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.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 80/81

Days 80 and 81 – Writing exercise

…

It was like watching a train wreck happening in real time.

But that was the current state of my older brother Roger’s life, firstborn and heir to the family fortune.

I was the youngest sibling, Sam, last born and heir to nothing but the name, Winterbourne, which in reality counted for very little.

In between four girls was the second son, Edward, and he was the harbinger of everything that was going wrong, and had been for some time.

Why?

Because he honestly believed that he should be the son and heir, not Roger, simply because Edward was more like our father, and Roger was more like our mother.

They looked like brothers, same size, same hair, same build, but that was where the similarities ended.  Roger wanted to be an actor, not a lawyer, and Edward followed in fathers footsteps.

Nobody cared what I wanted to do, and simply left me alone.

But, in truth, the issues that started the family express on its way to a certain disaster began when our mother died.

By that time, we were all past school, the girls married, bar one, Roger in the throes of getting married to his prospective wife, Edward drinking, gambling, and womanising as was his so-called birthright, and I was spending time managing the estate.

Everybody was reasonably happy, except father never quite got over the loss of our mother.

That wasn’t so much the catalyst as the revelation that Edward decided he wanted the girl Roger was about to marry.

Of course, if that was the only issue, the train could have stayed on the tracks.  It was the fact that she got herself entangled in Edward’s messy life, and Roger found out.

..

Roger was never one for self-assertion.  Or defending his position or his possessions, not that he treated Bethany as a possession.  He was not like that.  Edward was always taking his things and never returning them.

Now he wanted to take his girlfriend.

I had told Roger to propose to Bethany, but he prevaricated.  He was like that, as his mother was.

I told him more than once that he who hesitates generally loses, but he had this faith in the fact that things would always work out the way they were supposed to.

God did not work in mysterious ways.

I walked in on the argument that erupted in the drawing room.

Two stags stare each other down.

“So, what’s the difference of opinion now?”

Roger always backed down before it got confrontational, but this time he had the bit between his teeth.

“Tell this useless idiot to back off on Bethany.” Roger always had a problem when angry in speaking his words, stemming from having a bad stutter when he was much younger.

Edward, making fun of it, hadn’t helped.

I looked at Edward.  “Are you that low that you’d do that to your brother?”

“She doesn’t like him.  She told me so.  If it wasn’t for Dad leaving the keys to the castle to him, she wouldn’t waste her time.  Not that he could run the place.  Dad would be better off leaving it to me.”

And there it was, that was a long-standing argument that held no water with inheritance laws, finally out of the box.  He’d been alluding to it for years.

“So, what exactly does that mean, Edward.  Is she going to come here and tell him herself because there are matters that need to be resolved?”

I was not sure what the arrangements were, but the match had been forged between families just before mother had died and was to be fulfilled before father died.

It had been an agreeable arrangement between the families and had come to the point where the wedding was announced, and everyone was looking forward to it.

Except…

Bethany walked into the room.

She stopped at the door and looked first at Edward, which elicited a complete change of expression, Roget, probably the angriest I’d ever seen him, which fuelled another change, then to me.  “What am I going to tell whom?”

“I can’t cope with any of this.  The wedding is off,” Roger was barely able to speak, the angriest I’ve ever seen him, and then stormed out of the room.

Bethany looked at Edward, “What have you done?”

“I told him the truth, and he couldn’t handle it “

“What truth?”

“That you love me, not that simpering idiot.” 

There were only fifteen steps between her and Edward, the only person in the room who wasn’t angry.  I blinked and almost missed it.

She punched his lights out.

Literally.

Then went after Roger.

I crossed the room to where Edward was lying on the floor, completely out of it.  I was sorely tempted to get a bucket of ice water and throw it over him.

Instead, I just shook my head.

Impetuous Edward.  Like a great many things that ran around in his head, a lot of it was his imagination. I suspect he mistook her kindness towards him as affection. She most likely said she loved him as a brother-in-law, and he heard what he wanted to hear.

In that moment, I wanted to strangle him.

…

At the bottom of the garden there was a stream, with a rotunda when mother used to sit and read, or towards the of her life, paint.

A lot of her paintings adorned the walls, and the one she did of Zeus, my childhood dog, still hung in my room, a reminder of days long gone.

I wandered down there now, as I did when everything got a little too much, to talk to mother, believing that she was nearby and would hear me.

I was not surprised to see Bethany there, looking very unhappy.

She looked up when I reached the bottom of the steps.

“Sam.”

“You’ve found my hiding spot.”

“It’s very peaceful.”

“Mother’s favourite place.  Father built it for her and forbade any of us from coming here, so she had her own refuge from the monsters.”

“Monsters?”

“Us children.  There were seven of us, and all with our individual quirks.  Some more than others.  May I?”

She nodded.

I joined her but sat on the opposite side, a habit formed when my mother said I could join her.

“I had no idea you had such a hefty right hook.”

“Neither did I, but he deserved it.”

That he did.  “How are you?”  I asked.  I think I already knew, the red, teary eyes and woebegone expression.

“Not good.  Roger won’t talk to me.”

“The Edward effect, I call it.  Edward has always ragged on him, all his life.  Edward inherited all of the bad traits from my father’s side of the family, very much like Uncle William, that generation’s black sheep.”

“I did not say those things to Edward.  I have no idea how he could think that.”

“Edward hears what he wants to hear and imagines the rest.  He’s angry that the inheritance goes to Roger, and I suspect that jealousy has only intensified, given his gambling debts.  It isn’t going away any time soon, not unless father does something about it.”

She sighed.  “It’s a mess.  I have no idea how I’m going to tell my parents.  I swear I have not had anything to do with Edward.  I have no idea how he could even imagine I would prefer him.  He’s a bully, at best.”

That was being kind.  Very few of the girls in our sphere would have anything to do with him.

“Well, there has to be a wedding.  Everything is arranged.  That means something must be done about Edward, and my father is going to have to sort it out.  Let me see what I can do.  Don’t tell anyone just yet.”

“Are you sure.  I’ve never seen Roger this upset.”

“Believe me, this is nothing compared to some of the terrible things Edward has done, to all of us.  I think once his father learns of his behaviour, it’ll come to an end.”

…

Of course, there was no guarantee that anything would be done.  My father had tended to ignore Edward and hope the problem would go away.

Even so, after talking to Bethany, I decided that I would try to see my father and get him involved.  Edward just might sit still long enough to be given an ultimatum, if only to leave Bethany alone.

Roger needed to have time to settle into a relationship that didn’t involve wrestling with his brother and the dissections and enmity that came with it.

Someone had to get the train back on the rails.

At this time of the day, if he was not in the city attending to business, he would be in the study.  I was never quite sure what he did in there. Mother told me once that it was where he hid from her and his parenting responsibilities.

I wasn’t going to tell her she’s had almost done the same, leaving it to boarding schools and a bevy of servants and nannies to look after us until we were old enough to make our own way.

When I reached the study doors, McCallister, one of the farmhands, was standing outside.  He was one of the nice ones, having taught me to ride a horse and a lot of the work that went into running an estate.

More than once, I said that he should be running the place, but he was always content just to come with me.

“Are you in trouble?”

Dumb question, he was the one who usefully dragged the recalcitrant hands before the master.

“‘Tis Master Edward, sir.  I was asked to bring him here.  Never thought I’d see the day say Master Roger would hot him, but there it is.”

There it was, indeed.

I knocked on the door, waited until asked, and went in.

Edward was lounging in the chair opposite the desk, not very well.  Roger had made his point in no uncertain terms. Roger was standing further to one side, as if the distance between them was a matter of one of the others’ safety.

Edwards kept a wary eye on his brother.

Father was standing behind his desk and looked more forbidding than I’d ever seen him before.  If it had been his expectation that the children would be able to sort out their problems between them, he was sadly mistaken.

“If you’ve come to state the obvious, don’t.”

“I was going to say that I’ve spoken to Bethany and she does not harbour any feelings towards Edward, no matter what he may think or say.  I’m not going to state the obvious, but this whole affair needs to be resolved now, once and for all.”

“It is.”

There was a finality in those two words that I could literally feel.  The air in that room, it was so thick you could metaphorically cut it with a knife.

Edward was silent.  He was looking down.  There was something about him I’d never seen before

Fear.

Outright fear.

Our father looked at him, the Roger the me.  “Edward will be leaving with William.  He’ll be going back to South Africa with him.  I’ve paid his debts, and there will be no arguments, no whining and no more of this rubbish that has done nothing but sully our good name with our neighbours, our friends, and business partners.

“I am glad your mother isn’t alive today to see what a wretch you are, Edward.  We gave you every chance in the world to make something of yourself, and what did you do?”

Another knock on the door.

Uncle William.  Alleged black sheep of the family, but I think I got it wrong.  He was here to turn the black sheep into a human being.

“Peter, Roger, Sam.”  Then his eyes reached the wretch.  “Edward.”  He shook his head.  He looked up at his brother.  “I would not be as forgiving, but then you were always the softy.”

He grabbed Edward by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet.  “I’ll make a man put of him, either that or put him in a box.”  I’d never seen Edward so shaken.  “Let’s go.”

“I need to get some stuff, Uncle.”

“Where you’re going, you don’t need stuff, just your wits.”

They left, and the door closed behind them.

My father glared at Roger.  “You need to get your head out of your rear end.  Go and sort out the mess with your young lady.  Go.”

Roget almost ran.

That left me, and a man in a frightfully bad mood, and wondering what it was that I had done wrong.  My father was back to being his scariest best.

He almost fell into his chair, exhausted.

“Keep up the good work, Sam.  At least someone in this place is interested in keeping it running.”

“Yes, sir.”

He waved his hand in my direction, towards the door.  “Be off with you.”

I got as far as opening the door, almost escaping, when he said, “Sam.”

I stopped and slowly turned, waiting for the bollicking. “Find yourself a nice young lady and marry her.  Your mother always liked the Princeton girl.  What’s her name?”

“Annie.”

“Annie.  Im sure I’ve seen her here.  She’s not wishy washy like Rogers girl, but he is wishy washy anyway, so they’ll make a good pair.  Hmm.  Off you go then.”

I went out and closed the door before he thought of something else.  He may have appeared to be lost in grief, but he didn’t miss anything.

Or my oldest sister couldn’t keep a secret.

“Sam.”

Annie’s voice came down the passage just as she came into sight.  “I hear Roger finally snapped.”

I went down to meet her.  “Father’s back.  I think our secret romance is no longer a secret.”

She smiled, taking my hand in hers.  “It was never a secret, was it, McCallister?”

He was walking past, his guard duty done.  “No, miss.  Not since you two moved in together in the gamekeeper’s cottage.”

I wanted it to be a secret, but he was right.

“Edward?”

“Leaving with Uncle William.”

“Purgatory then?”

“Reform school.”

“Then the weddings back on?”

“How did you know it was off?”

She looked me up and down, and simply smiled that angelic smile of hers, the one that reminded me of my mother. 

Some might say there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Others would say it was an out-of-control freight train heading straight for us.

Me, I’d just simply say the train wreck was averted, and tomorrow, well, that was ready for us to face the next disaster.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

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

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

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

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

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

NaNoWriMo – April – 2026 – Day 8

I’m in the middle of writing a new chapter, one that goes back a little in time, but helps set up events that occur later towards the end.

And true to form, it’s going a little off track.

There is scope for it to be a pivotal point in the story, but it’s not quite working out that way.

I’m doing this while I’m waiting for my usual Friday grandchild collection from school. Here I have to get here a half hour before pick up time to get a favourable position in the queue.

So it’s a good time to do some editing.

And it’s where I work on one of my stories, matched to a photo as inspiration.

Not today.

There are pressures in getting the NaNoWriMo project finished, and it’s getting away from me.

This part was not as easy as I hoped, so back to the job. Hopefully, there will be better news tomorrow

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

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

…

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

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

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

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

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

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

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

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

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

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

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

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 50

A discussion with the Princess

…

I had the Princess put in one of the VIP guests’ rooms, quarters that were about four times the size of a junior officer’s room.

It was self-sufficient.

She had asked for an assistant which by her tone told me she really wanted a servant, a request I turned down because in our culture we did not believe in having servants.  We had long since removed subservience, though pockets of it still existed, labelled as something more palatable.

Instead, I assigned one of the medical staff as an assistant with strict instructions that firstly she was not there to take orders, secondly, she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to and thirdly to observe, and by any means possible within reason, find out more about their physiology and thought processes.

I called ahead of the visit to ensure it was convenient.  We had spoken briefly, but I had told her I would need to speak more comprehensively at a later time.  Like the other alien, she had a considerable comprehension of us and our language.

It just reinforced how insignificant we were in the universe, contrary to a lot of thinking back home who believed we were the centre of that same universe.

It was going to be a jolt to a lot of people back yo to realise we were not a superior race of beings.

Nurse Jolene Richardson was just leaving when I arrived at the door. 

“Everything going alright,” I asked.

“As well as it can.  It’s still quite difficult to wrap my head around the fact there are other people, other than us, though I have to say I never believed we were the only people in the universe.”

“I’m not sure what I believed, but that’s what we’re out here for.  You are one of the privileged few.  So far.  Done for now?”

“Time for a break.  She is very polite, but I get the impression she is lost.  If I was to make a guess, going home might be more stressful due to how long she had been away.  She wouldn’t tell me, but I suspect there might be some difficulties.”

“Thanks.”

Jolene continued on her way and I stepped into the room and the door closed behind me.

The princess was on the far side of the room, sitting comfortably on a settee, now dressed in a borrowed uniform, reading from a computer tablet.  Ancient technology to them perhaps.

“Captain.”  I waited until she looked up.

“Princess.”

“I’d rather you called me Elizabeth.  It’s not my real name, but it is an earth representation of it. Please sit.”  She waved at a chair opposite her, and I sat.  “You have questions?”

“I have an interest in where we are going, and what I might find there.  So far, we’ve met with hostility, but that, I fear, was due to some of my fellow humans doing the wrong thing, and, to a certain extent, our own lack of knowledge of local customs and protocols.  I hope to avoid that when we get to your home world.  As with the person we dealt with on the other world, you seem to know a little about us.”

“We know a lot about every world within our sphere of space travel simply because we have to.  Not all species are peaceful.  Your people, for instance, have spent centuries going to war with each other, and even now, still cannot put a combined mission together for a common cause.  That does not speak highly of your people.”

“We’ve come a long way in the last 50 years, but, as you say, not quite far enough. This mission’s parameters are to present a united front of many different people from our world.  The other ship belongs to a more avaricious group whose ideals are not the same as ours.  Unfortunately, I suspect these same traits are in your own people too.”

“We have, to use a word of yours, factions too.  We are not immune to internal struggles for leadership, and division of wealth, no matter how enlightened we become.”

And that might mean they have a little human in them.  In fact, I had always suspected that the human genome would be present in other galaxies like this, even if the people looked vastly different to us. 

In talking to the Astro physicists and anthropologists some of whom we had on board, they quite literally couldn’t predict what we might find, but the notion some of the people would be like us had been discussed.

So had the subject of robotics and the fact we might find very lifelike robots or androids.  In any case, it seemed we were predicting that the lifeforms would be far more advanced than us, and at no time have we considered they would be more primitive.

“In that, I guess we are not unlike.  But one question I have, are you like the others, a consciousness in a manufactured body?”

“I am not.  But we have developed a means of preserving our outer shells.  For instance, I am roughly 280 of your earth years old, though, in my own world, I am very young.  Our elders are roughly 1,000 of your earth years, and some of whom have transferred their consciousness mind to a more sustainable body.”

“How did you end up on the planet we rescued you from?”

“Hundreds of your years ago we were at war, not only with M but half a dozen others.  I was on a communications and transit outpost with a dozen other families when an enemy ship came, killed all the adult people and kidnapped me and twenty other children, taking us back to their world to be sold.  I have been gone a long time and I’m unsure if anyone related to me will still be very alive.”

“You see a princess.”

“A long time ago.  I went home once and it was a place I didn’t recognise.  My world had Bern conquered several times over time, and very few of my people were still alive then.  I suspect there are fewer now.”

“Then this will hardly be much of a homecoming for you.”

“But I will be home, such as it is.  I might have to beg your indulgence for a short time until I get settled.  You might also take the opportunity to talk to other new people.”

Well, I wasn’t thinking of dumping her and running, but I had to wonder if the current leadership might be equally hostile to us as the others. 

“I hope so.  I can see you’re tired.  We’ll pick this up later.”

“As you wish.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022

NaNoWriMo – April – 2026 – Day 7

After the cat dragged me out of bed simply because he wanted me to refill the food containers, he did the usual trick of sitting there, watching patiently until I walked off, then went over to the bowl, sniffed, and walked off.

OK, he didn’t need to wake me up if he was going to do that.

Stern words are spoken, but it’s water off a duck’s back (or cat’s back if you like).

I’m annoyed, and he’s, well, he’s just a pain in the neck.

So…

Now that I’m up, I might as well get some work done.  I think about breakfast for about a minute, and decide it’s too hard to make toast.  Yes, it’s that kind of morning.

Coffee?

Maybe.  I put the kettle on as a token gesture of doing something, and go out to the writing room.

I’m calling it that for now, because we’re at the end of the first week of NaNoWriMo, and it’s proceeding well, which means, of course, that something is going to happen, and the wheels are going to come off.

I turn on the laptop, and after waiting the usual five minutes, I have the logon screen and no mouse.  It’s been acting erratically for a few days, but that’s Windows anyway.

So, I have a dead mouse.

Should I give it to Chester to play with?

I changed the batteries, usually the problem, but to no avail.

Good thing then we have a few spares because when the granddaughters are over, they are prone to dropping them on the ground and breaking them.  I have a drawer full of dead mice.

One day, Chester will be happy, or not.  It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.

New mouse, wait for it to install, back to work.

Kettle’s boiled, new distraction, might as well get coffee.

Maybe I’ll get back to work later.

A to Z – April – 2026 – F

F is for – Five Words

…

I’d heard about the show, one with a funny title that when people asked, they couldn’t quite get it exactly right, but close enough to “This was your life”.

I thought it was about dead people, odd, because I knew it was impossible to interview dead people, though those days, someone told me, anything was possible on television.

Then I thought it was about people almost at the end of their life, as a celebration of a celebrity, or someone famous.

It was a surprise to learn it was about ordinary people.

Like me.  You couldn’t find anyone more ordinary, or as several people told me, utterly forgettable.

That hurt, but in a sense, they were right.

Which made me wonder just how it was that I received a letter in the mail telling me I had been selected for an episode.

Of course, I thought someone was playing a hoax, and rang them, expecting to be laughed at, but no.  I was being asked to go on the show.

I have no idea why I agreed.

…

When I arrived at the studio, I was taken to an office where the executive producer told me what was going to happen: sign some papers to say I was not going to divulge details of the show before it was broadcast, and what my five words were.

They were different for each participant.

Today, they were recording five episodes.  I was going to be the last.

…

My words were Good, Afraid, Trouble, Look and Quiet.  I had plenty of time to think about them in relation to my story.

And that was the odd thing … I actually had a story.

“So,” the host said, in that mesmerising voice of hers that had both the audience and the participants entranced, “Tell us what the word Good means to you.”

Of course, it wasn’t just the word good, it was a better word that meant the same thing.

“It wasn’t just a good day, it was a fantastic, unbelievable day.”

I remembered it well, that last day of high school, when it was, in a lot of cases, the last time I would see my fellow classmates.

Most of them I never wanted to see again, because that final year had been marked by more lows than highs, culminating in my date for the Prom falling ill, and so I didn’t go.  Then I discovered she lied, went with my so-called best friend, and made last week unbearable.

So much so, I headed straight for the railway station and intended to hide at my grandmother’s house on the other side of the country.

The day started badly, arguing with my parents, arguing with my siblings, getting into three separate scuffles at school, then coming home and throwing a few things into a backpack and leaving before I saw anyone at home.

Every step from the house to the railway depot was a reminder of each betrayal, so by the time I sat in the waiting room, an hour before the train was due, I was mentally and physically exhausted.

I expected someone from home would come and try to persuade me to stay.

They didn’t.

Perhaps that was the final betrayal.  The fact that not one of my own family cared whether I stayed or left.

Very few people took the train.  Most people leaving town went to the airport and got a plane.  There was a bus, but it took forever to get anywhere, and the train was an acceptable alternative.

I was the only one leaving town by train.

Until I wasn’t.

Five students in that final year shared my disposition, in that we preferred to study, get good grades and then go to college.  The other three left a week before, gaining admission to an Ivy League university.

I hadn’t applied.

The other person was Alison Breton. 

She was one of those people who no one gave a second look at, or so much as a first.  She was clever, and all the boys didn’t like girls who were smarter than they.

She was also plain, or so it appeared, which caused most of the boys to point out her faults, such as how she presented herself.  Unlike the other girls who dressed to impress, wore make-up and looked stunning, even if it was an objectifying description, she preferred to be different.

I thought she was brave.

We barely spoke, though we were in the same study group with the three Ivy Leaguers.  Two of them were keen on her, but she was not the dating sort.  Or so they said.

Ten minutes before the train arrived, another person came and sat in the waiting room.

Alison Breton.

I ignored her for five whole minutes.  I mean, what could I say to her?

It was when the host mentioned the second word, “afraid.”

It was part of the truth and summed up how I felt about her.  I was afraid of her.  Afraid, or more to the point, literally terrified.

I had imagined many times what I would say to her, fabricating long, I thought, interesting conversations.

And if I let my imagination stretch a little further, I might have to admit I liked her, perhaps more than I should, but could and would never admit it.  One humiliation by a girl in a lifetime was enough, and my completely shattered ego couldn’t take another rejection.

Five whole minutes before she said, “So you’re leaving this dump too?”

It was obvious I was, though the dump was harsh.

And then words came out that were not my own.  “What’s your excuse?”

I knew the moment I tried to speak to her that it would be over.  Maryanne, the betrayer, was different.  I could speak to her, and because of that, I thought she was the one.

She smiled.  “Probably the same as yours.  James told me he loved me, but he didn’t.  Apparently, I’m the subject of a bet.”

I’d heard a rumour and couldn’t believe it.  Or perhaps I could.  Small town, small-minded boys, one ambition, to have what they couldn’t.

“Best get out of town then.”  My solution to the problem wasn’t a one-size-fits-all all.

But it was a response to the host dropping the word trouble.  And then looked and was quiet.  It seemed they were all intertwining in the narrative that was unfolding.

“That doesn’t explain your desire to leave, other than the Maryanne humiliation.  I guess a month away from here might make it go away.”

“It won’t.  I have brothers who will never let me forget.  You grow up in this place, no one forgets the trouble, or more appropriately, your legacy.”

“It’s always us quiet kids, eh, the ones who don’t make a fuss, who are studious and respectful, who don’t want to be noticed.  No matter how we look or feel.  I tried to be invisible.”

“It made you stand out more than the Maryannes.  I was just fodder for girls like her, pandering to the mores of the football team, and you know what they were like.”

Being smart didn’t make us immune to being hurt or hoping against hope that we had a chance.

We both heard the sound of the horn in the distance, a warning that the train was approaching the railway crossing, about two or three miles outside of town.

The train, like always, was running late.

She stood.  “Where are you going?”

“San Francisco.  My grandmother.  She has a large house and many unusual friends.  She was an actress once, when Hollywood was going through its black and white phase.”

“I’m going there too.  My mother’s sister, though I suspect she isn’t.  Maybe we can pretend we’re brother and sister, to be safe.”

I shrugged.  Why not?  Once we got there, I’d probably never see her again.

…

“Except,” Alison said, holding my hand, and talking to the host with that whimsical expression she had when telling others the story of how we met, “we talked and talked and fell in love, got married, have five amazing children, twelve equally amazing grandchildren, and just lived our lives.  Nothing special, and yet to us, very, very special.”

And then, surprisingly, our time was up.  I had expected it would take half the time allotted.  Instead, it was two hours later, and no one, not any of us, had noticed.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

365 Days of writing, 2026 – My Second Story 12

More about my second novel

…

I’ve been looking back at what’s been written, something you shouldn’t do when trying to get 50,000 words written in 30 days, but I’m ahead of the count, and a little checking is needed, just to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Not that any book written on the fly like this runs smoothly.

There are three themes to this story:

1 – Worthington, now head of the Intelligence agency, is seeking revenge for Zoe killing his brother by mistake, a mistake that he caused

2 – Alistair’s mother is deploying a collection of agents, some of whom were once Zoe’s colleagues, to assassinate the woman who assassinated her son

3 – John’s ever-growing fear that Zoe is tired of him, and, after she leaves, and even though she promised to come back, he doesn’t want to wait to find out he’s been dumped.

4 – Sebastian is always lurking in the background, ostensibly to recruit her as an assassin, but really because he’s jealous of John’s good fortune.

Our two intrepid heroes go off to save her in Marseilles, where she learns of the identity of who is ostensibly looking for her, and sets her off on a lone hunt for him.

We then deploy two new characters, Rupert and Isobel, who, along with John, will create a private detective agency that John uses to locate Zoe by any and all means.

Isobel soon finds out that searching for Zoe on the internet brings risks, both at home and abroad, bringing her in contact with another hacker who seems to know where Zoe’s past is hiding. But can they be trusted?

John heads off to Vienna, after being supplied a file on Zoe, full of information he had not known about her. What he learns in Vienna leads him to Bratislava, when a photo identifying where she suddenly arrives on his phone.

John locates her, she realises he is being used as bait, and they leave, but not before the hit team almost completes their mission, leaving behind a trail of bodies as they get away, but not without injury.

John gets the answers he is seeking, that if he wants a life of looking over his shoulder, by all means, tag along. She is quite pleased to see him, not so much that he brought ‘friends’, but she might yet get to train him.

Sebastian, feeling left out, grills Isobel and Rupert, gets sidelined by Worthington because anywhere Sebastian goes, trouble follows, and then convinces Isobel that John is in over his head and needs their help.

He’s not wrong because Worthington has dispatched another hit team to the main railway stations in Vienna, where John and Zoe are looking to escape, but another shootout occurs as they once again escape when all the station’s exits are covered.

The story has now reached a point where everyone is converging on Vienna.

Along with another person whom John knows, and whom he will least expect to arrive on his doorstep.

Searching for locations – Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia – 3

Quite often on holidays, we train ourselves to get up early because when you’re away in a different place, you don’t want to waste the day.

I’d like to think that since we can’t do a lot of the usual touristy activities we can sleep in and take a more leisurely approach to the day.

Not this morning.

Not yesterday, either, but for different reasons.

Today, it was the shooting pains down my leg from the bad back. Perhaps that walk to the coffee shop aggravated it, but since when did exercise harm you?

Anyway, finally giving up the notion of sleeping, I bounded out of bed, sorry slowly climbed out of bed with care, at 6:40 a.m. Unless you’re going on a tour that is the greatest thing since sliced bread, who, on holidays, gets out of bed at that hour.

Me, apparently.

Just four minutes after sunrise, which I missed.

I managed to get yesterday’s and was hoping to go one better and catch the sun coming over the horizon. Maybe tomorrow.

So, what do you do in such a hideous hour of the morning?

With the beach just 50 meters away, it was beckoning me to take a walk. When I looked, there were probably a half dozen people with their dogs taking a walk. And another three or four out for a power walk.

For me, it was going to be a leisurely stroll after picking my way across the loose sand to where it was a lot more solid.

The tide was on the way in, so every now and then, the water came up the beach near where most people walked.

By the time I started the foot traffic on the path had increased exponentially as had that on the shoreline along with the number of dogs exercising their owners, and a number of fishermen perhaps trying to land a fish for breakfast.

I had time to keep an eye on the cloud formations, and the waves came in, some a lot higher than others. That meant there were also a small number of die-hard surfers hoping to catch a big one.

You could see the rain out to sea, and with the forecast for rain later I entered of it was sitting out there waiting to arrive at the appointed time. I was just hoping it didn’t rain while I was out.

All in all, it was a pleasant hour or so up the beach and back. The hardest part, trudging over the loose sand, particularly after walking for the hour.

The fishermen had caught nothing.

The number of dogs had increased, but the power walkers had been replaced by families, visitors, and older people. I think if I lived here, I would be one more of the old people, out getting my daily exercise, and then stopping off at the coffee shop for a flat white and a cake.

And the best thing about it. It was still only half past eight in the morning and just in time for breakfast.

Pity I was the designated chef.