Tag: Books

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 64

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 we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

The Ormiston’s from the papers

…

The Ormiston story and that of the thousand or so acres between the sea and the mountains are now known as Patterson’s reach, but once called The Grove, began in 1865 when the original Henrich Ormiston arrived from Germany.

Originally intending to go to Australia to grow grapes in South Australia, instead, his fate turned West to the Americas, and, eventually, this part of Florida.  He started out with the intention of growing grapes, but when that failed to materialize, he moved on to Oranges, hence the name, The Grove.

He had married before leaving Germany and had two children, Marta and Gunter before leaving, and Friedrich after he arrived in 1866.  That Friedrich died, according to the gravestone, in 1924.  Neither Marta nor Gunter stayed, leaving Friedrich to carry on the business, have an only child which he named after his father, Heinrich, born in 1899 and who died in 1976.  He in turn had a single son, which he named Friedrich, the infamous person with who Boggs father had a tempestuous business relationship.

Friedrich was born in 1932, during the depression, and it was about that time that the notion there might be buried treasure, somewhere along that coastal area of Florida, floated by a university professor, Emil Stravinsky, who specialized in old pirates.  He had published a book that basically speculated where treasure might be found, and one of those areas was right smack bang in the middle of The Grove.

This information was plucked from the paper’s births, death, and marriages column around the specified dates, the death notices giving some light on the respective Ormiston’s life and toils on their land.

Heinrich, Friedrich’s father, fell for the story hook line and sinker, and with a promise to share the proceeds of an estimated multimillion-dollar trove, invested a fair chunk of the savings he’d amassed over the years in the first of many treasure hunts.  The name Stravinsky rang a bell in my head.

A quick look forward to the most recent editions showed it was the man who had died on Rico’s boat, who was, in fact, a third-generation relative of the original professor, an archaeologist in his own right, and digging a bit further into the story, the paper had published a dozen or so extracts from the professor’s book, hinting their subject matter had been derived from a particular pirate’s log, and from notes made over the years of research by the professor.  It sounded like there was a diary.

I was going to have to find a copy of the professor’s book, which, if it had been published nearly 90 years ago, would now be out of print.

When the father, Heinrich had failed to locate the treasure, the son Friedrich continued the search, only he put more time and effort into more meticulous research rather than take the professor’s word of its whereabouts.

This was about the time Boggs’s father came into the picture.

He had lived and worked in the Caribbean and discovered quite by chance when a storm had blown his boat way off course on a weekend sailing run, the ruins of an encampment and hidden inlet on an uninhabited island where he believed the pirate had operated from.

While waiting to be rescued, the storm had damaged his boat, he took the time to explore, and although he hadn’t told anyone at the time of his rescue, he had discovered a box buried near where a building had once stood containing a map, several coins, a sextant, and a flag.  The news of those discoveries came some years later when it was revealed he’s struck a deal with Ormiston to renew the search for the treasure.

When the result of that expedition came to nothing, each of the partners blamed the other for the lack of success, with Ormiston all but telling anyone who would listen that Boggs had created the map himself for the purpose of extorting money under false pretenses.

Boggs then had to produce the map, where it was authenticated as a map that had been created at the time of the pirate’s reign, but no one could say whether it was just an invention of someone at the time, or it was real.  The fact nothing was found suggested the latter, and it marked to start of the feud between Boggs and Ormiston.

The question in my mind was whether Boggs had that particular map, and had he shown it briefly to me?  Certainly, one of the maps he had was quite old, but there were so many variations, and they all looked equally as old, it was hard to tell.

One point I was quite certain on, none of the maps I’d seen showed the treasure’s final resting place as being in a cave, and I got the impression just before when I’d run into Boggs, that it was exactly where he was going.

Had that been the clue his father had referred to?  Even with the so-called original map, if it showed the treasure hidden in a cave why did Boggs need Ormiston’s help?

Had Ormiston known that might be the final resting place of the treasure?

I would soon find out.  My next stop was the library.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 38

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

…

I’d expected more questions from her, but the ride in the train to Wimbledon, and then to the car, she had very little to say.  There was no doubt she was intrigued by the offer, but there was some trepidation too.

But it didn’t auger well for her longevity if she trusted people this easily.  I had expected a lot more questions if only to find out what the job was.  

Then, by the time we reached my car, it seemed she had time enough to think about everything.

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me too?”

She was standing on the other side of the car, yet to open the door.  I was about to get in.

I looked at her across the roof.

“I could have done that ages Ago if that was my intention.”

“Not in a public space unless absolutely necessary.”

She was quoting the manual.

“So, I’m about to take you to a quiet spot in the country and shoot you?”

“Unlikely.  You don’t have a gun with you.”

“A knife then?”

“I’m sure you don’t have one of those either.  Besides, there’s a few other ways that don’t require weapons.”

I was astonished this was the conversation.

“I asked for your help, and that wasn’t to practice my killing skills.  But, where we’re going that might happen to either of us.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a residence in Peaslake.  Do you know of it?  It’s about an hour away, southwest, I think.  I’m not expecting to find anyone, but I am looking for a USB drive.”

“This O’Connell character’s?”

“Yes.”

A few seconds passed as she took that in, then, “If you are not expecting anyone to be there, why do you need me?”

“Rule whatever number it was, expect the unexpected.  And get back up if it’s available.  And there are other people looking for these documents, and the USB.  Not friendly people I might add.  I have no idea if they have the same information I have, so I’m expecting the unexpected.  We have worked together and you know me.”

We had performed several assignments together for training purposes, as each of us had with the other four.  She hadn’t been the best, but she hadn’t been the worst.

I saw her shrug.  Acceptance?

She opened the door and got in.

It took me 15 minutes to get to the A3 and head towards Guildford.

A few minutes later she asked, “What the hell did we sign up for?”

“What do you mean?  I thought it was pretty straight forward.  Something other than a dull as ditchwater 9 to 5 job behind a desk.”

“I mean, don’t you think it’s odd we do all of this stuff for 6 months, almost to the day, then get an assignment, and it all goes wrong.”

“That our instructors were frauds?”

“We didn’t know that, and apparently they didn’t either.  Do you know if any of it was real?”

“Seemed to me it was.  And we only have this Monica’s word that Severin and Maury are frauds.  I mean, I was surprised to learn they allegedly didn’t exist, but you and I both know that in organizations like the security services have wheels within wheels, departments unknown to other departments, event MI5 or the police, so who’s to say what really happened.”

“And you say you now work for this character Dobbin, whose another department head.  As is this Monica.”

Put like that, it seemed very confusing.

“There are others that I’ve run into, working for both Dobbin and for Severin.”

“You mean Severin is still out there?”

“Yes.  He tracked me down.”

And when I said it out loud, it crossed my mind why he hadn’t come after her, but the answer to that was he might have thought I was the only one that O’Connell hadn’t killed.

“And he thinks you are still working for him?”

“It’s complicated.  I’m kind of doing a soft shoe shuffle around all of them and trying to find out what the hell is going on while keeping them at arm’s length.  That might go horribly wrong which is also a good reason why I need help.  We really should find out what we got into.”

“I’d prefer not to.  He hasn’t come after me.”

“He will.  It’s only a matter of time.  You’re in the system, and I have no doubt he has access to that system.  You’ve just been lucky so far.  And you equally know as I do, there’s no such thing as luck in our line of work.”

Another minute or so passed.

Then she said, “If you’re trying to scare the hell out of me, it’s working.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020

Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about.  Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

 

I pick up the pen.

 

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing.  Still me, but with a twist.  Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance.  Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons.  It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated.  There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss.  He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him.  Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him.  Last name Benton.  He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

More on her later as the story unfolds.

So far so good.

What’s the plot?

Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers?  No, that’s been done to death.

Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world.  Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people.  That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people!  There will be guns, and there will be dead people.

There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around.  That’s better.

Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.

All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.

Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work.  He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks.  The phone rings.  Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down.  He’s needed.  A few terse words, but he relents.

Pen in hand I begin to write.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 62

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

20160921_071506

This is Chester.  You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.

But…

He does.  Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run.  It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.

Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.

He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.

What cat races?

It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.

I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.

Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.

I appear a little sceptical.  What are they going to chase?

Mice.

Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.

Over mice, he snorts.  No one likes mice.  But if it’s a problem, why not rats?  Everyone hates rats.

So, I say, you’re up for it then.  We could make a killing.

A shake of the head, and nose in the air.  “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat.  That’s for the alley cats.  I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 38

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

…

I’d expected more questions from her, but the ride in the train to Wimbledon, and then to the car, she had very little to say.  There was no doubt she was intrigued by the offer, but there was some trepidation too.

But it didn’t auger well for her longevity if she trusted people this easily.  I had expected a lot more questions if only to find out what the job was.  

Then, by the time we reached my car, it seemed she had time enough to think about everything.

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me too?”

She was standing on the other side of the car, yet to open the door.  I was about to get in.

I looked at her across the roof.

“I could have done that ages Ago if that was my intention.”

“Not in a public space unless absolutely necessary.”

She was quoting the manual.

“So, I’m about to take you to a quiet spot in the country and shoot you?”

“Unlikely.  You don’t have a gun with you.”

“A knife then?”

“I’m sure you don’t have one of those either.  Besides, there’s a few other ways that don’t require weapons.”

I was astonished this was the conversation.

“I asked for your help, and that wasn’t to practice my killing skills.  But, where we’re going that might happen to either of us.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a residence in Peaslake.  Do you know of it?  It’s about an hour away, southwest, I think.  I’m not expecting to find anyone, but I am looking for a USB drive.”

“This O’Connell character’s?”

“Yes.”

A few seconds passed as she took that in, then, “If you are not expecting anyone to be there, why do you need me?”

“Rule whatever number it was, expect the unexpected.  And get back up if it’s available.  And there are other people looking for these documents, and the USB.  Not friendly people I might add.  I have no idea if they have the same information I have, so I’m expecting the unexpected.  We have worked together and you know me.”

We had performed several assignments together for training purposes, as each of us had with the other four.  She hadn’t been the best, but she hadn’t been the worst.

I saw her shrug.  Acceptance?

She opened the door and got in.

It took me 15 minutes to get to the A3 and head towards Guildford.

A few minutes later she asked, “What the hell did we sign up for?”

“What do you mean?  I thought it was pretty straight forward.  Something other than a dull as ditchwater 9 to 5 job behind a desk.”

“I mean, don’t you think it’s odd we do all of this stuff for 6 months, almost to the day, then get an assignment, and it all goes wrong.”

“That our instructors were frauds?”

“We didn’t know that, and apparently they didn’t either.  Do you know if any of it was real?”

“Seemed to me it was.  And we only have this Monica’s word that Severin and Maury are frauds.  I mean, I was surprised to learn they allegedly didn’t exist, but you and I both know that in organizations like the security services have wheels within wheels, departments unknown to other departments, event MI5 or the police, so who’s to say what really happened.”

“And you say you now work for this character Dobbin, whose another department head.  As is this Monica.”

Put like that, it seemed very confusing.

“There are others that I’ve run into, working for both Dobbin and for Severin.”

“You mean Severin is still out there?”

“Yes.  He tracked me down.”

And when I said it out loud, it crossed my mind why he hadn’t come after her, but the answer to that was he might have thought I was the only one that O’Connell hadn’t killed.

“And he thinks you are still working for him?”

“It’s complicated.  I’m kind of doing a soft shoe shuffle around all of them and trying to find out what the hell is going on while keeping them at arm’s length.  That might go horribly wrong which is also a good reason why I need help.  We really should find out what we got into.”

“I’d prefer not to.  He hasn’t come after me.”

“He will.  It’s only a matter of time.  You’re in the system, and I have no doubt he has access to that system.  You’ve just been lucky so far.  And you equally know as I do, there’s no such thing as luck in our line of work.”

Another minute or so passed.

Then she said, “If you’re trying to scare the hell out of me, it’s working.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020

Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about.  Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

 

I pick up the pen.

 

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing.  Still me, but with a twist.  Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance.  Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons.  It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated.  There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss.  He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him.  Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him.  Last name Benton.  He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

More on her later as the story unfolds.

So far so good.

What’s the plot?

Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers?  No, that’s been done to death.

Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world.  Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people.  That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people!  There will be guns, and there will be dead people.

There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around.  That’s better.

Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.

All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.

Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work.  He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks.  The phone rings.  Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down.  He’s needed.  A few terse words, but he relents.

Pen in hand I begin to write.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 62

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

20160921_071506

This is Chester.  You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.

But…

He does.  Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run.  It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.

Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.

He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.

What cat races?

It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.

I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.

Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.

I appear a little sceptical.  What are they going to chase?

Mice.

Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.

Over mice, he snorts.  No one likes mice.  But if it’s a problem, why not rats?  Everyone hates rats.

So, I say, you’re up for it then.  We could make a killing.

A shake of the head, and nose in the air.  “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat.  That’s for the alley cats.  I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 63

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 we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

Back to the newspaper office

…

I went around to Boggs’s house on the chance that he might have come home, just as his mother was heading off to her night job.  I raised the possibility that something might have happened to him but she didn’t agree, nor did she look all that concerned.

The fact he had experience in cave exploration and used to camping out with his father and later uncle Rico and had told he might not be back for a few days was not cause for concern, and we left it at that, telling her I would drop in again soon.

She didn’t seem to think that he might get into trouble considering the instability of some of the caves, nor the fact they have warning signs and or been boarded up to stop explorers concern her.

The possibility it could happen and had happened to others, bothered me, as was the fact he was starting to emulate his father with this obsession.  If the story in the paper was anything to go by, at worst he could finish up just like his father, buried under a pile of rubble.

Did I believe that was where his father was?

I didn’t know what to think, because the waters were so muddied by people who were driven by self-interest.

There was so much more to this story, mostly driven by self-interest, revenge perhaps, and, worse, greed.  It was perhaps a symptom of everything that had gone wrong in not only this town but what was happening on a much larger scale to the whole country.  But, that was someone else’s problem.  My concern was here, now, and saving Biggs from following the same destructive path his father had

And, to do that, I needed to know more.  That meant, first thing the next morning, a trip to the newspaper office.

When I returned to the newspaper office Lenny was in his usual seat with a paper in hand, reading.  Keeping up with the competition, he said, though the difference in circulation was counted in millions.

There was a woman behind the other desk.

“Staff journalist,” he said when he saw me looking at her.  “And family.  My wife, Jennifer.”

I’d not seen her before, and she didn’t come from here, or I would have recognized her.

She smiled, and there was something in that expression that struck me as familiar.

“Are you related to the Ormistons?”

It was a vague resemblance, after seeing so many pictures of the Ormistons, that everyone looked like them.

“It’s a name I don’t use anymore,” she said, “for obvious reasons.  My grandfather stirred a lot of resentment.”

“And,” Lenny added, “it’s between us and these four walls, Sam.”

I nodded.  I could understand the sentiment.  And it explained Lenny’s depth of knowledge.

“Just to be clear, your grandfather didn’t find the treasure?”

She sighed.

Lenny said, sharply, “Sam!”

I shrugged.  “Sorry.  I had to ask.”

“No, he did not, and believe me, that’s a sore point with everyone whose lives he destroyed.”

“I can imagine.  Does anyone know what happened to him, the real story?”

“There is no real story Sam.  I tried to discover the truth and failed.  For Jennifer’s peace of mind.  We may never know what happened to him.”

“But surely you don’t believe he died in a cave somewhere?”

“It’s the most plausible.”

“And what about Boggs’s father?”

“He was a fool,” Jennifer said.  “From what I remember of him, he was always insistent that the treasure was in a cavern up in the hills, accessible only by an underground river that flowed down to the sea.  He originally thought it was the one the mall was built over, except every cave had a dead end.”

“Before or after the mall was built?”

“My father explored the cave system, with my grandfather, extensively, before the mall was built.  There was no underground river.”

“How did the mall get destroyed in a flood then?”

“That was the Benderby’s cost-cutting the foundations.  The flooding was man-made, not an act of nature like they said it was.  That was just so they could claim the insurance.  No one could really tell the difference, and the specialist the got to sign off on it lied.  The same guy that turned up dead on Rico’s boat, by the way.”

“The Benderby’s cleaning up another mess, but their way.”  Jennifer sounded, and probably had every right to be, resentful.

“Then there still could be an underground river somewhere along the coast?”

“If there is, I haven’t found it, and neither has Alex and that fancy boat of his.  It’s another dead end, and like as not, another nail in the coffin of what was a fairy tale, to begin with.  There was no treasure, just a fable invented by the Cossatinos.”

“Even so, it’s part of the folklore of this county and will have a place in the history I’m writing.  I noticed over the years the treasure had a prominent place in the paper.”

“My father, and his before him thought it would be good for the town. You know, bring in tourists.  It was my father’s idea to print treasure maps, and then the Cossatino’s embellished it but producing what they called ‘the real map’ each a slight variation on the other, commanding a special fee, and swearing the purchases to a promise of silence, and adding to the authenticity, demanding a 19 percent share of whatever they found.  People lapped it up and my father said they’d made a fortune out of it.  Boggs’s father hand-made the copies, and used that money to fund his own explorations.  Everyone made money out of it, one way or another except Ormiston.”

A bitter irony if there was ever one.  There was more money in the illusion of treasure than the actual treasure itself.

“And the so-called real map that Boggs reputedly found in the pirate’s hideaway?”

“No one ever saw it, except that one time it was authenticated age-wise, so no one ever got to see it.  Boggs made sure of that, and never let it out of his sight.  Now we’ll never know.  I’m sure Boggs junior doesn’t have it, but with him, he’s as daft as his father was.”

“He had a lot of his father’s stuff he found in a box in the attic recently.  I’ve seen some of it, but not an authentic map, so maybe your right.”

“Of course I am.  When you have an idea of what this history of yours is going to look like, let me know. And I’ll publish it in parts if you want, maybe pass it on to the dailies.  It might be worth something.”

“Thanks.  I will.  But more study first, you have the history of the place in that back room, maybe you should write something yourself. Being the journalist.”

“Too busy with births deaths and marriages, Sam, and the antics of the Benderby’s and Cossatino’s.  You know that Benderby is demolishing the mall and putting a marina in its place?  Talk of building a hotel, boosting tourism.  Talking of running for mayor, you know, the first stop on the way to the presidency?”

“A crook for a mayor?”

“Wouldn’t be the first, won’t be the last.  But one thing is for sure, that kind of news sells papers.”

It did, but I had a feeling the Benderby’s were all about creating a distraction, and something else was going on at that mall site.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

In a word: Holiday

Some call time off from work whether it is for a day, a few days, and couple of weeks, or maybe longer, a holiday.

Or leave, leave of absence, annual leave, or long service leave.

Others may call it vacation.

It depends on what part of the world you live in.

But the end result is the same, you do not go to work, so you stay home and do all those things that have mounted up, you drive up, and for some reason it is always up, to the cabin, for a little hunting shooting a fishing, or you get on a planr or a ship and try to get as far away from home and work as possible.

That’s called going overseas. It seems if there is an ocean between w there you go and where you live, no one will be able to disturb you.

Sorry, I bet you didn’t leave that mobile phone or iPad home did you?

But, of course there are a few other obscure references to the word holiday.

For instance,

It can be a day set aside to commemorate an event or a person, a day when you are not expected to work, e.g. Memorial Day, Christmas Day, Good Friday. In Britain they used to be called Bank Holidays.

It can be a specified period that you may be excused from completing a task, or doing something such as getting a one year tax exemption, which maifh also be called a one year tax holiday.

Yes, now that is an obscure reference, particularly when no tax department would ever grant anyone an exemption of any sort.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 37

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

…

I had a change of mind before I went on an odyssey to Peaslake. I needed help, and I was going to try and convince Jennifer to help me. If she had been injured, that might be more difficult.

I caught a train and a bus to Putney and then walked the remaining fifty yards to her front door. It was a flat over the top of a shop, and, when I read the name of the shop, I thought I knew why she was there. The shop, and quite likely the building belonged to her family, not that it was her surname, but I could be hopeful.

I went up the side stairs and reached the landing. There were two doors, one with 1A on it, and one with 1B on it. Hers was 1A.

I knocked on the door.

A minute later nothing had happened.

I knocked again, this time a little harder.

There was no answer, again, but there was a movement in the flat next door, then the door opened and a scruffy young man, perhaps a university student put his head out.

“She’s not here.”

“Not here, and in no longer living here, or not here as in she is out somewhere and will be back.”

He looked at me blankly, like I’d spoken too fast, or used too many words for him to understand. Possibly he’d just woken up.

He shook his head. “Just out probably getting coffee or something. The shops on the other side of the road, three or four doors up. Can’t miss it, it smells like coffee.”

He gave me a look up and down, gauging whether or not I could be of interest to her, then went back inside his room and closed the door.

It might be a lie, but I was going to take him at his word.

I went back down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk and looked up and down both sides of the street. There was a café, on the other side, not far away.

I waited for a break in the traffic, then crossed the road.

She was inside, reading a paper, oblivious to those around her, and, in particular, those coming from outside. She should be casually keeping an eye out for trouble.

I managed to get inside and take the seat next to her before she raised her head to see who it was.

No surprise.

“You,” she said. “You made it out alive too?”

“You should be more careful.”

“I was told I was no longer employed, that the people who hired me were ex-agents with some sort of agenda.”

I glanced at the open page of the newspaper. The jobs vacant page.

“Then it might come as a bit of a surprise to realize you’re still on their books, just assigned to a different department. Same as me.”

“They told me I was redundant.”

“Who told you?”

“A woman. Monica Sherive she said her name was.”

“I spoke to her earlier this morning. I didn’t ask, but I will the next time I’m in the office. What do you remember about the assignment?”

“We were supposed to maintain surveillance on a man, no name, just a photograph. I heard you had him in sight and was about to pass him off to Adam. I didn’t hear Adam acknowledge. I heard an explosion and all hell broke loose. No point carrying on, so I left.”

And that was what saved her life. Incorrect procedure. Unless she reported in.

“Did you report to the overseer.”

“Over the radio. He told me to go. What happened to Adam and Jack?”

“Dead. Murdered by the target, I think. The target’s dead too. A chap by the name of O’Connell, though the more I find out about him, the more interesting it gets.”

I could see the cogs ticking over behind her eyes as she put one and one together. “So…”

“You should be dead too. What saved your life was just up and leaving.”

“How did you escape?”

“I didn’t. I found the target again after the explosion and followed him to an alley. When I got there he told me I was making a mistake, and then he was shot. Severin and Maury turned up, and that was it.”

“Did they kill him?”

“No. It was a sniper, and I’m still wondering why I didn’t get shot too.”

“The woman told me Severin and Maury didn’t work for the organization. How could that be? They seemed real to me. I think whatever they and we were doing became a mess that needed to be cleaned up by getting rid of everyone associated with it. I liked that job. Now I have to go back to a daily drudge job.”

“Don’t think so. Like I said, I saw your name listed as active in the same department as me, the head of which is a guy called Nobbin. I’ve met him, I’m supposed to be investigating O’Connell, who, by the way, was one of his people, who had allegedly some documents on him when he died. You feel like helping out?”

“I would, but are you sure I’m supposed to be working for these people, God, I don’t know who they are or what I was doing anymore.”

“We can go to the office and ask questions. Get this Monica and get her to tell you. But in the meantime, I had a job I need to do, and it would be better with two. Can you help?”

“If you come with me to the office?”

“Sure.”

She folded the paper and slid off the seat. “Then, let’s go.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020