Tag: $amwriting

Writing about writing a book – Day 33

So, it seems there’s going to be a few problems at work.  People are dying and no one really knows why.

Perhaps it has something to do with the computer systems and the network.  In the time this novel is set, networking personal computers was in its infancy and a veritable rabbit hole to go down.

We need to throw in a bit more background and involve others, but to what extent should these other people have influence over the storyline?

This is why there are puzzling aspects of Richardson’s death, and why is Aitchison so interested?

Says Aitchison…

…

“I knew the man better than most.  But even if he was going through a bad patch, and he was a little down, he would not have killed himself, not the way it was presented in his office.  The gun was in the wrong hand, his left hand.  He was ambidextrous to a certain point, left-handed in some cases, right-handed in others.  I knew for a fact he could only shoot with his right hand.  Same as golf.  But most people here would have seen him use only his left hand.”

I let his words sink in for a moment.  How could he possibly know what hand Richardson used for what purpose?  Perhaps golf because it was open to Company employees of any level, but shooting?

It came out of my mouth before I could stop it.  “How …”

“..do I know about his shooting hand?  I ran into him once at the range.  I used to shoot a few skeets back in the day.  Eyesight has gone to pot these days, so it’s been a while.”  The last part was related more for his own benefit.

Good enough answer.  I didn’t know Aitchison was a shooter.  The office grapevine wasn’t as extensively knowledgeable as it purported to be.

“Then is it possible someone here killed him?”

“Like the woman he was supposedly having an affair or her jealous husband?”  He laughed, and it wasn’t a particularly nice one.  “The mystery woman he was spending time with was his daughter.  He asked me to get her a job, but not to let on that he knew her.  Didn’t want her to think he was meddling in her affairs, and that anyone else would see it as favors from the executive to certain employees.”

Aitchison’s voice shook, and he poured another drink to try and steady his nerves.  He was agitated, I could see that.  And he had evidence that the police would need to help solve this crime.  Yet, by the way, he was talking; I don’t think he believed any of what he had just told me would be deemed as relevant.

And I was yet to see a reason why this would affect him so.

“Have you told the police this?

“Yes, but the detective they sent this morning wasn’t interested.”

Perhaps he was writing more into it than there was.  I didn’t know what to say and tried to look noncommittal.  Then he looked at me with a piercing stare, like the thought had just occurred to him.  “You two clashed, heatedly at times.  Did you do this?

Perhaps not quite the question I was expecting from him or anyone.

I was innocent, but I had one of those faces when someone puts a question to you rather abruptly, that reddened, either with embarrassment or guilt.  I had very little control over it.

But to be accused of murder?

I had an alibi; I was home alone in bed trying to sleep.  OK.  It was shaky but the truth.

“No.  Why would I?”

If I was going to kill anyone in this place, it would be Benton, or even Kowalski, another thorn in my side.  Richardson was not on the list, and never would be.  He was just old and pedantic, set in his ways.  He clashed with everyone at one time or another.  In my case, he was just cranky because I replaced his pen and paper accounting with a new application on that computer he refused to use.

He nodded to himself.  “I thought not, but I had to ask.”

He stood and went over to the window and looked out.  Taking time, I guessed, to collect his thoughts.  He remained there with his back to me for a few minutes.  It didn’t seem to be a long time.

Then he said, quietly, “It appears there’s something else going on, something that none of us in the Executive know anything about.”

I was not sure I liked the sound of that or the fact he was telling me.  This was not something I should be privy to.  But that still didn’t stop me from asking, “Like what for instance?”

“The existence of another network.”

“What do you mean?”  Another network?  There was only one.  I had seen it installed, and went through the teething process of getting it up and running, as every bit as hard as bringing a new baby into the world.

I would know if there was another network.  Wouldn’t I?

“Apparently there is supposedly another network of computers running in this office.  I have only the word of a policeman by the name of Chief Inspector Gator, a computer expert, and a consultant from Interpol.  How the hell did this information get to Interpol, of all people?”

I couldn’t tell him.  This was news to me.

“What evidence have they got that this ‘other network’ exists?”

“Intercepted telephone calls reporting a connection error to a network system by the name of Starburst.  There was a log entry on Richardson’s computer referring to it, about the time of a power failure last night.  The computer expert is down in the server room now looking for this other network.”

He swiveled around and looked down at me with a thunderous expression.  “You didn’t set anything up for Halligan, did you?”

“No.”

I was surprised he asked.  We had a discussion some months ago about the fact most of the AGM’s came directly to me to sort out their computer issues.  Halligan was the worst of all of them, using his position to browbeat me into doing work that could only be described as off-book.  Whilst strictly speaking, as AGM – Information Technology, Halligan was quite within his purview to make such requests; it was the security aspects that had to be signed off on before executing such requests.  It added a new level of pain to the approvals process and had made Halligan an enemy of both Aitchison and myself, even though I had nothing to do with it.

The problem was, like all members of the Executive, Halligan was his own worst enemy.  Each of their areas of responsibility was like fiefdoms, and none of them like the others to encroach on their territory.  Halligan’s was the only area that had a shared responsibility with security.  Soon after the new arrangements were put in place, and the fact I had been left off the list of people to be informed, Halligan had asked me to do some work, and not aware of any change in procedure, did it.

Then, playing the usual game of one-upmanship, Halligan told the Executive of the new initiative and left a smoldering Aitchison in his wake.  In the end, all it did was cause me trouble, a severe reprimand, and no apology for being left off the distribution list informing of the new arrangements.

It was still a raw nerve and he had touched it.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

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

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

© Charles Heath 2019

A photograph from the inspiration file – 6

For those who are wondering what this is a photograph of, it is a tree bordered stream that runs along a long valley that runs from outside Canungra, in Queensland, to the Lamington National Park.

It’s near a place we like to stay for a few days when we want to get away from everything, and I mean everything. There is no television, and cell phone reception is awful if not non existent.

So, you can see the benefits.

Sitting at the table on the veranda overlooking the fields, and this stream, you have time to just think, or not, about what it might have been like before the settlers came.

What is was like when the explorers we seeking new places to live, and they chanced upon this valley. It it was me back then, I would have followed the stream.

But, as for a story…

I have read a great many stories for the explorers of this country, and the hazardous nature of their treks.

What seemed to be the most common theme was crossing from south to north, that is from Melbourne to the Northern most tip of Queensland, or from Adelaide to the Northern Territory. In both cases they would have to traverse a very dry, very hot outback where the sight of a stream, or river, like above, would have been very welcome.

For some, it became an impossible quest, and stuck in the desert, they eventually perished. That in itself, the trials and tribulations of an early explorer would make a great story.

Australia is a very fertile country around the coastal regions, but one you start venturing inland, it is dry, dusty and almost uninhabitable. Unless there’s water from rivers, streams, or underground, or mining settlements, there is very little else to see.

The exceptions to this are Uluru and Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory, Shark Bay and The Pinnacles in Western Australia, MacKenzie Falls in Victoria, The Simpson Desert, the Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, and the Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, to name a few.

One day I might get to see them.

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 3

It has been cooler for the last week or so, and the ideas for the treasure story have not been flowing.

Now, it’s back and I’m back in the cinema of my dreams, figurative following the treasure ‘map’!

 

This was not the time to panic.

There could be any number of explanations for what I just saw.  Boggs had certainly got me wrapped up in his mysterious treasure hunt, and immediately my mind jumps to conclusions.

I took a deep breath.  There had to be a rational explanation.

Boggs lived with his aunt, his parents had gone away one day and never came back.  He had no brothers or sisters, so he assumed rightly or wrongly, they’d abandoned him.

For the last few years, Boggs and I had been looking for his parents.  That’s how he found the treasure map, in a box of stuff his father had left at his brother’s loft.

Now, his aunt was Spanish, or perhaps that was not totally correct, she was Mexican who spoke Spanish.  Her husband was Boggs’ father’s brother, and they had no children, so they had treated Boggs as their own.

Perhaps the men were known to his Aunt and they were taking him home before he got into trouble.

It didn’t explain why they were talking about the treasure map, whether it was the one being sold by the bar owner or the one Boggs found.  Boggs had it with him, so if they were after it, they probably had it by now.

We’d come to the beach by bus, and I took it back, then walked the mile or so to Boggs’s house.  It was about three streets away from where I lived.

When I turned into the street, there was the kidnapper’s car out the front of Boggs’s Aunt’s house.  A minute or so later I went in the gate and up to the front door.

It was open, so I loitered in the shadows and listened.

A man’s voice, and Boggs’s Aunt.

Again I was struggling with my Spanish, “You should be keeping control of your brat, he’s getting into trouble, in bars and such places.”

“Drinking?”  His Aunt sounded incredulous.

“Perhaps, I know not, but asking bad men questions about the treasure.  Where is the map?”

So they hadn’t taken it off Boggs.  What did he do with it?

“What map.  He has no map, none that he’s told me about.  Besides, that treasure’s a myth, made up by Dooley to get tourists in his bar, if that’s the var you said he was at.  Don’t tell me you’ve been sucked into that myth?  Isn’t it about time you got a real job?”

“Just make sure your brat stays away from the bar.”

I could hear footsteps heading towards the front door and ducked into the bushes just as he came out, slamming the door into the wall before stomping off to his car.

I waited till he drove off before coming out, and walking into Boggs, grinning.

“See, I told you it was real.”

The horrid uncle, the map, or the myth?

 

© Charles Heath 2019

My cell phone is going off

I’m back to writing, sitting at the desk, pad in front of me, pen in hand.

The only thing lacking, an idea.

It’s 9:03 am, too early to start on a six-pack.

To be honest, the last thing I needed was a distraction, and, having forgotten to put my cell phone on silent, it starts buzzing, indicating there are new messages, or notifications from all those social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger…

Then the advice from all the so-called marketing gurus starts to swirl around in my head, and instead of writing, I’m now fretting over my social media presence.

The more I read the more it bothers me that if I don’t have the right social media presence if I do not start to build an email list, all of my efforts in writing a book will come to naught.

That’s when I start trawling the internet for information on marketing and found a plethora of people offering any amount of advice for anything between a ‘small amount’ to a rather large amount that gives comprehensive coverage of most social media platforms for periods of a day, a week or a month. 

I move on to the people who offer advice for a cost on how to build a following, how to build a web presence, how to get a thousand Twitter followers, how to get thousands of email followers before the launch.

The trouble is I’m writing a novel, not a nonfiction book, or have some marvelous 30-page ebook on how to do something, for free just to drive people to my site.

I’m a novelist, not a handyman so those ideas while good is not going to help me.

Yet another problem to wrestle with along with actually creating a product to sell in the first place.

Except I’m supposed to be writing for the love of it without the premeditated idea of writing for gain or getting rich quick.

What am I missing here?

So should l be writing short stories and offering them for free to drive people to my site?  These would have to be genre-specific so it needs time and effort and fit into a convenient size story that will highlight or showcase my talent.

Some time ago I created a website on one of those so-called free sites, but it’s rather basic and not great. Of course, if I want it to be better, all I have to do is hand over a great wad of money I don’t have to make it better. So much for free!

I don’t think I will have a good night’s sleep again with all of these social media problems I’m having.

Oh well, back to the book.  It’s time to have a nightmare of a different sort!

Writing about writing a book – Day 33

So, it seems there’s going to be a few problems at work.  People are dying and no one really knows why.

Perhaps it has something to do with the computer systems and the network.  In the time this novel is set, networking personal computers was in its infancy and a veritable rabbit hole to go down.

We need to throw in a bit more background and involve others, but to what extent should these other people have influence over the storyline?

This is why there are puzzling aspects of Richardson’s death, and why is Aitchison so interested?

Says Aitchison…

…

“I knew the man better than most.  But even if he was going through a bad patch, and he was a little down, he would not have killed himself, not the way it was presented in his office.  The gun was in the wrong hand, his left hand.  He was ambidextrous to a certain point, left-handed in some cases, right-handed in others.  I knew for a fact he could only shoot with his right hand.  Same as golf.  But most people here would have seen him use only his left hand.”

I let his words sink in for a moment.  How could he possibly know what hand Richardson used for what purpose?  Perhaps golf because it was open to Company employees of any level, but shooting?

It came out of my mouth before I could stop it.  “How …”

“..do I know about his shooting hand?  I ran into him once at the range.  I used to shoot a few skeets back in the day.  Eyesight has gone to pot these days, so it’s been a while.”  The last part was related more for his own benefit.

Good enough answer.  I didn’t know Aitchison was a shooter.  The office grapevine wasn’t as extensively knowledgeable as it purported to be.

“Then is it possible someone here killed him?”

“Like the woman he was supposedly having an affair or her jealous husband?”  He laughed, and it wasn’t a particularly nice one.  “The mystery woman he was spending time with was his daughter.  He asked me to get her a job, but not to let on that he knew her.  Didn’t want her to think he was meddling in her affairs, and that anyone else would see it as favors from the executive to certain employees.”

Aitchison’s voice shook, and he poured another drink to try and steady his nerves.  He was agitated, I could see that.  And he had evidence that the police would need to help solve this crime.  Yet, by the way, he was talking; I don’t think he believed any of what he had just told me would be deemed as relevant.

And I was yet to see a reason why this would affect him so.

“Have you told the police this?

“Yes, but the detective they sent this morning wasn’t interested.”

Perhaps he was writing more into it than there was.  I didn’t know what to say and tried to look noncommittal.  Then he looked at me with a piercing stare, like the thought had just occurred to him.  “You two clashed, heatedly at times.  Did you do this?

Perhaps not quite the question I was expecting from him or anyone.

I was innocent, but I had one of those faces when someone puts a question to you rather abruptly, that reddened, either with embarrassment or guilt.  I had very little control over it.

But to be accused of murder?

I had an alibi; I was home alone in bed trying to sleep.  OK.  It was shaky but the truth.

“No.  Why would I?”

If I was going to kill anyone in this place, it would be Benton, or even Kowalski, another thorn in my side.  Richardson was not on the list, and never would be.  He was just old and pedantic, set in his ways.  He clashed with everyone at one time or another.  In my case, he was just cranky because I replaced his pen and paper accounting with a new application on that computer he refused to use.

He nodded to himself.  “I thought not, but I had to ask.”

He stood and went over to the window and looked out.  Taking time, I guessed, to collect his thoughts.  He remained there with his back to me for a few minutes.  It didn’t seem to be a long time.

Then he said, quietly, “It appears there’s something else going on, something that none of us in the Executive know anything about.”

I was not sure I liked the sound of that or the fact he was telling me.  This was not something I should be privy to.  But that still didn’t stop me from asking, “Like what for instance?”

“The existence of another network.”

“What do you mean?”  Another network?  There was only one.  I had seen it installed, and went through the teething process of getting it up and running, as every bit as hard as bringing a new baby into the world.

I would know if there was another network.  Wouldn’t I?

“Apparently there is supposedly another network of computers running in this office.  I have only the word of a policeman by the name of Chief Inspector Gator, a computer expert, and a consultant from Interpol.  How the hell did this information get to Interpol, of all people?”

I couldn’t tell him.  This was news to me.

“What evidence have they got that this ‘other network’ exists?”

“Intercepted telephone calls reporting a connection error to a network system by the name of Starburst.  There was a log entry on Richardson’s computer referring to it, about the time of a power failure last night.  The computer expert is down in the server room now looking for this other network.”

He swiveled around and looked down at me with a thunderous expression.  “You didn’t set anything up for Halligan, did you?”

“No.”

I was surprised he asked.  We had a discussion some months ago about the fact most of the AGM’s came directly to me to sort out their computer issues.  Halligan was the worst of all of them, using his position to browbeat me into doing work that could only be described as off-book.  Whilst strictly speaking, as AGM – Information Technology, Halligan was quite within his purview to make such requests; it was the security aspects that had to be signed off on before executing such requests.  It added a new level of pain to the approvals process and had made Halligan an enemy of both Aitchison and myself, even though I had nothing to do with it.

The problem was, like all members of the Executive, Halligan was his own worst enemy.  Each of their areas of responsibility was like fiefdoms, and none of them like the others to encroach on their territory.  Halligan’s was the only area that had a shared responsibility with security.  Soon after the new arrangements were put in place, and the fact I had been left off the list of people to be informed, Halligan had asked me to do some work, and not aware of any change in procedure, did it.

Then, playing the usual game of one-upmanship, Halligan told the Executive of the new initiative and left a smoldering Aitchison in his wake.  In the end, all it did was cause me trouble, a severe reprimand, and no apology for being left off the distribution list informing of the new arrangements.

It was still a raw nerve and he had touched it.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

A photograph from the inspiration file – 7

There is always something strange about certain photographs that is not evident when you take them.

For instance, the photograph above.

While this might look like some vegetation by the side of a river or stream, its that are of blackness behind what looks like steps up from the water level that adds a level of intrigue or mystery.

For instance:

…

We had spent two weeks slowly going upriver looking for a needle in a haystack. It was an apt description, because there had been quite a large number of likely spots, all of which after investigation, came to nothing.

I mean, the description Professor Bates had given is was as hazy as day is long in these parts.

His recollection: that it was what looked like a cave behind lush undergrowth, with steps fashioned out of stone.

It was all the more confuse. Because when we found him, he was drifting on a rough hewn and constructed raft, half dead from dehydration. We were told he’d been on the raft for nearly a week.

That meant the cave could be anywhere between where we found him at the 10 mile mark, and 200 miles further on based on river flow.

We were currently at the 150 mile mark and the river was losing depth and width, and soon there would not be enough water to continue in the boat.

It was dusk and too dark to continue. We’d been enthusiastic those first days, continuing on in the dark, on shifts, using the arc lamps.

Then after a week, having lights on made us target practise, and after sever brushes with death, and the loss of all the bulbs being shot out, we got the message.

There was the odd marauder during the day, but we had the width of the river for safety.  Now that had gone too, and we had lookouts posted, but seeing into the dense jungle was difficult.

But we got through another night with no activity, and come morning, what looked like the entrance to a cave was not fifteen feet from us.

All we had to was row over and check.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 4

Here’s the thing.

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and back on the treasure hunt.

…

“Who the hell is that horrible man?” I asked, still staring after the car, long after it had gone.

I knew trouble when I saw it, and that man was serious trouble.

And the fact he believed there was a treasure map…

“My uncle Rico, he was the one my mother always credited leading my father astray.  Whatever they had been doing back then, it was never anything legal.”

So, he knows about the treasure map?”

“He knows nothing.  He thinks he knows something, he thinks I know something, but he’s not going to get it out of me.”

“What if he comes after me next?”

It was a daunting prospect, and just looking at Rico was enough to scare me.  If he had a machete to back up his insistence I tell the truth?  I shuddered.

“You tell him the truth.  We have a map, we bought it at the bar like everyone else.”

He was right.

“Boggs?”

His aunt yelled out his name in a manner that meant he was in trouble.

He motioned to keep quiet and follow him.

He took one step before she added, “You take one more step away from this house, and you’ll have more than Rico to worry about.”

A shrug, a wan smile, and then he turned back.  “Nothing more today.  See you at the Bar tomorrow, and we’ll start the search.

“Surely you don’t think that map is real?”

“Real enough, with missing pieces, we have to track down.  Tomorrow.”He turned and went back into the house, the wooden screen door slamming shut behind him.

Followed by the raised voice of an angry Aunt.  “What is all this malarkey about a treasure map, and what the hell were you doing in a bar?  I bet it was that Johnson kid leading you astray again.”

Never, according to her, Boggs’ fault, and always mine.

I guess it was time to take one for the team!

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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

They all start with –

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

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

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

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

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

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

There was nowhere for him to go.

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

Where was he going?

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

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

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

“How far away?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or so we thought.

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

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

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

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

I looked up.  Nothing.

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

Then where did he go?

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

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

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

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

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

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

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

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

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

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

InspirationMaybe1v1

A grandparents job is never done

It’s not for the faint-hearted, so that’s why we took the grandchildren skating.

Unless you are a skater of the roller variety there is little for the guardians to except sit back relax and listen to the head banging music that is luckily for us, of our era.

ACDC, ‘Thunderstruck’, over the loudspeaker system is just like being at a rock concert.

Little by little the floor starts to fill with skaters of all types of skill level from the side wall huggers to the almost falling over, and of course, the experts who glide effortlessly in and out of the novices.

First game of the night for anyone who can actually skate, collect little red witches hats, those that get one stay in, those that don’t, well, you know how this works

Fewer and fewer witches hats each time leads to an eventual winner, a youthful skater of considerable skill.

Now we have Queen.  Not exactly headbanging but a classic, ‘We Are The Champions’.  This cuts to a track by The Vapors.  How do I know this?  We have a video screen.  I’m just surprised some of these songs had a video made of them.

Well, there is always Shazam.

The second game of the night; I think only the organizers know what it is about.  I try to get the gist and instead wished music would come back.

Ok, those that couldn’t skate still can’t, and after an hour there is attrition.  More room for those who can.

But wait there’s more, the doors are still open and more people are arriving.

And thankfully we’re back to ACDC.

I have three grandchildren out on the floor each with a varying grade of skill.  They don’t do this very often so each session begins a little rusty and by the time they go home, it’s too soon to go.  At least they can stay on their feet and not, as some do, crash into the walls, thinking that is the best way to stop.

Bring on the music!  Next is the Divinyls.

Forget that, we now have Men At Work. ‘I Live in a Land Downunder’.  I’m missing the full effect of the stadium sound because one of my charges had decided to practice in the baby pen, a small area set aside for beginner skaters to get their bearings, or practice before they go out on the main floor.

I suspect this is a ploy for her to get me to buy a slushy without the other two.  Sadly that will not work.  We’ll have to wait and see till after the session.  Only an hour to go.

The sad pleading eyes are meant to weaken my resolve.

An exhibition of speed skating in different directions give our charges a chance to rest, relax, and have their slushies. A timely break before the last session.

But what the heck, we’ve got ‘you got nothing I want you’ve got nothing I need’.  Good old head banging music.   Then I’m in seventh heaven, with Michael Jackson blasting through the stadium.  It’s not hard to imagine his ensemble dancing on the floor, ‘don’t stop till you get enough’.

Bring on the kaleidoscope lighting.

No, forget that just bring back ACDc.  Oh, they just have.  ‘Highway to hell’!

Last game of the night, just when the three girls are just about out of steam.  Red Rover.  They sit this one out, and as the skaters get fewer and fewer, the speed and evasiveness of those left is breathtaking, and end up with a few collisions with the floor.

What do they say, no pain no gain?

That’s why I’m the chauffeur.

To round out the night, INXS and Midnight Oil.

A great night out?  Hell yeah!