The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

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, which was about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all rewrites, 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 Year’s, 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 apartment buildings were 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 Centre is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy man with 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.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

Get it here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

The cinema of my dreams – It all started in Venice – Episode 3

Making sure I recognised the target

…

It was mid-afternoon and a half hour before her plane touched down when I arrived at the airport by water taxi. It was not a trip I made often, but that final run from the city across the open water was at times invigorating, sometimes quite pleasant.

Today, the water had a chop, and the ride was less smooth than usual. The driver also seemed to be in a hurry, just about leaving the dock before I’d got off the boat. It was one of the more interesting ways of arriving at an airport.

It was a leisurely walk to the terminal building, and just as I passed the first of the arrival boards, I saw her plane had landed, about ten minutes early.

I headed to the gate, where, as I arrived, the first of the passengers was coming through the door. She was not at the front of the plane, and it was a full flight; it might be a while before she appeared.

I checked to see if there was anyone who seemed out of place, expecting that Larry would not be that trusting to allow her any freedom, but there were no suspicious others, except if you counted me in that category, lurking within eyesight, but masked from the exiting passenger’s view.

It was several minutes before she appeared, casually dressed as a tourist might, in a bright coloured floral dress with a denim jacket, and travelling with a cabin bag she wheeled in front of her.

She looked different from the photograph, not as gaunt in the face, as if she had recovered from a serious illness. I could not see the expression on her face, but one thing was clear: she was not happy.

Then I saw why.

A man came up to her just as she left the lounge area, appearing suddenly, which meant he had been hidden from me, and she looked surprised, then angry, angry enough that airport security started walking towards them.

The man, seeing the police approaching, said something to her, then quickly walked away. I took a photograph and, looking at it, realised it wouldn’t be difficult to remember him if I needed to.

Alfie would no doubt tell me who he was in due course. In the meantime, Juliet had waited for the police and then spoke to them briefly before heading towards the water taxi terminal.

I was closer to that exit and got there before her, checking to see if the man who had accosted her was waiting outside, as he had left in that direction, and had passed quite close to me. Most noticeable about him is the tattoo of a snake wrapped around his neck.

It gave him that fearsome look that he no doubt used in his profession.

I couldn’t see him, so I headed towards the terminal, this time with the intention of getting the public water bus, otherwise known as a Vaporetto. She followed more casually, taking in the sights as if it were her first time in Venice.

It also gave rise to the thought again of how she was going to ‘run into me’ in a city full of alleyways and hidden passageways, making it easy for even the most experienced traveller to get lost at least once during their visit. The only possibility was in St marks Square or the promenade along the Canal that led out of the square from the Doge’s Palace.

Then I saw him, waiting by a water taxi, or perhaps a private motorboat. She saw him too and headed straight for the Vaporetto, boarding just before it departed, giving him no chance to catch her. It was an amusing charade and an act of defiance she would probably pay for later.

It provided an opportunity to follow him, and when he left, I asked the driver of my water taxi to follow him, coming up with a suitable excuse why I would want to do so, but not sure the driver believed me. One thing was certain: with a captive passenger, he could charge a premium fare knowing I’d have to pay it.

Keeping a suitable distance between us, he followed the boat to Murano, the island of glass-blowing factories. He waited until the driver of the boat left the dock and then took his place for me to disembark, and then I gave him a head start before following discreetly, or as discreetly as I could in the circumstances. There were not many visitors about, so I could hardly lose myself in the crowd.

We passed several glass showrooms on the way alongside the Canal until he reached a bridge and crossed it. On the other side, I could see a basilica, yet another of the many churches in the city, each as old and ornate as the next, and one of the many I’d visited over time and many visits to the city.

But this was not one I’d been to before.

On the other side of the bridge, not far from the church, he stopped and turned around. It was as if he knew he was being followed, and fortunately, just at that moment, I was all but hidden behind the base of the bridge on the opposite side of the Canal.

A long, hard stare at each of those he could see, including those crossing the bridge, then he shrugged and walked towards another man, similarly dressed, waiting outside the church.

I managed to get a better photograph of him and one of his new companions, too, just before they met and walked into the church. I was not going to follow them in. I was hoping Alfie would find out who they were and where to find them, though I had a feeling I was going to meet them again, but not in similar circumstances.

Another question popped into my head as I walked back to the Vaporetto station. Where was Larry right now? On his way to Venice? Or would he wait until Juliet made contact? I knew which hotel she was staying in, a rather small but interesting one I’d stayed at the first time I came to Venice, so I could find her any time I wanted to.

…

NaNoWriMo – April – 2026 – Day 16

Onwards and upwards…

…

Or so the saying goes. I’m on target, but it’s like cruising down a placid river taking in the sights.

Until you hit the rapids.

That’s what it feels like, that there’s an impending disaster. I know how fatalistic it sounds, but many times in the past, when everything is going right, it’s too good to be true.

But…

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime, after editing today’s quota, I go back over the first ten chapters of part three and make some adjustments.

Now I feel better and can continue writing in accordance with the plan.

For now, it’s so far so good.

A to Z – April – 2026 – N

N is for – Never trust those nice guys

…

If something is too good to be true, then it generally is. Those words bounced around in my head only moments after the winner of the award had been announced.

And it wasn’t me. I had worked hard, done everything that was asked of me, and yet at the eleventh hour, I had been usurped

Of course, I had only myself to blame.

Some other words that rattled around in what could probably now be called an empty space, because no sane person would have believed that McGurk was a worthy recipient, were good guys come last.

They did.

I have been too trusting.

I wanted to believe that McGurk honestly wanted to help me win, but all the time, he was getting the information needed to win the award for himself.

After all, the prize was worth a million pounds.

And he was never going to stay long enough to show them anything for the money. The proposal was slick, the pitch was slick, and the man himself was slick personified.

However, one item I did know about him was that he had done this before. A number of times, and after each success, he disappeared with the money and wasn’t seen again.

It was exactly what he would do this time if we let him.

Everyone was also oblivious to the deception. He was far too affable, far too obliging, far too kind. And too accommodating. He was everybody’s friend.

Except mine.

Jason McMaster, the head of the selection committee, came over to offer his commiserations.

“Sorry, old boy,” he began, “but it was a close call, 4 to 5. You put in a brilliant prospectus, but the numbers didn’t quite add up.”

No, they didn’t do, they. I noticed far too late that someone had slipped in a revised budget, and it had the look of a grade six student’s horrible attempt to balance a small budget.

I had tried to fix it, but the committee decided the submissions would be as is, where is. I knew McGurk had a hand in getting those papers, and I was sure it was someone on the selection team who helped him. Without proof, I was not going to change the result.

At least one of the members dared to tell me what had happened and not be shocked on the night.

Evelyn had worked as hard as I had, and it seemed to me he had not approached her. Perhaps she would have seen him for what he was. More than once, she told me to be wary.

Like I said, it was on me.

…

McGurk was in his element, the centre of attention, soaking up the adulation as the man who had beaten the sure thing.

Some people didn’t like me, not many, because what they mistook for determination was really the desire to be fair and equitable.

His acceptance speech was the sort to be expected, praising the competition, acknowledging the help I’d given him, and stating that he was going to make a lot of people’s futures much brighter.

I was not sure who those people were, because no one in this county would.

After shaking the selection committee’s hands and thanking them all, he wandered over to see me.

He was brave or stupid, I wasn’t sure which, but then he didn’t know what I knew.

“You do realise the race was over before it began.” He was all smiles and shaking my hand for the cameras.

I was all smiles for a different reason. “Not at first, but I did get a sense of it towards the end.”

“You didn’t seem to be all that well-liked.”

No. I got that. Alfred Knopper, next door neighbour and staunch enemy when I won the council election over him, was on the committee.

I should have tried harder to win him over.

“Happens in small towns. You can’t please everyone all of the time. You will discover that. “

“I’m sure I won’t. I understood the brief.”

I smiled. “I hope you do.”

I could see Evelyn coming over, and so could he. Her face was set, and I could feel the heat from where I was standing. So he could and excused himself.

Her eyes followed him as he retreated.

“Snake.”

“He’s the one they deserve.”

“No one deserves a creature like that.”

I shrugged. “Well, like him or lump him, he’s all they’ve got.”

Until he cashed the check.

A week is a long time in politics, or so I was told the first time I ran for council.

I didn’t want to, but a lot of people said that it was time for a change.

I rode the crest of that wave of change for three terms, after which those same people voted for another change. It didn’t bother me. I had tried to be fair and equitable, but not everybody’s definition of those words was the same.

I tried to please all of the people all of the time and failed miserably.

We lived in a different world from the one I thought I knew.

It was time to move on, and the plans Evelyn and I had made a few months before, plan B, were in motion. The children had moved on. We had sold the house, where I had lived my whole life and my father before me.

All I was waiting for was…

…

The phone rang, its shrill insistence penetrating the fog of sleep, and only years of training forced me to answer it.

“Yes.”

“He’s gone.” Jason McMaster sounded panicked.

“Who has gone?”

“McGurk. Office cleaned out, residence as clean as the day he walked into it.”

McMaster had been very generous in giving him the house rent-free until he was settled.

“The funding.”

Silence. Then, “It’s not in the corporate account.”

Of course not.

“It was transferred to a Cayman Islands bank.”

“You called them?”

“Transferred to a JN Corporation, a shell company. It’s going to take an army of forensic accountants to find it, and McGurk, if that’s his real name.”

It wasn’t, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Why are you telling me?”

“The selection committee asked me to ask you to come back and maintain continuity while we sort this mess out.”

“Too late. I’m off on holiday this morning. Time to take a break from everything.”

“Then in a few weeks, when you get back. We’ll talk.”

“Can’t. Not coming back. Not getting the award settled a few things for me, and the main one was our future. Twelve months in a cottage in Tuscany and then, well, who knows. Have a nice life, Jason.”

I hung up.

Evelyn rolled over. “McGurk?”

“Not at the office for his first day.”

“Jason?”

“Nearly hysterical. He went to the house, and there’s no sign he had ever been there.”

“McGurk wasn’t. He’s been dead since the day after he was born, but Michael Oliphant, that’s a different story.”

“Is that his real name?”

“So Viktor told me. Took three days, but he broke him. They all break eventually.”

“And the money.”

“It’ll be in Geneva by the time we get there. Now, come back to bed.”

…

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

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

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

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

theremarkables3

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

theviewfromthegondolaquwwnstown

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

“Jump Now” – A short story

It was 2 am, the ideal time to assemble a team that would be clandestinely boarding a vessel.

Dark and moonless, it was fortuitous rather than planned, and, dressed in black from head to toe, it was hard to see the others in the inky darkness. At least something was on our side.

Up until this point, we’d had nothing but bad luck, though I was more of the opinion that we had a traitor in our midst because some of the events could not have any other explanation.

It had caused me to be far more selective in who I gave details of the mission to.

Each of the four team members had arrived and let themselves into the shed. It was not far from the ocean, and a small pier where there was a landing craft waiting. From there, it would be a half-hour trip out to the ship in question, where, if we got close enough, we would either have to go over the side and swim or pull alongside, but either way, we’d have to go up a rope.

A lot depended on the crew member we had recruited getting a rope overboard, and given the luck we had so far, if there was a flaw in the plan, that was it.

Aside from the four people sitting in front of me, there were only three others privy to what was about to happen. Now, with recent events, it was hard to imagine that one of them could betray us. That’s why I hadn’t completely told them what they were about to do, just that they needed to be prepared to get wet.

“I’m sure, now we’re here, you can tell us what’s going on.” Robert was the most trusted of my team and my best friend.

“And why all the hush-hush?” Linda added. She had been amused at the secrecy and my explanation.

I was never very good at spinning a story. She knew that but had not questioned why.

“It’s been touch and go for the last week. It’s why we’ve all been on standby, with this last-minute call out. We’ve been waiting for a particular ship to leave port, and now it has. So, without further ado, let’s get to it. A boat ride, just enough time to gather the courage to the sticking point, and then with any luck we won’t have to go into the water and swim, but a short shimmy up a rope. I hope you’ve all been working out.”

The boat ride was in silence. I’d worked with this group before, and they were not big on talking. Aside from the fact that noise travelled over water, and since we had a specially silenced motor on the boat, there was not going to be any unnecessary conversation.

We could see the ship once we reached the headland, and aside from its running lights, there were lights where I presumed the bridge was, and several in the crew quarters. Closer again, I got the impression it was not moving, or if it was, it was very slow. It was difficult to make out in the darkness. That same darkness aided our approach.

When we were within several hundred yards, I could see that the ship was not moving and, in fact, had the anchor out.

That was not expected. Were they waiting for us? Had they discovered the crew member who was working with us? We’d know soon enough if there was no rope in the designated point, not far forward of the stern, a spot where we could maneuver the boat under the hull curvature.

The driver piloted the boat slowly to the designated point, and the rope was there. He would stay with the boat and wait. The four of us would go up and collect what we came for.

I watched the three go up the rope before me, waiting for the last to stop at the top and then go over the side onto the deck. It took nearly a minute before I got the signal that it was clear to follow.

It had been too easy.

I went up the rope slowly, slower than the others, something other than the object of the exercise on my mind. Not three days before, I had a conversation with my boss, telling him that I’d been doing the job too long and that it was time to retire. Approaching forty wasn’t exactly retirement age, but in this job, lasting that long was almost a miracle. The places I’d been, the sights I’d seen, and the people I’d met. And how many lives I’d used up.

It was a dangerous thing, thinking about anything other than the job when you’re on the job.

I reached the top and pulled myself over the railing and onto the deck. A little off balance, it took a moment to stand. By then, it was too late.

Two of the three other members of the team were sitting by the superstructure, hands on their heads, two members of the crew were watching them, guns at the ready, and Linda had one pointing at me.

“I can’t imagine how MacIntyre thought he was going to convince Petra to defect. Or how this charade of a rescue attempt was ever going to work.”

I put my hands up. Not entirely unexpected. “It was not the mission objective.”

“What…”

I was surprised that she had made her move so early. If it were my operation, I would wait until we were well into the superstructure, heading to the cabin where Petra would be waiting, and then make the move.

Three seconds, three shots, two guards taken out, and Linda incapacitated. She would not be moving or fighting back any time soon. Then Petra came out of the shadows, and I collected Linda’s gun and stood near her, just in case Petra missed the target.

Petra cut the two others’ bindings and said, “Get to the side and jump now.”

Linda looked up at me. “What now?”

I shrugged. “Time for us to leave.” I gave Petra a nod, and she went over to the side, took one look back at Linda, shook her head, then jumped.

“You’re just going to leave me here?”

“If it were up to me, I’d shoot you, but MacIntire is getting a little soft in his old age. But yes, I’m leaving you here. Now, I really must go.”

I took a last look at Linda, who realised that if she moved, it would only worsen her injury, and jumped, not exactly my preferred way of leaving the ship.

The boat came up alongside me, and two hands dragged me on board. At the same time, we could hear the sound of the anchor chain being pulled up, and the propellers creating a wash as the ship started moving.

Job done, and not one that pleased me. “Let’s go home,” I told the driver, “it’s past my bedtime.”

—-

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

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!

PIWalthJones1

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.