U is for – Undercover

…

I think I had reached the point where I had so fully immersed myself in the role that I no longer knew who or what I had been before.

I had said it wouldn’t happen, and they said it would, and as time passed, they could see it, and I could not.

The gig was over.

The message came over the phone in their cryptic code, devised so that if anyone else saw it, it would look just like the title of a book, which it was.

“Where Eagles Dare”.

I had dared to fly higher than the mythical Icarus, but they said it was too close to the sun.

They were right.

Ballinger, the boss, was seated opposite me, gun in lap, giving me his most menacing look.  He didn’t have to try too hard; the result of many beatings when he was a boy had given his face the look of a world-weary boxer who had to retire early.

Ever since I first met him, he had always been a man of short patience.

“I really am disappointed, Spence.  Really disappointed.”

He glanced sideways at one of his henchmen, an equally scary gorilla called Lefty.  He had another name, but I couldn’t pronounce it.  Neither could anyone else.

Lefty said, as was expected of him, “Really disappointed.”

I was not sure if it was to emphasise Ballinger’s disappointment, or that he could parrot words on command like a dutiful henchman.

I would ask why, but I knew.  There had been a ten-minute diatribe about how another of his henchmen, Wally, had discovered I was an undercover cop.  He didn’t say how he came upon this interesting discovery.

“I was disappointed you didn’t promote me a month back, but I didn’t tie you up and express disappointment.”

Lefty slapped me so hard it knocked me sideways to the floor.

It hurt.

“Don’t be insolent to the boss,” Lefty said.

Another sideways glance from Ballinger at Lefty, and he picked me back up.

After shaking my head, I said, “You’re wrong, by the way.  Do I look smart enough to be an undercover cop?”

“There aren’t any smart cops, Spence, so you fit the bill perfectly.  What did you hope to gain?”

“Let’s cut the charade.  How the hell could anybody ever assume I’m anything but just another dumb schmuck on your payroll?  Seriously?  A cop?  I’ve seen what cops make, and I couldn’t survive on a cop’s salary.  It’s why there are corrupt cops.  You know that as well as I do, you’ve got about half a dozen on the payroll.”

“How do you know that?”

“You don’t exactly make it a secret.   I’m sure their bosses know who they’re consorting with.  Besides, when I got dragged into the station after Wally botched the simple job you gave him, and the cops were called, they told me I’d be smart if I walked away.  I’m hoping it wasn’t Wally who’s suggesting I’m a cop simply because they hauled me away for questioning.”

His look confirmed what I already knew.  Wally was working for the cops, and there were rumours that there was an undercover cop in Ballinger’s crew.  Wally was spreading the blame to me to cover his backside after he nearly blew his cover.  Wally was a rank amateur.

“You need to look closer to home.”

That interview with the police, about a week ago, was the first time I’d been back in over six months, the time it had taken to worm my way into the gang, albeit inside, but outside the part that mattered.

At first, they didn’t know who I was and treated me like a hard case, which was what I was portraying.  Then the head of the task force discovered I was in the cells and came to see me.  It hadn’t been like anything I’d expected.

He’d completely lost it.

Ballinger, by comparison, was a nice guy.

I told the head of the task force that keeping up regular contact with him was how they discovered the undercover cop who had preceded me, through a combination of surveillance and crooked cops on the payroll.

I said I wouldn’t get caught, and yet here I was.

There was a commotion outside, a woman loudly arguing with someone outside the door, and then a loud crashing sound.

Tina.

Ballinger’s daughter; very loud, very brassy, very spoilt.

She came into the room and stopped a short distance from her father.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with Spence.  He’s an undercover cop.”

She looked at me, then her father, and then she laughed so hard she nearly fell over.  “Spence a cop?  Are you serious, or have you completely lost your mind?”

Lefty said, “Wally reckons he is.”

“Wally is dumb as dog shit, Lefty.  He bungled the job so simple that he’s the one you should shoot.  Spence got caught up in his mess.”

Ballinger looked at her, then Lefty, then me.

“Where’s Wally?”

“You’re asking me where your henchmen are?  He’s probably down at the cop shop spilling his guts and asking for witness protection.  You’re doing just what he wants, wasting your time on the wrong people while he gets away.”

Ballinger glared at Lefty.  “Cut Spence free, then find Wally and kill him.  Now.”

To the rest of the men in the room, “Don’t come back till Wally’s dead.”  He looked at Tina.  “You coming?”

“A word with Spence, then I’m right behind you.”

We both watched him and the men leave.  I flexed my arms and legs to get the circulation flowing, then stood, slightly unsteadily.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged.  “It’s either you or Wally, or both of you.  I like you, Spence, so it better not be you.  OK.”

“I’m too stupid to be playing both sides of the fence, Tina.”

She looked at me with a bemused expression.  “One thing you ain’t, Spence, and that’s stupid.  I don’t miss much, Spence, so don’t let me down.”

I shrugged.  “Count on it.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2026

U is for – Undercover

…

I think I had reached the point where I had so fully immersed myself in the role that I no longer knew who or what I had been before.

I had said it wouldn’t happen, and they said it would, and as time passed, they could see it, and I could not.

The gig was over.

The message came over the phone in their cryptic code, devised so that if anyone else saw it, it would look just like the title of a book, which it was.

“Where Eagles Dare”.

I had dared to fly higher than the mythical Icarus, but they said it was too close to the sun.

They were right.

Ballinger, the boss, was seated opposite me, gun in lap, giving me his most menacing look.  He didn’t have to try too hard; the result of many beatings when he was a boy had given his face the look of a world-weary boxer who had to retire early.

Ever since I first met him, he had always been a man of short patience.

“I really am disappointed, Spence.  Really disappointed.”

He glanced sideways at one of his henchmen, an equally scary gorilla called Lefty.  He had another name, but I couldn’t pronounce it.  Neither could anyone else.

Lefty said, as was expected of him, “Really disappointed.”

I was not sure if it was to emphasise Ballinger’s disappointment, or that he could parrot words on command like a dutiful henchman.

I would ask why, but I knew.  There had been a ten-minute diatribe about how another of his henchmen, Wally, had discovered I was an undercover cop.  He didn’t say how he came upon this interesting discovery.

“I was disappointed you didn’t promote me a month back, but I didn’t tie you up and express disappointment.”

Lefty slapped me so hard it knocked me sideways to the floor.

It hurt.

“Don’t be insolent to the boss,” Lefty said.

Another sideways glance from Ballinger at Lefty, and he picked me back up.

After shaking my head, I said, “You’re wrong, by the way.  Do I look smart enough to be an undercover cop?”

“There aren’t any smart cops, Spence, so you fit the bill perfectly.  What did you hope to gain?”

“Let’s cut the charade.  How the hell could anybody ever assume I’m anything but just another dumb schmuck on your payroll?  Seriously?  A cop?  I’ve seen what cops make, and I couldn’t survive on a cop’s salary.  It’s why there are corrupt cops.  You know that as well as I do, you’ve got about half a dozen on the payroll.”

“How do you know that?”

“You don’t exactly make it a secret.   I’m sure their bosses know who they’re consorting with.  Besides, when I got dragged into the station after Wally botched the simple job you gave him, and the cops were called, they told me I’d be smart if I walked away.  I’m hoping it wasn’t Wally who’s suggesting I’m a cop simply because they hauled me away for questioning.”

His look confirmed what I already knew.  Wally was working for the cops, and there were rumours that there was an undercover cop in Ballinger’s crew.  Wally was spreading the blame to me to cover his backside after he nearly blew his cover.  Wally was a rank amateur.

“You need to look closer to home.”

That interview with the police, about a week ago, was the first time I’d been back in over six months, the time it had taken to worm my way into the gang, albeit inside, but outside the part that mattered.

At first, they didn’t know who I was and treated me like a hard case, which was what I was portraying.  Then the head of the task force discovered I was in the cells and came to see me.  It hadn’t been like anything I’d expected.

He’d completely lost it.

Ballinger, by comparison, was a nice guy.

I told the head of the task force that keeping up regular contact with him was how they discovered the undercover cop who had preceded me, through a combination of surveillance and crooked cops on the payroll.

I said I wouldn’t get caught, and yet here I was.

There was a commotion outside, a woman loudly arguing with someone outside the door, and then a loud crashing sound.

Tina.

Ballinger’s daughter; very loud, very brassy, very spoilt.

She came into the room and stopped a short distance from her father.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with Spence.  He’s an undercover cop.”

She looked at me, then her father, and then she laughed so hard she nearly fell over.  “Spence a cop?  Are you serious, or have you completely lost your mind?”

Lefty said, “Wally reckons he is.”

“Wally is dumb as dog shit, Lefty.  He bungled the job so simple that he’s the one you should shoot.  Spence got caught up in his mess.”

Ballinger looked at her, then Lefty, then me.

“Where’s Wally?”

“You’re asking me where your henchmen are?  He’s probably down at the cop shop spilling his guts and asking for witness protection.  You’re doing just what he wants, wasting your time on the wrong people while he gets away.”

Ballinger glared at Lefty.  “Cut Spence free, then find Wally and kill him.  Now.”

To the rest of the men in the room, “Don’t come back till Wally’s dead.”  He looked at Tina.  “You coming?”

“A word with Spence, then I’m right behind you.”

We both watched him and the men leave.  I flexed my arms and legs to get the circulation flowing, then stood, slightly unsteadily.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged.  “It’s either you or Wally, or both of you.  I like you, Spence, so it better not be you.  OK.”

“I’m too stupid to be playing both sides of the fence, Tina.”

She looked at me with a bemused expression.  “One thing you ain’t, Spence, and that’s stupid.  I don’t miss much, Spence, so don’t let me down.”

I shrugged.  “Count on it.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2026

T is for – The truth, no matter how unpalatable…

…

A wise man once told me that, one day in the not-too-distant future, I would have to make a decision that I wouldn’t like. 

At that particular point in time, I thought I had everything under control, and the pieces of my life were coming together one by one, the end result of a lot of hard work.

And so it came to be, the promotion, the jewel in the crown, the catalyst to take my life to the next level, arrived.  I got the job I felt I had earned, I got the salary that made it possible to consider a better apartment, and to ask my current girlfriend to come and live with me, and, quite possibly, even get married.

All before I turned that magic age of 30.

Then there was the work event, celebrating another employee’s good fortune to move up into management, and I kind of tacked my own celebration to his wagon.  Not that I would tell him, it would be just an in-joke between us in the lower echelons of the corporate structure.

Jack Bosworth, one of the three candidates for the position I finally got, was happy for me.

“Just glad Ansen didn’t get it,” he said.

We both were. Ansen was an ass who was only in it for himself and what he could get out of it.  There were too many like that already.  The company needed new blood if it was going to move forward.

Then Ansen wandered over.  Five-thousand-dollar suits, one-thousand-dollar shoes, and I didn’t hear what the pure gold tie clip cost, but he made sure everyone knew what he was worth.

“Brick.”

He knew my name was John Brock, but pretended he could never remember.  He knew it well enough when he was trying to convince the promotion committee ‘confidentially’ about my shortcomings.

“Brock, Ansen, which you know is my name.”

“Brick, Brock, Brack, it’s just a name.  Well played, this time.  Just don’t get too comfortable.  The corporate jungle is like a chessboard, Brock.  Pawn takes king, bishop takes castle, everything takes a pawn, and, sadly, you’re still just a pawn.  Enjoy it while you can.”

Always flanked by his wingmen, he simply smiled, and they moved on to the next junior executive whose aspirations they could quash.  Being related to the boss, I guess, had its privileges; he might not get the position, but he would never get fired.

With that, he slithered off with his regular hangers-on, ready to make someone else feel smaller than himself.

“Scumbag.”  Bosworth didn’t like him; none of us did.

“Be that as it may, he’ll probably be my boss next week.  I have to play nice.”

“We shouldn’t have to do anything like that to get ahead.”

“As he says, it’s a game.  It’s the same everywhere; there’s always one adversary who seems to have a charmed life.  But let us not dwell, the bar closes soon, and there are a few drinks I’ve yet to try.”

…

A few days later, as a result of a stuff-up perpetrated by the very same Bosworth that would have reflected badly on me, I had to work late, leaving me with a dash to the restaurant where I was meeting Bernice, for that all-important discussion on moving our relationship to the next level.  Being a half hour late wasn’t the best of starts.  She didn’t like late people and was looking very annoyed.

“Sorry,” I said, sliding into the chair after hanging my coat on the back of it.

“You wouldn’t have to apologise if you were on time.  This is the second occasion Tim; there will not be a third.”

I gave her one of my ‘I’m looking at you, but not looking at you’ appraisals, and did an internal double-take at the girl I thought liked me enough to work around a little tardiness.  She knew my job wasn’t strictly nine to five, as was hers. 

A very slight shrug, then the thought, maybe tonight wasn’t the night to tell her my good news.  The promotion was about responsibility, not a bucketful of money, and besides, money shouldn’t be a criterion in a relationship.  Move on, see how it goes…

“Are you ready to order?”  It was her ‘take no prisoners’ tone.

Her expression brooked no small talk.  She was an eat-and-run girl, forever telling me her time was precious.  The waiter was hovering.  She asked for the salad, and I said ditto.  No point in having more food than she, I would not get to finish it.

The waiter was gone, drinks poured, and she looked around the room.  This was my moment.  Her eyes came back to me.

“Not a good day at the office?”  I was going to dance with the devil.

“It’s never a good day at the office.”  I still didn’t know exactly what it was she did, and each time I asked, she went off on a tangent.

All of a sudden, I was thinking of everything that was wrong with this relationship, to the point of questioning whether it was one at all.

I saw her eyes wander over to the entrance to the restaurant.  She did this several times over the next half hour, at one point going to the restroom for at least five minutes and looking black as thunder when she returned.

Then, several more minutes passed before she looked over at the door, and I thought I detected recognition as three men came in.  Her eyes lingered on them for a moment longer than they should have before one pulled out a shotgun under his coat and fired into the roof, making a loud bang and a lot of mess.

“Now I have your attention.  James Brock.  Stand up now, or I will start shooting diners till you do.”

I looked at Bernice, who was shaking her head.  Did that mean she didn’t want me to stand up, or something else entirely?  As for my own opinion, the situation looked exactly like he called it.  I had no doubt he would do what he said he would.  And, with a gun pointing at a woman’s head next to where he was standing…

I stood.

“Excellent.  We’re leaving.  Bring your friend.”

Before I could say wasn’t involved, his two men had come over and dragged her out of her chair.  Gun pointed at me, he yelled, “Let’s go.”

Thirty seconds, a police siren in the distance, we were bundled into a white van, and it left the curb before the door was shut.  Then, a needle to the neck, and I had only enough time to wonder what it was they wanted from me.

…

I woke to the sound of dripping water, a leaking tap not unlike the one I had at my current apartment, just one of the reasons why I wanted to move.  Eyes still closed, I did a quick assessment.

Sitting, hands and feet bound, mouth taped.  It was not hot or cold, and the only sound was that drip, every ten seconds.  I could not tell where I was, or whether Bernice was there with me.  From behind the closed eyelids, I could tell the place was well-lit.

I tried remaining unmoving for as long as I could, then reflex action forced my eyes open.  The bright light hurt, and for a few moments, everything was blurred.  Then I saw Bernice.

In exactly the same situation I was.  Bound and gagged.  She was looking at me.  I had expected she would be hysterical, God knows, I was nearly there myself.  Not sitting there calmly, making no effort to get free.

A quick glance showed no signs of exertion to free herself.

Why had they brought her?  That was easy.  If they believed she meant something to me, she could be used as leverage.  And that, to my mind, right then, after the first thirty minutes of our dining engagement, was their first mistake.  During the next five minutes, I created a mental list of pros and cons for the relationship, and there were no pros.

That being the case, I could move on to the next issue.  Who were they?  Not top-line criminals.  They had been lucky; I’d been too stunned to fight back and moved quick enough to negate resistance.

The bindings were tight, but they had been tied by someone who didn’t know their knots.  The chair was bolted to the floor, so no trying to fall over or break it.  We were not blindfolded, and we had seen the faces of our captors.  Equally amateur, or didn’t it matter, there was going to be only one conclusion to this exercise.

I had questions, but being gagged defeated that.  I would have to wait and see what they wanted.

The man who did the talking in the restaurant appeared out of the gloom and stopped not far from Bernice, a silenced pistol in his right hand.

“I’m sorry about the interruption to your dinner, but I’m in a hurry, and you have something I need.”  No beating about the proverbial bush.

I shrugged.  No point answering while I was gagged.

He removed it, and Bernice’s.  Surprisingly, she didn’t speak.

“What do you need?”  I asked, suddenly realising that a secret that only three people knew about was no longer a secret..  A special algorithm, or one third of it at least, one that unlocked Pandora’s box.  No one had access to the whole algorithm.

“Your part of the algorithm.  One of three such code bearers, I have been told.  The other two are being swept up as we speak.”

Who could have told him?  The list of suspects was very, very short.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Bluff first, though the tone I used didn’t exactly sell it.

“You do.  Let’s cut to the chase.”

“If I don’t.”

“Missy here dies from a nasty gunshot wound to the head.”

“You’re going to do that anyway.  There’s no way you’re going to let us live now we’ve seen you.”

He shrugged.  “I can guarantee you will not remember who we really are.  I was going to come as Abraham Lincoln, but I wasn’t allowed to.  Remembering our faces is not a problem.  You tell me, we’re in the wind.”

I could see Bernice following the conversation. 

“Just give him the code,” she said, quietly.  No sign of nerves or fear, like she was telling me what to do as if it was her right.  “Then we get to live our lives.”

“This, unfortunately, is one of those no-win situations, Bernice.  Either way, we’re both going to die.  If I give it to him, thousands, possibly millions will die, if I don’t give it to him, we will die.  The people I work for will know I gave it up, and they will execute me for treason.  There’s no incentive.”

She glared at the man.  “You’re not selling it very well.  If what he says is true, even I wouldn’t give it to you.”

A rather interesting comment.  Was she aiding him or goading him?

The man looked at both of us.  Then he raised the gun and shot at her, not fatally, the bullet grazing her arm, and she screamed more at the noise in a confined space and the tug of the bullet passing her clothing.

“Think very carefully what you say next,” he said to her.  The look between them was unmistakable.

I looked at her and felt disappointed.  “I can’t, no matter how much I want to.”

She glared back at me with an intensity that was a good example of ‘if looks could kill’.  I suspect that if, in the last few seconds, I asked her to marry me, it would be met with an emphatic ‘No!’ 

“I realise that you have an obligation that you take very seriously, trust me, I do,” she said, “but this is a life and death situation. Whatever this code thing is, it can’t be worth dying for.”

An odd thought popped into my head, my father, unravelling another of his pearls of wisdom, this one: silence sometimes is golden.

A few seconds after I didn’t respond, she added, “I was so sure you were going to ask me the question.”  Her tone changed slightly.

It was on my mind this morning when I woke up.  Even when I stepped out the front door of the building on my way to the restaurant.  Then, when I sat down, the look she gave me sent a shiver down my spine.  Not a good one.  An omen, perhaps, that everything wasn’t going to go the way I’d hoped.

I had begun to have second thoughts about a week ago, when I woke up the morning after a dinner with a few of her friends, people I’d only met in passing before.

And accidentally overhearing a conversation between two of the other halves.  One asked the question, ‘What is she doing with him?’  The other replied, ‘It’s something to do with what he does, and it won’t be for much longer.’  I had thought hearing that would have saddened me, but oddly, it didn’t.

I shrugged, “Had we not been interrupted…”

I just realised the man with the gun had stepped back.  Knowing he couldn’t kill me because he would not get the algorithm if he did, he decided to let her sell it.  I was sure he was not going to fatally shoot her.  There was no blood from the last shot, so perhaps it had only been for effect.  Perhaps he realised, too, that killing her removed all the incentive to give him the code.

“Perhaps now, even in trying circumstances…”

“It would certainly make a good story to tell our grandchildren, but when you said that we would get to live our lives, you didn’t add the word together, that we get to live our lives together.  It’s a small oversight, but in times of stress, people tend to say exactly what they believe.”

Her expression changed, just slightly.

Just a fraction before the man with the gun was shot in the head and went down without a murmur.   It was followed by a half a dozen more shots, then silence.

“What just happened?”  Now she did look very frightened, as she should have looked from the moment this started in the restaurant.

The door opened, and the company’s head of security, a man I only knew as Walter, came in.

“You OK?” 

“You took your time,” I said, shakily, because the man with the gun could have got trigger happy, but as Walter had said, they needed the code and killing me would defeat the purpose.

Two of his men came in, freeing us from the bindings.  The man who freed Bernice took a look at her arm.  “Not a scratch, sir,” he said, and stood back.

Her expression changed to suffused anger.  “This was what, you dragged me into a situation where we could both be killed.  I was shot, for God’s sake.

“Yes, and it was almost convincing.”

“What do you mean, almost convincing?  You’re not implying…”

“That you were complicit in whatever this was?  Yes.  You were never in danger.”

“Neither were you.”

“And if you didn’t get the code?”

“We’d be left in the room, wake up, be happy we survived.”

“Without the code?”

“It was a long shot.  I underestimated your resolve.”

There might have been no resolution if she had reacted normally, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“What happens to me now?”

“Words like treason get bandied around behind closed doors.  Depending on whether you cooperate, your choices will be a very dark, dank hole and never see daylight again, or life in a tower where you get to see daylight every morning until you die.”

“You’re kidding?”

Walter nodded to the men, and they took her away.

“Of course, you know what this means, don’t you?” he said.

“Shortest promotion ever.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

T is for – The truth, no matter how unpalatable…

…

A wise man once told me that, one day in the not-too-distant future, I would have to make a decision that I wouldn’t like. 

At that particular point in time, I thought I had everything under control, and the pieces of my life were coming together one by one, the end result of a lot of hard work.

And so it came to be, the promotion, the jewel in the crown, the catalyst to take my life to the next level, arrived.  I got the job I felt I had earned, I got the salary that made it possible to consider a better apartment, and to ask my current girlfriend to come and live with me, and, quite possibly, even get married.

All before I turned that magic age of 30.

Then there was the work event, celebrating another employee’s good fortune to move up into management, and I kind of tacked my own celebration to his wagon.  Not that I would tell him, it would be just an in-joke between us in the lower echelons of the corporate structure.

Jack Bosworth, one of the three candidates for the position I finally got, was happy for me.

“Just glad Ansen didn’t get it,” he said.

We both were. Ansen was an ass who was only in it for himself and what he could get out of it.  There were too many like that already.  The company needed new blood if it was going to move forward.

Then Ansen wandered over.  Five-thousand-dollar suits, one-thousand-dollar shoes, and I didn’t hear what the pure gold tie clip cost, but he made sure everyone knew what he was worth.

“Brick.”

He knew my name was John Brock, but pretended he could never remember.  He knew it well enough when he was trying to convince the promotion committee ‘confidentially’ about my shortcomings.

“Brock, Ansen, which you know is my name.”

“Brick, Brock, Brack, it’s just a name.  Well played, this time.  Just don’t get too comfortable.  The corporate jungle is like a chessboard, Brock.  Pawn takes king, bishop takes castle, everything takes a pawn, and, sadly, you’re still just a pawn.  Enjoy it while you can.”

Always flanked by his wingmen, he simply smiled, and they moved on to the next junior executive whose aspirations they could quash.  Being related to the boss, I guess, had its privileges; he might not get the position, but he would never get fired.

With that, he slithered off with his regular hangers-on, ready to make someone else feel smaller than himself.

“Scumbag.”  Bosworth didn’t like him; none of us did.

“Be that as it may, he’ll probably be my boss next week.  I have to play nice.”

“We shouldn’t have to do anything like that to get ahead.”

“As he says, it’s a game.  It’s the same everywhere; there’s always one adversary who seems to have a charmed life.  But let us not dwell, the bar closes soon, and there are a few drinks I’ve yet to try.”

…

A few days later, as a result of a stuff-up perpetrated by the very same Bosworth that would have reflected badly on me, I had to work late, leaving me with a dash to the restaurant where I was meeting Bernice, for that all-important discussion on moving our relationship to the next level.  Being a half hour late wasn’t the best of starts.  She didn’t like late people and was looking very annoyed.

“Sorry,” I said, sliding into the chair after hanging my coat on the back of it.

“You wouldn’t have to apologise if you were on time.  This is the second occasion Tim; there will not be a third.”

I gave her one of my ‘I’m looking at you, but not looking at you’ appraisals, and did an internal double-take at the girl I thought liked me enough to work around a little tardiness.  She knew my job wasn’t strictly nine to five, as was hers. 

A very slight shrug, then the thought, maybe tonight wasn’t the night to tell her my good news.  The promotion was about responsibility, not a bucketful of money, and besides, money shouldn’t be a criterion in a relationship.  Move on, see how it goes…

“Are you ready to order?”  It was her ‘take no prisoners’ tone.

Her expression brooked no small talk.  She was an eat-and-run girl, forever telling me her time was precious.  The waiter was hovering.  She asked for the salad, and I said ditto.  No point in having more food than she, I would not get to finish it.

The waiter was gone, drinks poured, and she looked around the room.  This was my moment.  Her eyes came back to me.

“Not a good day at the office?”  I was going to dance with the devil.

“It’s never a good day at the office.”  I still didn’t know exactly what it was she did, and each time I asked, she went off on a tangent.

All of a sudden, I was thinking of everything that was wrong with this relationship, to the point of questioning whether it was one at all.

I saw her eyes wander over to the entrance to the restaurant.  She did this several times over the next half hour, at one point going to the restroom for at least five minutes and looking black as thunder when she returned.

Then, several more minutes passed before she looked over at the door, and I thought I detected recognition as three men came in.  Her eyes lingered on them for a moment longer than they should have before one pulled out a shotgun under his coat and fired into the roof, making a loud bang and a lot of mess.

“Now I have your attention.  James Brock.  Stand up now, or I will start shooting diners till you do.”

I looked at Bernice, who was shaking her head.  Did that mean she didn’t want me to stand up, or something else entirely?  As for my own opinion, the situation looked exactly like he called it.  I had no doubt he would do what he said he would.  And, with a gun pointing at a woman’s head next to where he was standing…

I stood.

“Excellent.  We’re leaving.  Bring your friend.”

Before I could say wasn’t involved, his two men had come over and dragged her out of her chair.  Gun pointed at me, he yelled, “Let’s go.”

Thirty seconds, a police siren in the distance, we were bundled into a white van, and it left the curb before the door was shut.  Then, a needle to the neck, and I had only enough time to wonder what it was they wanted from me.

…

I woke to the sound of dripping water, a leaking tap not unlike the one I had at my current apartment, just one of the reasons why I wanted to move.  Eyes still closed, I did a quick assessment.

Sitting, hands and feet bound, mouth taped.  It was not hot or cold, and the only sound was that drip, every ten seconds.  I could not tell where I was, or whether Bernice was there with me.  From behind the closed eyelids, I could tell the place was well-lit.

I tried remaining unmoving for as long as I could, then reflex action forced my eyes open.  The bright light hurt, and for a few moments, everything was blurred.  Then I saw Bernice.

In exactly the same situation I was.  Bound and gagged.  She was looking at me.  I had expected she would be hysterical, God knows, I was nearly there myself.  Not sitting there calmly, making no effort to get free.

A quick glance showed no signs of exertion to free herself.

Why had they brought her?  That was easy.  If they believed she meant something to me, she could be used as leverage.  And that, to my mind, right then, after the first thirty minutes of our dining engagement, was their first mistake.  During the next five minutes, I created a mental list of pros and cons for the relationship, and there were no pros.

That being the case, I could move on to the next issue.  Who were they?  Not top-line criminals.  They had been lucky; I’d been too stunned to fight back and moved quick enough to negate resistance.

The bindings were tight, but they had been tied by someone who didn’t know their knots.  The chair was bolted to the floor, so no trying to fall over or break it.  We were not blindfolded, and we had seen the faces of our captors.  Equally amateur, or didn’t it matter, there was going to be only one conclusion to this exercise.

I had questions, but being gagged defeated that.  I would have to wait and see what they wanted.

The man who did the talking in the restaurant appeared out of the gloom and stopped not far from Bernice, a silenced pistol in his right hand.

“I’m sorry about the interruption to your dinner, but I’m in a hurry, and you have something I need.”  No beating about the proverbial bush.

I shrugged.  No point answering while I was gagged.

He removed it, and Bernice’s.  Surprisingly, she didn’t speak.

“What do you need?”  I asked, suddenly realising that a secret that only three people knew about was no longer a secret..  A special algorithm, or one third of it at least, one that unlocked Pandora’s box.  No one had access to the whole algorithm.

“Your part of the algorithm.  One of three such code bearers, I have been told.  The other two are being swept up as we speak.”

Who could have told him?  The list of suspects was very, very short.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Bluff first, though the tone I used didn’t exactly sell it.

“You do.  Let’s cut to the chase.”

“If I don’t.”

“Missy here dies from a nasty gunshot wound to the head.”

“You’re going to do that anyway.  There’s no way you’re going to let us live now we’ve seen you.”

He shrugged.  “I can guarantee you will not remember who we really are.  I was going to come as Abraham Lincoln, but I wasn’t allowed to.  Remembering our faces is not a problem.  You tell me, we’re in the wind.”

I could see Bernice following the conversation. 

“Just give him the code,” she said, quietly.  No sign of nerves or fear, like she was telling me what to do as if it was her right.  “Then we get to live our lives.”

“This, unfortunately, is one of those no-win situations, Bernice.  Either way, we’re both going to die.  If I give it to him, thousands, possibly millions will die, if I don’t give it to him, we will die.  The people I work for will know I gave it up, and they will execute me for treason.  There’s no incentive.”

She glared at the man.  “You’re not selling it very well.  If what he says is true, even I wouldn’t give it to you.”

A rather interesting comment.  Was she aiding him or goading him?

The man looked at both of us.  Then he raised the gun and shot at her, not fatally, the bullet grazing her arm, and she screamed more at the noise in a confined space and the tug of the bullet passing her clothing.

“Think very carefully what you say next,” he said to her.  The look between them was unmistakable.

I looked at her and felt disappointed.  “I can’t, no matter how much I want to.”

She glared back at me with an intensity that was a good example of ‘if looks could kill’.  I suspect that if, in the last few seconds, I asked her to marry me, it would be met with an emphatic ‘No!’ 

“I realise that you have an obligation that you take very seriously, trust me, I do,” she said, “but this is a life and death situation. Whatever this code thing is, it can’t be worth dying for.”

An odd thought popped into my head, my father, unravelling another of his pearls of wisdom, this one: silence sometimes is golden.

A few seconds after I didn’t respond, she added, “I was so sure you were going to ask me the question.”  Her tone changed slightly.

It was on my mind this morning when I woke up.  Even when I stepped out the front door of the building on my way to the restaurant.  Then, when I sat down, the look she gave me sent a shiver down my spine.  Not a good one.  An omen, perhaps, that everything wasn’t going to go the way I’d hoped.

I had begun to have second thoughts about a week ago, when I woke up the morning after a dinner with a few of her friends, people I’d only met in passing before.

And accidentally overhearing a conversation between two of the other halves.  One asked the question, ‘What is she doing with him?’  The other replied, ‘It’s something to do with what he does, and it won’t be for much longer.’  I had thought hearing that would have saddened me, but oddly, it didn’t.

I shrugged, “Had we not been interrupted…”

I just realised the man with the gun had stepped back.  Knowing he couldn’t kill me because he would not get the algorithm if he did, he decided to let her sell it.  I was sure he was not going to fatally shoot her.  There was no blood from the last shot, so perhaps it had only been for effect.  Perhaps he realised, too, that killing her removed all the incentive to give him the code.

“Perhaps now, even in trying circumstances…”

“It would certainly make a good story to tell our grandchildren, but when you said that we would get to live our lives, you didn’t add the word together, that we get to live our lives together.  It’s a small oversight, but in times of stress, people tend to say exactly what they believe.”

Her expression changed, just slightly.

Just a fraction before the man with the gun was shot in the head and went down without a murmur.   It was followed by a half a dozen more shots, then silence.

“What just happened?”  Now she did look very frightened, as she should have looked from the moment this started in the restaurant.

The door opened, and the company’s head of security, a man I only knew as Walter, came in.

“You OK?” 

“You took your time,” I said, shakily, because the man with the gun could have got trigger happy, but as Walter had said, they needed the code and killing me would defeat the purpose.

Two of his men came in, freeing us from the bindings.  The man who freed Bernice took a look at her arm.  “Not a scratch, sir,” he said, and stood back.

Her expression changed to suffused anger.  “This was what, you dragged me into a situation where we could both be killed.  I was shot, for God’s sake.

“Yes, and it was almost convincing.”

“What do you mean, almost convincing?  You’re not implying…”

“That you were complicit in whatever this was?  Yes.  You were never in danger.”

“Neither were you.”

“And if you didn’t get the code?”

“We’d be left in the room, wake up, be happy we survived.”

“Without the code?”

“It was a long shot.  I underestimated your resolve.”

There might have been no resolution if she had reacted normally, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“What happens to me now?”

“Words like treason get bandied around behind closed doors.  Depending on whether you cooperate, your choices will be a very dark, dank hole and never see daylight again, or life in a tower where you get to see daylight every morning until you die.”

“You’re kidding?”

Walter nodded to the men, and they took her away.

“Of course, you know what this means, don’t you?” he said.

“Shortest promotion ever.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

S is for – Speaking of the dead

…

There was no point in asking Jack.

He was the witness who had fourteen different answers for the same situation; in fact, it changed every time you asked him.

I used to think that he did it deliberately, that it was his way of avoiding responsibility, and it worked.  No one asked him to do anything or asked his opinion, and that threw all of it on me, the younger and only sibling.

For that reason, I left home as soon as I could.   Away from my parents, who expected so much, and my brother, who was oblivious to the problems he was causing me.

Of course, there was always going to be something to drag me back to that place.

Very early on a Saturday morning, the one day I got to sleep in, the cell phone rang at the ungodly hour of 5:03 am.  I remember the time because I also remembered who was calling.

My brother Jack.

I was not in a good mood.  “What?”

“Fine way to talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.  Don’t call me again.”  And then I disconnected the call.

I made the fatal mistake of not switching off the phone.

5:07am.  Jack.  He was going to keep calling.  I sighed, got out of bed, picked up the phone and pressed the green answer button.

“Make it quick, I’m missing out on a much-earned sleep-in.”

“OK, if that’s the way you want it.  Mum and Dad are dead.”

Jack was the original little boy who cried wolf.

“Of course they are.  Are you sure they’re not at the mall shopping?”  He had tried this story once before.  He had half the town in uproar until they found him having coffee at a small cafe, and somehow made it all my fault.  As usual.

“No.  They would have told me.”

“They never tell you anything because you never can relay anything correctly.  Just hang tight, they’ll be home soon enough.”

“They’ve been gone a week, nearly eight days.  I think they’re dead.”

More than likely, they’d gone on a holiday, told him, and he’d forgotten or got it jumbled up in that complicated mind of his.  “There’s nothing wrong with them.  They will be back.”

I hung up, this time switching off the phone, and went back to bed.

…

It was never going to end there.  Nothing that involved Jack did, and his calling had brought all the bad memories flooding back, bad enough that there was no point going back to sleep.

I had to wonder if, after all these years, my parents finally decided they’d had enough of him and just left.  Certainly, the last time I had seen my mother, she was at the end of her tether.  They had come to visit me in the big city, as they called it, and I got the impression that being away was a relief.

I tried calling my mother’s phone, and it rang out.  It was charged, and on, not the state I’d expect if something had happened to her.  My father didn’t have a phone; he said they were the devil’s toys to seduce us, and there were times when I agreed with him.

An hour later, my cell phone rang again.  An unknown number.  Usually, I didn’t answer them, but for some odd reason, I did.

“Richard Westly?”

“Yes.”

“Sheriff Jackson, Black Ridge County Sheriff’s Department.  I assume you live in the old house at the end of Bridge Street?”

“I did.  Haven’t been there for a dozen years or so.  Why?”

Earlier this morning, the next-door neighbour came over to check on them and found the house broken into, and all three occupants were dead.  We believe all three are victims of foul play.”

“All three?”

“Your father, your mother, and your brother Jack.”

“When did they die?  When did Jack die?  Does anyone know?”

“The medical examiner is here, and the preliminary assessment is that they have been dead between four and seven days.”

“Jack too?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.   I was just speaking to him about an hour ago.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

S is for – Speaking of the dead

…

There was no point in asking Jack.

He was the witness who had fourteen different answers for the same situation; in fact, it changed every time you asked him.

I used to think that he did it deliberately, that it was his way of avoiding responsibility, and it worked.  No one asked him to do anything or asked his opinion, and that threw all of it on me, the younger and only sibling.

For that reason, I left home as soon as I could.   Away from my parents, who expected so much, and my brother, who was oblivious to the problems he was causing me.

Of course, there was always going to be something to drag me back to that place.

Very early on a Saturday morning, the one day I got to sleep in, the cell phone rang at the ungodly hour of 5:03 am.  I remember the time because I also remembered who was calling.

My brother Jack.

I was not in a good mood.  “What?”

“Fine way to talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.  Don’t call me again.”  And then I disconnected the call.

I made the fatal mistake of not switching off the phone.

5:07am.  Jack.  He was going to keep calling.  I sighed, got out of bed, picked up the phone and pressed the green answer button.

“Make it quick, I’m missing out on a much-earned sleep-in.”

“OK, if that’s the way you want it.  Mum and Dad are dead.”

Jack was the original little boy who cried wolf.

“Of course they are.  Are you sure they’re not at the mall shopping?”  He had tried this story once before.  He had half the town in uproar until they found him having coffee at a small cafe, and somehow made it all my fault.  As usual.

“No.  They would have told me.”

“They never tell you anything because you never can relay anything correctly.  Just hang tight, they’ll be home soon enough.”

“They’ve been gone a week, nearly eight days.  I think they’re dead.”

More than likely, they’d gone on a holiday, told him, and he’d forgotten or got it jumbled up in that complicated mind of his.  “There’s nothing wrong with them.  They will be back.”

I hung up, this time switching off the phone, and went back to bed.

…

It was never going to end there.  Nothing that involved Jack did, and his calling had brought all the bad memories flooding back, bad enough that there was no point going back to sleep.

I had to wonder if, after all these years, my parents finally decided they’d had enough of him and just left.  Certainly, the last time I had seen my mother, she was at the end of her tether.  They had come to visit me in the big city, as they called it, and I got the impression that being away was a relief.

I tried calling my mother’s phone, and it rang out.  It was charged, and on, not the state I’d expect if something had happened to her.  My father didn’t have a phone; he said they were the devil’s toys to seduce us, and there were times when I agreed with him.

An hour later, my cell phone rang again.  An unknown number.  Usually, I didn’t answer them, but for some odd reason, I did.

“Richard Westly?”

“Yes.”

“Sheriff Jackson, Black Ridge County Sheriff’s Department.  I assume you live in the old house at the end of Bridge Street?”

“I did.  Haven’t been there for a dozen years or so.  Why?”

Earlier this morning, the next-door neighbour came over to check on them and found the house broken into, and all three occupants were dead.  We believe all three are victims of foul play.”

“All three?”

“Your father, your mother, and your brother Jack.”

“When did they die?  When did Jack die?  Does anyone know?”

“The medical examiner is here, and the preliminary assessment is that they have been dead between four and seven days.”

“Jack too?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible.   I was just speaking to him about an hour ago.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

R is for – Release

…

I woke up that morning believing it would be the first day of the rest of my life.

I stretched and luxuriated in the comfort and warmth of the bed, after a dozen years of suffering a very hard, uncomfortable, cold cot, if it could be called that.

Prison life had been harsh. Being unjustly imprisoned had been harsher, and the years of battling to have the evidence that finally exonerated me finally paid off.

Release.

Perhaps it was not a coincidence that the day I stepped out of the prison was the day the snow started, the first of the season, bringing with it the winter chill. I would not have survived another winter in that place.

Perhaps it was also not a coincidence that the ex-girlfriend of the man I had supposedly murdered in a jealous rage arrived on my doorstep the same day I was released. It was her evidence, circumstantial at best, but convincingly relayed in the courtroom, a performance even the newspapers said was worthy of an Academy Award.

She still firmly believed I was guilty, evidence or not, and that I would be damned to hell.

That might be true, but not from the so-called murder of her ex-boyfriend, but the deeds I had to do to survive in what could only be described as hell on earth. I tried to tell her that I’d paid my dues, as unjust as they were, and that was the end of it. She had got her pound of flesh.

The parents of the ex-boyfriend were not as unforgiving and wished me well. They had never believed that I was guilty, no surprises because their son and I had been the best of friends from a very early age, when they moved into the house next door.

Those years were gone, as was the house, and everything else. It had been burned to the ground by a bunch of vigilantes riled up by Samantha, who marched on the house just before my arrest. Nobody was blamed for the deaths of my parents, caught in the fire, but the judge did admonish Samantha in a monologue that all but handed the blame to her. It was, he said, going to be a battle for her conscience.

Now I had nothing.

My lawyer said it was a clean slate, and to put what I needed into a backpack, and get on the first train out of town. There was nothing for me, no reason to stay.

The very thought in my mind when I woke and looked out at the sea of white, and the steady downfall of snow drifting down from the sky. The forecast was snow for a day or so, then clearing. It would halt the trains, so I would be here for at least another day.

Enough time for Samantha to round up another mob and come burn down the hotel.

That was reason enough not to get out of bed.

Except…

The phone beside the bed rang, one that had a shrill insistence about it.

I slipped out from under the covers, shivered slightly in the cool morning air, then picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“There’s a Miss Whales here to see you.”

Miss Whales. It was a name that lurked on the fringe of my memory, in the life before prison section, and was not quite coming to me.

“Did she state her business?” I assumed it was a reporter here to get my story, one that they were hoping, no doubt, I would be suing the state for false imprisonment.

“No, but she is insistent she sees you.”

“OK. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

…

During the time it took to throw on some warm clothes, I ran the name through my recollection of people I’d met, and her name didn’t come up. I expect she was a reporter, or perhaps a junior from a law practice looking to get me to hire them for the law case against the state.

I took the stairs; it was only two floors worth, and I needed to warm up. For some reason, the passageways and then the foyer felt cold. The front desk clerk saw me step off the last stair and nodded over towards the fireplace, where some large logs were burning.

Sitting on one of the chairs was a woman, about my age, who looked like someone’s mother. I had no doubt she would appear to be disarming and polite, but then strike like a cobra. It was how I came to view both Lawyers and reporters.

She had seen me coming from the stairs and stood as I approached.

“Mr Peverell?”

“You could hardly mistake me for anyone else.” Maybe not the first words I would have said, but I was still tired and steeling myself for a pitch.

I saw her mentally brush aside my attitude and smile. “How are you this morning, not that the weather is being polite.” I saw her glance outside through the large panoramic windows. The carpark was slowly disappearing.

“Not the sort of day to be out on a whim,” I said. I still couldn’t place her.

“No, indeed. Please,” she motioned to a chair by the fire, two together.

I sat. She sat, then arranged the layers. It had to be quite warm with the coat she was wearing. She had removed the fake fur hat. It actually looked good on her.

“What is so pressing that you had to see me?”

“I need your help.”

“How could I possibly help you or anyone with anything. You do realise I have just spent twelve years locked away from the real world. I’m lucky to remember my name, let alone anything else.”

Yes, the warden and his officers had tried very hard to take everything from all the other prisoners, some of whom would never get out of that prison.

“Of course. But let me introduce myself. My name is Bettina Whales. I’m a private investigator, and I have been commissioned to find out who murdered David Lloyd-Smythe.”

Odd, but then, it just occurred to me that now I was exonerated, the real killer was still out there. It had been on my mind briefly the day before, but I decided I was over it. The murder had robbed me of 12 years of my life. Enough was enough.

But there was an element of curiosity. “By whom?”

“Your wife, of course.”

I shook my head. She had dumped me so fast once I was arrested, it made my head spin. Of course, her parents had probably kidnapped her and kept her prisoner from the day I was arrested until yesterday, but I thought if there was a way she could just tell me why she had abandoned me, it might have been tolerable, but she didn’t.

I had decided long ago that she was gone, and I would never see her again.

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. You are here for some other reason; one I’m not going to like.”

She smiled. “She said you’d say that. And I’ll admit when she explained why you would, I had to say I agreed with you. But she can tell you herself. She’s right over there, coming in the door.”

I stood, faced her, and watched mesmerised. Twelve years had not aged her, not like they had me, and she still had that ability to take my breath away. And she still could command a room simply by walking through it. All eyes, and particularly the men, were on her.

Then she was in front of me. That loose way of standing, the smile, the disarming manner.

“You thought I had forgotten you?”

“I didn’t know what to think, other than a part of me had died.”

“And I am sorry about that, but you know my parents. I had to disappear, lest shame be brought upon the family. Been in Europe, in a castle no less. It took me an age to find the people running your case to get you out, and then I had to surreptitiously hire an army of lawyers. The lady behind is the one who found the evidence that got you off. She’s the best of the best. Now we’re going after the person who put you there, the real killer.”

Just like in the old days, the take-charge girl, even if you didn’t want to do anything. She, like her father, had no ‘off’ button.

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Don’t be silly, Pev.” She looked at the private investigator. “Get yourself a room if you haven’t already. Pev and I had things to talk about.” She looked back at me. “I can see you threw something on, so we can go back to your room and talk. Or whatever.” She took my hand. “We have twelve years to catch up. Then we’re going to hunt down the bastard that took you away from me. Miss me?”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “I did.”

She smiled. “Good. I hope you have a good room.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

R is for – Release

…

I woke up that morning believing it would be the first day of the rest of my life.

I stretched and luxuriated in the comfort and warmth of the bed, after a dozen years of suffering a very hard, uncomfortable, cold cot, if it could be called that.

Prison life had been harsh. Being unjustly imprisoned had been harsher, and the years of battling to have the evidence that finally exonerated me finally paid off.

Release.

Perhaps it was not a coincidence that the day I stepped out of the prison was the day the snow started, the first of the season, bringing with it the winter chill. I would not have survived another winter in that place.

Perhaps it was also not a coincidence that the ex-girlfriend of the man I had supposedly murdered in a jealous rage arrived on my doorstep the same day I was released. It was her evidence, circumstantial at best, but convincingly relayed in the courtroom, a performance even the newspapers said was worthy of an Academy Award.

She still firmly believed I was guilty, evidence or not, and that I would be damned to hell.

That might be true, but not from the so-called murder of her ex-boyfriend, but the deeds I had to do to survive in what could only be described as hell on earth. I tried to tell her that I’d paid my dues, as unjust as they were, and that was the end of it. She had got her pound of flesh.

The parents of the ex-boyfriend were not as unforgiving and wished me well. They had never believed that I was guilty, no surprises because their son and I had been the best of friends from a very early age, when they moved into the house next door.

Those years were gone, as was the house, and everything else. It had been burned to the ground by a bunch of vigilantes riled up by Samantha, who marched on the house just before my arrest. Nobody was blamed for the deaths of my parents, caught in the fire, but the judge did admonish Samantha in a monologue that all but handed the blame to her. It was, he said, going to be a battle for her conscience.

Now I had nothing.

My lawyer said it was a clean slate, and to put what I needed into a backpack, and get on the first train out of town. There was nothing for me, no reason to stay.

The very thought in my mind when I woke and looked out at the sea of white, and the steady downfall of snow drifting down from the sky. The forecast was snow for a day or so, then clearing. It would halt the trains, so I would be here for at least another day.

Enough time for Samantha to round up another mob and come burn down the hotel.

That was reason enough not to get out of bed.

Except…

The phone beside the bed rang, one that had a shrill insistence about it.

I slipped out from under the covers, shivered slightly in the cool morning air, then picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“There’s a Miss Whales here to see you.”

Miss Whales. It was a name that lurked on the fringe of my memory, in the life before prison section, and was not quite coming to me.

“Did she state her business?” I assumed it was a reporter here to get my story, one that they were hoping, no doubt, I would be suing the state for false imprisonment.

“No, but she is insistent she sees you.”

“OK. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

…

During the time it took to throw on some warm clothes, I ran the name through my recollection of people I’d met, and her name didn’t come up. I expect she was a reporter, or perhaps a junior from a law practice looking to get me to hire them for the law case against the state.

I took the stairs; it was only two floors worth, and I needed to warm up. For some reason, the passageways and then the foyer felt cold. The front desk clerk saw me step off the last stair and nodded over towards the fireplace, where some large logs were burning.

Sitting on one of the chairs was a woman, about my age, who looked like someone’s mother. I had no doubt she would appear to be disarming and polite, but then strike like a cobra. It was how I came to view both Lawyers and reporters.

She had seen me coming from the stairs and stood as I approached.

“Mr Peverell?”

“You could hardly mistake me for anyone else.” Maybe not the first words I would have said, but I was still tired and steeling myself for a pitch.

I saw her mentally brush aside my attitude and smile. “How are you this morning, not that the weather is being polite.” I saw her glance outside through the large panoramic windows. The carpark was slowly disappearing.

“Not the sort of day to be out on a whim,” I said. I still couldn’t place her.

“No, indeed. Please,” she motioned to a chair by the fire, two together.

I sat. She sat, then arranged the layers. It had to be quite warm with the coat she was wearing. She had removed the fake fur hat. It actually looked good on her.

“What is so pressing that you had to see me?”

“I need your help.”

“How could I possibly help you or anyone with anything. You do realise I have just spent twelve years locked away from the real world. I’m lucky to remember my name, let alone anything else.”

Yes, the warden and his officers had tried very hard to take everything from all the other prisoners, some of whom would never get out of that prison.

“Of course. But let me introduce myself. My name is Bettina Whales. I’m a private investigator, and I have been commissioned to find out who murdered David Lloyd-Smythe.”

Odd, but then, it just occurred to me that now I was exonerated, the real killer was still out there. It had been on my mind briefly the day before, but I decided I was over it. The murder had robbed me of 12 years of my life. Enough was enough.

But there was an element of curiosity. “By whom?”

“Your wife, of course.”

I shook my head. She had dumped me so fast once I was arrested, it made my head spin. Of course, her parents had probably kidnapped her and kept her prisoner from the day I was arrested until yesterday, but I thought if there was a way she could just tell me why she had abandoned me, it might have been tolerable, but she didn’t.

I had decided long ago that she was gone, and I would never see her again.

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. You are here for some other reason; one I’m not going to like.”

She smiled. “She said you’d say that. And I’ll admit when she explained why you would, I had to say I agreed with you. But she can tell you herself. She’s right over there, coming in the door.”

I stood, faced her, and watched mesmerised. Twelve years had not aged her, not like they had me, and she still had that ability to take my breath away. And she still could command a room simply by walking through it. All eyes, and particularly the men, were on her.

Then she was in front of me. That loose way of standing, the smile, the disarming manner.

“You thought I had forgotten you?”

“I didn’t know what to think, other than a part of me had died.”

“And I am sorry about that, but you know my parents. I had to disappear, lest shame be brought upon the family. Been in Europe, in a castle no less. It took me an age to find the people running your case to get you out, and then I had to surreptitiously hire an army of lawyers. The lady behind is the one who found the evidence that got you off. She’s the best of the best. Now we’re going after the person who put you there, the real killer.”

Just like in the old days, the take-charge girl, even if you didn’t want to do anything. She, like her father, had no ‘off’ button.

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Don’t be silly, Pev.” She looked at the private investigator. “Get yourself a room if you haven’t already. Pev and I had things to talk about.” She looked back at me. “I can see you threw something on, so we can go back to your room and talk. Or whatever.” She took my hand. “We have twelve years to catch up. Then we’re going to hunt down the bastard that took you away from me. Miss me?”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “I did.”

She smiled. “Good. I hope you have a good room.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

Q is for – Quid Pro Quo

…

Perhaps if I’d thought about it long enough, I might have seen it coming, but it was taking that light at the end of the tunnel as a good thing, not the double-headed train pounding towards me at breakneck speed while I was tied to the tracks.

It would be easy to blame my mother.  She was the one who taught us to take everyone at face value, to see the good in the world, and, of course, eight times out of ten, everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

I was on the balcony overlooking the bay, the house that my grandfather had first built as a getaway shack, expanded into a holiday home, and then into my retreat, the place I could hide away from the world.

It was the same for my sister, who was still recovering from a bad relationship, one that she blamed herself for, but the truth was, she was not at fault, not for any of it.

But the scars ran deep, deep enough that in the pit of despair, she did the unforgivable, and it was a sixth sense that sent me to her in her time of need.

Now, she was well on the road to recovery, older and very much wiser.

For both of us.

…

“Did you see the report Jenkins sent?”

She was stretched out on the deckchair, taking in the sunshine that came with early spring.  It was warm but not hot, a gentle breeze rustling through the surrounding trees.

There were white caps out to sea, and there was a ship slowly plying its way past the bay.  It was a busy shipping lane, and it was the perfect distraction to watch the ships go by.

“I did.”

Jenkins was the company’s head of security, and I had asked him to investigate the man who had deceived and nearly destroyed my twin sister.  In an attempt to get justice, he had gotten off on a technicality and walked free.

It wasn’t justice, but justice sometimes could be blinded.

“Did you have any idea?”

I had to say I didn’t.  Who would when the woman of your dreams, a woman who ticked all of the boxes, comes into your life when you least expect it.

At first, I believed it was too good to be true.  Jenkins checked her out, and everything was irreproachable.  It was not that I was the one who didn’t trust her. It was the people around me.

Once the investigation was over, I decided it was time.  We had been dating off and on for over a year, and it had been a slow burn.

Then Alisha discovered just who and what her boyfriend was, just in time to prevent a travesty.  She was worth a small fortune, and Jackson Pearce had very nearly stolen it all.

He only made one mistake.  He told, no, bragged, that he was about to take down the Bernadines, one of the wealthier and blue-ribbon families.

He very neatly got away with it.  He was free, but he was penniless, and oddly not concerned or angry.

I asked Jenkins to find out why.

It was in the report sitting on the coffee table beside Alisha’s deckchair.

About the woman I was about to marry in the wedding of the year, after letting her take control of the preparations and ceremony and spending close to three million dollars.

A lot of that money was channelled back to her brother Jackson Pearce.  Her real name was Milly Pearce.  She’d stuck to the Milly but was using her father’s mother’s birth surname, making it difficult to trace in a first scan of a family tree.

Or lack of one, which matched her assertion, she was an orphan, from an orphanage that no longer existed, and all records of her had been destroyed in a fire.

Only Jenkins thought it was suspicious, but we were all prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“No. She is such a lovely person.”

“So was Jack, until…”  It was still painful for her, but not so much that it hurt that much.  “What are you going to do?”

“Play.  Do you think you’re strong enough to join me?”

“Can I shoot her?”

I gave her a curious expression.  As much as I understood how she felt about that family, it was not worth the jail sentence.

“No.”

“Spoil sport.”

She sighed.  I took her attitude and the determination in her voice as good signs that she was all but over her calamity.

Up to the unmasking of Jack, she had been almost like a sister to Milly.  I had thought it was the sort of bonding one would expect between the women.  Milly had been suitably disparaging towards the dastardly boyfriend, but whatever had been between them had been broken.

Knowing what she did now, it was difficult to imagine how she could be nice to her.

But it would be settled the next day.  I had promised to take Milly to a special lunch with just our family, my mother, who was kept oblivious of the details of Alisha’s breakup and subsequent events, my older brother, Wally, who was the current CEO of the company, the one I would eventually take over, and myself, basically to talk about where she would fit into the echelons.

We had talked about it, and she had suggested a role suited to her standing.  She had also considered that she was part of the family and, therefore, entitled to a parcel of shares. That alone should have set off alarm bells, but since Mother and Wally had suggested it, who was I to disagree?

“Are you going to tell Mother and Walter?”

It was like she was reading my mind.

“No.  Let’s play her game out and see where it goes.”

“Are you prepared for it?”

I don’t think I would ever be.  I had been hesitant to make our budding romance public, and on the eight-month anniversary, we had been ambushed by the media.  She swore she had not told anyone, but she and I were the only two who knew.

It was the catalyst needed to push us to the next level.  Even then, I was not suspicious, accepting her explanation.  It was not impossible that I was being followed by a photographer looking for a scoop.

“What would be the upside for her?”

“Without sounding catty, Henry, if she is cut from the same cloth as her brother, there’s always a reason.”

“Fair enough.  We shall see.”

I rose early and took my time getting ready.  There were a few calls I had to make, one a long chat with Legal, with the only lawyer I could trust, a chap I went to university with, and funded his start in the legal world.

Disillusioned with run-of-the-mill legalities, he took a break, married his childhood sweetheart, and asked if I could find something for him.

I asked the head of Legal to appoint him as my personal lawyer, and he did.  Sworn to secrecy, he was the fourth person who knew about Milly’s perfidy.  Surprisingly, he was not surprised.

I was having a coffee after considering a stiff Scotch.  Perhaps later, when I get back.

Alisha came out, looking like her old self and looking stunning.  She had toyed with the idea of being a model but decided against it after working on a shoot as an assistant.

“How do I look?”

“Like an angel.”

“Then she will not see me coming.  All sweetness and light, Henry.  I’ve been out of the loop, so I can play dumb but not too dumb.  I’ll make her work to restart our friendship.”

“Promise me the secret is safe.”

She smiled.  “You have my word.  I would not want to miss this for the world.”

“Good.  Now I must make the call.  Phase one is about to begin.”  I picked up the phone and made the call.

I put it on speaker.

“Darling, is everything alright?”

Her usual, what I called adorable, tone.  Today, it didn’t give me shivers.

“Just a little hiccup.  I’m running late, so Wally will be collecting you.  I should be there on time, or a few minutes later.  Try not to miss me too much.”

“Will you be staying tonight?”

I took a deep breath.  I had been planning to, but things had changed.  I didn’t think I could keep up the pretence at close quarters for as long as all night.

“We talked about this.  The wedding is in two days.  I think the few days’ absence will make our hearts grow fonder.  Besides, I must complete all the legal formalities of setting you up as a family member.  You’re about to become a very well-situated wife.”

I could hear her considering what that all meant.  Wealth, power, everything her brother had tried to take.  I wondered what her plan was.

She sighed.  “Lunch will have to suffice, I guess.  See you soon.”

Alisha looked at the phone and then at me.  “That was a bit abrupt.”

“Wedding jitters, perhaps.”

“Given the Bollywood production she’s planned, hardly.”

I shook my head.  “You mean there’s going to be elephants?”

She laughed.  “Don’t be surprised if there are.”

There hadn’t been any at the rehearsal.  But the fact that there were nearly a hundred people at the rehearsal was scary enough in itself.  I’d seen the running sheet, and yes, it was a production, being filmed, with a Hollywood director.

Sadly, it was neither Steven Spielberg nor James Cameron.  I would have liked some tap-dancing star troopers or the set of the Titanic as a backdrop.

We flew to the heliport and were picked up by a chauffeur-driven limousine.  I made sure that Mother, Wally, and Milly were in situ before Alisha and I entered the restaurant.

We entered by a side entrance to avoid causing a stir out front or interfering with the other diners.  I had prebooked a private room in a nom de plume.

Only the Maitre’d knew who really made the booking.  If there were any surprises…

It was a priceless moment when Milly saw Alisha not as the broken spirit she had been for the last few months, but back to being a rival.

And taking the position of the real Bernadine, where Milly would only be one by marriage.  The look, if only for a millisecond, was one of pure malice.

As soon as mother and Wally saw her, they were up and making a fuss.  After all, they hadn’t seen much of her since the event.  Nor were they across everything that happened.

I went over to my family and gave them a hug, trying to be my usual self, which wasn’t hard.  In public, with Milly or anyone, for that matter, I was aloof.

Waiting for her turn, Milly gave Alisha a hug, and they spoke briefly before we all sat, and the head waiter appeared, and the discussion about drinks and what was on the special menu.

Orders taken, we settled into the chairs.

Alisha was the focal point.

“It’s so good to see you back to your old self.”  Mother was particularly pleased as she had been at her wits’ end on how to cope with such a distressed child.  That was where I took over, looking after her.

“I couldn’t mope forever.  Henry has been an angel, looking after me.”

“Where?”  It was out before she could stifle it, and not the question I expected.  “I mean, sorry, that came out a little strange.  I had been asking after you,” she said to Milly, “but no one seemed to know where you were.”

“I needed to get away for a while.  No one needs to know, and you’ll understand soon why it’s a blessing to have somewhere to escape from the outside world.  Your life is about to become public property.”

And with that, Alisha avoided the question.  I was sure both Mother and Wally knew where I went to hide and that it was where Alisha had gone.  Mother had trusted me to look after her.  Wally had too many other matters to attend to.

Milly looked at me.  “Perhaps you can take me there. It sounds wonderful.”

I smiled.  “One day, if or when you suffer a malady.  Otherwise, it will be for Alisha until she finally returns to work.  She needs the space.”

Then I turned to Wally.  “Legal tells me they have a lead on the whereabouts of Jackson Pearce.”

It was a calculated move, one I had warned Alisha about, knowing it might have an effect.

I was watching Milly, and it got the expected reaction, one I would not have seen if I hadn’t been looking for it.

“I thought I read he left the country.”  Milly, if she had been smarter, would have left it alone.

“That was a rumour he spread to the media.  I have questions, and I suspect now that Alisha has recovered, she would like five minutes alone with him.”

“Why.  He’s a rat. Why would you want to rake over those coals?”

Alisha smiled.  “I want an apology.  I will get an apology.  One way or another.”

Yes.  Milly looked at Alisha with a whole new perspective.  The determination in her voice was stirring and set a tone for the lunch.

Milly had been caught offside and didn’t recover.  She was caught between brother and sister, where the sister was the priority, and I got the impression she had just realised there was a slight shift in our relationship.

When we parted, she tried very hard to recover our usual easy manner, and I relaxed to the point where she felt she had succeeded.  I could tell she had questions, not the sort she could ask then, but perhaps it would be a call later.

She asked again if we could spend the rest of the day together, but I told her there were too many matters I had to attend to before the wedding. Otherwise, there would be no honeymoon.

She had planned that too, and it was all the places she had dreamed of going, first class or better.  I had been looking forward to it as well, though I had been to a lot of the places, and travelling coach and backpacking as you did when wide-eyed and adventurous.

I had suggested it, and she had laughed.  The Benadines didn’t travel in coach class in any mode of transport.

I shook my head.  Absence, I said, made the heart grow fonder.  After all, we would be spending the rest of our lives together.

After we parted, I was left with the impression I was not going to survive the honeymoon.

It was odd that after two days, and knowing the truth, I felt so cold that I shivered.  Alisha took my hand and squeezed it.

“If it makes you feel any better, she is a very cold fish pretending to be something else.  Even I could feel it, and it made me shudder more than once.  That whole family are monstrous.  They have to be to prey on people like us.”

We went to my city apartment and waited.

Jenkins had suggested that he have a team keep her under surveillance and see where she went or did.  I had told him we were going to make a few suggestions about her brother and see if she tried to call or approach him.

I said she wouldn’t be that stupid.

But if we were close to finding him and telling her, she might think he would drag her down with him and demand that he go away.  It was an interesting theory.

Several hours passed.  I rested; Alisha was reading a Mills and Boon romance novel.  She said it gave her hope there could be a happy ending.

When we both least expected it, the phone vibrated.  A message.  It was an address and a request to come.

“Pearce and Pearce?”

“Possibly.” I couldn’t believe it would be that easy.

When we arrived, there were police outside the building, and Jenkins was with a detective in the foyer.  No one said much, only that I was needed for an identification.

We went up the elevator to the fifth floor, and down the passage to the last door on the left, the one where a policeman was standing outside.

He stood to one side, and we went in.

Milly was standing between two large policemen, and on the floor, being attended by paramedics, was her brother, Jackson.  He had a head wound and was barely conscious.

Milly looked at me.  “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.  Why are you here with Jack?  You said he’d left the country.”

“I said I read he left the country.”

“And yet here you are.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“And what do you think, I think?  Because from where I’m standing, a woman I hardly know has attacked her brother, the man who tried to rob my sister, and contributed to her suicide attempt.”

“He’s not my brother.”

“Perhaps not from the same parents, but for at least a dozen years in the same foster home until you ran away together.”

“Am I getting a family lawyer?”

“You’re not family, Milly.  You’re a thief and a liar, and I have no idea who you are, nor do I want to.  The engagement and the wedding are off.

It turned to the detective.  “Any details you need on Miss Pearce, detective, Jenkins here will give you what we have.  I believe there is new information on her brother’s crimes against my sister.  If that’s all?”

It was.  Alisha looked down at the man on the ground and took no pleasure in what she saw.  It was perhaps justice of a sort.  As we left, I saw her texting.  When I asked who, she said I would find out soon enough.

The late edition of the paper, with a headline, “All that glitters”, and below the story of a grifter and her brother trying to take down the Benadine family, and very nearly succeeding.

It was a story my father would have had suppressed because it made us look foolish.  When I asked her why she did it, she said no matter what the public thought of us, we were transparent, far more than any others in our situation.  But, she said, more than anything else, it ensured no one else would try.

Well, not in our lifetime anyway.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

Q is for – Quid Pro Quo

…

Perhaps if I’d thought about it long enough, I might have seen it coming, but it was taking that light at the end of the tunnel as a good thing, not the double-headed train pounding towards me at breakneck speed while I was tied to the tracks.

It would be easy to blame my mother.  She was the one who taught us to take everyone at face value, to see the good in the world, and, of course, eight times out of ten, everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

I was on the balcony overlooking the bay, the house that my grandfather had first built as a getaway shack, expanded into a holiday home, and then into my retreat, the place I could hide away from the world.

It was the same for my sister, who was still recovering from a bad relationship, one that she blamed herself for, but the truth was, she was not at fault, not for any of it.

But the scars ran deep, deep enough that in the pit of despair, she did the unforgivable, and it was a sixth sense that sent me to her in her time of need.

Now, she was well on the road to recovery, older and very much wiser.

For both of us.

…

“Did you see the report Jenkins sent?”

She was stretched out on the deckchair, taking in the sunshine that came with early spring.  It was warm but not hot, a gentle breeze rustling through the surrounding trees.

There were white caps out to sea, and there was a ship slowly plying its way past the bay.  It was a busy shipping lane, and it was the perfect distraction to watch the ships go by.

“I did.”

Jenkins was the company’s head of security, and I had asked him to investigate the man who had deceived and nearly destroyed my twin sister.  In an attempt to get justice, he had gotten off on a technicality and walked free.

It wasn’t justice, but justice sometimes could be blinded.

“Did you have any idea?”

I had to say I didn’t.  Who would when the woman of your dreams, a woman who ticked all of the boxes, comes into your life when you least expect it.

At first, I believed it was too good to be true.  Jenkins checked her out, and everything was irreproachable.  It was not that I was the one who didn’t trust her. It was the people around me.

Once the investigation was over, I decided it was time.  We had been dating off and on for over a year, and it had been a slow burn.

Then Alisha discovered just who and what her boyfriend was, just in time to prevent a travesty.  She was worth a small fortune, and Jackson Pearce had very nearly stolen it all.

He only made one mistake.  He told, no, bragged, that he was about to take down the Bernadines, one of the wealthier and blue-ribbon families.

He very neatly got away with it.  He was free, but he was penniless, and oddly not concerned or angry.

I asked Jenkins to find out why.

It was in the report sitting on the coffee table beside Alisha’s deckchair.

About the woman I was about to marry in the wedding of the year, after letting her take control of the preparations and ceremony and spending close to three million dollars.

A lot of that money was channelled back to her brother Jackson Pearce.  Her real name was Milly Pearce.  She’d stuck to the Milly but was using her father’s mother’s birth surname, making it difficult to trace in a first scan of a family tree.

Or lack of one, which matched her assertion, she was an orphan, from an orphanage that no longer existed, and all records of her had been destroyed in a fire.

Only Jenkins thought it was suspicious, but we were all prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“No. She is such a lovely person.”

“So was Jack, until…”  It was still painful for her, but not so much that it hurt that much.  “What are you going to do?”

“Play.  Do you think you’re strong enough to join me?”

“Can I shoot her?”

I gave her a curious expression.  As much as I understood how she felt about that family, it was not worth the jail sentence.

“No.”

“Spoil sport.”

She sighed.  I took her attitude and the determination in her voice as good signs that she was all but over her calamity.

Up to the unmasking of Jack, she had been almost like a sister to Milly.  I had thought it was the sort of bonding one would expect between the women.  Milly had been suitably disparaging towards the dastardly boyfriend, but whatever had been between them had been broken.

Knowing what she did now, it was difficult to imagine how she could be nice to her.

But it would be settled the next day.  I had promised to take Milly to a special lunch with just our family, my mother, who was kept oblivious of the details of Alisha’s breakup and subsequent events, my older brother, Wally, who was the current CEO of the company, the one I would eventually take over, and myself, basically to talk about where she would fit into the echelons.

We had talked about it, and she had suggested a role suited to her standing.  She had also considered that she was part of the family and, therefore, entitled to a parcel of shares. That alone should have set off alarm bells, but since Mother and Wally had suggested it, who was I to disagree?

“Are you going to tell Mother and Walter?”

It was like she was reading my mind.

“No.  Let’s play her game out and see where it goes.”

“Are you prepared for it?”

I don’t think I would ever be.  I had been hesitant to make our budding romance public, and on the eight-month anniversary, we had been ambushed by the media.  She swore she had not told anyone, but she and I were the only two who knew.

It was the catalyst needed to push us to the next level.  Even then, I was not suspicious, accepting her explanation.  It was not impossible that I was being followed by a photographer looking for a scoop.

“What would be the upside for her?”

“Without sounding catty, Henry, if she is cut from the same cloth as her brother, there’s always a reason.”

“Fair enough.  We shall see.”

I rose early and took my time getting ready.  There were a few calls I had to make, one a long chat with Legal, with the only lawyer I could trust, a chap I went to university with, and funded his start in the legal world.

Disillusioned with run-of-the-mill legalities, he took a break, married his childhood sweetheart, and asked if I could find something for him.

I asked the head of Legal to appoint him as my personal lawyer, and he did.  Sworn to secrecy, he was the fourth person who knew about Milly’s perfidy.  Surprisingly, he was not surprised.

I was having a coffee after considering a stiff Scotch.  Perhaps later, when I get back.

Alisha came out, looking like her old self and looking stunning.  She had toyed with the idea of being a model but decided against it after working on a shoot as an assistant.

“How do I look?”

“Like an angel.”

“Then she will not see me coming.  All sweetness and light, Henry.  I’ve been out of the loop, so I can play dumb but not too dumb.  I’ll make her work to restart our friendship.”

“Promise me the secret is safe.”

She smiled.  “You have my word.  I would not want to miss this for the world.”

“Good.  Now I must make the call.  Phase one is about to begin.”  I picked up the phone and made the call.

I put it on speaker.

“Darling, is everything alright?”

Her usual, what I called adorable, tone.  Today, it didn’t give me shivers.

“Just a little hiccup.  I’m running late, so Wally will be collecting you.  I should be there on time, or a few minutes later.  Try not to miss me too much.”

“Will you be staying tonight?”

I took a deep breath.  I had been planning to, but things had changed.  I didn’t think I could keep up the pretence at close quarters for as long as all night.

“We talked about this.  The wedding is in two days.  I think the few days’ absence will make our hearts grow fonder.  Besides, I must complete all the legal formalities of setting you up as a family member.  You’re about to become a very well-situated wife.”

I could hear her considering what that all meant.  Wealth, power, everything her brother had tried to take.  I wondered what her plan was.

She sighed.  “Lunch will have to suffice, I guess.  See you soon.”

Alisha looked at the phone and then at me.  “That was a bit abrupt.”

“Wedding jitters, perhaps.”

“Given the Bollywood production she’s planned, hardly.”

I shook my head.  “You mean there’s going to be elephants?”

She laughed.  “Don’t be surprised if there are.”

There hadn’t been any at the rehearsal.  But the fact that there were nearly a hundred people at the rehearsal was scary enough in itself.  I’d seen the running sheet, and yes, it was a production, being filmed, with a Hollywood director.

Sadly, it was neither Steven Spielberg nor James Cameron.  I would have liked some tap-dancing star troopers or the set of the Titanic as a backdrop.

We flew to the heliport and were picked up by a chauffeur-driven limousine.  I made sure that Mother, Wally, and Milly were in situ before Alisha and I entered the restaurant.

We entered by a side entrance to avoid causing a stir out front or interfering with the other diners.  I had prebooked a private room in a nom de plume.

Only the Maitre’d knew who really made the booking.  If there were any surprises…

It was a priceless moment when Milly saw Alisha not as the broken spirit she had been for the last few months, but back to being a rival.

And taking the position of the real Bernadine, where Milly would only be one by marriage.  The look, if only for a millisecond, was one of pure malice.

As soon as mother and Wally saw her, they were up and making a fuss.  After all, they hadn’t seen much of her since the event.  Nor were they across everything that happened.

I went over to my family and gave them a hug, trying to be my usual self, which wasn’t hard.  In public, with Milly or anyone, for that matter, I was aloof.

Waiting for her turn, Milly gave Alisha a hug, and they spoke briefly before we all sat, and the head waiter appeared, and the discussion about drinks and what was on the special menu.

Orders taken, we settled into the chairs.

Alisha was the focal point.

“It’s so good to see you back to your old self.”  Mother was particularly pleased as she had been at her wits’ end on how to cope with such a distressed child.  That was where I took over, looking after her.

“I couldn’t mope forever.  Henry has been an angel, looking after me.”

“Where?”  It was out before she could stifle it, and not the question I expected.  “I mean, sorry, that came out a little strange.  I had been asking after you,” she said to Milly, “but no one seemed to know where you were.”

“I needed to get away for a while.  No one needs to know, and you’ll understand soon why it’s a blessing to have somewhere to escape from the outside world.  Your life is about to become public property.”

And with that, Alisha avoided the question.  I was sure both Mother and Wally knew where I went to hide and that it was where Alisha had gone.  Mother had trusted me to look after her.  Wally had too many other matters to attend to.

Milly looked at me.  “Perhaps you can take me there. It sounds wonderful.”

I smiled.  “One day, if or when you suffer a malady.  Otherwise, it will be for Alisha until she finally returns to work.  She needs the space.”

Then I turned to Wally.  “Legal tells me they have a lead on the whereabouts of Jackson Pearce.”

It was a calculated move, one I had warned Alisha about, knowing it might have an effect.

I was watching Milly, and it got the expected reaction, one I would not have seen if I hadn’t been looking for it.

“I thought I read he left the country.”  Milly, if she had been smarter, would have left it alone.

“That was a rumour he spread to the media.  I have questions, and I suspect now that Alisha has recovered, she would like five minutes alone with him.”

“Why.  He’s a rat. Why would you want to rake over those coals?”

Alisha smiled.  “I want an apology.  I will get an apology.  One way or another.”

Yes.  Milly looked at Alisha with a whole new perspective.  The determination in her voice was stirring and set a tone for the lunch.

Milly had been caught offside and didn’t recover.  She was caught between brother and sister, where the sister was the priority, and I got the impression she had just realised there was a slight shift in our relationship.

When we parted, she tried very hard to recover our usual easy manner, and I relaxed to the point where she felt she had succeeded.  I could tell she had questions, not the sort she could ask then, but perhaps it would be a call later.

She asked again if we could spend the rest of the day together, but I told her there were too many matters I had to attend to before the wedding. Otherwise, there would be no honeymoon.

She had planned that too, and it was all the places she had dreamed of going, first class or better.  I had been looking forward to it as well, though I had been to a lot of the places, and travelling coach and backpacking as you did when wide-eyed and adventurous.

I had suggested it, and she had laughed.  The Benadines didn’t travel in coach class in any mode of transport.

I shook my head.  Absence, I said, made the heart grow fonder.  After all, we would be spending the rest of our lives together.

After we parted, I was left with the impression I was not going to survive the honeymoon.

It was odd that after two days, and knowing the truth, I felt so cold that I shivered.  Alisha took my hand and squeezed it.

“If it makes you feel any better, she is a very cold fish pretending to be something else.  Even I could feel it, and it made me shudder more than once.  That whole family are monstrous.  They have to be to prey on people like us.”

We went to my city apartment and waited.

Jenkins had suggested that he have a team keep her under surveillance and see where she went or did.  I had told him we were going to make a few suggestions about her brother and see if she tried to call or approach him.

I said she wouldn’t be that stupid.

But if we were close to finding him and telling her, she might think he would drag her down with him and demand that he go away.  It was an interesting theory.

Several hours passed.  I rested; Alisha was reading a Mills and Boon romance novel.  She said it gave her hope there could be a happy ending.

When we both least expected it, the phone vibrated.  A message.  It was an address and a request to come.

“Pearce and Pearce?”

“Possibly.” I couldn’t believe it would be that easy.

When we arrived, there were police outside the building, and Jenkins was with a detective in the foyer.  No one said much, only that I was needed for an identification.

We went up the elevator to the fifth floor, and down the passage to the last door on the left, the one where a policeman was standing outside.

He stood to one side, and we went in.

Milly was standing between two large policemen, and on the floor, being attended by paramedics, was her brother, Jackson.  He had a head wound and was barely conscious.

Milly looked at me.  “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.  Why are you here with Jack?  You said he’d left the country.”

“I said I read he left the country.”

“And yet here you are.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“And what do you think, I think?  Because from where I’m standing, a woman I hardly know has attacked her brother, the man who tried to rob my sister, and contributed to her suicide attempt.”

“He’s not my brother.”

“Perhaps not from the same parents, but for at least a dozen years in the same foster home until you ran away together.”

“Am I getting a family lawyer?”

“You’re not family, Milly.  You’re a thief and a liar, and I have no idea who you are, nor do I want to.  The engagement and the wedding are off.

It turned to the detective.  “Any details you need on Miss Pearce, detective, Jenkins here will give you what we have.  I believe there is new information on her brother’s crimes against my sister.  If that’s all?”

It was.  Alisha looked down at the man on the ground and took no pleasure in what she saw.  It was perhaps justice of a sort.  As we left, I saw her texting.  When I asked who, she said I would find out soon enough.

The late edition of the paper, with a headline, “All that glitters”, and below the story of a grifter and her brother trying to take down the Benadine family, and very nearly succeeding.

It was a story my father would have had suppressed because it made us look foolish.  When I asked her why she did it, she said no matter what the public thought of us, we were transparent, far more than any others in our situation.  But, she said, more than anything else, it ensured no one else would try.

Well, not in our lifetime anyway.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026