The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 9

…

What just happened?

…

My turn to put him under the spotlight, for a minute, then two.

“There are no optional questions here, Mr. James.”

No, but some needed careful consideration, like throwing the dead pilot under the bus.

“Roy, the pilot, was adding some hours to his fly time, probably looking for a promotion.”

“So it was not a proper sanctioned operation.”

Looking for a scapegoat higher up the food chain.

“You need the commander’s authority to go up, so it was sanctioned.”

“Then this commander could have ordered the pilot to fly into the no-fly zone.”

My thought too, but I wasn’t going to fuel his suspicions.

“For what reason, after all, it’s not called a no-fly zone just so people can write the words on a map.”

He didn’t reply. I had thought he might tell me he was the one asking the questions.

He let me stew for a few more minutes, then, “You don’t seem to know much about anything Mr. James, whereas we know a lot about you.”

The ‘you’ he was referring to wasn’t just me, but our whole operation and what we were doing, which, of course, I wasn’t privy to. Did we have a spy in our midst?

“One more time, Mr James, can you tell me what the helicopter was doing in the no-fly zone?”

It was accompanied by another of those smiles, all-knowing perhaps, or trying to make me believe he did. But the bottom line was, if he did, he was not going to tell me.

Instead, the smile turned to a scowl. “I do not believe you are as uninformed as you say you are so I suggest most strongly that you give up this appearance of innocence. I shall ask once more Mr. James, and if you are not forthcoming, the matter will be out of my hands. I assure you, you will not like the alternative.”

I was sure I wouldn’t like the alternative.

“The answer sadly will still be the same, so if you must, I’m sure I won’t be able to talk you out of it.”

He simply shook his head and left the room, leaving me to ponder what my fate would be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Writing a book in 365 days – 273

Day 273

Writing Exercise

…

Wind back 22 years, 145 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes, and let’s not get down to seconds, but that was how long it had stuck in my mind, not for one minute letting it go.

When Angelique Bouvier dropped a note into the mailbox at home, telling me it was over. She did not say goodbye, she did not tell me she was leaving town, she just left me hanging.

She not only shocked me, but also just about everyone in our little town. We had known each other since we were five, went to grade school, middle school, and high school together, at at the end, we were going to the Prom, and then to college.

Or so I thought.

I arrived at her house in the hired limousine, willing to go the whole nine yards, as expected, only to find a completely empty house. No furniture, no people, nothing. Gone.

I was devastated. A lot of people were.

Wind on 22 years and 140 days, my life had just taken another turn, where I had just come home from the funeral of the woman I eventually married, once I could get past the grief. Annabel was, perhaps, more my counterpart because I knew I had been punching above my weight with Angelique. I did not have the sophistication, the languages, the grace or the knowledge she had, and more than once I felt her frustration at my provincial background.

But I thought she liked the idea of not being with someone as competitive, someone who could keep her grounded. I was wrong. Annabel convinced me of that, but not in a way that disparaged her rival, but that was Annabel. Friends with everyone, even her enemies. It was a testament that the whole town turned out at her funeral.

David and Jennifer were home, coming back from where they had started their adult lives, married and yet to start their own families. It was different now; they wanted to establish their careers first, then settle down. They would be around for the rest of the week and then gone.

It had been bearable with Annabel pottering about, but now she was gone, I was not looking forward to being alone in a great big house full of memories.

…

I took the children to the airport and saw them off. They promised to return soon, but promises I knew were easily broken. Work and life got in the way, and somehow time just passes, and the past slips into the ether. People come and people go, especially in small towns like ours, with little to keep them there.

Only three of those we went to school with remained, and only because they were the last generation of those who owned businesses, which one by one closed through lack of customers. People now went to the city just up the interstate, to malls that had everything cheaper.

I stopped in at the diner on the way back, one of the few places still thriving, for coffee and pie. Wilma, a fellow student and long-time resident, made the pies herself and still ran the diner with her children. Ray, her husband, had succumbed to cancer a few years back.

I sat on a stool, and she delivered a cup of coffee. “Pie?”

I nodded. When she returned, she put it in front of me, adding a dollop of cream.

“Kids on the way home?”

“Just dropped them off.”

“Back for Christmas?”

“They said so, but you know what it’s like. Big cities suck you into their vortex.”

She smiled. “You could always pay them a surprise visit.”

I could. Annabel was never in favour of surprising people, so we had not gone, not without asking first, and discovering they had always made other arrangements. She never let the disappointment show, but I knew it hurt her.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

She went away to tend another customer, then wandered back. She had been a good friend over the years, especially for Annabel during the worst time, after the diagnosis.

“See, your ex is splashed all over the internet.”

I never looked at the internet. That was Annabel’s thing. And Wilma always referred to Angelique as my ex. I guess she was, in a way.

“Annabel never mentioned it.”

“This is in the last few days.”

“Should I be interested?” I wasn’t, but I was just being polite.

“Maybe. She just got out of jail.”

…

I lie. I was always interested in the woman who could have destroyed my life. Where she went, who she met, what she did. And where she finished up.

Her life in a paragraph: she met the wrong man, willingly or otherwise, helping him to destroy a lot of lives, then he disappeared, and she was caught, and was paying for his crimes. He had set her up to take the fall, and take the fall she did. 20 years, 15 with parole. They let her out, and the woman I saw in the photos was nothing like the woman I once knew.

I didn’t feel sorry for her. Perhaps I should, but I didn’t.

A week later, I answered a knock on the door. I wasn’t going to because i knew who it would be.

“Hello, Eddie.”

That same voice, the one that sent shivers down my spine. Aged 40 years instead of the 20-odd that had passed. Prison could do that.

“Angel.”

I stayed behind the wire door, more than just a barrier between us.

“I came in person to apologise. It’s meaningless after all this time, but it was top of my list the moment I got out. I know you know where I’ve been, so I won’t insult your intelligence by lying.”

I wanted to ask the question, made up my mind if she turned up on my doorstep that I would ask her, and, now that she was here, that seemed irrelevant.

Instead, it slipped out. “Why?”

“We were hiding out in this place. My father and mother were criminals, and the day of the Prom, their past caught up with them. I was just collateral damage.”

“You didn’t have to follow in their footsteps.” OK, breaking all my promises to Annabel.

“It’s a story you would never believe, and again, not insulting your intelligence. Shit happened. Sometimes you’re so deep in the quicksand, there’s no getting out. I heard about Annabel, and I’m very sorry for your loss. I was happy when I heard you two got together. She was your perfect match, Ed, not me. Had we got together, you would have been collateral damage too.” She smiled wanly. “Job done. You won’t see me again.”

She turned away and started walking down the steps.

“I never got over what you did to me. I want to forgive you, but I just can’t.”

She stopped, turned around, and I could see the tears.

“I am truly sorry, Ed. I’ve had 22 years, 145 days, 15 hours, and,” She looked at her watch, “22 minutes to regret everything. I will never forgive myself. I could have told you what was going to happen, but I didn’t. I could have asked you to hide me away, but I didn’t. I knew what was going to happen and I did nothing about it.”

One decision can change your life. Completely.

“Where will you go?”

“Probably hell. I don’t deserve anything less.”

I shook my head. Annabel would be annoyed with me, not because of what I was thinking of doing, but because I had behaved the way I had.

I opened the door. “You can stay here until you figure it out. It’s hell of a different kind, so you’ll feel right at home.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Searching for locations: The Jade Factory, Beijing, China

The first stop is at a Jade Museum to learn the history of jade. In Chinese, jade is pronounced as “Yu” and it has a history in China of at least four thousand years.  On the way there, we are given a story about one of the guide’s relatives who had a jade bracelet, and how it has saved her from countless catastrophes.It is, quite literally ‘the’ good luck charm.  Chinese gamblers are known to have small pieces of jade in their hands when visiting the casinos, for good luck.  I’m not sure anything could provide a gambler with any sort of luck given how the odds are always slanted towards the house.

At any rate, this is neither the time of the place to debunk a ‘well-known fact’.

 On arrival, our guide hands us over to a local guide, a real staff member, and she begins with a discussion on jade while we watch a single worker working on an intricate piece, what looks to be a globe within a globe, sorry, there are two workers, and the second is working on a dragon.

At the end of the passage that passes by the workers, and before you enter the main showroom, you are dazzled by the ship and is nothing short of magnificent.

Then it’s into a small room just off the main showroom where we are taken through the colors, and the carving process in the various stages, without really being told how the magic happens.

Then it’s out into the main showroom where the sales are made, and before dispersing to look at the jade collection, she briefly tells us how to tell real and fake jade, and she does the usual trick of getting one of the tour group to model a piece.

Looks good, let’s move on.  To bigger and better examples.

What interested me, other than the small zodiac signs and other smallish pieces on the ‘promotion’ table, was the jade bangle our tour guide told us about on the bus.  If anyone needs one, it is my other half, with all the medical issues and her sometimes clumsiness, two particular maladies this object is supposed to prevent.
Jade to the Chinese is Diamonds to westerners, and the jade bangle is often handed down to the females of the family from generation to generation, often as an engagement present, to be worn on the left hand, the one closest to the heart.

There are literally thousands of them, but, they have to be specially fitted to your wrist because if it’s too large, you might lose it if it slips off and I didn’t think it could be too small.  
Nor is it cheap, and needing a larger size, it is reasonably expensive.  But it is jadeite, the more expensive of the types of jade, and it can only appreciate in value, not that we are interested in the monetary value, it’s more the good luck aspect.

We could use some of that.

But, just to touch on something that can be the bugbear of traveling overseas, is the subject of happy houses, a better name for toilets, and has become a recurrent theme on this tour.  It’s better than blurting out the word toilet and it seems there can be some not so happy houses given that the toilets in China are usually squat rather than sit, even for women.
And apparently, everyone has an unhappy house story, particularly the women, and generally in having to squat over a pit.  Why is this a discussion point, it seems the jade factory had what we have come to call happy, happy houses which have more proper toilets, and a stop here before going on the great wall was recommended, as the ‘happy house’ at the wall is deemed to be not such a happy house.

Not even this dragon was within my price range.  Thank heaven they had smaller more affordable models.  The object of having a dragon, large or small, is that it should be placed inside the main door to the house so that money can come in.

It also seems that stuffing the dragon’s mouth with money is also good luck.  We passed on doing that.

After spending a small fortune, there was a bonus, free Chinese tea.  Apparently, we will be coming back, after the Great Wall visit, to have lunch upstairs.

           

What I learned about writing – Setting goals, bad idea

Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who work well with plans, so setting goals is not a good idea.

But…

I did make several New Year’s resolutions that I would try and do things differently each year.

Except…

This year, I set a goal to restart editing one of my novels on 1st Feb.  I thought, setting it so far into the year would be easy.

It would give me the time to clear up all the outstanding writing tasks that have been getting in the way, which are more commonly known as distractions, and be free to finally finish it.

No such luck.

Going away, spending long, sleepless hours flying from one side of the world to the other had fuelled my imagination more than I expected, and I now have three stories that need either a continuing plot outline or to be written as ideas come to me.

If only I could focus on one story at a time.

So…

I’ve been working hard on getting those stories done, and now that November is approaching, I have come up with a brilliant idea.

I’ll work on the novel then as my NANOWRIMO project.  At least I have completed every one I’ve started over the last four years.

Let’s see if I can stick to it.

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

Searching for locations: The Great Wall of China, near Beijing, China

This is in a very scenic area and on the first impression; it is absolutely stunning in concept and in viewing.

As for the idea of walking on it, well, that first view of the mountain climb when getting off the bus, my first question was where the elevator is?  Sorry, there is none.  It’s walk on up or stay down the bottom.

Walk it is.  As far as you feel you are able.  There are quite a few who don’t make it to the top.  I didn’t.  I only made it to the point where the steps narrowed.

But as for the logistics, there’s the gradual incline to the starting point, and what will be the end meeting place.  From there, it’s a few steps up to the guard station no 7, and a few more to get up to the start of the main climb.  The top of the wall is guard station no 12.

Ok, those first few steps are a good indication of what it’s was going to be like and it’s more the awkwardness of the uneven heights of the steps that’s the killer, some as high as about 15 inches.  This photo paints an illusion, that it’s easy.  It’s not.

If you make it to the first stage, then it augers well you will get about 100 steps before you both start feeling it in your legs, particularly the knees, and then suffering from the height if you have a problem with heights as the air is thinner.  And if you have a thing with heights, never look down.

This was from where we stopped, about a third of the way up.  The one below, from almost at the bottom.  One we’re looking almost down on the buildings, the other, on the same level.

It requires rest before you come down, and that’s when you start to feel it in the knees, our tour guide called it jelly legs, but it’s more in the knees down.  Descending should be slow, and it can be more difficult negotiating the odd height steps, and particularly those high ones.  You definitely need to hang onto the rail, even try going backward.

And, no, that rail hasn’t been there as long as the wall.

While you are waiting for the guide to return to the meeting place at the appointed time, there should be time to have some jasmine tea.  Highly refreshing after the climb.

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1

Writing a book in 365 days – 273

Day 273

Writing Exercise

…

Wind back 22 years, 145 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes, and let’s not get down to seconds, but that was how long it had stuck in my mind, not for one minute letting it go.

When Angelique Bouvier dropped a note into the mailbox at home, telling me it was over. She did not say goodbye, she did not tell me she was leaving town, she just left me hanging.

She not only shocked me, but also just about everyone in our little town. We had known each other since we were five, went to grade school, middle school, and high school together, at at the end, we were going to the Prom, and then to college.

Or so I thought.

I arrived at her house in the hired limousine, willing to go the whole nine yards, as expected, only to find a completely empty house. No furniture, no people, nothing. Gone.

I was devastated. A lot of people were.

Wind on 22 years and 140 days, my life had just taken another turn, where I had just come home from the funeral of the woman I eventually married, once I could get past the grief. Annabel was, perhaps, more my counterpart because I knew I had been punching above my weight with Angelique. I did not have the sophistication, the languages, the grace or the knowledge she had, and more than once I felt her frustration at my provincial background.

But I thought she liked the idea of not being with someone as competitive, someone who could keep her grounded. I was wrong. Annabel convinced me of that, but not in a way that disparaged her rival, but that was Annabel. Friends with everyone, even her enemies. It was a testament that the whole town turned out at her funeral.

David and Jennifer were home, coming back from where they had started their adult lives, married and yet to start their own families. It was different now; they wanted to establish their careers first, then settle down. They would be around for the rest of the week and then gone.

It had been bearable with Annabel pottering about, but now she was gone, I was not looking forward to being alone in a great big house full of memories.

…

I took the children to the airport and saw them off. They promised to return soon, but promises I knew were easily broken. Work and life got in the way, and somehow time just passes, and the past slips into the ether. People come and people go, especially in small towns like ours, with little to keep them there.

Only three of those we went to school with remained, and only because they were the last generation of those who owned businesses, which one by one closed through lack of customers. People now went to the city just up the interstate, to malls that had everything cheaper.

I stopped in at the diner on the way back, one of the few places still thriving, for coffee and pie. Wilma, a fellow student and long-time resident, made the pies herself and still ran the diner with her children. Ray, her husband, had succumbed to cancer a few years back.

I sat on a stool, and she delivered a cup of coffee. “Pie?”

I nodded. When she returned, she put it in front of me, adding a dollop of cream.

“Kids on the way home?”

“Just dropped them off.”

“Back for Christmas?”

“They said so, but you know what it’s like. Big cities suck you into their vortex.”

She smiled. “You could always pay them a surprise visit.”

I could. Annabel was never in favour of surprising people, so we had not gone, not without asking first, and discovering they had always made other arrangements. She never let the disappointment show, but I knew it hurt her.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

She went away to tend another customer, then wandered back. She had been a good friend over the years, especially for Annabel during the worst time, after the diagnosis.

“See, your ex is splashed all over the internet.”

I never looked at the internet. That was Annabel’s thing. And Wilma always referred to Angelique as my ex. I guess she was, in a way.

“Annabel never mentioned it.”

“This is in the last few days.”

“Should I be interested?” I wasn’t, but I was just being polite.

“Maybe. She just got out of jail.”

…

I lie. I was always interested in the woman who could have destroyed my life. Where she went, who she met, what she did. And where she finished up.

Her life in a paragraph: she met the wrong man, willingly or otherwise, helping him to destroy a lot of lives, then he disappeared, and she was caught, and was paying for his crimes. He had set her up to take the fall, and take the fall she did. 20 years, 15 with parole. They let her out, and the woman I saw in the photos was nothing like the woman I once knew.

I didn’t feel sorry for her. Perhaps I should, but I didn’t.

A week later, I answered a knock on the door. I wasn’t going to because i knew who it would be.

“Hello, Eddie.”

That same voice, the one that sent shivers down my spine. Aged 40 years instead of the 20-odd that had passed. Prison could do that.

“Angel.”

I stayed behind the wire door, more than just a barrier between us.

“I came in person to apologise. It’s meaningless after all this time, but it was top of my list the moment I got out. I know you know where I’ve been, so I won’t insult your intelligence by lying.”

I wanted to ask the question, made up my mind if she turned up on my doorstep that I would ask her, and, now that she was here, that seemed irrelevant.

Instead, it slipped out. “Why?”

“We were hiding out in this place. My father and mother were criminals, and the day of the Prom, their past caught up with them. I was just collateral damage.”

“You didn’t have to follow in their footsteps.” OK, breaking all my promises to Annabel.

“It’s a story you would never believe, and again, not insulting your intelligence. Shit happened. Sometimes you’re so deep in the quicksand, there’s no getting out. I heard about Annabel, and I’m very sorry for your loss. I was happy when I heard you two got together. She was your perfect match, Ed, not me. Had we got together, you would have been collateral damage too.” She smiled wanly. “Job done. You won’t see me again.”

She turned away and started walking down the steps.

“I never got over what you did to me. I want to forgive you, but I just can’t.”

She stopped, turned around, and I could see the tears.

“I am truly sorry, Ed. I’ve had 22 years, 145 days, 15 hours, and,” She looked at her watch, “22 minutes to regret everything. I will never forgive myself. I could have told you what was going to happen, but I didn’t. I could have asked you to hide me away, but I didn’t. I knew what was going to happen and I did nothing about it.”

One decision can change your life. Completely.

“Where will you go?”

“Probably hell. I don’t deserve anything less.”

I shook my head. Annabel would be annoyed with me, not because of what I was thinking of doing, but because I had behaved the way I had.

I opened the door. “You can stay here until you figure it out. It’s hell of a different kind, so you’ll feel right at home.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

First Dig Two Graves

A sequel to “The Devil You Don’t”

…

Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right

Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.

It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.

…

John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence, after being so indifferent for so long.

They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable, calls on an old friend for help in finding her.

After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.

But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.

What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.

In a word: needle

…

In the current times, the word needle is very polarising.

Will you have the vaccine, or not.  Is one of the reasons simply because you hate needles?

I know I do and have a fear factor of 100%.  Fortunately, I got very sick a few years ago and spent 10 days in the hospital, and was forced to have multiple needles every day.

Now it’s not so hard

But, I digress.

A needle is one of those things used in the medical profession mainly to deliver vaccines and medicine.  It is a very small cylinder.

A needle can be used to sew up a garment or make repairs.  This is a smallish piece of metal with an eyelet.

A needle can also be used to stitch up wounds, though it’s best you have a local anesthetic first.

Another way of using needles is to describe tiny icicles which hurt when they hit your face or your eyes.  It is called a needle effect.

Then, another use of the word, is to needle someone, that is to say, bombard them with questions, or annoy them.

It’s a pointer on a dial, like that of a fuel gauge, which for me, always seems to hover just above empty.  It can also be on a compass, where heading north is not always clear especially where magnets are nearby.

A fir tree’s leaves are more like needles.

You need one to play a record on a gramophone, not that they exist anymore.

Paradoxically it can also be used to describe a pointy rock or an obelisk-like “Cleopatra’s Needle”

It is also an etching tool.