, ticking them off as I went.

The first inspection was of the doors that led out onto the lawns.  The floor-to-ceiling windows were not curtained, and outside the undergrowth was partially illuminated by moonlight.  The day had been warm, that period in autumn leading into winter where the days were clear but getting colder.  Outside I could see a clear starry night.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the flash of a torchlight in the gardens.  I stopped and looked more carefully, but there was nothing.  I waited for about ten minutes, but there was still no movement.

I was going to have to park my imagination before starting rounds or I’d never get the job done.

I went out of the room and into the living area.  There seemed to be lights all around me, those small pilot lights that told you appliances were on standby.

I was heading towards the stairs when suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream, followed by what sounded like a gunshot, a sharp loud bang that, on top of the scream, made me jump.

The woman.

I raced as fast as I could up the stairs.  The sounds had come from there, but when I reached the top of the stairs, I realized I had no idea in which direction it came from.  Pointing the torch in both directions, there was nothing to see.

I could see a passage that might lead to the bedrooms on this level, and headed towards it, moving slowly, keeping as quiet as I could, listening for anything, or if someone else was lurking.

I heard a door slam, the echo coming down the passage.  I flashed the light up the passage, but it didn’t seem to penetrate the darkness.  I moved quickly towards the end, half expecting to see someone.

Then I tripped over, and as I tried to get to my feet, realized it was a body.  I flashed the torch on it, and it was the woman.

Dead, a gunshot wound in the chest, and blood everywhere.

I scrambled to my feet, and ran towards the end of the passage, and stopped at what appeared to be a dead end.  With nowhere to go, I turned.

I wasn’t alone, just hearing before seeing the presence of another person, but it was too late to react.  I felt an object hitting me on the back of the head, and after that, nothing.

…

I could feel a hand shaking me, and a voice coming out of the fog.  I opened my eyes and found myself in completely different surroundings.

A large ornate bedroom, and a four-poster bed, like I had been transported back to another age.  Then I remembered I had been in a large house that had been renovated, and this was probably one of the other bedrooms on the floor where the woman had been staying.

Then I remembered the body, being hit, and sat up.

A voice beside me was saying, “You’re having that nightmare again, aren’t you?”

It was a familiar voice.

I turned to see the woman who I had just moments before had seen dead, the body on the floor of the passage.

“You’re dead,” I said, in a strangely detached tone.

“I know.  I’m supposed to be.  You helped me set it up so I could escape that lunatic ex-husband of mine.”

I must have looked puzzled.

“Don’t worry.  The doctor says your memory will return, one day.  But, for now, all you need to do is rest.  All you need to know is that we’re safe, thanks to you.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021