Day 140

Writing exercise

…

She lost sight of him in the frozen food aisle.

That was the problem with casual surveillance. Take your eyes off the target for one second, and they’re gone.

Of course, you would think there wouldn’t be that many people in the aisle, but it wasn’t the number of people. It was the distractions.

The lady reaching into the freezer and the boy shutting the lid on her, the baby in the stroller screaming its head off, and the mother casually ignoring it, the three or four-year-old pulling stuff off shelves and throwing it on the floor in a temper tantrum.

Distractions that she was supposed to ignore.

“You do realise your target has left the building?”

Her training supervisor had just managed to sneak up on her and, at the sound of his voice, made her jump.

Nerves.

Fear of failing.

A God awful row at home with a husband who didn’t want her to work, and probably would be even more incensed if she told him what she was really doing.

What else could go wrong?

“I know.  I thought it would be easy, but you’re right, there are so many other factors involved.  But, if you say that’s why we have a team, another member would pick them up.”

“And if there was not?”

“I’d be going back and giving the person who organised the job and the team a serve.”

OK, she thought, that was not called for, but that smug, supercilious look was annoying her.

“Are you usually this rambunctious?”

“Do you after use words no one understands when you really meant pain in the ass?”

This girl was trouble.  She had the talent and the ability when she first started, but that had slowed and waned.  It wasn’t a lack of interest.  Something else was going on.

I looked around and realised this was not the place to be discussing her career prospects.

“I saw a cafe outside.  Let me treat you to a cup of coffee and talk about what’s going on.”

Her expression told me that, for her, it was not the time or place and that there probably wasn’t going to be one.

“Is that really necessary?”

“If you want to continue the training program, yes.”

…

From the supermarket to the cafe, I went over the aspects of her file that her training officer had used as justification for her retaining her place in the program.

It was not the first time her name had come up in the weekly meeting to decide which trainees to retire who were not making the grade.

Her name made the list the previous week and was the reason why I’d come out to observe the exercise and her performance.

Her training officer was adamant she should be retained, that whatever was affecting her performance was only temporary.  Of course, most trainees rarely discussed any outside factors that might be affecting them for fear it would get them where she was now.

I didn’t expect any candour now.

I waited until the coffee was delivered before bringing up work, and went straight to the heart of the matter.  “Do you really want to do this job.  It seems to me that you’ve lost interest.”

“I’m juggling stuff.  You know, in preparation for throwing myself into the job.”

“And your husband is on board.  You’ve told him that it will require you to go at any time and hour of the day, for weeks at a time, to places you can’t tell him about?”

It was better to accept single people with no ties and no permanent anchors like partners or residency, but laws ensured we had to take on everyone, irrespective of background.  They simply had to pass a security check.  Having a partner, particularly in the case of female recruits, came with its own particular set of problems

When she didn’t answer straight away. I knew the problem.  She hadn’t told him.

“It’s not a problem.”

“Until it is.  You haven’t told him.  What does he think you’re doing?”

“It wouldn’t matter.  We had this talk before we were married, and he would support me in anything I wanted to do.  He’s happy to see me behind a desk, nine to five, home to cook dinner.”

“That’s not what we do here.  This is anything but nine to five.  Was he like this before you got married?”

“Now I look back, I should have seen the signs.  I guess when you’re in those first initial throes, you are either not looking or choose to ignore anything bad or decide you can work on it later.”

“And now that it’s later?”

“Am I allowed to kill him?” 

I looked into her eyes, and I could see she was deadly serious.  I had no doubt that she could, she would.  My impression, if she channelled that rage into her world, even I’d be scared by her.

“Since that is off the table for obvious reasons, is there anything else that can resolve this problem?”  It was time for her to start thinking outside the box and prove she had the ability she said she had.

She sighed.

“Coffee’s nice for a mall cafe.”

No brilliant solutions.  “Go home and tell him, then decide what you want to do.  You sort that out, get your head back in the game, and there’s a place for you.  You come back, I will be asking him myself if you discussed it and what it means.  Am I understood?”

“Clearly.”

…

That discussion was a whole lot worse than simply losing a target in the freezer aisle.

Losing targets she could get past, at least for a while, but telling Jimmy that his ‘possession’ had a mind of her own and a way cooler job than he ever would, wasn’t going to stoke his alpha male ego.

It was a question of what she wanted.

He did say that he wanted her to pursue whatever career pleased her, but that was back in the days when the only options were law school, architecture, or scientific research.  Jobs that brought in very good salaries that would keep Jeremy in the lifestyle he wanted to become accustomed to.  His joke about her working and him staying home to look after the children was wearing a little thin.  Particularly since he wasn’t ready for children, yet. 

And what did he do?

Plod along in a nine-to-five paper shuffle with sickies once a week so he could have long weekends boozing at home or boozing away with the lads while she worked two jobs and trained.

He’d carefully hidden that trait until after she overheard him tell one of his friends, he landed the fish.  Then he could do what he liked.

Sitting on the train, going back to the flat where they agreed they would live until her studies were over, she had to ask herself why the only things about her marriage were bad memories.

Was her inner self trying to tell her something?

Once home, the trail of clothes running from the bathroom to the bedroom was waiting for her to clean up, after which there were yesterday’s dishes to clean before preparing the evening meal

She looked in the refrigerator and closed it again.  Normally, if she wanted something, she would send him a text of what she needed or to suggest eating out.  Tonight felt like an eating-out night.

Except, she was feeling the first stirrings of rebellion.

She threw everything unwashed or lying around in the kitchen into the bin.  There were two plates left, with chips in them.  She put them on the table, along with a can of beans and a can opener.

Then she tossed his mess of papers and magazines out of what had been her seat and threw it in the corner of the room.  A quick look around, then went into the bedroom and put what she considered essential items into a backpack she had recently bought and put it by the front door.

A plan was forming in her mind, one that might have been unthinkable a week ago.  Well, perhaps a month ago, to be honest.

Then she sat down, facing the door, and waited.

….

It was an hour later than usual.  It didn’t surprise her, because several times in the last month he had gone to a bar with his friends and come home half drunk.  Wisely. 

The door opened, and he burst in, with Walter, one of his friends, in tow.  Yes.  A shade more intoxicated than usual.

“Hi, honey, I’m home.  Brought Wally, didn’t want to go home to his parents, yet.  What’s for dinner?”

And then stopped when he saw her sitting with her arms crossed.

Wally said, “Hello, Agnethe.”

“Hello, Walter, goodbye Walter.”

“But…”

“Get out!”  It was almost as rapid as a bullet.

“See you tomorrow, Jeremy.  Whatever you did, I’d apologise.  Very humbly.”  Walter patted him on the back and left, closing the door very quietly behind him.

Jeremy looked shellshocked, but only for a few seconds until he realised this was his place and therefore his rules.

“You can’t talk to my friends like that. And why aren’t you cooking dinner?”

Belligerent. 

She slowly stood and walked over to him, seeing him for the first time for who he really was.  How the hell had she fallen for a guy like him?  Easy.  He had been someone completely different then.

No.  He acted like someone completely different then.  This is who he always was.

What did that say about her?

“You’re lucky I don’t get what I was going to make and shove it down your throat.”

He looked puzzled for a few moments, then smiled.  “Oh, I get it.  This is a new thing, acting all tough, making me all hot and sweaty.  Things were getting boring in the bedroom.”

She shook her head.
¹
“It’s over, Jeremy.  I’m done.  When I walk through that door, I never want to see you again.”

He finally got it, and the accompanying expression wasn’t nice.  He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pushed her harshly up against the wall.

“You aren’t going anywhere, bitch.  I own you, and you do what I tell you.  Now, when I let you go, you’re going to make me my dinner.  Then I’ll decide what else you can do for me.”

She relaxed under his grip and put on a compliant expression.  How many times had she been in this position in training, the scenarios far more dangerous than this?

He let her go, and in five seconds, he was on the floor, face slammed into the floorboards with such a crack, she hoped she hadn’t killed him, but just to make sure, she rammed her knee into his back and elicited a grunt. 

Not dead yet.

Hands immobilised, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to get up and walk out of here.  You decided, stupidly, to retaliate; I will kill you.  That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise.  What I just did then, that’s me being nice.  Trust me when I say you do not want to see me mad.”

…

I’d seen the same expressions on people who had been through the same experience.  Resentment of the people who were holding them back.

Her psychological profile made interesting reading, and it had been a calculated risk sending her home.  So far she hadn’t hurt him too severely, but if he was as dumb as the report on him said, then he was an inch away from becoming a statistic.

Not a good one.

I knocked on the door to her apartment, two offices, armed, ready to go through the moment she opened the door.

Nothing. 

My assistant was holding an iPad, with infrared imaging.  His hand indicated she was still holding him down.

I knocked again.  No urgency.  All her exits were cut off.

I heard a muffled voice from behind the door.  “It’s not locked.”

I looked at the others.  “Wait here, but be ready.”

The two beside me closed up and would remain at the door.  I would go in and not close it.  A voice behind me said, “We’re getting attention.”

“Sort it.”

I opened the door, went in, then left it only slightly ajar.  When I looked down, I could see the man under her was unconscious, and she was getting up slowly, hands outstretched.

When fully upright, hands outstretched, she backed up to the wall.”You’ve been busy.  Is he…?”

“Simply unconscious.  Do need to make things worse with him screaming like a stuck pig.”

“What happened?”

“I told him I was leaving.  He didn’t take it well.  I want the job more than I want him.”

She looked down at him with a look of pure malice.  Then back up at me.  “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“In three months, you might regret saying that.”

“In three months I could be in a shit arse jail cell.  I’d prefer not to be.  Why are you here anyway?”

Perhaps it finally dawned on her that my presence was an anomaly.

“Our conversation.  You had to think that at some point, we were watching you and your husband.”

“You could have just asked me.  He’s a scumbag lowlife, him and his mates.  Surveillance for practice.  If you were at it you’d know what I know.  I was about to kill him when you arrived.”

“Wouldn’t help your cause.  We’ll take it from here.  If you want to join the group, the real group, then once you say “yes”, Agnethe ceases to exist, and a cover story is created to cover that disappearance.  You will leave here ostensibly under arrest, my team will clean the site, and poof, you’re gone.  You cannot come back, you cannot see any of your old friends, family or acquaintances.  Ever.  Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 138

Just what are you saying?

…

So here’s the thing.

We all have points of view, nurtured from the day we are born to the day we die.

Along the way, these views can change, as does our opinion of many things.

Political beliefs, religion, and the weather.

As a rule, I tend to avoid both politics and religion, simply because most people hold very strong views.

As for the weather, I’m an expert.  After I look out the window.

But…

Even then, there are people with strong views about that because of or not climate change and secret satellites that change weather patterns…

Yes, yet another WTF moment!

So…

The point I’m trying to make is that our personal beliefs sometimes creep into the characters we create.

Al least we think we are creating this particular person, and no matter how hard we try to make them what seems to be the complete antithesis of ourselves, somehow a little shred is there.

I cannot make a completely obnoxious person, no matter how hard it try, because it’s not me.  I don’t know what it’s like to be one.  I have to read about people like that, and delved into Freud’s thoughts on psychosis to gain some level of understanding

And, sadly, I want to believe there is good somewhere in everyone.

It could possibly be one of those issues a writer has to deal with in character development.

Of course, it’s all the easier if you have had to deal with such people.

My father was a monster who beat all of us, but that may have had something to do with the war and fighting the Japanese in the jungle.

My uncle was a paedophile who assaulted both me and my brother, and a lot of others, in a time when he could get away with it

My mother had no idea how to be a mother or care for us in the way a mother should.

These people gave me the background for certain types of characters.

So did a lot of the people I worked with over the years.  People I saw, people in other countries, people from all walks of life.

All, in their own way, shaped who I am and what I believe in.

And I know enough not to impose my beliefs, such as they are, on anyone.

Jane Austen got it right

“For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbours and laughter at them in our turn?”

Day 138

Just what are you saying?

…

So here’s the thing.

We all have points of view, nurtured from the day we are born to the day we die.

Along the way, these views can change, as does our opinion of many things.

Political beliefs, religion, and the weather.

As a rule, I tend to avoid both politics and religion, simply because most people hold very strong views.

As for the weather, I’m an expert.  After I look out the window.

But…

Even then, there are people with strong views about that because of or not climate change and secret satellites that change weather patterns…

Yes, yet another WTF moment!

So…

The point I’m trying to make is that our personal beliefs sometimes creep into the characters we create.

Al least we think we are creating this particular person, and no matter how hard we try to make them what seems to be the complete antithesis of ourselves, somehow a little shred is there.

I cannot make a completely obnoxious person, no matter how hard it try, because it’s not me.  I don’t know what it’s like to be one.  I have to read about people like that, and delved into Freud’s thoughts on psychosis to gain some level of understanding

And, sadly, I want to believe there is good somewhere in everyone.

It could possibly be one of those issues a writer has to deal with in character development.

Of course, it’s all the easier if you have had to deal with such people.

My father was a monster who beat all of us, but that may have had something to do with the war and fighting the Japanese in the jungle.

My uncle was a paedophile who assaulted both me and my brother, and a lot of others, in a time when he could get away with it

My mother had no idea how to be a mother or care for us in the way a mother should.

These people gave me the background for certain types of characters.

So did a lot of the people I worked with over the years.  People I saw, people in other countries, people from all walks of life.

All, in their own way, shaped who I am and what I believe in.

And I know enough not to impose my beliefs, such as they are, on anyone.

Jane Austen got it right

“For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbours and laughter at them in our turn?”

Days 137 and 138

A story written in the form of … a police interview

…

The preliminaries out of the way, I was sitting on one side of the desk with a lawyer, provided because I didn’t have one, and the two detectives on the other.

Good cop, bad cop.

The woman detective, obviously the lead, had dropped a thick folder on the desk to emphasise the weight of evidence that was against me.

Before that, there had been a meaningful glance between the two, one that said, ‘we’ve got him bang to rights’.

Detective Rogers:  Can you describe your relationship with the deceased, Madeleine Blair?

Alistair Blair:  Madeleine was my wife.  We have been married 22 years.  Last month, she advised me that she had been having an affair with an associate at her place of employment for a few months and that she had terminated it.  She said that it had been a mistake, and rather than find out from someone else, she told me.  She said that she had hoped it would not affect our relationship, that it was the first and last time.

Detective Rogers:  When did you first learn of the affair?

Alistair Blair:  When she told me that night.

Detective Wilson:  You did not know that she was having an affair before then.  She told you, you said in an earlier statement, that you thought something was wrong.  People usually know when their spouses are sleeping around.

Detective Rogers:  A minute outside Detective.

Interview suspended.

Conversation between Alistair Blair and the Lawyer.

Alistair Blair:  Aren’t you supposed to stop that sort of intimidation?

Lawyer:  They can make accusations and inferences, but if they can not prove them, it’s just grist to the mill. If it is not true, then simply ignore them. 

Interview resumed.

Detective Rogers:  I apologise for my partner’s outburst, but to me, it seems a valid point.  Did she show any changes in behaviour for, say, a month before the event?

Alistair Blair:  She appeared to spend more time at work, and the excuses for doing so were odd, but she had a rather interesting, shall we say, occupation.

Detective Rogers:  Explain.

Alistair Blair:  She worked for an organisation that, in part, had made a decision to create a new branch that employed a group of private detectives as a trial investigation unit.  Madeleine had transferred to that division when it was set up as an administrator.  She had expressed to me more than once that she would like to train to become a private investigator.  I assumed she was secretly training to be one, not sneaking about having an affair.  In over 20 years, I never got the impression she was unsatisfied with me.

Detective Rogers:  How did you feel about discovering she was having an affair?

Alistair Blair:  I think I would have preferred if she were learning to become a private investigator rather than the alternative.  But I was willing to take her at her word that it was over.

Detective Rogers:  But it wasn’t over, was it?”

Alistair Blair:  Unfortunately, no.  I was disappointed, but I think I knew our time together was done.  She tried, but there was always going to be an invisible elephant in the room.  She told me the night before she died that she was leaving.

Detective Wilson:  Did it make you mad enough to want to kill her?

Silence.

Alistair Blair:  It depends on whether you believe my ego would have been mortally wounded by the notion that she could or would leave me.  It wasn’t, by the way.  I carried her bags to the car, and I wished her well and promised I might add that I wasn’t going to fight her in the divorce.  Too many of my friends have, and it’s brought them nothing.  You have proof of that with the CCTV footage.  Then I didn’t leave home.

Detective Wilson:  You expect us to believe you didn’t go anywhere from the moment you saw her leave until the moment we arrived to tell you the news of your wife’s murder?

Alistair Blair:  I can not make you believe anything that you don’t want to believe, but that’s the truth.

Detective Wilson:  You have no alibi.  Just your word that you were at your residence the whole time.  The thing is, we did a thorough analysis of the security system, and there is a path you can take that is not covered.  It’s well worn, and the last boots used on it were yours.

Alistair Blair:  No surprise there.  I do go out the back.

Detective Wilson:  When was the last time, after you saw your wife leave for the last time?

Alistair Blair: The morning you arrived to tell me the bad news.  To get some more wood for the fire.  We’ve already talked about this.  It rained earlier that morning, and it was muddy.

Detective Rogers: The thing is, we found footprints near the edge of the property, unaffected by the rain and very clear footprints that match your boots.  Going and coming back.

Alistair Blair:  That path does go to the shed where the dry wood is stored.  But you know that.

Detective Rogers:  I’m showing the suspect a photo of the man we believe killed Mrs Blair.  Would you say that’s a likeness of yourself, Mr Blair?

Silence.

Alistair Blair:  I would.  Except for one small detail.  This is a remarkably clear photo, and yes, it does.  But it is not me.  It is my brother, in fact, my twin brother.  When we were younger, it was impossible to tell us apart.  Then, about three years ago, he was in a car accident and got a severe head injury.  Left a nasty scar that plastic surgeons tried to hide, but the last operation didn’t quite go as planned.  If you look closely, you can see the start of the scar just before it recedes into the hairline.

Detective Wilson:  You gave a twin brother?  Why didn’t you tell us?

Alistair Blair:  Because I believed he was dead.  Now I understand what Madeleine was talking about.  She said she’d seen me out with another woman, and I kept telling her it wasn’t me.

Detective Rogers:  You actually have a twin brother?

Alistair Blair:  I didn’t want one, but yes.

Sound of phone vibrating.

Detective Rogers:  You are not supposed to have your cell phone on.

Alistair Blair:  Answer it.  If you want to talk to a ghost.

Ringing stops.

Inspector Rogers:  Who is this?

Voice:  Ask Alistair, or had he told you already?  I told you I’d get a payback, Ally.

Alistair Blair:  Give yourself up, Sylvester.

Voice:  Why.  The cops have got you on the hook for your wife’s murder, and I don’t exist.  I’m dead, remember.

Alistair Blair:  They’ve got you on CCTV.

Voice:  They’ve got you on CCTV, Ally.  Dressed up to look like me.  He did it.  If he couldn’t have her, no one could.  You’d better arrest him because he will be gone if you let him go.  Poof.

Laughter, then silence.

Detective Rogers:  What sort of elaborate hoax did you think you could try and get away with, Mr Blair?

…

©  Charles Heath 2025

Days 137 and 138

A story written in the form of … a police interview

…

The preliminaries out of the way, I was sitting on one side of the desk with a lawyer, provided because I didn’t have one, and the two detectives on the other.

Good cop, bad cop.

The woman detective, obviously the lead, had dropped a thick folder on the desk to emphasise the weight of evidence that was against me.

Before that, there had been a meaningful glance between the two, one that said, ‘we’ve got him bang to rights’.

Detective Rogers:  Can you describe your relationship with the deceased, Madeleine Blair?

Alistair Blair:  Madeleine was my wife.  We have been married 22 years.  Last month, she advised me that she had been having an affair with an associate at her place of employment for a few months and that she had terminated it.  She said that it had been a mistake, and rather than find out from someone else, she told me.  She said that she had hoped it would not affect our relationship, that it was the first and last time.

Detective Rogers:  When did you first learn of the affair?

Alistair Blair:  When she told me that night.

Detective Wilson:  You did not know that she was having an affair before then.  She told you, you said in an earlier statement, that you thought something was wrong.  People usually know when their spouses are sleeping around.

Detective Rogers:  A minute outside Detective.

Interview suspended.

Conversation between Alistair Blair and the Lawyer.

Alistair Blair:  Aren’t you supposed to stop that sort of intimidation?

Lawyer:  They can make accusations and inferences, but if they can not prove them, it’s just grist to the mill. If it is not true, then simply ignore them. 

Interview resumed.

Detective Rogers:  I apologise for my partner’s outburst, but to me, it seems a valid point.  Did she show any changes in behaviour for, say, a month before the event?

Alistair Blair:  She appeared to spend more time at work, and the excuses for doing so were odd, but she had a rather interesting, shall we say, occupation.

Detective Rogers:  Explain.

Alistair Blair:  She worked for an organisation that, in part, had made a decision to create a new branch that employed a group of private detectives as a trial investigation unit.  Madeleine had transferred to that division when it was set up as an administrator.  She had expressed to me more than once that she would like to train to become a private investigator.  I assumed she was secretly training to be one, not sneaking about having an affair.  In over 20 years, I never got the impression she was unsatisfied with me.

Detective Rogers:  How did you feel about discovering she was having an affair?

Alistair Blair:  I think I would have preferred if she were learning to become a private investigator rather than the alternative.  But I was willing to take her at her word that it was over.

Detective Rogers:  But it wasn’t over, was it?”

Alistair Blair:  Unfortunately, no.  I was disappointed, but I think I knew our time together was done.  She tried, but there was always going to be an invisible elephant in the room.  She told me the night before she died that she was leaving.

Detective Wilson:  Did it make you mad enough to want to kill her?

Silence.

Alistair Blair:  It depends on whether you believe my ego would have been mortally wounded by the notion that she could or would leave me.  It wasn’t, by the way.  I carried her bags to the car, and I wished her well and promised I might add that I wasn’t going to fight her in the divorce.  Too many of my friends have, and it’s brought them nothing.  You have proof of that with the CCTV footage.  Then I didn’t leave home.

Detective Wilson:  You expect us to believe you didn’t go anywhere from the moment you saw her leave until the moment we arrived to tell you the news of your wife’s murder?

Alistair Blair:  I can not make you believe anything that you don’t want to believe, but that’s the truth.

Detective Wilson:  You have no alibi.  Just your word that you were at your residence the whole time.  The thing is, we did a thorough analysis of the security system, and there is a path you can take that is not covered.  It’s well worn, and the last boots used on it were yours.

Alistair Blair:  No surprise there.  I do go out the back.

Detective Wilson:  When was the last time, after you saw your wife leave for the last time?

Alistair Blair: The morning you arrived to tell me the bad news.  To get some more wood for the fire.  We’ve already talked about this.  It rained earlier that morning, and it was muddy.

Detective Rogers: The thing is, we found footprints near the edge of the property, unaffected by the rain and very clear footprints that match your boots.  Going and coming back.

Alistair Blair:  That path does go to the shed where the dry wood is stored.  But you know that.

Detective Rogers:  I’m showing the suspect a photo of the man we believe killed Mrs Blair.  Would you say that’s a likeness of yourself, Mr Blair?

Silence.

Alistair Blair:  I would.  Except for one small detail.  This is a remarkably clear photo, and yes, it does.  But it is not me.  It is my brother, in fact, my twin brother.  When we were younger, it was impossible to tell us apart.  Then, about three years ago, he was in a car accident and got a severe head injury.  Left a nasty scar that plastic surgeons tried to hide, but the last operation didn’t quite go as planned.  If you look closely, you can see the start of the scar just before it recedes into the hairline.

Detective Wilson:  You gave a twin brother?  Why didn’t you tell us?

Alistair Blair:  Because I believed he was dead.  Now I understand what Madeleine was talking about.  She said she’d seen me out with another woman, and I kept telling her it wasn’t me.

Detective Rogers:  You actually have a twin brother?

Alistair Blair:  I didn’t want one, but yes.

Sound of phone vibrating.

Detective Rogers:  You are not supposed to have your cell phone on.

Alistair Blair:  Answer it.  If you want to talk to a ghost.

Ringing stops.

Inspector Rogers:  Who is this?

Voice:  Ask Alistair, or had he told you already?  I told you I’d get a payback, Ally.

Alistair Blair:  Give yourself up, Sylvester.

Voice:  Why.  The cops have got you on the hook for your wife’s murder, and I don’t exist.  I’m dead, remember.

Alistair Blair:  They’ve got you on CCTV.

Voice:  They’ve got you on CCTV, Ally.  Dressed up to look like me.  He did it.  If he couldn’t have her, no one could.  You’d better arrest him because he will be gone if you let him go.  Poof.

Laughter, then silence.

Detective Rogers:  What sort of elaborate hoax did you think you could try and get away with, Mr Blair?

…

©  Charles Heath 2025

More about my story

Who is this girl whom the boss found in jail?

…

So when you go looking for trouble, bundled up in a nice package, what are you looking for, especially if you run an intelligence agency?

McConnell held a picture of Teresa Montgomery in his hand and wondered how a woman of such beauty and ability could go so far off the deep end.  McConnell considered himself an expert in psychotics, but could find no explanation, not even in the psychological profile, which rated her more dangerous than some of his men.

“She’s ideal,” he said to no one in particular, since he was alone in the car.  She fitted the sort of profile he was looking for.  Eight months down the track and well on the road to recovering from cocaine addiction, she had regained her strength, will, and what he needed the most, her ability to distract attention.

A friend had mentioned her name in passing, just the sort of material McConnell loved to recruit, and he was willing to bet any amount of money McConnell couldn’t get her out.  After all, twenty years without bail in an institution for the criminally insane was a hard sentence to get around.

All he had to do was bust her out of jail.

Of course, nothing is ever a problem for a person who bends rules daily, and as that same friend who told him about the girl said, McConnell was the only person he knew who coloured outside the lines.

To McConnell, she was just the person Willoughby needed, even though he would baulk at having her join him.

More about my story

Who is this girl whom the boss found in jail?

…

So when you go looking for trouble, bundled up in a nice package, what are you looking for, especially if you run an intelligence agency?

McConnell held a picture of Teresa Montgomery in his hand and wondered how a woman of such beauty and ability could go so far off the deep end.  McConnell considered himself an expert in psychotics, but could find no explanation, not even in the psychological profile, which rated her more dangerous than some of his men.

“She’s ideal,” he said to no one in particular, since he was alone in the car.  She fitted the sort of profile he was looking for.  Eight months down the track and well on the road to recovering from cocaine addiction, she had regained her strength, will, and what he needed the most, her ability to distract attention.

A friend had mentioned her name in passing, just the sort of material McConnell loved to recruit, and he was willing to bet any amount of money McConnell couldn’t get her out.  After all, twenty years without bail in an institution for the criminally insane was a hard sentence to get around.

All he had to do was bust her out of jail.

Of course, nothing is ever a problem for a person who bends rules daily, and as that same friend who told him about the girl said, McConnell was the only person he knew who coloured outside the lines.

To McConnell, she was just the person Willoughby needed, even though he would baulk at having her join him.

Day 136

Writing exercise – drag them into the story

…

I wanted answers.

I mean, don’t we all?

They were not difficult questions.  Where are my grandparents?  Why haven’t we seen them?  Are they still alive?

The single answer was that they died not long after my older sister was born.  But it was not the answer that bothered me. It was the delay my mother took to reply, and even more telling was her expression.

I’d seen that expression before, and it was clear to me that she was lying, or more to the point, not telling us the truth.

I had tried, over the years, to discover the truth, but each time, there was always a variation of the same answer: that they were no longer around.

And, because we were not old enough to go out and investigate, that was sufficient to quell any sort of investigation that I or my older sister, Kayla, might have instituted.

Until now.

In a totally unexpected moment in time, my first year at university, and a simple assignment, one that required us to discover who our ancestors were and what impact they may have had on our lives. 

It was a simple matter, and to my astonishment, most of the kids knew of and/or frequently interacted with their grandparents and also knew of their forebears further back.

I had nothing.

…

So, here’s the thing…

I had a document that told me exactly how to investigate my family history.

First step: How to get birth certificates for my parents.  All I had to do was prove who I was; if I wanted a certified copy, and thinking that might cause them to alert my mother, I opted for just the bare bones report.

Finally, I had two names: my mother’s father, William Westbrook, mother, Vanessa Westbrook, nee Cartager.  In other words, my grandmother was Vanessa Cartager, and she was from Dorchester.  My grandfather came from Dorchester.

Second step:  Once I knew their names, I looked for any other children, provided they were born in Dorchester.  My guideline document said that, going back in time, people didn’t really move around unless significant events forced them to.

Armed with their names, I went online and found the outline records for births, marriages, and deaths and searched for the names.

I found Vanessa Cartger.  Born 1936.  Married in 1958 to William Westbrook, both from Dorchester.  Checking parents William and Vanessa Wentworth, 1959, my mother Jennifer, 1961, a boy William, 1963, a girl, Kayla, and 1965, another boy, John.  I had an aunt and two uncles.

None of the names turned up in the deaths, but they could have died in any one of a hundred or so little villages or somewhere else.  It was beginning to look like the proverbial needle in a haystack type search.

It was possible to go further back one generation to find my great-great-grandparents’ names, but I had enough to start with.

I was not going to go home and ask.  I was going to Dorchester to do what I wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good starting point.

…

I booked into a small hotel on Saturday afternoon, after driving up from London. It was not as if I was the sort of person to drop everything on a whim, but it was rather close.  Kayla asked me where I was going, and given her close connection to our mother, I thought it best not to tell her, except I was going away for a few days.  Cornwall, perhaps.  She knew I was interested in the tin mines of old

I deliberately hadn’t told her my interest in our forebears, at least not this time. The last time she had blabbed to mother and caused a ruckus.  It made me wonder what it was my mother had to hide.

I went to the Deanery, which was simply a church and churchyard and thought it odd that people called it home, and for one of the siblings, it had been home for a few years, according to census records.

There, I was able to discover death records for the cemetery, and it held one Jennifer Westbrook, born 1861, died 1861.  Not possible, or it was not the same Jennifer, or did Vanessa give birth to two Jennifers in the same year, one dying at birth?

And a grave location

The graveyard was a very solemn place, bordering one scary, and I guess if I delved deeper, I would find that I had forebears buried here.  They could have gone to the church and sat in the same pews I had.

Just the thought of it sent a shiver down my spine.

It was peaceful, and for a long time, I was alone.  Until I neared the grave of the infant Jennifer.

And discovered an elderly woman at the same location, standing in front of a rather ornate gravestone.

She looked up as I approached.

“I haven’t seen you before.”  It wasn’t a reproach but curiosity.

“I’m looking for a Jennifer Westbrook, though it appears it is not this one.  I’m sorry.” I could see now that it was a family grave with the daughter and the father, William Westbrook’s name on it, with today’s date, a year before.  “You would not be Vanessa Westbrook?”

A stern expression, “Who are you?”

“A person who is chasing the white rabbit.  My studies require me to search for ancestors.  My name is Peter Davies. My mother, Jennifer Westbrook, married Robert Davies in one of the villages around here, and she said her mother had died before I was born.  I’ve been searching the parish records and stumbled upon several Jennifers.  I can see this is the wrong one.”

“You’re mother is deceased.”

“I thought so.  Her mother’s name was Vanessa Cartager, and later, Westbrook.  Or that’s what it says on the birth certificate.

“Then the confusion is not confusion.  You just have the wrong birth certificate.  It’s a simple mistake.  There’s a half dozen Vanessa Cartagers in various parts of Dorset, it’s a common enough name.  Back to the drawing board, as they say.”

“Yes.  You’re right, of course.  I’m sorry if I have caused you any distress.  This must be a difficult time for you.”

“William.  Yes.  But he’s the lucky one.  He’s with her now.”

And that was the end of the conversation.

I thanked her and started walking away.  I only had one issue: little Jennifer’s birthdate was exactly the same as my mother’s, and my mind had just gone to a very dark place.

My mother had created a fake ID. I’d read about it recently in a thriller novel, and had thought at the time it was simply an author’s imagination.

It was not.

My mother had to be a spy.

And then I laughed out loud at the thought.  I was even further away from ever finding out who she was.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 136

Writing exercise – drag them into the story

…

I wanted answers.

I mean, don’t we all?

They were not difficult questions.  Where are my grandparents?  Why haven’t we seen them?  Are they still alive?

The single answer was that they died not long after my older sister was born.  But it was not the answer that bothered me. It was the delay my mother took to reply, and even more telling was her expression.

I’d seen that expression before, and it was clear to me that she was lying, or more to the point, not telling us the truth.

I had tried, over the years, to discover the truth, but each time, there was always a variation of the same answer: that they were no longer around.

And, because we were not old enough to go out and investigate, that was sufficient to quell any sort of investigation that I or my older sister, Kayla, might have instituted.

Until now.

In a totally unexpected moment in time, my first year at university, and a simple assignment, one that required us to discover who our ancestors were and what impact they may have had on our lives. 

It was a simple matter, and to my astonishment, most of the kids knew of and/or frequently interacted with their grandparents and also knew of their forebears further back.

I had nothing.

…

So, here’s the thing…

I had a document that told me exactly how to investigate my family history.

First step: How to get birth certificates for my parents.  All I had to do was prove who I was; if I wanted a certified copy, and thinking that might cause them to alert my mother, I opted for just the bare bones report.

Finally, I had two names: my mother’s father, William Westbrook, mother, Vanessa Westbrook, nee Cartager.  In other words, my grandmother was Vanessa Cartager, and she was from Dorchester.  My grandfather came from Dorchester.

Second step:  Once I knew their names, I looked for any other children, provided they were born in Dorchester.  My guideline document said that, going back in time, people didn’t really move around unless significant events forced them to.

Armed with their names, I went online and found the outline records for births, marriages, and deaths and searched for the names.

I found Vanessa Cartger.  Born 1936.  Married in 1958 to William Westbrook, both from Dorchester.  Checking parents William and Vanessa Wentworth, 1959, my mother Jennifer, 1961, a boy William, 1963, a girl, Kayla, and 1965, another boy, John.  I had an aunt and two uncles.

None of the names turned up in the deaths, but they could have died in any one of a hundred or so little villages or somewhere else.  It was beginning to look like the proverbial needle in a haystack type search.

It was possible to go further back one generation to find my great-great-grandparents’ names, but I had enough to start with.

I was not going to go home and ask.  I was going to Dorchester to do what I wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good starting point.

…

I booked into a small hotel on Saturday afternoon, after driving up from London. It was not as if I was the sort of person to drop everything on a whim, but it was rather close.  Kayla asked me where I was going, and given her close connection to our mother, I thought it best not to tell her, except I was going away for a few days.  Cornwall, perhaps.  She knew I was interested in the tin mines of old

I deliberately hadn’t told her my interest in our forebears, at least not this time. The last time she had blabbed to mother and caused a ruckus.  It made me wonder what it was my mother had to hide.

I went to the Deanery, which was simply a church and churchyard and thought it odd that people called it home, and for one of the siblings, it had been home for a few years, according to census records.

There, I was able to discover death records for the cemetery, and it held one Jennifer Westbrook, born 1861, died 1861.  Not possible, or it was not the same Jennifer, or did Vanessa give birth to two Jennifers in the same year, one dying at birth?

And a grave location

The graveyard was a very solemn place, bordering one scary, and I guess if I delved deeper, I would find that I had forebears buried here.  They could have gone to the church and sat in the same pews I had.

Just the thought of it sent a shiver down my spine.

It was peaceful, and for a long time, I was alone.  Until I neared the grave of the infant Jennifer.

And discovered an elderly woman at the same location, standing in front of a rather ornate gravestone.

She looked up as I approached.

“I haven’t seen you before.”  It wasn’t a reproach but curiosity.

“I’m looking for a Jennifer Westbrook, though it appears it is not this one.  I’m sorry.” I could see now that it was a family grave with the daughter and the father, William Westbrook’s name on it, with today’s date, a year before.  “You would not be Vanessa Westbrook?”

A stern expression, “Who are you?”

“A person who is chasing the white rabbit.  My studies require me to search for ancestors.  My name is Peter Davies. My mother, Jennifer Westbrook, married Robert Davies in one of the villages around here, and she said her mother had died before I was born.  I’ve been searching the parish records and stumbled upon several Jennifers.  I can see this is the wrong one.”

“You’re mother is deceased.”

“I thought so.  Her mother’s name was Vanessa Cartager, and later, Westbrook.  Or that’s what it says on the birth certificate.

“Then the confusion is not confusion.  You just have the wrong birth certificate.  It’s a simple mistake.  There’s a half dozen Vanessa Cartagers in various parts of Dorset, it’s a common enough name.  Back to the drawing board, as they say.”

“Yes.  You’re right, of course.  I’m sorry if I have caused you any distress.  This must be a difficult time for you.”

“William.  Yes.  But he’s the lucky one.  He’s with her now.”

And that was the end of the conversation.

I thanked her and started walking away.  I only had one issue: little Jennifer’s birthdate was exactly the same as my mother’s, and my mind had just gone to a very dark place.

My mother had created a fake ID. I’d read about it recently in a thriller novel, and had thought at the time it was simply an author’s imagination.

It was not.

My mother had to be a spy.

And then I laughed out loud at the thought.  I was even further away from ever finding out who she was.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 135

There is always something to see, especially when you are told, ‘nothing to see here, move along’.

…

What lies beneath.

That’s the question every thriller/mystery writer wants to get to the bottom of by the end of the story.

As a rule, it’s never really what you see or what you think you see, but it can be hiding in plain sight.

Someone once told me that we are trained to see what we want to see, often not what it is that’s there in front of us. 

Like reading a story with spelling errors, gaps, and bad punctuation, our eyes gloss over those errors because we’re trained to read words quickly using only a few letters.

It’s why we sometimes misinterpret words and find ourselves up that proverbial garden path.  I know I have done it myself.  I know those apps that predict the word you want to use but invariably display the wrong one are as flawed as our eyes and brains can be at times, so I try not to use them.

A good detective looks beneath the surface to see what others don’t.

You look at a shop window and see several products on sale at ridiculously low prices.

A detective looks at the same store window and sees the third dress along on the rack of sale items had a blood stain on the bottom hemline, and deduces the dress was worn by the murderer of a bystander.

Someone in the shop, customer, or employee had a case to answer.

Then, sometimes, we can’t see the wood for the trees.  It’s an interesting expression but quite true.

Any time I visit a new place, I try to get as much visitor information as possible, and then, based on the description, go visit.

How many times have I been disappointed?  A few.  What they sometimes describe is the ambience, which may be there when there are fewer people about, but not when there are so many you cannot enjoy the view, the sidewalk cafes, and most of all the ambience.

This is translated into your writing, and I like the idea of depicting a place so that if you decide to go there, you see what I see, and not necessarily what the brochures tell you.

Then, of course, there is ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’.  That is not easy to convey in words, but I’m working on it.

One day!