Category: Travel

Searching for locations: From Zhengzhou to Suzhou by train, and the Snowy Sea Hotel, Suzhou, China

For the first time on this trip, we encounter problems with Chinese officialdom at the railway station, though we were warned that this might occur.

We had a major problem with the security staff when they pulled everyone over with aerosols and confiscated them. We lost styling mousse, others lost hair spray, and the men, their shaving cream.  But, to her credit, the tour guide did warn us they were stricter here, but her suggestion to be angry they were taking our stuff was probably not the right thing to do.

As with previous train bookings, the Chinese method of placing people in seats didn’t quite manage to keep couples traveling together, together on the train.  It was an odd peculiarity which few of the passengers understood, nor did they conform, swapping seat allocations.

This train ride did not seem the same as the last two and I don’t think we had the same type of high-speed train type that we had for the last two.  The carriages were different, there was only one toilet per carriage, and I don’t think we were going as fast.

But aside from that, we had 753 kilometers to travel with six stops before ours, two of which were very large cities, and then our stop, about four and a half hours later.  With two minutes this time, to get the baggage off the team managed it in 40 seconds, a new record.

After slight disorientation getting off the train, we locate our guide, easily found by looking for the Trip-A-Deal flag.  From there it’s a matter of getting into our respective groups and finding the bus.

As usual, the trip to the hotel was a long one, but we were traveling through a much brighter, and well lit, city.

As for our guide, we have him from now until the end of the tour.  There are no more train rides, we will be taking the bus from city to city until we reach Shanghai.  Good thing then that the bus is brand new, with that new car smell.  Only issue, no USB charging point.

The Snowy Sea hotel.  

It is finally a joy to get a room that is nothing short of great.  It has a bathroom and thus privacy.

Everyone had to go find a supermarket to purchase replacements for the confiscated items.  Luckily there was a huge supermarket just up from the hotel that had everything but the kitchen sink.

But, unlike where we live, the carpark is more of a scooter park!

It is also a small microcosm of Chinese life for the new more capitalistic oriented Chinese.

The next morning we get some idea of the scope of high-density living, though here, the buildings are not 30 stories tall, but still just as impressive.

These look like the medium density houses, but to the right of these are much larger buildings

The remarkable thing about this is those buildings stretch as far as the eye can see.

Searching for locations: The Erqi Memorial Tower, Zhengzhou, China

A convoluted explanation on the reasons for this memorial came down to it being about the deaths of those involved in the 1923 Erqi strike, though we’re not really sure what the strike was about.

So, after a little research, this is what I found:

The current Erqi Tower was built in 1971 and was, historically, the tallest building in the city. It is a memorial to the Erqi strike and in memory of Lin Xiangqian and other railway workers who went on strike for their rights, which happened on February 7, 1923.

It has 14 floors and is 63 meters high. One of the features of this building is the view from the top, accessed by a spiral staircase, or an elevator, when it’s working (it was not at the time of our visit).

There seems to be an affinity with the number 27 with this building, in that

  • It’s the 27th memorial to be built
  • to commemorate the 27th workers’ strike
  • located in the 27th plaza of Zhengzhou City.

We drive to the middle of the city where we once again find traveling in kamikaze traffic more entertaining than the tourist points

When we get to the drop-off spot, it’s a 10-minute walk to the center square where the tower is located on one side. Getting there we had to pass a choke point of blaring music and people hawking goods, each echoing off the opposite wall to the point where it was deafening. Too much of it would be torture.

But, back to the tower…

It has 14 levels, but no one seemed interested in climbing the 14 or 16 levels to get to the top. The elevator was broken, and after the great wall episode, most of us are heartily sick of stairs.

The center square was quite large but paved in places with white tiles that oddly reflected the heat rather than absorb it. In the sun it was very warm.

Around the outside of two-thirds of the square, and crossing the roads, was an elevated walkway, which if you go from the first shops and around to the other end, you finish up, on the ground level, at Starbucks.

This is the Chinese version and once you get past the language barrier, the mixology range of cold fruity drinks are to die for, especially after all that walking. Mine was a predominantly peach flavor, with some jelly and apricot at the bottom. I was expecting sliced peaches but I prefer and liked the apricot half.

A drink and fruit together was a surprise.

Then it was the walk back to the meeting point and then into the hotel to use the happy house before rejoining the kamikaze traffic.

We are taken then to the train station for the 2:29 to our next destination, Suzhou, the Venice of the East.

Searching for locations: The Erqi Memorial Tower, Zhengzhou, China

A convoluted explanation on the reasons for this memorial came down to it being about the deaths of those involved in the 1923 Erqi strike, though we’re not really sure what the strike was about.

So, after a little research, this is what I found:

The current Erqi Tower was built in 1971 and was, historically, the tallest building in the city. It is a memorial to the Erqi strike and in memory of Lin Xiangqian and other railway workers who went on strike for their rights, which happened on February 7, 1923.

It has 14 floors and is 63 meters high. One of the features of this building is the view from the top, accessed by a spiral staircase, or an elevator, when it’s working (it was not at the time of our visit).

There seems to be an affinity with the number 27 with this building, in that

  • It’s the 27th memorial to be built
  • to commemorate the 27th workers’ strike
  • located in the 27th plaza of Zhengzhou City.

We drive to the middle of the city where we once again find traveling in kamikaze traffic more entertaining than the tourist points

When we get to the drop-off spot, it’s a 10-minute walk to the center square where the tower is located on one side. Getting there we had to pass a choke point of blaring music and people hawking goods, each echoing off the opposite wall to the point where it was deafening. Too much of it would be torture.

But, back to the tower…

It has 14 levels, but no one seemed interested in climbing the 14 or 16 levels to get to the top. The elevator was broken, and after the great wall episode, most of us are heartily sick of stairs.

The center square was quite large but paved in places with white tiles that oddly reflected the heat rather than absorb it. In the sun it was very warm.

Around the outside of two-thirds of the square, and crossing the roads, was an elevated walkway, which if you go from the first shops and around to the other end, you finish up, on the ground level, at Starbucks.

This is the Chinese version and once you get past the language barrier, the mixology range of cold fruity drinks are to die for, especially after all that walking. Mine was a predominantly peach flavor, with some jelly and apricot at the bottom. I was expecting sliced peaches but I prefer and liked the apricot half.

A drink and fruit together was a surprise.

Then it was the walk back to the meeting point and then into the hotel to use the happy house before rejoining the kamikaze traffic.

We are taken then to the train station for the 2:29 to our next destination, Suzhou, the Venice of the East.

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 67

Rescue, but why?

…

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Benito the solicitor was playing both sides of the fence.  He knew the countess was never going to see a Lira, or was it a Euro of the inheritance., so her devised another plan.

He of all people would know the countess had a twin so what could be harder, knowing the countess’s movements to have her kidnapped and substitute her with her twin.

He would know of Dicostini’s desire to purchase the estate, so get it in the hands of the fake countess, see it to Dicostini and make commissions on an exponential number of transactions.  When the counties had no further ruse, kill the real one, leave the fake one in place, somewhere preferably a long way away, and relax in the expensive apartment with the expensive wife.

The trouble is foolproof plans are never foolproof when fools are involved.  Dicostini was a bad tempered impatient fool, the fake countess was an impatient and understudied fool who would fool no one hp mattered, and fools of kidnappers managed to pick up an extra body.

At least there was a financial payoff waiting there to correct a wrong that shouldn’t have happened, but an opportunity to make a profit.  Especially when the rest of the scam went west.  This was going to be the only profit he would make, or so she thought.

Roma Termini, track 15, at the peak hour when there would be a lot of foot traffic in the corridor.  I got there early with Giulietta, when he called with the details, I told him her attendance was non-negotiable because I had to make sure no one stole the money.  I knew it wouldn’t be a deal breaker because just as I arrived, Anthony sent me a balance sheet of Benito’s financial affairs and he was awash with debt.

A young beautiful wife was very, very expensive.  Giulietta said she would never be that expensive, but I was not sure why.  I said she was not young and beautiful, and she hit me, quite hard.  I probably deserved that.

But it was the cue for Benito to make himself known, saying that he was acting as an agent for the real kidnappers because they knew he was the countess’s solicitor and there would be consequences if he didn’t.

There were going to be consequences one way or another.

My first question.  “Where is Mrs Rodby so I can verify she is alive and well.”

He was smart.  He had a cell phone and a link to a camera where she was sitting on a chair in a cell holding a piece of paper that had today’s date on it.  It was like a scene from a bad movie.

“And where is this cell?”

“Nearby.  I get the money and getaway, and you get the address.”

“No.  It doesn’t work like that.  I said I needed to see her in person.  You take me there, open the door, I give you the money, and then you can leave.”

There were a dozen scenarios I’m sure he worked out that I would try, all of which demanded two-way trust.  He was a layer and having dealt with low lives, I’m sure he knew all of the dirty tricks in the book.  I didn’t bother countering the next scenario he was offering, the same as the last just with fancier window dressing, I went for the jugular.  Giulietta dialled the number of his apartment and Cecelia answered it.

I asked him to look at my feed.  It was better than his.  It was his wife melting down over the fact she had a silenced gun to her head, and also one of his children.  All three were terrified.

“Pick one.”

“What do you mean?  He was starting to get the idea.  This exchange was not going to work.”

“Pick the first one to die when I count to ten and you haven’t accepted my counteroffer.”

“You haven’t told me your counteroffer.”

“True.  We had to get the threats out of the way first.  How about you take me to the cell, open the door, take a reasonable payout, I’ll release your family, and you can go away and talk about your failings as a husband and a father.”

He looked at the screen, at me, and then I started counting down to one.  He caved at four.

Benito got a hundred thousand Euros for his trouble.

Cecelia told me she didn’t like the idea of threatening his wife and children unless they were thoroughly bad, which Mrs Benito and the children were not.

Giulietta said that if this was the depths I sank to, she didn’t think I was worth knowing, an assessment of her part I could agree with, mainly because of the distress it caused Benito.

It didn’t matter to her he was party to a kidnapping, and by proxy to a murder.  I hadn’t read about a suspicious death at the Dicostini house so I wondered if Benito had it sent under the carpet.

Mrs Rodby was argumentative and belligerent when we rescued her, in her mind it was one lot of thugs replacing the other thugs until I got Rodby on the phone and he spoke to her.  I was not surprised to discover he was almost in Sorrento.

It didn’t help her demeanour or attitude, so I told her she could find her own way home and left her with a burner phone with Rodby’s number outside the building where she had been locked up for weeks.  It was five minutes before my phone rang and she apologised.

I almost didn’t go back.

© Charles Heath 2023

Searching for locations: The Erqi Memorial Tower, Zhengzhou, China

A convoluted explanation on the reasons for this memorial came down to it being about the deaths of those involved in the 1923 Erqi strike, though we’re not really sure what the strike was about.

So, after a little research, this is what I found:

The current Erqi Tower was built in 1971 and was, historically, the tallest building in the city. It is a memorial to the Erqi strike and in memory of Lin Xiangqian and other railway workers who went on strike for their rights, which happened on February 7, 1923.

It has 14 floors and is 63 meters high. One of the features of this building is the view from the top, accessed by a spiral staircase, or an elevator, when it’s working (it was not at the time of our visit).

There seems to be an affinity with the number 27 with this building, in that

  • It’s the 27th memorial to be built
  • to commemorate the 27th workers’ strike
  • located in the 27th plaza of Zhengzhou City.

We drive to the middle of the city where we once again find traveling in kamikaze traffic more entertaining than the tourist points

When we get to the drop-off spot, it’s a 10-minute walk to the center square where the tower is located on one side. Getting there we had to pass a choke point of blaring music and people hawking goods, each echoing off the opposite wall to the point where it was deafening. Too much of it would be torture.

But, back to the tower…

It has 14 levels, but no one seemed interested in climbing the 14 or 16 levels to get to the top. The elevator was broken, and after the great wall episode, most of us are heartily sick of stairs.

The center square was quite large but paved in places with white tiles that oddly reflected the heat rather than absorb it. In the sun it was very warm.

Around the outside of two-thirds of the square, and crossing the roads, was an elevated walkway, which if you go from the first shops and around to the other end, you finish up, on the ground level, at Starbucks.

This is the Chinese version and once you get past the language barrier, the mixology range of cold fruity drinks are to die for, especially after all that walking. Mine was a predominantly peach flavor, with some jelly and apricot at the bottom. I was expecting sliced peaches but I prefer and liked the apricot half.

A drink and fruit together was a surprise.

Then it was the walk back to the meeting point and then into the hotel to use the happy house before rejoining the kamikaze traffic.

We are taken then to the train station for the 2:29 to our next destination, Suzhou, the Venice of the East.

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 68

None of it made sense

…

I preferred the version of Matha Rodby that I met the night of the opera.  Now I could also understand why Rodby spent so much time at the office.

Yes, I had met her before and when I was with Violetta and she was a much more amiable person than them, but that was probably because of Violetta.  She had that effect on people.

Maybe she was simply angry that Rodby’s work life had impinged on her private life, but that was one of the downsides of being involved with an intelligence agent.

It was a lesson I learned and why I gave it all up for Violetta.  I wanted her more than I wanted that other life, that one I once thought was exciting.  Perhaps this would be the excuse he needed to retire and have a peaceful rest of his life with her.

Or not.

Rodby was staying at the same hotel I was in, and by the time I arrived back there from Rome, Cecelia and the others were about a half hour away, and Rodby was there to greet his rather dishevelled wife in the lobby.

It was not a tearful reunion.

She had barely spoken on the entire four-hour drive, and any chance of Giulietta striking up a conversation was stopped dead by an icy glare in her direction.

As for myself, I was unimpressed by her attitude, and Rodby for that matter, though the circumstances were quite odd.

I waited an hour before I could no longer hold it in.

“Quite frankly,” I said, “I find it quite astonishing that you were able to hide the fact you had a stepsister from one of the top intelligence officers and research departments in the country.  He had me investigated to the point he could tell me I was related to one of the seamen on James Cook’s Endeavour.  But you, nothing.  How is that possible?”

I gave her one of my icy stares just for good measure.

“He chose not to.  I told him if he couldn’t trust me, then it would never work.”

Love trumps common sense.  Yes, I could see how that would never be in his playbook.

“I live in a word of lies and deceit.  Now your dirty little secret is out, welcome to my world.  It’ll never be the same, you know that.”

She didn’t answer.  Perhaps she was not used to the rabble talking to her in such a manner.

“Answer one question, did Heidi have a twin?”

She looked at me very strangely. “What?”

“I thought it was a pretty straight question.”

“No she did not.”

“Was she incarcerated with you?”

“No.  We were both snatched of the street and separated.  I’ve been held by a bunch of thugs since.”

“Were they going to ransom you?”

“No one said anything until yesterday when I was handed a paper and shoved in front of a camera.”

“Did you see any of your captors?”

“No.”

“Would you recognise them later by other means?”

“Just one more question.  Do you get together with Heidi often?”

“No.  I hadn’t seen her for quite a few years, she called me saying she was in London for a few days, we went out, and that’s all I remember till I woke up in a dark room.  That’s it.”

The look from Juliet in the back of the car was fascinating.

I had no doubt she was putting two and two together and coming up with anything other than four.

If there was no twin, then the woman who was pretending to be the countess was the countess pretending to be a twin.  Convoluted and confusing?  Yes.  Make any sense, no.

Has she been masquerading as a pretend twin to Dicostini so that she could have an affair, or were thy always having an affair, and she was going to … No, don’t go down the rabbit hole.  None of it made any sense, and as Martha Rodby said. That’s it.  Enough.

An hour after he had taken his wife up to the room and got her settled Rodby came to see me.

“What the hell happened?”

It was not the polities of tones.

“Take the win.”

“I want to know what happened?  One minute I’m getting information that tells me one thing, then next something else entirely.”

“Lies and deceit.  It’s the world we live in.”

“Is that what you’re going to run with?”

“It’s all I know.  You ask Mrs Rodby for the details.  I’m sure she knows a lot more than all of us.  Just the fact the Countess was her step-sister should be ample proof that no one is ever going to get to the bottom of this affair.  So, like I said, take the win.”

Of course, I could see it in his face, the man who would make the world’s best poker player.  Maybe once.  He’s known all along about her secret.  Had he been hoping it wouldn’t come out?

I shook my head.  “Go away, Rodby.  I’m done for good this time.  I’m going back to Venice, and spending the rest of my days waiting for the canals to clear up.”

“With Juliet?”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.”

“You ask her, her story before you do anything else.”

It was all he said.

© Charles Heath 2023

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

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 it.

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!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

Searching for locations: The Pagoda Forest, near Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China

The pagoda forest

After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.

A little history first:

The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill.  As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple.  Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles.  The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.

It is now a world heritage site.

No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time.  The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers.  The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.

The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.

This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas

There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.

From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon

to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.

Then it’s back to the hotel.

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 67

Rescue, but why?

…

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Benito the solicitor was playing both sides of the fence.  He knew the countess was never going to see a Lira, or was it a Euro of the inheritance., so her devised another plan.

He of all people would know the countess had a twin so what could be harder, knowing the countess’s movements to have her kidnapped and substitute her with her twin.

He would know of Dicostini’s desire to purchase the estate, so get it in the hands of the fake countess, see it to Dicostini and make commissions on an exponential number of transactions.  When the counties had no further ruse, kill the real one, leave the fake one in place, somewhere preferably a long way away, and relax in the expensive apartment with the expensive wife.

The trouble is foolproof plans are never foolproof when fools are involved.  Dicostini was a bad tempered impatient fool, the fake countess was an impatient and understudied fool who would fool no one hp mattered, and fools of kidnappers managed to pick up an extra body.

At least there was a financial payoff waiting there to correct a wrong that shouldn’t have happened, but an opportunity to make a profit.  Especially when the rest of the scam went west.  This was going to be the only profit he would make, or so she thought.

Roma Termini, track 15, at the peak hour when there would be a lot of foot traffic in the corridor.  I got there early with Giulietta, when he called with the details, I told him her attendance was non-negotiable because I had to make sure no one stole the money.  I knew it wouldn’t be a deal breaker because just as I arrived, Anthony sent me a balance sheet of Benito’s financial affairs and he was awash with debt.

A young beautiful wife was very, very expensive.  Giulietta said she would never be that expensive, but I was not sure why.  I said she was not young and beautiful, and she hit me, quite hard.  I probably deserved that.

But it was the cue for Benito to make himself known, saying that he was acting as an agent for the real kidnappers because they knew he was the countess’s solicitor and there would be consequences if he didn’t.

There were going to be consequences one way or another.

My first question.  “Where is Mrs Rodby so I can verify she is alive and well.”

He was smart.  He had a cell phone and a link to a camera where she was sitting on a chair in a cell holding a piece of paper that had today’s date on it.  It was like a scene from a bad movie.

“And where is this cell?”

“Nearby.  I get the money and getaway, and you get the address.”

“No.  It doesn’t work like that.  I said I needed to see her in person.  You take me there, open the door, I give you the money, and then you can leave.”

There were a dozen scenarios I’m sure he worked out that I would try, all of which demanded two-way trust.  He was a layer and having dealt with low lives, I’m sure he knew all of the dirty tricks in the book.  I didn’t bother countering the next scenario he was offering, the same as the last just with fancier window dressing, I went for the jugular.  Giulietta dialled the number of his apartment and Cecelia answered it.

I asked him to look at my feed.  It was better than his.  It was his wife melting down over the fact she had a silenced gun to her head, and also one of his children.  All three were terrified.

“Pick one.”

“What do you mean?  He was starting to get the idea.  This exchange was not going to work.”

“Pick the first one to die when I count to ten and you haven’t accepted my counteroffer.”

“You haven’t told me your counteroffer.”

“True.  We had to get the threats out of the way first.  How about you take me to the cell, open the door, take a reasonable payout, I’ll release your family, and you can go away and talk about your failings as a husband and a father.”

He looked at the screen, at me, and then I started counting down to one.  He caved at four.

Benito got a hundred thousand Euros for his trouble.

Cecelia told me she didn’t like the idea of threatening his wife and children unless they were thoroughly bad, which Mrs Benito and the children were not.

Giulietta said that if this was the depths I sank to, she didn’t think I was worth knowing, an assessment of her part I could agree with, mainly because of the distress it caused Benito.

It didn’t matter to her he was party to a kidnapping, and by proxy to a murder.  I hadn’t read about a suspicious death at the Dicostini house so I wondered if Benito had it sent under the carpet.

Mrs Rodby was argumentative and belligerent when we rescued her, in her mind it was one lot of thugs replacing the other thugs until I got Rodby on the phone and he spoke to her.  I was not surprised to discover he was almost in Sorrento.

It didn’t help her demeanour or attitude, so I told her she could find her own way home and left her with a burner phone with Rodby’s number outside the building where she had been locked up for weeks.  It was five minutes before my phone rang and she apologised.

I almost didn’t go back.

© Charles Heath 2023

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 65

No way to run an operation

…

Cecelia called me when she was in place, waiting.

“Who’s there?”

“A woman, two small children, and a maid.”

“No man of the house?”

“No.  She spoke on the phone about an hour ago and didn’t look happy.  Who is she?”

“Someone you might have to shoot, so don’t get attached.  Wait till I call you first, then invite yourselves in.  Does it look expensive?”

“She does, and yes.  It’s very posh.  Why?”

“Curiosity.”

We were back in the hotel room.  Francesca was working her way through a bottle of red wine.

“I can go now if you like.  Cecelia told me the countess was dead.  My work is done,” she said morosely.

“Not yet.  Can’t have you telling people information I don’t want them to know yet.  We still have people to catch.”

“OK.  Does your current squeeze realise this one has feelings for you?”  She nodded in Juliet’s direction, stopping her in her tracks.

“It’d be misplaced affection.  Right now, she’s at the top of my shoot first and asks questions later list.”

“You know, if you don’t want to end up grumpy and lonely, you are going to have to work on your small talk.  I don’t think women go for this shoot first thing.  Whatever; just thought you ought to know.”

I glared at Juliet.  “Is that what this is about, you being here?”

“Why on earth would you think that.  You’re probably the snarkiest person I’ve ever met.  She’s right, you need to work on your small talk.”

Then proceeded to turn around and go into one of the rooms, slamming the door.

“Exactly,” Francesca said.

13 minutes after that the call came.

Male voice, distorted.

“You are looking for an Englishwoman, Martha Rodby, yes.”

“Yes.”

“We know where she is, and once the money is transferred, we will tell you.”

“Nice try.  You get the money, in a duffle bag, when I see her with my own eyes.  No mirrors, no magic, no obstacle courses, and multiple phone booths and time limits.  You tell me where and when and I’ll be there.”

“Alone?”

“If you’re not stupid, and I don’t think you are, there will be plenty of people around.  Dark alleys and dank tunnels are not my thing.”

“I’ll call you back soon with the details.”

It was a quick call, so he was worried about me tracing it.  I was not, or at least I wasn’t, but Alfie might.

A message popped up, after making a dinging sound.  “Call came from Rome, can pin it down to a half kilometre square.”

I typed in, “Don’t bother.  I know who it is.”

He couldn’t help himself.  “Who?”

I ignored it.

“Your kidnapper?”

“A concerned citizen.”

“Your kidnapper.  Do you ever say anything that means anything?”

“I try not to.  You do know my shadowy world consists of nothing by lies and deception, and smoke and mirrors?”

“Do you actually get anything done?”

“Mostly not, but at least this time I haven’t got to kill anyone.  Yet.”

“You should tell your girlfriend that?”

“Which one, according to you?”

“Juliet.  You want to tell her you don’t have feelings for her.”

“Are you trying to annoy me?”

She gave me one of those looks, yes, I’d known her long enough to be able to classify them.

“How did your wife actually put up with you all those years?”

“I’m sure it made interesting reading?”

“What?”

“My file.”

She smiled.  “It did.  My boss thought if I stuck close enough, I might learn something.  I did.  Stick to Art History.  By the way, I like you too, but I’m not going to compete with those other two.  Oh, and I assume you have a plan or will have a plan by tomorrow, on how to take this guy down?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Good.  Do I get a gun?”

“No.”

“Just when relations were improving.  Do you want anything from room service?  I’m getting some pasta.”

I sighed.  This was no way to run an operation.

© Charles Heath 2023