This story has been ongoing since I was seventeen, and just to let you know, I’m 72 this year.
Yes, it’s taken a long time to get it done.
Why, you might ask.
Well, I never gave it much interest because I started writing it after a small incident when I was 17, and working as a book packer for a book distributor in Melbourne
At the end of my first year, at Christmas, the employer had a Christmas party, and that year, it was at a venue in St Kilda.
I wasn’t going to go because at that age, I was an ordinary boy who was very introverted and basically scared of his own shadow and terrified by girls.
Back then, I would cross the street to avoid them
Also, other members of the staff in the shipping department were rough and ready types who were not backwards in telling me what happened, and being naive, perhaps they knew I’d be either shocked or intrigued.
I was both adamant I wasn’t coming and then got roped in on a dare.
Damn!
So, back then, in the early 70s, people looked the other way when it came to drinking, and of course, Dutch courage always takes away the concerns, especially when normally you wouldn’t do half the stuff you wouldn’t in a million years
I made it to the end, not as drunk and stupid as I thought I might be, and St Kilda being a salacious place if you knew where to look, my new friends decided to give me a surprise.
It didn’t take long to realise these men were ‘men about town’ as they kept saying, and we went on an odyssey. Yes, those backstreet brothels where one could, I was told, have anything they could imagine.
Let me tell you, large quantities of alcohol and imagination were a very bad mix.
So, the odyssey in ‘The things we do’ was based on that, and then the encounter with Diana. Well, let’s just say I learned a great deal about girls that night.
Firstly, not all girls are nasty and spiteful, which seemed to be the case whenever I met one. There was a way to approach, greet, talk to, and behave.
It was also true that I could have had anything I wanted, but I decided what was in my imagination could stay there. She was amused that all I wanted was to talk, but it was my money, and I could spend it how I liked.
And like any 17-year-old naive fool, I fell in love with her and had all these foolish notions. Months later, I went back, but she had moved on, to where no one was saying or knew.
Needless to say, I was heartbroken and had to get over that first loss, which, like any 17-year-old, was like the end of the world.
But it was the best hour I’d ever spent in my life and would remain so until I met the woman I have been married to for the last 48 years.
As Henry, he was in part based on a rebel, the son of rich parents who despised them and their wealth, and he used to regale anyone who would listen about how they had messed up his life
If only I’d come from such a background!
And yes, I was only a run away from climbing up the stairs to get on board a ship, acting as a purser.
I worked for a shipping company and they gave their junior staff members an opportunity to spend a year at sea working as a purser on a cargo ship that sailed between Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart in Australia.
One of the other junior staff members’ turn came, and I would visit him on board when he would tell me stories about life on board, the officers, the crew, and other events. These stories, which sounded incredible to someone so impressionable, were a delight to hear.
Alas, by that time, I had tired of office work and moved on to be a tradesman at the place where my father worked.
It proved to be the right move, as that is where I met my wife. Diana had been right; love would find me when I least expected it.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
The debriefing team were not quite what I expected, a man and a woman, one a Major, the other a Lieutenant, and it was apparent they had just met before coming into the room.
He was Major Lallo, Army intelligence, and the woman, Lieutenant Jill Monroe, a familiar name as I’m sure I’d heard it before.
Lallo was not a fighting soldier, he was a paperwork man. I suspect he was more at home with an order book, and filing communications though that didn’t explain the rank, which he would have to have front line experience to attain.
Monroe looked to me to be the sort of woman soldier that had to prove she was better than any man and had the muscular form to go with it. Not the sort of a woman to get into a fight over or against.
She stood at the end of the bed, and I suspect by her posture that she was there to make sure I didn’t run, which, by the way, was physically impossible.
Lallo sat in the chair beside the bed, tried to make himself comfortable. He was going to ask the questions. He had a small notebook he took out of his pocket with a list of questions. The small pencil that slotted into the binding was there to write down the answers if any. I was not sure I was up to answer any questions.
Settled, he started with, “You don’t have to answer, but I suggest you do. I think by now you are starting to realise that, no matter how strong you think you might be, you’re not. If you decided to be unforthcoming, then you can be assured that we will be interrogating you with a lot more, shall we say, enthusiasm than in the past.”
By the way he said it, I got the impression he would be the one. His tone had changed suddenly, to a man who enjoyed others discomfort, and he was looking forward to breaking me if it came to that.
“And if I don’t have the answers to your questions, or should I say, not the answers you are expecting, what then?”
“One step at a time. We’ll start with the easy questions first.”
I’m not quite sure what he classified as easy. I didn’t think there were any.
“How long have you been at this base?”
Maybe I was wrong. “Two months, three days.”
“How did your transfer to this specific base come about?”
“I don’t know. I was at a training base in Ohio one day, then being presented with orders to get the next transport out the next.”
“Did you, or someone else you know, request your transfer to a new base?”
I didn’t think that was possible. Someone of my rank went where they were told to go.
“No. I’m a Sergeant, not a General.”
But was it possible Colonel Bamfield arranged for me to be transferred. Given the fact he was here, now, it was not beyond the realms of possibility. But if so, why?
“What was your function at your last base?”
What had this to do with my current situation or anything else for that matter?
“Instructor.”
“In what?”
“Infiltration, covert operations.”
“And I’m assuming then you been involved in these, shall we say, covert operations?”
No use denying it. It was obvious he had seen my file, which all of a sudden had some very disturbing possibilities. Just how much information though.
“Yes, but they’re classified and I can’t tell you anything and that.”
“Normally that would be the case, but…” He left the sentence hanging there for a few seconds before adding, “There was a problem with your last operation, the reason, it appears, you were transferred to the training base in Ohio. Is that correct?”
A mission that I had been told never to mention, speak of to anyone, no matter how high their rank in the military or government, or even think about again.
A mission I was told had been buried so deep it would never see the light of day.
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect them.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half-brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
There was no time for an explanation, picking up on the urgency in my tone. They gathered up a few belongings because I added they couldn’t come back, and, after Cecelia and I tossed the work phones on the kitchen bench, we headed down the stairs to the basement.
By the time the call with Alfie ended, I realized that we were just supposed to find her, Rodby had a whole other team on standby ready to ‘extract’ her. And, if I was not mistaken, it would be against her will if she didn’t want to go with them. It was why she greeted us with a gun, she knew what might happen.
Perhaps she knew the Rodby’s better than I did.
Like certain parts of London various groups of building basements were used by the defence forces and government offices, and the one Juliet was staying in might have been one because the basement was connected to another and another, and it felt like it had once been offices, given the green walls, arrows and exit signs, and overhead lighting.
At the end, we came out into a narrow alley between buildings and not far from that, Russell Square underground. Just before descending, Cecilia gave me a new phone. She had brought another two burner phones, acting on instinct, or perhaps knowing how much of a maverick I was. Or she had simply changed roles, and become a maverick of her own.
We took the train to the one place I thought, for the moment, to be the safest. Heathrow airport, and on the way, Cecelia booked two rooms at the hotel nearest to the underground station. Five more people, some with bags would not look out of place. But just Cecelia and I checked in with other IDs, and took a room each, and the others wandered up after us.
Almost an hour and a half later we were sitting in the room Cecelia booked for her and me, both with a second bedroom, but this one had a dining area. She smiled at me when I realised there were two rooms.
“Now, I’m going to assume that you will trust me to a certain degree, and when I say I have no idea what is going on, except that it has to do with the Burkhardt family, there’s an inheritance that needs to be claimed in a few days, and there’s someone trying to assassinate Juliet, who appears to be a direct descendant of the count and an eligible heir.”
I looked at Vittoria, who was still very confused with the turn of events, and probably evaluating whether I could be trusted or not. “I now believe you are Juliet’s mother.” Now that mother and daughter were sitting side by side, the similarities between them.
Vittoria and the countess were sharing another pizza that Celecia had ordered up through room service, along with several bottles of red wine. Juliet went over to the kitchenette, opened one, and poured five glasses.
It was not a bad wine, perhaps an Italian Sangiovese.
Juliet remained standing and looked at her mother. “Even I’m confused at the moment. When do you and the countess become friends?”
“We have been for quite some time, particularly after I realised she had nothing to do with my banishment. That was the count, at the behest of his mother, who has been the true villain in both our lives.”
Vittoria looked at her daughter, “I’ve come to realize the threats against all of us are the work of that vile woman. This is the third or fourth attempt on your life, I’ve been attacked twice, and now the countess just escaped from what I perceive to be a threat, instigated by her.”
“Are you saying my old friend is working with her? I hardly think she knows who the old woman is. And assuming that she doesn’t, what other reason would she have to do with what just happened.” She looked at me, “You came to the opera with us, so you must know her.”
“Not because I was a friend of the family, I’m not. I think now I was asked along for a very specific reason, one she might not have been privy to, but that her husband, my old employer, was. And my experience over the years is that nothing to do with him is ever straightforward.”
“Are you one of his people now?” The way she said it, it sounded like she considered me a hatchet man.
“No, not exactly, nor is Cecelia. We just do this and that from time to time. I thought I was in retirement, Cecelia is in between acting roles, and he simply asked us to find you.”
“Then if you were seeking the countess, how did you know about me, and turn up at the conference hall, coincidentally when an assassin tried to kill me?” Juliet made a good argument.
“I may have done a little research. The countesses feud with Vittoria, and the uncovering of photographs, one of which had the teen version of you with your mother, Vittoria, at the Chateau in Sorrento, the same Chateau where the countess resides. Sometimes we get lucky. I was surprised though Juliet, given your history. I didn’t bring them, and, by the way, I was the one who nearly got shot and killed.”
I could see Vittoria shaking her head. “If you can make the distinction, then others can too. Neither of us are now safe. At least I can discount orange ribbon girl. I knew she was tailing me, and I thought I lost her.”
Cecelia smiled. “You wish. Top of my class for surveillance.
I thought I would add a little spice to the conversation, “Why did you give the impression you’ve been trying to kill the countess?”
That brought a look of consternation from both. The countess answered, “Only for the sake of appearances, and to keep the rest of the family away from the idea that we had joined forces, which is the only way we’re going to keep them from realizing we know more about them than they think we do.”
“But not enough to stop them from trying to stop both of you and now all three of you, from claiming the inheritance?”
“It is actually all of the business. The Count held all the shares. It was his, passed down from his father, and all he had to do with the rest of the family members was give them jobs. That ownership would be passed to me, or any children of ours if there were any. We could not, but he told me on his death bed there was one.”
“Juliet.”
“Whose mother was the woman he wanted to marry but was not allowed to, but whom he had got pregnant and promised to look after. Nobility and their secrets. But he also told his brother, Alessandro, who in turn told the mother, who really is a nasty piece of work. She made it perfectly clear to me before I came to London that it would be for the best if I did not attend the signing of the inheritance papers in a few days’ time. If I chose not to, I would be given a house to live in and a large sum of money for my helpfulness. It is the reason I got away from the hotel the night of the opera, because I believe Alessandro had arranged for me to be kidnapped, or worse.”
“Who would get the assets, if not you?” I asked.
“As per the provisions of the will, Alessandro who is the next male heir, who had arrived at the hotel and was waiting in my room to see me. I understand it would not be good business for the company to be run by a woman. Especially one without any experience and had been sent to make sure it didn’t happen.”
“That story about a bitter rival?”
“It was always Alessandro. I had first met him, and we had one date before I was swept up by the Count and taken away from him. He never forgave me for passing him over. He had always expected his older brother would marry for love and let him take over the business.”
“And you suspected he was there to remove you when he knew that with the girl the count had confessed existed with a stronger claim? I doubt that was why he was there. You are not a threat to them. Not according to the terms of the will.”
The countess glared at me. “How do you know this?”
“Let’s just say I know.” I turned back to Vittoria. “Why were you trying to get close to Alessandro, surely he knew you were his brother’s former lover?”
“To be honest, I have no idea. Perhaps I have changed since those early days. I was surprised she didn’t recognise me from the time I spent with the Count. It was mostly to find out what they were planning, but he wasn’t that interested in me, or would he talk about the family. Perhaps he knew I had a romantic attachment to his brother all those years ago, though at times he seemed too stupid to know what day it was. He couldn’t run the business; if you want an opinion, it is the old woman who wants it and nothing ever stands in her way. She is ruthless. I wouldn’t be surprised if she killed the count. And now she is after my beautiful daughter.”
“Well, we can’t let that happen.”
The whole story was a tangled web of deceit and lies, just the sort of stuff that really old families like the Burkehardt’s were. And typically the old women were the matriarchs that kept everything going.
But I wasn’t so sure Alessandro was as stupid as Vittoria made out.
“How do you two know each other?” Vittoria’s gaze went from me back to Juliet.
Juliet answered. “He was injured and spent time in hospital. I was there working on rehabilitation programmes, and I drew the short straw. We spent a lot of time together, it went on for a little after he was discharged, and then my world exploded. We ran into each other recently when I got into some trouble with an old acquaintance who used my stepbrother as leverage. Evan got him freed and sorted the problem. We didn’t get back together.”
“And yet you speak so fondly of him?”
I hoped Vittoria was not one of those match-making mothers.
“He saved my brother, and me. That’s it.”
And to prevent any more discussion, I said, “We need to formulate a plan that gets you to Italy as soon as possible but not by conventional means. Rodby is already all over the trains, planes, and ferries.”
“What other way is there?”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
And probably would be, if I was away on holidays in Europe, simply because I’ve always wanted to be in Belgium on a Tuesday just so I could use that line.
By the way, it’s out of a movie, but I’m not sure which one. Obviously, it wasn’t that great if I can’t remember it.
But…
Searching for locations for my stories takes a lot of time and effort, using Google Earth and other means, like street view. Finding houses or apartments required a great deal of real estate research, almost to the point of buying a property.
Is there any better way to see the street it’s in, the neighbours, the neighbourhood, and inside the house and gardens? Almost as if you lived there, which of course you do in the story.
In reality, I’m in Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway heading towards Banff, on icy roads in winter. Yes, that’s where we were this year in early January, getting a feel for the place, the roads, the weather, the people, and the places.
Cold, yes. Atmospheric, yes, exciting, double yes. Sometimes research is really fun, well, I don’t call it that, otherwise everyone else will think it was not the birthday treat that it was meant to be.
And was.
My wife’s 65th birthday will be one she certainly will never forget.
So..,
Writing is proceeding better now that I’ve knuckled down. The Trans-Canada experience has been translated into a story attached to a photo and will be posted soon
The treasure hunt has taken shape, now that it’s moved beyond the initial two episodes, and we’re digging in for the long haul. New players and contingency plans. Evil will be lurking behind and under every rock.
And as for the helicopter crash and its aftermath, this morning, a new idea and direction came to me, and this saw frantic scribble notes before I lost it. At least, I was not in the shower this time.
It’s going to have three parts, the first is nearly done, the second, clearly formed in my mind, the third, well, isn’t that always about retribution or revenge?
We shall see.
And the Being Inspired series just got 39 and 40 written, and ready to be published.
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now it looks like he’s been renditioned by his own people.
Seeing Colonel Bamfield made my blood run cold.
This wasn’t an old commanding officer coming to see one of his protégés after being almost killed in a bad accident.
This was a man checking up on me, and whether or not I had relayed any of the details of my incarceration at the mystery camp in the desert.
The thing is, he didn’t have to come calling if I had said anything Breeman would have reported it directly to her superiors.
No, he was here for another reason, and one I had no doubt I was not going to like.
Firstly, it was apparent the feelings of dislike and mistrust ran deep between the two, and I could see, on first sight, there had been something between them once, and it had exploded on someone, and I suspect it was Breeman.
Male officers of Bamfield rank rarely got into trouble for fraternising with lower ranked female officers. It was, I was told once, a man’s army, not for women.
And I expect Bamfield was old school.
He looked at me then at her. “How is our patient?”
Our patient? How did he have anything to do with me, unless he was reclaiming me for his command.
“Sergeant Digwater has a name, and he is not your patient.” The accompanying look on her face told me that Bamfield better be ready for war.
“Perhaps that might be the case for now, but I have given orders to temporarily detach Sergeant Digwater from this command and assign him temporally to mine so that he can be sent to our medical facility in Germany before being sent home. The sergeant has done enough for his country.”
Had I? It was customary to patch soldiers like me up if the injuries were not life-threatening, and then send them back to the front line. I had, as far as I was aware, a few broken bones, and nothing that a month or two of physical therapy wouldn’t put straight.
Besides, as a loner, I had made the Army my home, and where most of the people I knew were. As a civilian, I would be like a fish out of water.
“Do I get to choose what happens to me?” I spoke for the first time, directly at both of them.
Bamfield answered. “No.” Then gave me a genial look. “How are you, Sam. I’ve spoken to the doctors, and they say all you need is rest and recuperation and you’ll be as good as new. But I want to know how you feel?”
I gave him a measured look. “I would have to say a lot worse than a few days ago.”
His expression changed as a result of those words. Breeman’s expression was a lot more interesting, processing what that statement might mean.
She was about to ask when he interrupted her. “Understandable, since you were found unconscious in the cabin of the crashed aircraft. A case perhaps of a delayed reaction. You should tell the medics you need more pain killers.” He then turned to Breeman. “The sergeant will be evacuated at 0800 hours tomorrow morning. Until then, no one is to visit him until he is debriefed. Am I clear?”
Breeman stood. She was a good six inches shorter than Bamfield in stature, and at least 100 pound in weight. Still, she projected a formidable opponent.
“I take it that does not include me?”
“What part of everyone did you not understand?”
Fighting words and she was ready to take up the battle. Except, I think she knew she was outranked, and if push came to shove, it was not worth losing her command over the visiting of a lowly Sergeant. This was pulling rank at its worst.
“Something’s not right here,” she said. “And you can be assured I will get to the bottom of it.” A final glare in his direction and she left, almost slamming the ward door behind her.
Bamfield waited a moment to make sure she had left, then addressed me.
“What have you said about your time missing?”
“Nothing. If anything I was almost sure you’d turn up. I had no intention of telling her what happened to me because I’m not sure myself. I don’t remember having any broken bones.”
“You had to look like you were in a crash, not sitting in a cell for the time you were missing. I suggest you keep our discussion to yourself, and remember, we could have sent you back in a body bag. The debriefing crew will be here in an hour or so.”
“What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Whatever you want. It won’t go any further than them because they are assigned to me. Now, I have to work to get back to. I might see you again in Germany, but if I don’t, enjoy the rest of your life.”
The way he said it, I didn’t think this visit would be the last time I saw him. Like Breeman said, something was not right.
He had a brief word to the guard, another soldier he had brought with him, and left him on guard outside the ward door. It looked to me like he didn’t take Breeman at her word she wouldn’t return.
Cecelia leaned against the door to close it. I was about three steps in front of her. Juliet had moved to stand behind the two women, each standing to the side and back far enough that if they were not deadly accurate, if they pulled the trigger, the bullets could go anywhere.
I put my hands out. No point looking threatening.
“Well,” I said, “This is about as good as it gets.”
The countess looked at me. “How so?”
“My brief.” I nodded towards Cecelia. “Our brief was to find you. We’ve found you. That’s it. We can go back to our lives now. You have no idea how much that pleases me.”
“And me,” Cecelia added. “I much preferred working in Venice. Why couldn’t you have gone to Venice, or Paris, or Athens? It’s time to go.” She put her hand on the door handle and started to open the door.
Vittoria was watching us the whole time, and her expression was getting more incredulous. “Not so fast. What are you talking about?”
“Vittoria, I presume,” I said to her. “You might want to put the guns down. We’re not here to hurt you, or take you away, or do anything, other than find you so I can tell my boss everything’s fine. Well, not you exactly, but the countess.”
“How do you know I want to be found,” the countess said, a look of surprise on her face also.
“That makes things a bit difficult now that we have. I must tell Mrs Rodby because she’s adamant something’s happened to you.”
I could hear the door close again and Cecelia took her hand off the handle. She might be a little confused but knew well enough to run with me. I wasn’t expecting the countess or guns. Nor had there been any pushback from Juliet against us coming to her flat, and she had to know her mother was waiting. Perhaps she didn’t know about the countess.
“She can be a busybody.” The countess sighed.
I felt a vibration in my pocket, the organisation’s standard-issued cell phone, supposedly untraceable. Supposedly. “Just give me a second.”
I pulled it out and swiped the screen. Alfie. ‘Is she there?’
So much for being untraceable. That being the case, I had the impression he could not hear anything, so we had a slight advantage, though he would be nearby, and he would know we had met up with Juliet. I typed in, ‘Hold your horses, outside the door!!!’. I hoped he got the inference, that barging through doors could be dangerous.
And it alerted me to a new problem. Rodby didn’t trust me to tell him, and that meant he had been hiding something from us.
“Alfie?” Cecelia asked.
“He knows we’re here.”
“How?”
“How, exactly.”
“Damn. You sure know how to give a girl a good time.” She pulled out her cell phone and was about the dismantle it when she saw me shake my head.
“What is…” the countess started to say.
I put my finger up to my lips as a sign for her not to talk.
I called him. “Something else Rodby forgot to tell me about, you becoming our shadow.”
“What can I say, Rodby knows you sometimes go off book, and this is Juliet.”
“Does he think I still have a thing for her? After Venice? The man has rocks in his head. You might want to remind him the next time you speak to him that I didn’t want to go on this rabbit hunt in the first place. My life was fine without a countess in it.”
The expressions on all three of the women’s faces were past incredulous, wondering what was going on.
“Is she there?”
“I’ll ask Cecelia, she just got back. She thought she saw both Juliet and the countess, but it’s dark and the lighting in the building isn’t that great. I’m in the flat now, and I’m sure the countess was here. I remember her perfume”.
Cecelia chimed in. “They got away. It was the countess. She’s fine though I don’t know why they would run from us. What are you not telling us.”
When I didn’t hear a response, I saw that he had hung up.
The countess lowered her weapon and turned to Vittoria. “Lower the gun. He’s not here to cause problems.”
“You know who he is?” She lowered the weapon but not so far that she couldn’t use it if I became a threat. She’d been around guns which made it a curious skill for a once servant girl.
“Yes. He escorted me to the opera. I suspected you might be one of Rodby’s agents.”
“Ex. He seems to think I want to do this search and rescue instead of retiring. He’s wrong. Retirement suits me. Right now, I’m, missing out on salmon fishing in Scotland. Oh, and going on a whiskey trail. But for the moment that’s the least of our concerns.” I looked at Juliet. “Do you have another way out of this place?”
“What do you think. You’re not the only one who thrives on paranoia.”
Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage, the police thought I had murdered my own wife, though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbours reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her fellow detective was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months, the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last time I saw Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact that she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months, I was barely functioning, to the extent that I had all but lost my job and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy. Her story varied only in that she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened became our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then, we saw each other about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realise that all she had was her work; personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police, and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone, then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 