This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
I never really understood why I had an affinity for libraries until I stepped into the one in my grandfather’s house.
The last time I’d seen it was when I turned ten, and we visited him the day after my grandmother had died. I remembered that day very clearly for two reasons. First, my grandfather said I was too young to go, so I was left with the housekeeper and allowed to go into a large room with thousands upon thousands of books. By myself.
So many, in fact, I was so immersed in them that I hadn’t realised my parents had come back and it was time to go. Not until I heard raised voices coming from outside the window. My father and grandfather were in a full bare-knuckle fighting stance, with my mother standing between them.
That second reason, it was also the day my father stopped talking to and visiting my grandfather. I had seen him once, in all the time leading up to my grandmother’s funeral, and never again. The only references to him I found were in the newspapers, along with words like patron, philanthropist, politician, and patriot. My father said he was evil, but he never told me why.
There was a lot of fallout from that day of the funeral. Not only had my father stopped talking to his father, but also his two sisters and brother, all of who were a mystery to me. Later I learned that I belonged to a very dysfunctional family and that my father was the sanest of the four siblings. Of course, that was my mother’s assessment, but I also learned later, my father marrying her had got him disinherited.
But to be honest, at 10 it didn’t seem a big deal. I didn’t know them, and having said no more than a dozen words to my grandfather, it was not as if I knew him enough to miss him. I did remember that library though, and that huge house by the lake. My father never said he’d grown up there, just that his life had been spent in boarding schools and the military. Enough of a life though, to give me a university degree, yes, you guessed it, in Library Science and Information Management.
That I knew so little about him made it all the more difficult to write a eulogy. For him, and my mother who had basically died a few days after him. I wanted to believe she just didn’t want to live on without him, but that was too fanciful. She had been worn down by what I now believed was a very bitter man. That bitterness had caused me to stop visiting home about a year before when relations between us sunk to an all-time low. I spoke to my mother by phone every week, but it was not the same, not being able to see me, and that I hadn’t made it back before she died was a sin I would spend a long time atoning for.
Nor did I have any siblings to turn to for help. That ship had sailed after I was born when my mother discovered she could have no more children.
But, here’s the thing. I had not heard that either of my parents had died until I got a call from my parents’ Pastor of their church. Had he not called, I would not have known. My initial reaction was not to go, that was how deep the scars were from our fractured relationship, but the pastor insisted that I would not get closure if I didn’t.
I still believed it was a huge mistake as I was getting on the plane. I told Wendy, a girl whom I had just become more than friends with that I would have to go, it surprised her because I had told her that I was more or less like her, an orphan. I had met her after the final altercation, and I didn’t think it necessary to bore her with my parents’ odd behaviour.
By the time the plane arrived, I was past the misgivings and telling myself just to get it done and go home. One day, two at the most and it would be all over, filed under, don’t come back to haunt me again.
Shock number one: A girl, about my age or slightly younger, dressed in what might have passed as mourning clothes, was standing in the arrivals section where people held signs of names of people they were to pick up. She had mine, or maybe not. It could be someone else. I went over to her, cautiously.
She smiled when she saw. “My God; Lindsay, you look just like your father.”
How could she possibly know who I was, or what he looked like? None of his family had ever made themselves known or came to see us.
“How…”
“Your photographs. My dad is your uncle by the way, and I’m your something or other, someone explained it to me but it was too much. Your mother sent thousands of photographs and letters to your uncle and aunts and we know about you. It’s just a pity we couldn’t meet until the old bastard died. Now, it’s like we’re old friends. I’m Allie by the way. Wow!”
Wow, indeed. My mother the traitor! She always seemed to have a conspiratorial look about her and now I knew why.
“Travelling light,” she said, seeing my backpack.
“Wasn’t intending to stay.”
“Can’t do that now Lindsay. You have a lifetime of catching up to do. I hope you have a spare week up your sleeve.”
I followed her out of the terminal to the car park.
“Where do you want to go first? By the way, I’m your chauffeur for the duration of your stay, and you tell me, that’s where we go.”
“Haven’t you got better things to do?”
“No. I had to beat up my sister and brother to get this privilege. This is not a chore Lindsay. And I get first dibs to talk to you about everything.”
She had a strange way of talking, so I let most of it go over my head. “Perhaps the funeral parlour, I think the pastor said they were in one of them near the church. Not their church, either.”
“I try not to get involved in heavy family stuff. But I think you’ll find my father had something to do with that. Blood is thicker than water, he says. He says a lot of stuff I don’t understand. Your dad like that?”
We reached the car, she unlocked it and we got in. A RAM 2500. Better than anything we could afford.
“Your car?”
“Mine, hell no. This is Dad’s special truck, only comes out on hunting weekends and special occasions like weddings. Damned if I know why he let me drive given my track record.” She shrugged. “Perhaps it’s another of his tests.”
It sounded like a family trait because my father used to do the same. I left her to the driving and pondered this whole other life that went on around us, ignored simply because my father hated his family. Obviously, there was some deep-seated resentment generated at some point before he struck out on his own, and maybe I could find out. Certainly, it seemed I was not going to be able to escape as easily as I had first imagined.
What worried me was suddenly meeting a whole host of people I’d never seen before but apparently knew everything about me. I’d never have suspected my mother going behind my father’s back, but there was always that air of defiance in her, and in some of their arguments, they didn’t go nuclear, but she did stop talking to him or doing anything for him until he backed down.
A lesser woman would not have been much of anything up against him, which was why he married her.
Our first stop as requested was the funeral home. There I was shown into a special room where both were in their caskets. It was an open casket viewing, and while they had been restored to some of their former glory, my mother was almost unrecognisable. I had the room to myself, and thankfully Allie didn’t come in because there were tears, even though I told myself there would not be.
My father, of course, never changed and looked the same forbidding person he’d always been. I was sure somewhere within him there was kindness, but he never showed it to me. Even so, it was still a shock to know that he had passed.
After a half hour, I came back out into the daylight. Allie handed me a cup of coffee.
“I didn’t know if you wanted or needed something stronger, but we can drop into a bar on the way for some fortification if you like. The next stop, I’m afraid, is the church. Got a call to say the Bishop has arrived. Our family has some brownie points and got the Bishop to come and say a few words. I’m not a keep churchgoer either Lindsay.”
Were any of the younger generations? Those attempts of his to put the fear of God in me never worked, probably because they tried too hard. A more gentler and persuasive method would have had better results, but the priest was all fire and brimstone. I don’t think I could remember one Sunday where the sermon had any levity in it.
“Perhaps if they tried to move into the 21st century, it might be better. I heard that my father’s church Pastor is coming too. He’s as old as the hills, and hopefully, he will not remember the errant and disappointing child I was.”
“Don’t count on it. They keep everything in a big ledger, and it’s opened the day you go to heaven or hell. Hell’s where I’m going, I’m sure of it.”
It was an amusing thought. “Perhaps you’ll see me there, too.”
The Pastor was there with the local church leaders, and the Bishop, all very severe-looking men. Granted it was a sombre occasion, but a little levity wouldn’t go astray. I noted, firstly, the look they gave me was one of surprise, though I had no idea why, and secondly, they hardly approved of the mourning outfit on my chauffeur. Granted it was low cut and the hem high, but it suited her, and in my mind rather a fashion statement, and appropriate. This was not the nineteenth century.
That led to shock number two. My father’s paster recognised me instantly, and the change of expression told me he remembered everyone one of my sins, some of which I still had to atone for. That was not the reason for the shock, the fact I had to write a eulogy and read it was. He had intimated such in the phone call but I had told him I preferred not to. Perhaps he had been hard of hearing.
He was warm in his greeting though. “Lindsay, so glad you could come, and, my, you have grown up into a fine young man.”
Grown-up, may, fine, that was debatable. “They haven’t retired you yet?” It was not meant to be antagonistic, but some memories of injustices never left you.
“There’s still a lot of God’s work to be done. I see you have lost none of your candour. Let us not dwell on the past, and consider only what lies ahead. Your father was a good man, despite your differences, and his disposition. I had urged him, in his last days, to reconcile with you, and I believe he was going to.”
“You knew a different man to me, Pastor. But as you say, let us not dwell upon what was. I think I said I preferred not to participate in the service.”
I saw the other Pastor and the Bishop approach. I thought I remembered the Bishop, but not as a Bishop but as a simple priest, many years before. The trouble was, they all looked the same to me.
“Marriot here tells me you are going to read your eulogy as part of the service. I believe it’s the right thing to so, a fitting end to a life devoted to service to his country and his church.”
He gave me no chance of reneging, and at any rate, there was no denying a Bishop’s request, not if I wanted the wrath of God to befall me.
“Until tomorrow, Pastor Marriot said and left with the other two men.
“I can see that went swimmingly,” Allie said when she came back over. It wasn’t hard to notice she was avoiding the Pastors and Bishop.
“An ambush.”
“Not getting out of the eulogy?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then write and read something wicked. There’s going to be a packed house, so the audience will be in your hands. The trouble is, people rarely bring up the bad stuff at funerals, and the lies they tell about people, it’s outrageous. We had an in-law who died in a police shootout when he tried to rob a gas station. Not one bad word. It’s probably why they didn’t ask me to say anything.”
The thought did cross my mind, but no, I had enough respect for the occasion that I would say a few words.
“Well, the fun’s over,” she said. “You now are about to meet all the people you never knew existed.”
The family had taken over a restaurant in a nearby town, and everyone had come to see the missing link. I felt like a character out of Charles Darwin’s evolution book.
There were about 35, my father’s brother and two sisters, their children, my contemporaries, some grandchildren, and one very old lady, the sister of my grandfather who presided over the gathering like a Queen. She was the first introduction, and from there, it was simply a sea of faces and names.
Inevitably I was asked why I had not tried to seek them out earlier, and that was complicated. My father never told me about his family, and that one memory of my grandfather was fleeting and without context. But the most sinister of reasons was the fact he had changed his surname, making it impossible to trace anyone. While I knew he had siblings, I could never find them. As for my mother, she said she would tell me the truth when he died. That, of course, could not happen, which landed me where I was right now. Even his priest did not know the truth until one of the family contacted him upon learning of my father’s death.
It was, quite simply, the most improbable of situations that most people could not believe possible.
The following day, over a hundred people arrived for the funeral, and it was a beautiful service on a perfect day. My few but heartfelt words were delivered in a broken voice, by a person who should not have but was, overcome with emotion.
Afterwards, when the bodies were lowered into their final resting place, in the family graveyard near my grandfather’s house, exactly as I had remembered it, I was sitting on the seat that overlooked the lake, wondering what it might have been like to like in such a house. Allie had taken me on a guided tour, the house now a museum of sorts, where the family occupied the upper floors and the museum the lower, including that incredible library.
She was sitting next to me, the rock that had got me through a fairly traumatising day.
Shock number three: She handed me an envelope with my name on it. “We had to wait until your father died before it could be delivered. It is a letter all of us in our generation, got when our grandfather died.”
“I’m surprised he considered me part of the family.”
“You were, and are, despite your father’s best efforts. He knew about you, and everything you have done, until the day he died. You can read it, or I can summarise it if you like.”
“You can tell me, I’m just too overwhelmed to read anything at the moment.”
“As you wish. In essence, you and 7 of us, own equal shares in the old building over there.” She nodded in its direction. “You have a suite of rooms set aside, as each of us has, and a job helping in running the museum. He particularly thought you would like to run the library and the research department. There are a lot of historical documents, and books that are considered invaluable to researchers who come here from all over the world. You might not want to, but the rest of us would love it if you did. And there’s a pot of gold, literally at the end of the rainbow. You can, if you so desire, become very, very wealthy. Or just take an annuity as I do. Too much money makes me anxious. Now, you can stay in your rooms tonight, for as long as you want, and tomorrow we will all sit around the table and just talk.”
Just then I saw her turn towards the driveway and heard a car arriving. She smiled. “We also thought it might be too overwhelming on your own so we asked Wendy to come. I hope you don’t mind?”
It was odd because she was on my mind at that exact moment she arrived, and exactly the person I wanted to see.
As I crossed the lawn and reached the car as she got out, and saw the house, there was a look of recognition, surprise and something else I couldn’t place.
“Is this where you grew up?” she asked.
“No. I’d only seen it once when I was ten when my parents came to attend my grandmother’s funeral. Why?”
“Because this is very, very familiar. I lived here with my mother until I was fifteen when she died and I was sent to live with my aunt in New York. I remember a day when a boy came, and stayed in the library, and refused to come and play with me. I was seven, I think, at the time. It means I’ve known you forever, even if I did hate you to pieces then. What a remarkable coincidence.”
“Serendipity,” Allie said. “Welcome home, the both of you.”
A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.
A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?
A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.
A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.
After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.
From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the 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
Needing to know more about Severin, aka David Westcott trumped talking to Jan. As it stood, it was difficult to know where her allegiances lay, with Dobbin, her handler, or someone else.
I hailed a cab and headed back to the office. I wanted to spend some time on the computer, hoping I had enough clearance to poke around in the departmental records, in particular personnel.
Just as the taxi dropped me outside the anonymous sandstone building, my phone rang. I doubt it would be Severin again.
“Where are you?”
Jan.
“I do actually have a life, despite what you or Dobbin might think. I’m not sure I really want to have anything to do with you after what I saw you people do to Maury. Aside from the fact that you told me he had found the tracker and disposed of it. Once you start telling lies, there’s no going back.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“You were holding him for the interrogation squad. That makes you complicit. It also makes me very wary about what Dobbin will do to me if he thinks I know anything, which I don’t.”
“As far as I’m aware, all we have to do is find O’Connell.”
“And what? Torture him too if he doesn’t fess up? I know he doesn’t have it. I had him under surveillance the whole time. I frisked him after he was shot. What do you know that I don’t?”
“No more than you.”
“Not if you’re suggesting that he’s alive.” This was an interesting conversation, especially after O’Connell himself told me that Dobbin’s cleaners had come and rescued him, which meant Dobbin definitely knew he was still alive.
The question was, how many lies was she going to tell me.
“You know where O’Connell had his real residence. When were you going to share that piece in information?”
Silence, then, “How?”
“I saw you there.”
“But…”
I knew what she was going to say, when was I going to share. When I came back, not intending to find a dead body in the hotel room.
“Had you been in the room when I got back, we were going to have a frank conversation about who you’re working for, but I’ve just had that conversation with Dobbin himself. No doubt he called you right after he dropped me off.
“He’s not happy.”
“Then that’s on him not trusting people. You want to have a good hard look at what your options are when we next meet. I’ll admit I haven’t been doing this very long, but one thing I have learned, is not to trust anyone.
“I suggest we meet up later tonight. Bear in mind that it will be in an open space for obvious reasons, and quite frankly, I’m not sure how Dobbin thinks this collaboration is going to work. I’ll text you the place and time.”
It might have been a little unfair to take my concerns about Dobbin out on her. I’m not sure what I had expected would happen when I took this job on, certainly, the instructors had emphasized that being an agent was very dangerous to our health and that we could, ultimately, trust no one, even those closest to us. Our world by its very nature was one of mistrust, lies, and deceit, that we would eventually not know who we really were and be doing things we never thought we could.
O’Connell was in the same situation, most likely because people were trying to kill him. It was a small detail that stuck in the back of my mind.
If Severin and Maury wanted O’Connell alive, and that definitely was the end result of the surveillance operation, to allow the drop then to corral him, why would they have sanctioned his execution in the alley?
In fact, how could they know he would end up in that alley.
The only conclusion I could come up with, Dobbin had put a tracker on him, one that he didn’t know about, and also had surveillance on O’Connell. It made sense because I was sure there were people in that area that didn’t look like they belonged.
So, a tracker on the USB was being tacked by an unidentified as yet party who no doubt wanted the information themselves, not Severin, and not Dobbin.
I shrugged. I’m sure there would be more questions before the day was out.
The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
It was the message left on my cell phone from Detective Inspector that sometimes threw work my way, usually difficult cases that didn’t have the usual clues leading to a resolution.
I’d been lucky in an old case I’d been researching for a mystery novel and discovered a pattern that, in the end, led to the discovery and resolution of seven other cases spanning thirty years.
It got me into Detective Inspector Clarissa Menzies’ world of criminal investigations, which benefited my research and writing, as well as provided her with another perspective on some of her cases.
I met her at the hospital and was surprised that it was outside a psychiatric ward.
“A little background first. The person you’re about to meet, Angela O’Brien, found herself in a relationship with a criminal, James Dyson, who was portraying himself as a businessman. Things were fine until she discovered who he was, and then, finding herself in too deep asked us to help find a way out. Unfortunately, the best of intentions didn’t quite go the way we planned it.”
“Don’t tell me. You recruited her to get the information you could use against him; you couldn’t resist having someone that close and not try to use it.”
Her expression told me that was exactly what happened. “It was not what I wanted, but to get our help, they wanted something in return.”
“Let me guess. Once she realised who he was and how dangerous he was, she changed. He noticed the change, and when she tried to get the information, he caught her.”
“She was lucky. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn’t get to see or take anything. He was just overly suspicious, realising that sooner or later, she would find out.”
“I’m assuming she is in the psych ward, which means…”
“The Barnsdale warehouse fire. He was using it as a processing centre for stolen goods inside the legitimate organisation trading in second-hand goods and claimed, out of spite, she burned the place to the ground. We found her there, covered in incriminating evidence, unconscious from a beam that fell on her as a result of the fire. The thing is, she has no memory of the night, how she got there, or anything. He’s made all the running in this case, accusing her of arson and demanding we charge her. The only problem is that there was another body in that fire, one of his associates, and we think he murdered him, and the way it’s going, if she can’t remember anything, she will end up paying for his crime. All she can remember is the word Kaleidoscope.”
“How will my talking to her make a difference if her memory is gone?”
“You will no doubt have a completely different perspective on the whole affair, especially since I’m not going to tell you anymore. Treat her as a suspect in one of your stories and ask questions. All you need to know is that it was a crime scene, a man was murdered, the fire is covering that up, and she has been set up to take the fall. It might end up being your next novel.”
“Will you be staying?”
“No. I’ll tell her you are helping us with the case and you have some questions.”
For a victim found in a burnt-out building, she seemed remarkably untouched. Except for bandages on her head and some red welts on her hands, there was little other evidence of her ordeal. She was middle-aged and had the appearance of a woman who had devoted herself to the job, forsaking marriage and children. Larissa hadn’t told me her circumstances, but I suspect she may have worked in his organisation, and he had targeted her. Or the circumstances might be totally different.
Clarissa introduced me and then left. I sat down, aware she was giving me the once over, her expression conveying curiosity and wariness.
“The detective says you might be able to help me remember. Are you a doctor?”
“No, but I do have a degree in psychology, not that I ever wanted to be a psychologist. It sometimes helps analyse people, more to put me at ease in their company than anything else.”
“You’re going to analyse me then?”
“Do you want me to?”
“If it discovers how I could have made such a stupid mistake, yes. I mean, I’m sure I knew there was something about him, but I just ignored it until it was too late.”
“We are either willing to compromise in order to get what we want or not, and finish up becoming old and bitter. The fact that it turns out to be the wrong one, it’s just a mistake we learn from and generally move on from. Rarely does it end up like your current situation. But, in your favour, the Inspector doesn’t believe you are either a murderer or an arsonist, despite the circumstantial evidence. However, it would help if you remembered something, anything from that night. So, tell me the last thing you remember?”
“Getting ready to go out.”
“Was this when you realised, he was on to the fact you knew who he was.”
“It wouldn’t be hard, try as I might, I couldn’t get over the horror and knowing I’d been with such a terrible man.”
“Did he change in any way towards you?”
“Not that I could tell, but then he was a good actor.”
“Do you know where he was taking you?”
“No.”
“Was there a place you’d normally go?”
“Yes. A small restaurant owned by a friend of his. When things were good, we’d all dine together and talk about the future. He had been talking about spending a few months in Sorrento, Italy. He had relations there, he said. It would have been nice.”
I’d been there once. The place was nice, but the circumstances were not. I’d gone there to try and patch up a relationship, but it only made matters worse.
“It would be reasonable to assume he knew you were gathering information and was distancing you from his friends.”
“Do you remember him coming to get you?”
“No.” Then she closed her eyes and had the look of a person trying to squeeze those memories out of their hiding place. After a minute, and then two, with various pained expressions on her face, and then she opened her eyes and looked at me. “He looked worried, even frightened. I can see his face, whether it was that night or not, he was standing in the doorway. It might have been when he found out I had been to the police, it might not. Now that I come to think of it, he did mention once to his friend at the restaurant, that a certain other person was trying to move in on his business.”
“Which might mean that someone else burned down the warehouse and you were there by coincidence.”
“Perhaps. We often dropped in after hours and looked at the new stock that came in that day. I had no idea at the time that any of it was stolen goods, but a lot of it was high quality and worth a lot of money. It seems that he was filling orders; someone would come in and ask for a particular item, and he would go find it. Or, as I know now, steal it. Some of the people who worked for him didn’t look like nice people, and when I asked about them, he simply said he was doing civic duty, giving ex-prisoners a second chance. Oh, another thing I remember, he had a register where everything that passed through the warehouse was kept, including where it came from, who bought it, and how much. I saw it once; showed it to me and then put it away in a large safe. I knew the combination; I’d seen him open it. All I can remember now is that I was going to steal it. Somehow.”
“You had a plan?”
“No, it was going to be based on opportunity. But it was dragging out, because he never let me out of his sight, not after I think he realised what I was doing.”
“Any other places he would take you?”
“Little cafes, another restaurant run by another friend, not as good as the other, and several nightclubs. He would sit with other business owners, he called them, and the women, well in most cases girls that look like they still went to school, were shunted to one side. We didn’t want to hear about boring commerce. I didn’t want to listen to girls who could easily be my children, and they thought it strange he would date me, after his last girl, about 20 they said, had more class than I ever would. When I asked where she was, they didn’t know.”
“You told Clarissa this?”
“Yes. After seeing all of them for the first time, I had to wonder why he was dating me. If I was cynical, I’d say it was to make me a patsy. My guess is the guy they found dead in the ruins was the guy trying to buy him out.”
“What were the nightclub names, do you remember?”
She did, in part, but it was enough. If that was a usual haunt, maybe they’d gone to one first. It was a lead worth following.
When I suggested Clarissa and I go to a few nightclubs, I was not sure what her first thought was, but I hastily added that Angela may have visited one before she ended up in the warehouse inferno, she looked relieved. Perhaps she thought I might be trying to get a date with her, an idea that had passed through my mind, but I knew that would be impossible. Work, for the moment, was her priority, and trying to move up the ranks.
The first two had little to offer, and showing each of the bartenders Angela’s photo did not rouse any signs of recognition. I could tell, even if they were lying.
The third and last were bigger, brighter, and full of people. Clarissa recognised a few, from the other side of the law, as well as a few colleagues mixing with people they should not. It was called Axiom and had continuous blinking coloured lights, like, Clarissa suddenly said, a Kaleidoscope.
“Did you know she was referring to Axiom when she mentioned the word Kaleidoscope?” She had to yell about the white noise all around us, and the thumping music in the background.
“It was a long shot at best. When she mentioned he had taken her to places like this, it gave me the idea.”
Clarissa brought out the photo and went, one by one, to each of the bartenders showing the photo of Angela. Three recognised her, but it was east to see they were lying about it. The fourth said she had been in the night of the fire, with the man, and there had nearly been a ‘set to’ as she called it, resulting in the other man being thrown out.
That was when I discovered Clarissa had had dealings with the owners before, and she picked one out, sitting over the back of the club, surrounded by young women, and went straight over to him. He tried to distance himself from the girls, some of which looked underaged but failed.
“Phillip,” she said. “You do not appear to have learned anything since I was last here, have you?”
He glared at her, then stood. “What do you want, Clarissa?”
“CCTV for the night of the 3rd. There was a scuffle and an ejection. Show me, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You know I can’t do that. Privacy and all?”
“Then how about I arrest three of these girls and take them down to the station and find out how old they are?” She pulled out her cell phone and brought up the station house number.
“You look, then you go?”
“Of course.”
He took us out the back to a small room with a lanky young man named Wally lounging in a comfortable chair, watching half a dozen screens. He was, according to Phillip, watching for drug transactions. He ran a clean club wherever possible. Any perpetrators and buyers were instantly removed.
He told Wally to bring up the feed from the night in question, and the scuffle in question occurred about an hour and a half before the first report of the warehouse fire. Dyson was there, pushing and shoving back, he didn’t start the altercation, and then the bouncers moved in. Two takeaways from the footage, the other man was someone both of us had seen before, and Angela appeared to be very drunk. Only it looked more like she had been drugged.
Ten minutes later, both were caught on CCTV, leaving by the front entrance, Dyson supporting her as if she had too much to drink. Clarissa got copies of the footage for both events. Then we left.
Clarissa had what she believed was enough probable cause to bring Dyson in for an interview.
I was allowed to observe from a room where I could see him but he couldn’t see me, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know others were nearby. He loomed over at the window and it was an eerie feeling.
He was in a jovial mood because he obviously thought that he had left no evidence behind. He hadn’t mentioned an altercation at Axiom with the business rival, now identified as Roger Davies’ and the dead man in the burnt warehouse.
Perhaps Dyson was hoping the body may have been incinerated, but it wasn’t.
Clarissa and her partner came in a sat down. She had a small file with her, perhaps deceptively so to make him think their evidence if any wasn’t enough to worry about.
His lawyer sat silently, like a man who didn’t want to be there. Did he know the truth?
“Mr Dyson, let’s go through your movements on the might of the warehouse fire.”
She glared at him, or perhaps it was a half grimace. He was, she had said privately to me, an obnoxious little toad.
“‘We’ve done this. If we’re going to rehash what non-evidence you’ve got…” he stood. “Then we’ve got better things to do.”
She shrugged.
“Then try telling us the truth, Mr Dyson. I rarely asked questions in a third interview when I don’t already know the answer, so I suggest you sit down.”
“You’ve got nothing…”
She pushed a button on her phone and the screen directly in his line of sight started with the altercation at Axiom.
“Sit down Mr Dyson, and while you’re doing so try not to conjure up any more lies.”
So I had an argument with some loudmouth fool.”
“The loud-mouthed foil that ended up in your warehouse, very dead, Mr Dyson.”
“Angela’s Co-conspirator perhaps I don’t know maybe they conspired together to burn the place down.”
His eyes didn’t leave the screen though because I was sure he knew what was coming next.
“About that Mr Dyson. How did the woman you see, quite obviously the so-called arsonist, completely out of it, and remain so even after she left the club? Not someone who couldn’t strike a match let alone perform the perfect set-up that would need the skills of a seasoned well-trained arsonist. Oh, and something else you need to consider. She was drug tested when she was brought in. A complete panel. The doctor in the hospital she was taken was overzealous in doing her job. Didn’t know until an hour ago. Rohypnol Mr Dyson. Now, let’s forget the histrionics, and blame others for your problem. From the top, let’s go through your movements on the day of the fire.”
Just when you think that the story is done, and you’re on the third re-read, just to make sure…
Damn!
I don’t like the way that chapter reads, and what’s worse, it’s about the tenth time I’ve looked at it.
It doesn’t matter the last three times you read it, it was just fine, or, the editor has read it and the chapter passed without any major comment.
I think the main problem I have is letting go. For some odd reason, certain parts of a story sometimes seem to me as though they are not complete, or can be missing a vital clue or connection for the continuity of the story.
That, of course, happens when you rewrite a section that is earlier on in the story, and then have to make ongoing changes.
Yes, I hear the stern warnings, that I should have made a comprehensive outline at the beginning, but the trouble is, I can change the ending, as I’m writing it and then have to go back and add the hooks earlier on. Not the best method, but isn’t that what an editor is for, to pick up the missed connections, and out of the blue events that happen for no reason?
I find that often after leaving a finished story for a month before the next reading, the whole picture must formulate itself in my head, so when I re-read, there was always a problem, one I didn’t want to think about until the re-read.
Even then it might survive a second pass.
I know the scene is in trouble when I get to it and alarm bells are going off. I find anything else to do but look at it.
So, here I am, making major changes.
But, at least now I am satisfied with where it’s going.
When I first saw it I thought it was an old country estate, converted and expanded into a golf clubhouse.
It wasn’t. It is a purpose-built clubhouse and function center for corporate seminars and wedding receptions, as well as catering to the golfer, and golf tournaments.
It also has a very good outlook over the golf course.
But, in my writer’s mind, this will provide inspiration for a story that could be set in a large country house, with the central tower and lookout featuring in what might be a grisly death, and a group of guests who have gathered together to enact a mock murder that turns out to be very real.
Yes, the idea has been done to death over many many years, but I have a few new twists in mind.
Let’s pause a minute, in space, to get it some measurements right
…
Out there, in space, it’s not like being on the highway, going from one side of the country to the other.
That, effectively, is only a few thousand miles, or kilometres as we now measured distance, the influence of the European counties attached to the space alliance.
But late at night, and astrophysics, or astrology, or whatever the science of space is called, is not a subject to take up, particularly when you’re tired.
The other night I was tired, and confused, and hence got all my numbers muddled up. The thing is, when numbers go up to billions, with all them zeros, it could be confusing for everyone.
Or maybe it was just me.
But, the first constant is the speed of light. That’s approximately 1,079,251,200 km per hour, Pretty fast, eh.
But, as I’m told, nothing can go faster than the speed of light.
So, in this story, it’s a given.
Spaceship speeds, in this story, are measured as SSPD’s.
SSPD 1,000 is the speed of light.
This new spaceship will not go that fast. It is capable of SSPD 5, but even then, it’s not recommended. So, we are, from the beginning, are going to accept that it will go SSPD 4.
Trials got it to 4.5, but that was when the design engineers were aboard and could fix any problems.
So how fast are the SSPD increments?
SSPD 1 is 1,079,251 km per hour. SSPD 2 is double that. That’s the fastest cruising speed the current ships can travel.
This new ship goes twice as fast so at SSPD 4 it can cruise at 4,317,004 km per hour.
Now, where I got everything wrong, is the distance of the planets from earth, and the time it would take to get there.
Mars: about 56 million km when in line between the earth and the sun, but has a min of 54.5 million km
Venus: between 38 million and 261 million km
Mercury: averaging about 77 million km to a max of 222 million km
Jupiter: from a min of 588 million to a max of 968 million km
Saturn: from a min of 1.3 billion to 1.7 billion km
Uranus: from a min of 2.57 billion to 3.15 billion km
Neptune: from a min of 4.3 billion to 4.7 billion km
Since in the story it’s possible the ship might be stopping at Mars briefly, the time it could possibly take, given the position of mars at the time (about 60 million km), is about 14 hours.
As for the ultimate destination, Neptune, at 4.5 billion km approximately, it is going to take 1,042 hours, or 43.5 days.
Hopefully, I’m now over some of the confusion of distances between the planets, and will have some semblance of credible measurements and times.
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.
There was a clock tower not far from the hotel, and I heard it strike 12 midnight. It was time to go home before I turned into a pumpkin. Or perhaps I didn’t quite have it right. It didn’t matter. I needed sleep and it wasn’t going to happen here.
Nadia was being a temptress and not even realizing it.
“You need me on your team. I know the inside of the mall like the back of my hand.”
It didn’t surprise me. She used to run with a group of girls who could give Alex and Vince a run for their money in being cruel. I was positive now that she was in the mall at the same time we were, and quite possibly following us. After what Alex said earlier, there were going to be a lot of people following each other.
“You know where the bodies are?”
A slight hesitation before she said, “I might.”
The question was whose bodies. Missing girls, Benderby’s enemies. Certainly not the archaeologist, but if there was a torture chamber down there, maybe some clues that would point the police in the right direction.
“Well, tempting as that sounds, but no.”
“What if I told you I think I know where they tortured that archaeologist guy.”
“Why would they, in fact, it’s the one thing in all of this that puzzles me. Rico might have had a reason simply because he’s little more than a blunt instrument, not an extractor of information, that required a little more refinement than he’s, and the Benderby’s, what on earth could he know that they needed it from him.”
“Try the exact contents of this so-called treasure.”
“No one could possibly know what that pirate, whatever his name was, actually had?”
Not unless he was with the captain when he buried it, which, of course, unless he was a time traveler, he wasn’t and therefore couldn’t know.
“No one could possibly know that.”
“I beg to differ.”
She knew something we didn’t. This was turning out to be a very interesting day.
“How?”
“Say for instance the pirate had a journal, a ship log I think it’s called, and in that journal, he noted everything he pillaged from all of the ships they attacked.”
“You’ve seen it?” I asked, slightly incredulously. This was the first I’d heard of one, and I doubted Boggs had either unless it was something he was not telling me.
“No.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Vince.”
“He’s pulling your leg. There’s no such journal or log in existence.”
“Oh, there is. That’s what the archaeologist had. And that’s what both Alex and Vince were trying to buy. And when he wouldn’t sell it to Alex, his men went a little too far with their persuasion tactics.”
“I bet Vince wasn’t happy.”
“No. He thinks Alex does know where it is, so they’re playing their games of cat and mouse. But it’s a waste of time. My source tells me the archaeologist never gave up the location of the journal. Both the Benderby’s and the Cossatino’s have been to his house but it was nowhere to be found.”
And if that was the case, then there would be no interior to the house left, one of the other would have stripped the walls in their search. But, if it was true and there was such a journal, two questions came to mind. The obvious was, where was it? The less obvious was why didn’t the archaeologist go looking for the treasure himself?
There was an answer, that he didn’t have the right map.
I cast my mind back to the only time Boggs showed me what he called the real map. It had been folded, and you could see the fold marks that had been there for a long, long time. Was it possible at some point the map was separated from the journal?
Had someone known about the map, and stolen it and rather than the journal?
“I can see the cogs ticking over in your head Smidge. You are going to need me, in the end. Especially if you find the treasure. You’ll want to know what both Vince and Alex are up to, and little old me with be right there between them.”
“You think that Alex doesn’t know what you’re up to?”
“You already know more than you did when you walked in the door. Either of them finds the treasure, I get nothing. You and Boggs find it, maybe I’ll get something. I don’t care what they think.”
She was dangerous, deceptive, and beguiling sometimes all at the same time. This was one of those moments.
“I think Boggs doesn’t entirely trust you, or anyone,” she said.
“That couldn’t possibly surprise you. Look what’s happened to him over the years. No one knows what happened to his father.”
“Maybe we can find out. How about you and I pay the mall a visit. I guarantee it will be a lot more interesting than finding a mannequin.”
