…

F is for — Fishing for information.  Without sounding like you are fishing

…

What does it feel like when you answer all of their questions, and they don’t believe you?

Like I felt now.

In a very bad place, because no matter what I said, it didn’t fit their narrative.

The main interrogator, Jake, no surnames provided, had a story.  He told me that story, over the last three days, a story that painted me guilty of a crime that I didn’t commit, couldn’t commit, wouldn’t commit.

My problem?

I could not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was where I was at the time with someone who could never be named.

Ever.

So my guilt was circumstantial, and it would not be the first or the last person to spend a lifetime in jail for a crime they did not commit.

I guess that was the penalty for a stolen night with the woman I could never be with, never be seen with, and never spend the rest of my life with.

I was glad that this country did not partake in torturing confessions out of their suspects, but then, even if they did, I would die long before I said one word.  I’d been there before and had only just survived that interrogation.

I wondered if Jake knew that.

He had been pacing around the small room like a caged tiger.  We’d been at it for six hours.  While he looked thoroughly exhausted, I had remained cool and collected despite the exaggeratedly warm room.

It was their version of sweating answers out of you.

I was denied cold water, and water to a thirsty man was like gold to a fossicker.  He knew I needed a drink.

He stopped pacing, turned, and glared at me.

“Let’s go over this again.”

Of course, keep repeating the same story over and over until it becomes fact, until you give a nuance that gives that story credibility, that first chink in the armour that can be exploited.

When you’re tired, when you try not to give in, to waver, to give an expression that can be construed as a confession or agreement.

“The timeline tells us you were at your office until 3 pm.  We have CCTV footage of your departure by the front foyer.  You take an Uber to the Cyber Cafe, getting there at 3:54 pm.  There you stay until 6:17 pm where you take another Uber to the Hotel Jackson, arriving at 7:24 pm.  Your cell phone confirms these times, along with CCTV evidence.  Why did you go to the hotel?”

Here’s the tricky part.  Firstly, the hotel is a special hotel in that there is no CCTV surveillance anywhere inside or out.  They could only confirm my presence there by my phone’s GPS.  Secondly, they could not get confirmation of any guest within that hotel because the government used it to house ‘special’ guests.  Thirdly, by using the hotel, I was bound to an NDA to never divulge why I was there.

It didn’t stop Jake from fishing.

“You know I can’t tell you that.  And you are fully aware of the reasons.”

“It’s not helping your alibi.”

“Keep going.  So far, you have my movements.”

“You claim you stayed the night at the hotel, going to your room and staying there until 8:03 am the next morning.”

“That is correct.”

Except it wasn’t, technically.  I was in the hotel, on the same floor, but in an adjoining room from 8:00 pm to 7:00 am.  It didn’t matter, I didn’t leave the hotel.

However…

Jake contends that it was ten minutes if I hurried down a back alley under cover and out of sight of any CCTV coverage to another hotel where someone that looked like me was caught on tape going in the back entrance of a seedy hotel, carefully avoiding looking at any camera, both inside and outside, up to a room on the fourth floor by the rear stairs, murdered a man named Joseph Flines and then returned just as expeditiously being caught on CCTV on the way out not ten minutes later.

That was inconclusive, but there was a kicker…

I had an argument with an unnamed man outside my work building several hours before I left, at times heated, and where Flines had a swing and a miss, after screaming he was going to kill me, adding that the world needed to know what kind of heinous criminal I was.  He said quite loudly and openly that my reputation and livelihood would be over once everyone knew the truth.

I had no idea who he was, and I was even more mystified at why he believed I was a heinous criminal.  It was the last time I saw him until the police arrested me.  All I could think of was that he had mistaken me for someone else.

“How do you explain the confrontation outside your workplace earlier?”

“He has confused me with someone else.  I had never seen him before.”

“And yet he knows you by name.”

“I’m not exactly anonymous in this city. A lot of people who know who I am, and can recognise me.  It’s not the first time some stranger had walked up to me to have words, sometimes disparaging.  I’m sure you have found these instances and realised that I have nothing to do with them either.  My job is not exactly one people see eye to eye with, so there’s bound to be some dissenters.”

A lot, perhaps, because it was left to me to make the hard decisions because those who were supposed to didn’t and hid behind me and blamed me when the media was looking for a scapegoat.

I was not sure how Flines was affected by any decision I’d made, but it was a possible link.  Jake hadn’t made that connection yet.  Neither had I.

“So you admit…”

“Nothing, and it would serve you well not to start jumping to conclusions without a shred of evidence.”

“We’re close, very close.  People like you have the ability to hide in plain sight, but not this time.”

Smug, the first time he let any emotion into his tone.  That told me a great deal.  There was a connection.  It would have to be obscure, very obscure, one that I’d never guess existed.

He took a drink from his water bottle and glared at me, daring me to ask for a sip so he could deny it.  Yes, he looked like the man who held all the cards.

“How long has it been since your fiance died?”

What did that have to do with anything?  I said as much.

“Just answer the question.”

If this was court, my lawyer would be asking for relevance.

“Three years.”

“Her killer was never found.”

“I was in Hong Kong at the time if that’s what you are implying.”

Yes, they did try to pin that on me as well, but there was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt I didn’t do it or have anything to do with it.

“I was not.  But, can you explain why your wife met with the victim, Joseph Flines, several times, about weeks before she died.”

Could I? No.  Did I know?  I did not.  Did I know exactly what she did? Other than that, she was a corporate lawyer charged with keeping high flying executives out of jail when they committed so-called human errors in their business transactions.

Smoothing the waters, she said.  She never passed moral judgments, just found loopholes.  Did she care about those who were unjustly wronged? No.  Not her problem.  If they hired good lawyers, her job would be so much harder.

I loved her, not her job.  I wanted to investigate her death.  I was not allowed to.  Orders from above.

But as for Flines…

“If you say so.  I know nothing about her business or anyone she dealt with.”

“Three years you were together.  Very close.  And you claim…”

Fishing again.  Pushing buttons.  Get a reaction, and then run with it.

“It’s a situation you would have no understanding of.  After all, you haven’t had a relationship last longer than nine months, and one that had you suspended for three months.  There are lines that you do not cross, and both Margret and I knew where those lines were.  Clearly, you don’t.”

There was a pounding on the door, not unexpected.  It was only a matter of time before Jake crossed a line.  The door opened a fraction, a whispered conversation, heated, then, “This isn’t over.”

He then left, closing the door loudly behind him.

I had time to think about what sort of relationship Margaret may have had with Flines.  From what I knew of him, he had more enemies than friends, the result of a background check after he confronted me.

A seedy private investigator that swam down in the sewer of nasty divorce cases, there were upwards of fifty disgruntled husbands he had outed, and yet Jake and his team could not find one eligible perpetrator from that list.

I’d found ten, and that was just at first glance.

What would Margaret want with the likes of him when she had one of the best teams of investigators in the country at her disposal?

I didn’t have time to come to any sort of conclusion before the door opened, and an elderly woman came in and, after closing the door, leaned against it

She reminded me of the librarian at high school, the same severe expression, severe hairdo, and severe suit.

“You are going to be a proper pain in the proverbial backside, Mr Jones.  I know who you are, I know what you do, and I know that damnfool head of department you work for.  I apologise for Jake.  The man doesn’t understand discretion or when to keep information to himself.”

“Flines association with Margaret.  I didn’t kill the man, no matter how you try to stitch a timeline together.”

“Sadly, I have to agree.  I so wanted to wrap this up, but you don’t always get what you want.  You tell Jimmy hello from Betsy.  He’ll know who it is.  Oh, and by the way.  Anything you hear in this room stays in the room.  Is that understood?”

“Perfectly.”

“Very good.  You may go.”

Jake had overstepped his brief.  It would not be the first time someone in his position made a mistake in disclosing information that could queer a case.

But that was always a risk when you had to go on a fishing expedition.  What staggered me was the connection between Flines and Margaret, which on the surface could have circumstantially sealed my fate.

It still didn’t tell me why Flines had come after me, unless he thought I was working in concert with Margaret, and at a guess, she had caused him grief over a case.  Maybe he was not working for her, but for someone opposed to her, and she had to discredit him.

I hadn’t been able to investigate and still couldn’t, so perhaps I’d never find out.  And there was that one other small problem.  I was not supposed to know about my wife and Flines’s connection.

Why?

Maybe when I saw ‘Jimmy’, I’d find out.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

E is for “Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining” – Just a romantic story ala Hallmark

…

I was once told that there are five ways of doing something,

The right way

The wrong way

My way

Your way, and,

The way it should have been done!

For the better part of my life, I always believed my way was the right way, and that was fine while I was responsible only for myself.

Once you add someone else to the equation, then suddenly, everything you do becomes far more complicated.

So, how did that happen?

The first tendrils of light were flickering through the window, between the cracks on the curtain.

I couldn’t sleep, not so much because the bed was uncomfortable, but because of the decisions I had made.

I looked at the calm, serene expression on the face of the woman I tried ever so hard not to fall in love with.  In my line of work, there was no room for such sentimentality.

Being a lone wolf was a necessity.

Those words rolled around in my head, over and over I heard Rawlings speech the day we began, that first day of the rest of our lives.

Do not get attached to anyone, anywhere, anything.  Do not live in one place, do not have a regular pattern of movement, do not stay in one particular hotel more than once, do not drive the same car.

If you believe you’ve been compromised, go off-grid.

Where we were was as off-grid as you could get.

It wasn’t so much that I had dragged Penelope into this mess. It was more that she had invited herself along for the ride.

Two nights before, I sent a message to say I needed to see her.  She suggested dinner and picked a restaurant, small and easy to blend in and at the same time keep an eye out for trouble.

She had recognised my preferences.  That should have been a red flag, but I let feelings into that equation.

I arrived first, doing the mandatory check outside for anything unusual, then going inside, assessing the threat level and exits, and then sitting at a table near the rear.

It was the first time I wondered if there would be a time in my life when I could stop looking over my shoulder.

Penelope arrived ten minutes later, knowing I didn’t like arriving late, dressed plainly so that few people registered her arrival.  Those that did, I noted.

She saw me, smiled, and came over after a brief word with the waitress who had ushered me to the table.

The waitress followed with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, poured, and left us alone.  A quick glance around the room didn’t identify any problems, but with Penelope sitting next to me, my judgement was compromised.

She took a sip and did that little shiver thing every time she first sipped her champagne, and then said, “What is so urgent I had to drop everything?”

She had one of those mesmerising voices that could take you down a rabbit hole and never want to come back.

I shook my head, trying to clear it.  It didn’t work.

The speech I had rehearsed in my head sounded appropriate … in my head.  Now, in front of her, it sounded ridiculous.

“I have to go away.”

“So.  You’ve done that before.”

“Permanently.”

Expression change, not happy.  When she frowned, it was like the darkness setting in.  “Where?”

“England.”

“Why?”

“It was always a possibility, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.”

“When?”

“Tonight.  It was just sprung on me.”

“So …”

“I can’t do long distance, and I couldn’t ask you to come with me.  You have your aspirations, and that promotion is just around the corner …”

“We should break up?”

It’s definitely not a happy face now.

“I don’t want to, but there’s practicality in play.  I don’t want you to lose what you have worked so hard for “

“Then don’t go.”

It wasn’t an option, and I couldn’t explain why.  And if I did, she would be out the door so fast her feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

And whilst that might be true, I was not going to get the time to argue the point.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement by the door.

Two men, scanning the room, stopped on me.

I sighed.  If I was on my own, it would simply be a matter of sliding down and getting out the rear entrance, not six feet from where we were sitting.

An extra body, not sitting closer to the door, and now a target, just proved Rawlings statement.  The thing is, she was not going to become collateral damage.

Not today.

They, like me, had stopped to assess the damage, knowing that I was not going to go quietly, and that people were going to die.  Their issue was that other diners had looked up at them and would now remember their faces.  It added just enough of a hesitation factor.

Penelope and I not so much, but if the restaurant had CCTV, that was all moot.  Camera over the front door, camera over the door to the kitchen.

“We have to go,” I said quietly.

She, too, had seen the two men and had instantly recognised trouble.  Textbook thugs, the way Hollywood portrayed their bad guys.

“Who are they?”

“Trouble.”  I had a gun, but using it in this confined space was a recipe for disaster.  I could shoot them, but between me and them was a dozen unpredictable humans.

They hadn’t moved.  A waitress was moving towards them.

I grabbed her hand and, in one fluid motion, slid out of the booth and pulled her to her feet, and then dragged her through the kitchen doorway.

Movement by the door, one shoved the waitress whilst the other drew his weapon, and three shots thwacked into the closing door.

Seconds later, we were through the back door, and the men were in pursuit until I turned, pulled out the gun, and shot the both of them as they came out the doorway.

Not to kill.  It was never my first choice unless I had no choice.

I didn’t give her time to think. I just pulled her along, up another alley to the main street and plenty of foot traffic to blend in.

She had not pulled her hand away.  Yet.

“What just happened?”  She spoke quietly, but not with a hint of hysteria, just breathlessness.

“The reason why I wanted to break up.  I have a past, and it’s about to catch up with me.  Those men would shoot the both of us dead, without hesitation.  Chances are you still have a degree of anonymity, but it won’t last long if you stay with me.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to save a friend and failed.  He was in trouble, and I thought I could fix it.”

“And made it worse?”

“Things tend to go sideways when I get involved.  Wrong people, bad intelligence, or just plain bad luck.”

I wasn’t going to add it was one of our own people who was trying to find me.  I unmasked him quite by accident.  No one knew he was playing on both sides of the street, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me.  Tell me you have a plan.”

“You won’t like it.”

“I don’t like the life I have, and I was about to go back home.  Believe me, you’ve saved me from a fate worse than death.”

I was not that sure she had traded up.  I could see the bright look in her eyes, the flush in her cheeks, and adrenaline flowing through her.  When that subsided, everything would be different.

It was a case of damned if you do or damned if you don’t.  I shrugged.  “OK.  Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

D is for — “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.  Between the devil and the deep blue sea

…

There is always that one person.

Always there.  Nothing is too much trouble.  Always happy to help even when they know it will not be acknowledged.  Always the ones overlooked because they are, basically, invisible.

That one person had a name.

Deanna Wilkinson.

I met her on the first day at my new school, having moved from another state.  It was my fourth school in three years, and with different education systems, I was finding it harder to catch up and keep up.

Deanna Wilkinson made that easier because having lived in Dantonville all her life and more interested in learning than boys, she made a very good tutor.

And that being the case…

Over the years, from the last two of grade school and through middle school, we became friends while keeping me on track scholastically.

However, being a boy and easily distracted, especially after the try-out for the football team, and later the role I played in bringing success to a team that always fell short, I found myself popular in ways I never imagined.

The most improbable in that last year of school was being brought into the orbit of Sandra Oliphant.

Before I arrived in town, the Dantons and the Oliphants were two of the main families who had been in the district since before God, or so Archie said, and they all owned everything between them.  Why else, he said, would the town be named after them?

Nearly everything.  My father had seen a parcel of land up for sale and bought it.  A property that had been given to one of the other Dantons, who wanted to quit town because of the old man, and put it up for sale.

The recipient knew if he sold it back to old man Danton, he’d get nothing for it, hence the sale to my father.  When Danton heard about it, he offered to buy it back, cheaply, but my father refused.

Thus began hostilities.

The land belonged to the Dantons, Sandra Oliphant belonged to the Dantons, and everything else belonged to the Dantons, apparently.

Including the football team, the Dantonville Raiders.  A team that never won a championship.  Before I realised that no one with any talent joined the team. I made the mistake of trying out.

The coach then asked me to play, and that first game, we won.  Then another, and another.  Then I realised why no one joined the team.  It was all about Archie.  And his father.

I tried to quit.  My father said I couldn’t.  The coach said I couldn’t, and old man Danton made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He’d stop giving us grief over that piece of land.

He was right, I couldn’t refuse.

Then Sandra Oliphant decided I’d make a better boyfriend than Archie.  I told her I wouldn’t, then told Archie that I was not making a play for his girlfriend. After telling her I was flattered but I was not interested.

What worried me was that she was too easily convinced.  Something else was in play, and I was going to end up in the middle of it.

I learned some very valuable lessons that year.

One.  Never volunteer for anything, whether you might be good at it or not.

Two.  Men like Archie’s father and boys like Archie and his friends used wealth and power to manipulate and bully those around them simply because they are allowed to.

Three.  Men like Dalton and my father never liked to lose and would do anything it took to win

Four.  I would never understand girls or women, and that any expectation or level of understanding I might have or thought I had could be undone or changed unexpectedly at any time.

When everything became too difficult, I would saddle up Joey, the placid horse Deanna had loaned me, and ride up to the hilltop cabin.  It was a halfway point when moving cattle from the hills to the Plains.

I planned to stay there for a day or two before the last game of the season, the championship.  That would be followed by graduation, the Prom (though I wasn’t going), and then I would be leaving to go to college.

My father said football scouts would be at the game and had frequently told anyone who would listen that I was big city team material.

Archie Danton might be, but I certainly wasn’t.  Anyone could catch a ball and run with it.

But as many times I said I didn’t care that my chances of being seen, let alone drafted into the major football league, it was as remote as my chances of being Prom King and going out with Sandra, something my mother held great stock in.

She, like my father and my sister, just didn’t listen.

I just hoped my father wasn’t the one who called the scouts, knowing that it was exactly the sort of thing he would do to bug me.  But then, that was Archie’s father, too, and there was a rivalry going on between them.

And the subject of yet another argument before I left in a huff.

I could see another horse and rider in the distance, and it wasn’t hard to tell who it was.

Deanna.

I sat on the swing seat on the front veranda and waited.  Like always, she was in no hurry.  Olivia, my pugnacious sister, must have told her where I was despite the fact I had told her not to tell anyone.

It was just like her, presuming that after all this time, Deanna and I had known each other and having spent so much time in each other’s company, we would get together.  It wasn’t as simple as that, but Olivia was not up to the stage of complicated relationships.

Deanna tied up her horse, came up the slight incline leading to the steps, gave me her usual cursory glance, and then negotiated the stairs before sitting at the other end of the seat.

As I watched her get off the horse, hitch the reins to the post, then walk the short distance to the stairs, it wasn’t hard to notice the changes from the precocious seven-year-old I first met all those years ago to the beautiful eighteen-year-old grown-up woman she had become.

I wished I could say I had grown up, too.

“Olivia said you were hiding up here.”

“If I were, you wouldn’t find me.”

“Things that bad?”

“You once said I was the master of my destiny.  You were right.  I should not have turned up to the tryouts.  You said not to.”

“When did you ever listen to me?”

“When you tutored me enough to pass my exams.  Never thanked you, but then, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“No need.  It was a pleasant way to spend my spare time.”

“You could have done something more important than waste it on me.”

She gave me one of her annoyed looks and then shook her head.  “I’m not going to dignify that with a retort.”

I took a moment to give her a sidelong glance. She could ride a horse better than any cowboy I’d seen; I’d worked with her chasing strays, and she had participated in several girls’ events at rodeos.  She had even taught me to ride a horse.

If I ever became a rancher…

“What are you going to do come graduation?”  We had talked around the edges of what the end of the year might bring.

“College, maybe, but more likely look after Mom.  The fall she had a few months back; she is not getting any better.”

I was there when it happened.  We both knew her mom should not have been on that horse in the first place, but it was difficult to tell someone who’d been doing it all their life.

“And college?”

“It’ll have to wait.  Besides, you’re going to become this big-time footballer.  You’ll be far too busy settling in.”

“I’m not that good, and a lot of people are going to be disappointed.”

“Your father thinks you are.  So does the coach.”

“The coach wouldn’t dare say that in front of old man Dalton.  There is only one player on the team worthy of selection for the big time, and that’s Archie.  For once, I actually agree with them.”

“You have to admit, until you joined the team, they never looked like winning.”

“Coincidence.  I’m not going to accept if it’s offered.  I want to be a journalist and report the games, not play in them.  Or get mixed up with those cheerleaders. Archie and the rest of the team can have them.  My five minutes with Sandra was a nightmare.  Please tell me he’s been elected Prom King.”

“I can tell you Sandra is the Prom Queen, and your mother has been pleading your case.  She seems to think Archie has got everything else, someone else should be selected.”

I shook my head.  My mother was trying to curry favour with the heavyweights, both Mrs Dalston and Mrs Oliphant, and I wished her luck.  There was no room in that group for another.

“Those two have been together since they were born, would be perfect together at the Prom, which I might add I’m not going to if I can avoid it, and they will be the perfect couple when they get married.”

“If only.”

“And Archie?  Are they going to make him the king?  I mean, really, he is the only choice, given his parents’ standing in this town.”

She shrugged. “Everyone is talking about the new hometown hero.  You’d better play badly so he can shine.”

“That’s ridiculous.  I had nothing to do with winning that last game.”

“Didn’t you?  Drawing the defence left Harry open.  It was brilliant.”

“I was trying to minimise my involvement.  Get them to win without me.”

She smiled.  “Not how the coach saw it.  But, if you’re so adamant you don’t want the king, just tell the organisers to take your name off the list.  I’m sure Archie will be on it already for you.”

If I knew anything about Archie, he would have found a way to make sure I didn’t win.  In a sense, it should have annoyed me, but in another, it was a certain relief.  Having to put up with Sandra would be simply too much.

“So,” she said with just a hint of a wistful smile, “by the way, just who are you interested in?”

Good segway.  She looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, the eyes that could see into your soul.

I took her hand in mine.  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”  I looked into those eyes, and that was my first mistake.

“Emily?”

I shook my head.

“Andrea?”

I shook my head and squeezed her hand gently.

She was going to say another name, then didn’t.  Instead, I could see her eyes moisten.

“It could never work.”

“I know.”

“We are friends.”

“Very good friends.”

“Special friends.  When did you come to this conclusion?”

“About a year ago, maybe a bit less.  You were so angry with me; I was sure you were going to punch my lights out.  I wanted to hug you.”

“I wanted to kiss you.”

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

“You only had to ask.”

“May I….”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

C is for — “Can you please just listen?”.  Someone who doesn’t like to be told

…

There were four of us in the room, aside from the technical team, who were monitoring all the phones in the house.

Josephine, my daughter, the headstrong, ‘I can handle anything, Dad’, type, two members of the FBI, a man and a woman team who specialised in kidnapped children, and myself.

How did we get here?

It was a combination of things, not just one element.  It was never going to be as simple as that.

Josephine would say that had I told her before the event what I thought, it would not have happened.

That, of course, discounted the fact I tried, on several occasions, culminating in the last time she spoke to me when I said, as my last parting shot, ‘Can you please just listen to what I have to say.’

She would not.  No one was going to tell her how to live her life or how to bring up her daughter.

No one.

Fair enough.

Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I could have done more, but her parting shot that it was a bit rich for someone who hadn’t spent any time with his children to be telling them what to do, I figured she was, perhaps, right.

But, for all intents and purposes, it was now water under the bridge.  An elegant and apt expression that was not going to assuage the pain.

I looked at the phone that brought in the first message, the message that arrived at 6 pm precisely on a Monday evening.

Distorted to try and hide the caller’s identity, but I knew who it was.

Danny Trevino.  Smooth, handsome, beguiling, sophisticated, and too good to be true.  He had swept Angelica off her feet.

I met him once and saw right through him.  I didn’t like him and he knew it.  That amiable smile turned into something else, and I knew then we were in trouble.

I tried to warn Angelina.  She was not interested.  There was too much of her mother’s obstinance in her, and sadly, we had never bonded.  Again, there was too little contact when it mattered.

I tried to warn Josephine.  Well, you know how that went.  When she called, and I came, the best she could say was, ‘I’m sure you’re going to say I told you so, so get it over with’.

And, now we were here.

Waiting.

The great thing about being me is that people would look at me and then keep going.

I was the sort of person who other people didn’t give a second look.  Ordinary, unassuming, invisible.

I learned that when I was younger, I was treated as if I were invisible.  Then, I met a man who taught me that invisibility was an asset.

Just think, no matter where you go, no one will ever notice, and he was right.  No matter where I went, anywhere on the world, no one bothered.

Except Monique, who, for a French woman, defied all the tropes and was equally invisible.  We met in a Parisian bar, both trying to get a drink, and the bartenders simply ignored us.

It was the perfect match.  We travelled together, here, there and everywhere, until one night after telling me she had a friend to see, girls turf, she said, she came back with a rather nasty bullet hole.

Three years we’d been together before I discovered she was an assassin.  And three months before I became one too.

Three children and thirty years later, Monique had died in an accident trying to escape a fast closing net of police, and I retired the next day.

Monique’s mother had raised our children, and by the time I’d retired, they’d all moved on.  Was I selfish?  Yes.  Do I regret what I did?  Sometimes, like now.

Could I do something about the current situation?

Pierre was Monique’s brother and the only one of her family who knew what she did.  As a consultant to any police force who needed him, in his downtime, he was one of these people who looked for missing persons.

He didn’t do it for the money.  Rather, the clients would pay the so-called reward to a relevant charity.

I had called him a few weeks back when I realised that Angelina’s romantic attachment to Danny was getting serious, but disturbingly, his influence over her was the controlling kind and not in a good way.

It was good to see him again when I picked him and his team up from the airport.  That and the cloak-and-dagger stuff that went with it.

So, for the last four weeks, they had embarked on round-the-clock surveillance, everywhere he went, everyone he saw, everyone.

I had a portfolio of photos of Danny and Angelique together, and Pierre wanted to kill him.  He could, if he wanted to, but later.  Danny was not the driving force in this kidnapping. Someone else was, and he was still working on that when Danny pulled a surprise manoeuvre.

Pierre’s cover was blown, and she was taken.  All he said was that Danny was too stupid to organise something as sophisticated as this, and, what was more unsettling, it was someone who knew who I was or had been.

The ransom was going to be big.  And there was no way Angelique would be returned alive.

The phone rang, and everyone jumped.

My cell phone vibrated in my hand five seconds later and flashed a message: “Got him.”

When I told Pierre we were about to get a call from the kidnappers, he said the usual tactic was to have a person from their team outside reporting on who was there and sometimes pick up conversations inside.

He was right.

Agent Laraby, the male, as he looked at Josephine, said, “Ready.  As we discussed.”

She nodded.

He pushed the answer button.  In the background, we could hear Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ playing.  It was one of my favourites.

It was also a clue.  The kidnapper was enjoying playing games.

“10 million dollars, you know the drill.  Within 24 hours, I will call with the delivery address.  24 hours, or she dies.”

The phone went dead.

Of course, the kidnapper knew they would be tracing the call.  The kidnapper also knew the FBI were there, and more importantly, I was there.  The only surprise was how little they’d asked for.

Josephine looked like she had been hit by a bus.  “That’s ridiculous.  I haven’t ten dollars to my name, let alone ten million.”

Agent Laraby looked at me.

“I suppose I’d better go and make some phone calls.”

“We don’t pay ransoms, Mr Jones.”

“With what you have, are you going to be able to rescue her before 24 hours are up?”

“We are following several positive leads.”

“Then, just in case, I’d like to have options available to us.”

Josephine looked over at me.  “Where are you going to get ten million from?”

It surprised me that she had taken so long to ask the question.  None of the children had known what their parents did, and all had been told we were not the richest people in the neighbourhood.  Telling them we had money would only have made them self-indulgent and lazy.

It didn’t quite work as we expected.

“I have friends.”

She shook her head.  “You’ve got nothing.  Why are you here anyway?”

“You called me.”

“Well, it’s too late.  We ain’t got any money, and she’s going to die.  Somehow, this is all your fault.  Go.  And don’t come back.  Ever.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

B is for — Behind the green door.  A game show with a difference

…

It was the anniversary of my mother’s death and a day when my father usually just remained in bed and refused to get up.

He had never quite coped with it, and now, quite a few years later, he was still struggling.  The pity of it was my birthday was the same as the day she died, and I guess it was why for years he had not celebrated it

However, this year was different.  I was looking forward to turning 30, a milestone and something of an achievement in our community, considering what we had all endured.

But it was what it was.  We were alive, reasonably well, and looking forward to the time when we could once again go outside, though no one really knew what that meant.

We had photographs of how the planet looked before the cataclysmic seismic events of 2031.  Overnight, volcanoes erupted, and huge fissures appeared. And poisonous gas filled the air.  It happened so suddenly and so quick that most of the planet’s population died.

So much smoke and dark particles got into the atmosphere it drowned out the sun, and after that, it didn’t take long for everything that wasn’t killed by the sulphuric acid to die from lack of light.

Fortunately, my family was one of the lucky groups that were given a ticket to the huge underground facility built for just such an event, one of thousands all over the world, a completely self-contained microcosm of human life.

Waiting for the air to be clear and for life to reappear.  We had been waiting 400 years.

That was as much as we knew or cared to.  We all had other things to worry about, like getting through the day with the cheerful disposition my mother brought to everyone who knew her, and in her stead, by me.  Everyone had said how much I was like her, and that perhaps didn’t help my father’s disposition.

It was also the day I was being brought into my father’s circle of friends.  I mean, I knew them already and frequently met them when we all got together as a group of families.  But this, he had said, was something different, and I would have to swear on a bible, of all things, that I would keep it a secret, a secret that I would take to the grave.

It had me intrigued.  There were no secrets among the people.  Everyone basically knew everyone else’s business, not hard in a place that only houses 25,000 people, roughly the size of a small town.

This group, he said, had people from all of the work groups, like medical, sanitation, engineering, communications, and community services.  There were about 50 in all, and now that I was a detective, I was going to be confirmed as the newest member of the team, adding a new field and expertise.

It was a team I didn’t know until he first told me, but being formally introduced to all of them was going to be exciting.  These people, I discovered were basically the ones who made our community work.

It also meant my father wouldn’t be wallowing in self-pity today.  He would have better things to do.

I was surprised to discover the meeting place was a gymnasium.  It was reasonably large and looked rather old and worn out.  A new one had been built not far away, but people still preferred to use this one. The reason I discovered later was that there was no surveillance.

Yes, that was just one of the things about our existence that was a nuisance.  It was everywhere and you had to be on your best behaviour at all times.

The other 48 members had already arrived, and my father and I were the last two. I had to sit up at the main table until the others voted to formalise my addition to the team.

My father rang a bell, and silence took over from the low roar of my simultaneous conversations.

“Welcome, fellow members of the brains trust.  For the edification for what I hope will be our newest member,” A glance in my direction followed by 39 other sets of eyes, “we are a group of experts in our fields and when there a problem the brains trust will come together and brain storm a solution.”

“Our main business today is to formalise the inclusion of my son, Michael, as a member.  He will bring the expertise of a Detective and the use of his skills as one to help us find resolutions to future problems.  If anyone has an objection, make it known now.”

We waited for a minute of so, then he continued, “As there are no objections, it is now time for the oath.”

He motioned me to stand as he took a musty looking volume off the table where he was standing.  I’d seen it before but never took much interest in it.  Now I knew it was a bible, one hardly of any use because religion, though not banned, was frowned upon

Equally, neither of my parents was interested or showed any interest.

He held the book in his hand and asked me to put my right hand on it.  I did.

“Do you swear to work with and help in every way possible as a member of the brain’s trust.”

“I will.”

“Do you swear never to tell anyone else, no matter what relationship you have with them?”

What sort of a secret society was this?

“I do.”

“Do you swear that no matter what duress you are under, you will never tell anyone what you have observed, heard, or performed for the group?”

OK, now it was getting a little scary.  Being a detective, I knew the rules by heart, and if this group was doing anything illegal, I was going to have to break the oath I made to become a detective.

What was more important?

“I will.”

“Then welcome to the brain’s trust.”

He shook my hand, and then everyone of the others did likewise.  It was like swearing an oath to each one of them.

That was the business out of the way.  Now, it was time to celebrate, and the wives and daughters had made food and set it out for all to partake.

There was one woman there who was different from the rest. When I asked one of the other girls who she was, she said her name was Elsie and a friend of another of the girls.

She also said she was new to the community, having come with her mother from one of the other communities nearby.

I was curious.  My father had been at me to find a nice girl and settle down but having been to school with and known most of the girls of my age since we were young children, I had not been able to form a rapport with any particular one.

There was only one reason why a woman came from another community, and that was to marry one of our men.  There were rules around marriage, and everyone had to be careful whom they married.

Not that I was thinking about that right then, but it did occur to me that she would be automatically eligible.

I picked a moment when she was alone and went over.  She saw me coming and I thought she might disappear, but she didn’t.

“Hello,” I said in a slightly breaking voice, nerves almost getting the better of me, “my name is Michael.”

She held out her hand, and I took it in mine.

“Hello, Michael.  My name is Elsie.”

“I have not seen you around.”

“I have only just arrived here with my mother.  She is ill at the moment, and I’m staying with my prospective stepfather’s relative.”

“How do you like this community?”

“It is exactly the same as the one I came from, just different people and different rules, but more or less the same.  Have you lived here all your life?”

“Yes.”

She took her hand back, but not in a way that made me think she didn’t like me.

“What do you do?”

“Science, mostly geology.  I study rocks.  Lately, it’s been monitoring seismic activity.  All numbers and lines, boring stuff.  What do you do?”  Then she smiled, and it was transformational.

“Of course, silly me, you’re a detective.  What do you detect?”

“Not a lot because I’m only new, but one day, murders or missing persons.  We didn’t have many murders or deaths, but we do have minor crimes.  Boring stuff, actually.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll see each other again.  I must go now.”

I saw a man at the door looking sternly at her, perhaps for talking to me.  She walked quickly but not hastily towards him, and then they left.

My father appeared at my side.  “Interesting, young woman.  Do you know who she is?

“Someone from another community.  I believed her mother had come to marry one of us.”

He frowned and shook his head.

“That man at the door was a relative of the prospective groom,” I said.

“Then I suggest you keep your distance from them.  They’re trouble.”

That sounded ominous.  There were not many people my father didn’t like, so there was going to be a problem if, in the unlikely event, we met again.

For the next month or two, I worked on improving my skills as a detective and kept an eye out for Elsie.  When I didn’t see her again. I put my missing person skills to good use and tried to track her down.

I learned very quickly that what I thought was good work was nothing of the sort.  I told myself that I was not going to be much of a detective if I couldn’t find someone who was not even missing.

It never occurred to me that she might be hiding or keeping away from the general public for private reasons.  Whatever it was, I gave up trying because I assumed if she wanted to see me again, she would come and find me.

Then suddenly, she reappeared, at my favourite cafe and was ordering a takeout coffee.  I joined the queue behind, then touched her on the shoulder.  She both jumped and squealed but was genuinely surprised to see me again.

“Did you go back to your community?  I have been keeping an eye out for you,” I said

She hesitated, what I might have called confused, then said, “Yes, I had to go back.  Mother married and stayed here.  Now I’m back for good.  I didn’t get your last name, so I couldn’t find you.”

Although pleasant, I sensed something reticent in her manner.  Twice, she had been looking around but trying not to.  As if someone was watching her.

“Are you alright?”

She smiled, but there was no warmth in it.  “A relative is somewhere near here.  I’m just waiting for him.  So that I can find you again, can you give me your last name?”

I gave it to her along with my address, which she carefully folded and put in her bag.

Then she caught sight of the person she was looking for.  “Got to go.  Sorry.  We will talk again, I promise.”  And then she was gone.

Cloak and dagger were words I read in a book that I’d found in a suspect’s residence, a book from a long time ago, one that was banned and shouldn’t exist.

Instead of submitting it as evidence, evidence I knew would disappear, and to be told I should not speak of it again, I kept it.  It also told me there must be a cache of such volumes somewhere in the facility and added it to my secret mission list.

I didn’t tell my father, knowing it would set him off on another rant, that we were kept in the dark, that we were being manipulated by an unseen group of pf murderous people who didn’t care about us.  The death of my mother by them had turned him into a bitter old man.

But the courtship, if you could call it that, with a woman named Elsie Myers, was every bit of a cloak and dagger operation.  We would both sneak away to various locations we knew of that rarely saw other people.  At first, we talked about my community and about her community, how much she didn’t like ours and wished she could go home.

It wasn’t long before I realised that her community was the same one my mother came from.  Did she know this?  I knew she couldn’t be related to my mother because she’d know the rules about inter-community relationships.  And if there was, the recording of any relationships would be investigated.

But, whether or not I was supposed to know this, I decided not to speak of it.  She didn’t seem to want to be forthcoming.

Whatever it was we were doing, it proceeded to the point where I took her home to meet my father.  He was now in the twilight of his years and thinking about Rule 71, the one that decreed that everyone turning 65, took a last trip to the community headquarters, spent a week being debriefed ready for the next person to take over their job, and they move into the next phase of their life.

In other words, put bluntly, you reach 65, and you die.  It was an arbitrary age, the beginning of the end, and that age where everything went wrong.  The thing is, in 400 years, medicine had not improved to the point where we could sustainably live past 65 and be useful

We were told it had something to do with having to live under a mountain, the lack of fresh air and sunshine, and the processing of our food.

Besides, I got it.  Who would want to live longer than that?

My father had got a reminder of his human frailty that morning in a card from the administration advising him that he was due for a check-up.

It was a bad choice to pick the same day to introduce Elsie.  It wasn’t until we were outside the door that I remembered what he had said about her all those months ago.

I unlocked the door and ushered her in.  Once, we didn’t have to lock the doors, but there had been a growing discontent between the haves and have-nots.  He was in his favourite chair, reading the newspaper.

“Dad, this is Elsie.”

Rather than him becoming the polite host, he simply glared at me and said, “I told you what thought ages ago.  Take heed or don’t, I don’t care.”

Thus began a long-running and strained relationship between the two of us, and perhaps I should have heeded his advice from the beginning.  It never improved from that day.

When I should have considered what was behind his attitude I didn’t and on top of the indifference he had for everything since mother had died, I decided to strike my own path, neither participating with the brains trust, and continuing to be disappointed with my workplace, not realizing that it might have had something to do with Elsie.

It wasn’t until sometime after I married her and I was complaining about yet another missed opportunity that one of the other detectives intimated that I should wonder how it was a woman like Elsie had deigned to marry someone so inferior to her station.

She had never mentioned anything about her station, but it was about the time when I started to get better cases, and we moved into better accommodation, and then, she had apparently got a promotion, more and important work.

Perhaps that might never have mattered. I had not seen her out and about with another man, not behaving in the manner I would have expected.  I knew she was a flirt as at some of the parties we were invited to, I saw her being friendly with her fellow workers, but I put that down to her manner.

And while I might have dwelled on it longer than I should, it soon became equally apparent that the new cases I was being allocated were leading me down a dark path whether intentionally designed to distract me from questioning her behaviour, or whether I was meant to discover there was a whole other side to our community that no one else could see.

Had Elsie facilitated that, or was I just imagining it?

Whatever the reason, my life took a very different path, for a period a very intense relationship with Elsie as if we only had a very short time left together, I had uncovered a series of missing persons and subsequent deaths that were linked, something I could not report because there was a possible link between them and my father and other members of the brains trust.

Then my father’s time was up, and I took him to the judiciary, trying to make up for those years since I chose Elsie over him, only for him to cryptically tell me that things happened for a reason, and I would soon learn what that reason was.  He was not bitter, not anymore, and was glad to move on.

Then, in one stultifying moment, Elsie was gone.  I had, on occasion, followed her out and about, seeing who she met, who she was more friendly with, and finding out who they were.  It was interesting that they were all top-level scientists and the sort of men she should have married.

And then, it was one of them that killed her in a jealous rage.  It was not the story they told me, a bunch of shadowy men in black calling, explaining, and then leaving with the ominous threat that I should accept the findings of the investigation and get on with my life.  A CCTV video gave me the real answer much later, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

In the end, I got to my retirement date, rather satisfied in the end that I had done my job to the best of my ability, I had met and lived with the woman I believed I was meant to be with and that I was probably the only one of the 25,000 inhabitants in our community who knew what had happened over the last 400 years that got us to the point where we were now.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

…

A is for – “Anyone want to go on safari?”

…

“You are asking for trouble,” Jennifer, my sister, said with the usual condescending tone.

She hated the fact I was footloose and fancy free, unlike her, shackled to a bad husband and three demanding and bratty children.

It had been an idyllic marriage until she decided she wanted children, and Mike, her husband, didn’t.  Not until they had secured their future.  She went off the script, and everything had gone downhill since then.

She looked tired and, as a result, sounded irritable.

“It’s been cleared by the government, and it’s not the first one.  They’ve run it successfully for two years now without incident.”

We were talking about my latest holiday destination, a safari that ventured across three African nations, one of which had recently been in the news after an unsuccessful coup.

The last safari had been cancelled as a precaution, but the particular nation had said everything was now settled, and the safaris could restart.

It was no surprise that the revenue from the tours was much-needed income for the government.

“I thought you were going ice fishing in Alaska and camping out in an igloo. That would be safer.”

I had thought about it, but that I could do anything.  A safari sounded a lot more interesting, especially when a lot of the animals they had in the wild could basically only be seen in Zoos.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Jen.  My mind is made up.”

“When do you go?”

“Next Tuesday.  It takes about a month, give or take, depending on the weather.”

“I can’t talk you out of it?”

“It’s booked, and I’ve cleared my calendar.  Don’t worry, I’ll report in every day.”

I took the train to Heathrow to avoid the hassle of driving.  I was travelling light and following the tour guide documentation.

Arriving with a few hours to spare, I found a cafe and had a late breakfast and coffee, and whiled away the time researching the countries and animals likely to be seen.

There was an obscure news article filed the day before by a neighbouring country’s national newspaper on a matter of civil unrest in one of the provinces, but it was nowhere near where the tour would be passing through

I also looked at the tour company’s Web page for an update on the tour conditions, where they advised whether there were any problems, and all there was was a nod to the weather, which might turn bad for a day or two.

There was nothing about civil unrest.

About a half hour before boarding commenced, I went to the gate and spent the time evaluating who of the two hundred or so passengers would be my fellow safari travellers.

Until my cell phone vibrated, signalling an incoming message.  I was expecting one from work, but the number it was from was not familiar.

“Jennifer has got it into her head she needs a break from us.  She was muttering something about a safari you were going on.  If this is so, please talk her out of this silliness and tell her to come home.”

What the hell?  Jennifer had never shown any inclination for adventure, so it was difficult to believe she would join me on a safari or anywhere else.  And I was not surprised that Brian had messaged me.  Their home would not survive without her.

I sent back, “If she does come here, you have my word. I will do my utmost to convince her to go home.”

I hope she was not trying to make a point at my expense.  Brian disliked me enough as it was.

A few minutes later, the message I was waiting on arrived.  These two words had great significance, and after going through the presentation, I got the feeling the answer would be no.

I opened the message.  “Operation approved.  Settling wheels in motion.”

I took a deep breath.  It was going to make the time away just a little more interesting if anything happened, although my assessment at the time had been it could take weeks, even months.

Perhaps I should just enjoy the safari and the time away while I could.

Boarding commenced forty minutes before the scheduled departure time.  In my experience, there was no plane I’d ever been on from any airport in the world left on time.

Having opted to pay more for a better seat in business class, I was allowed to board with the first class and frequent fliers with those cards I’d never attain.

It was a refined group for first class, with one exception: a family who looked like they’d stumbled upon the billion ff miles needed for the upgrade, and a more motley group in business class.  I had dressed for the occasion, but some hadn’t.

I think they were university types because they both looked like the lecturers I had, and they had no dress sense either.

The seat next to me was empty, though I expected someone would eventually fill it because I was told the plane was full.  It took the full forty minutes to get everyone on, including a late straggler, the occupant of the seat next to me.

And I was not surprised to see my sister Jennifer.

Perhaps she had left her boarding to the last minute and presented a fait-accompli as the door was closed behind her.  That showed a deliberate intent to come with me.

I frowned at her as she sat, as well as shake my head.

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Jeremy.”

I shrugged.  “What are you doing here?”

“Simple.  I needed a break.  I don’t want to go anywhere by myself, so I chose to go on your safari.”

“You don’t do adventure,” I said, remembering the one and only time she was forced to go on such a holiday.  It didn’t end well.

“Perhaps that’s what’s missing in my life.”

“Brian sent me a message to tell you to go home.”

“To be his and those wretched children’s slave.  No, I’m done with that for a month.  They can either choose to go in without me or perish.”

The steward came past to hand out a drink, orange juice, water, or champagne.  Jennifer picked the champagne.  I had water.

There was a shudder through the plane, and then we started moving back.  For better or worse, we were on our way.

“So, you’re determined to do this?”

“I am.”

The look on her face, of determination tinged with despair, told me all I needed to know.  I was not going to enjoy this holiday.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025