Investigation of crimes don’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.
That was particularly true in my case. The murderer was very careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rules out whether it was a male or a female.
At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me. I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.
The officer in charge was Detective Inspector Gabrielle Walters. She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.
Routine was the word she used.
Her Sargeant was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible. I could sense the raging violence within him. Fortunately, common sense prevailed.
Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.
After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.
But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.
The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.
For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.
They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts. Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.
No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.
She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be a very bad boy. Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution. Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.
It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down. I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess. Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.
What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again. It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.
And it had.
Since then we saw each about once a month in a cafe. I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.
We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee. It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.
She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.
I wondered if this text message was in that category. I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.
I reached for the phone then put it back down again. I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.
This lark of making it up as I go is getting a little more difficult, because I had an idea where this was leading, and now it seems to have hit a brick wall.
We have a friend in hiding with a mysterious diary, we have a mother who is missing, we have an agent of sorts following Jack around in the hope it will lead to the mysterious diary, and we have said agent and Jack looking for Jacob.
Why?
In my book, you don’t go looking for trouble.
What these two intrepid adventurers should be doing is trying to find Jack’s mother.
That, of course, leads to the other important question, who has her, if anyone does?
OK, so let’s let loose the diary’s owner, a man named McCallister, who coincidentally is father to both Jack and Jacob.
What’s in the diary?
This needs some background, and it needs to have the seeds of the plot sown earlier in the story, when Jack was investigating who Jacob was. He would find out who Jacobs father was, and likely his own.
A part of the current plot is that McCallister calls Jack and wants to exchange the diary for his mother. So that will mean McCallister has her.
I had considered that perhaps her sister was holding her captive, but why would she after all these years?
So, from her…
The call from McCallister, Maryanne needs to draw on her organisations resources to find McCallister (he was on jail but escaped, ok the back story is being virtually written on the fly) because of what’s in the diary, and he needs it to stay alive. What’s in it? One would have to presume it had something to do with his life before producing children, and that was as a politician.
So, was he a corrupt politician, or did he know of one, or two, maybe? Politics can be dangerous, as well as lucrative.
As they say, the plot thickens!
Today’s effort amounts to 438 words, for a total, so far, of 52,067, but I don’t know how much of this will be useful.
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:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
We all make mistakes, errors of judgment, stupidly or otherwise.
I’ve made a few, just like in the words of a song that rattled around in my head for a long time after.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but there was one that, in the end, I didn’t.
But I guess it took a while to get to that point.
Sometimes it’s hard to work out why, sometimes because it’s simply time, others, well when you look back you realise that it should have happened for so many reasons, but at the time you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
We were in a bad place.
I’d been spending too much time travelling in a job that I had begun to hate, and I could see our relationship slipping away. It was not that neither of us cared for the other, or even stopped loving each other, it was simply the stresses of everyday life.
And it was not as if Chloe didn’t have a high pressure job, the one she had always wanted, and the one, we agreed, nothing would get in the way if she was given the opportunity.
I was happy with that, and for her. She was as entitled to have her dream job, as I was. I thought, I think we both thought, and believed, that would be the foundation of a good relationship.
And it was, to begin with.
There’s a point where there is a catalyst, that action, or statement, or person, or moment in time that comes along like a wrecking ball, and sets a series of events in motion, and no one really knows where it’s going to land or it’s effect.
That event?
I came home early and saw an old friend of mine, Roger, leaving our house. OK, not so much a big deal, except for the send-off. Still, even then it might not be such a big deal, because I knew Chloe was a very affectionate, touchy feely sort of person.
It used to faze me, way back in the beginning, but she had said, and proved, that I was the love of her life, and that others, well, she made them feel special.
I thought no more about it, of course, and I didn’t even mention it, though at the time, when I did walk in the door, she seemed distracted.
And I would not have thought about it again until Roger’s wife, Melissa, called one morning, though why she would call me was a mystery, to say that she was planning to surprise Roger in Las Vegas.
OK, I was suitably surprised, thinking that she was suggesting that Chloe and I should both go and make a weekend of it. We had done it before, because Melissa was a travel agent, and sometimes got airline and hotel deals that made it affordable.
I remember saying that as far as I was aware Chloe was in Pasadena doe the week on a conference.
No, she said, Chloe was co-incidentally in Las Vegas and Roger had accidentally run into her.
Should alarm bells be going off, I wondered, when that sliver of memory of him leaving popped back into my mind? No, it was just me, running around like a headless chook, failing to read her diary correctly.
I simply said, fine, and told her to make the arrangements.
It was going to be a surprise, because I hadn’t seen Chloe for two or three weeks, time seemed to pass too quickly these days, and it would be good for the both of us to spend some time together, away from home and the stresses of our respective jobs.
…
I met Melissa at the airport. Unlike Chloe, she was travelling light with only a carry on bag. I was used to moving fast and light with a bag that fitted in the overhead locker.
Sher had secured business class which was a treat because in this day and age of economics, that perk had disappeared a while back and was only available to the senior staff.
Onto the fourth glass of champagne, she dropped her bombshell, whether deliberate or otherwise I was never sure.
“It was very nice of Chloe to find Roger a job in her company.”
Did she, I thought. It was the first time I’d heard about it, and my expression must have given me away.
“You didn’t know.”
“Chloe never mentioned it, no. But it is like her.” She had also employed members of her family that, in my opinion, wouldn’t get a job anywhere else.
“Odd, don’t you think? It’s been about a year now. His company went broke, and all the employees were tossed out onto the street with nothing.”
A year was a long time to forget to tell someone. “Has it. Perhaps it just slipped her mind. She doesn’t tell me everything that goes on, nor do I want to know unless she thinks it’s important.”
Except employing my best friend was important, and it surprised me that he hadn’t told me himself. He was never backward in bragging about his achievements. Odd, yes, that he hadn’t told me he’d lost his other job.
…
Melissa had found out the hotel they were staying in, how I had no idea and didn’t ask, and it was simply a matter of telling the front desk clerk their spouses had arrived, and without question he handed over the keys.
They were staying on different floors which to me made sense. I wasn’t expecting they would be staying together, but I had an awful feeling Melissa had.
On the floor I went to the room and knocked on the door.
A minute later the door opened. Chloe, still in her nightgown, and an expression which lasted a fraction of a second before it registered surprise.
“Tom!”
Any other time, I might have thought she was expecting someone else.
Then my phone buzzed, an incoming message and I looked at it.
From Melissa. “Lobby, now.”
I looked up, thought how beautiful she still looked, and said, “Hold that thought. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Then I closed the door and headed for the elevators.
Once inside and going down, my brain finally registered what it had just seen. A woman prime for sex with that lustful look she used to have when we were first married. Yes, she had been expecting someone, only not me.
Yet, in that moment of realization I wasn’t mad at her or angry. She was exactly where she was because of me, and my lack of consideration. I had several opportunities to toss in the job that was clearly causing us issues, and I didn’t. It was inevitable we were going to end up here.
When I stepped out of the elevator, I looked for Melissa, but she was not immediately noticeable. Then, a further scan showed she was outside, and not in a good state. When I reached her, it was evident she had been crying, and she was angry.
“Is it what I think you’re going to say?”
She nodded. “When he opened the door, his first words were, “Chloe you sly fox, back for seconds? And then nearly had a heart attack when he saw me.
“I’m sorry. But did you have an idea this might happen?”
She nodded.
It explained everything, the hints, the sadness, the trip. Obviously, she had known about it for some time.
I gave her a hug, and she melted into my arms, and we stayed that way until I saw Roger coming out of the elevator, looking around.
“Roger’s coming,” I said.
“I don’t want to see him, much less talk to him.”
“Then I’ll head him off. Do you want to go home?”
Again she nodded. “Then get a taxi to the airport and I’ll be along in a short time. I’ll text you when I’m leaving.”
A quick look in Roger’s direction, she headed to the taxi rank, and just as Roger came out the door, her taxi departed, leaving him standing there.
He saw me coming towards him, and to give him credit, he didn’t run. IT would be difficult for him to know exactly how I might react.
“Tom.”
“My best friend, Roger. I might have been able to cope if it was some random guy, but not you.”
“Look…”
If he was going to try and justify himself, or make excuses, I didn’t want to hear it. “Now is not the time. I’m going to take Melissa home, and I suggest you take the time to figure out how you are going to deal with her, because I’m not the problem.”
He was going to reply, but possibly thought twice about it. Instead, he shrugged. “Later then.”
I watched him go back inside. What I should have done, then, was go back to see Chloe. The thing is, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want the conversation to descend into blame, or worse. Better I just head for the airport, and come to grips with what I was going to do next.
…
As expected, about five minutes after the taxi had left for the airport, Chloe called.
“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. Her tone was not confident, but a little bit hesitant.
“Sorry. Roger came looking for Melissa, and seeing him, well, that just threw me.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you?”
“About?”
“Going to Pasadena. I came here to end it, because it made me realize what was missing between us, and I wanted it back.”
“And if Melissa hadn’t played out her worst fears that would have worked. The world, it seems, works in mysterious ways.
If I thought about it, I might have had suspicions, but I was not the sort of person to let them get the better of me. And had it not been for Melissa, my ignorance would have been bliss.
“What is it telling us, then, Tom?”
“That we need to take a step back. I know that I’m to blame as much as anything else, and although you might find it hard to believe, I don’t hate you, nor am I angry with you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I saw the signs and I didn’t do anything about it. WE’ll talk when you come home.”
I disconnected the call. My voice had broken, and I hadn’t realised just how much it had affected me, suddenly overcome with a great sadness.
…
I didn’t go home.
On the plane back, I realised that where I lived was just a house. It wasn’t mine, Chloe’s success had contributed most towards it, and everything else. If I was to be objective, there really wasn’t anything of me there.
It was easy to walk away.
When Chloe came home and found me missing, she called, three times before I answered. I had thought long and hard about what we had together, and whether or not we could get over what had happened. Perhaps, if she hadn’t lied about where she was, perhaps if it had not been Roger, my best friend, who, by the way, was no longer my best friend, I might have considered we had a chance.
But the trust was broken, and I’d always be wondering. She was successful, she had everything she ever wanted, and she was a grown woman who had to take responsibility for her actions.
She would always be the love of my life; it’s just I couldn’t live with her. We spoke about divorce, but it never seemed to happen. I think she always had the notion that we would eventually get back together.
We parted friends, but never seemed to travel in the same circles. On our twentieth wedding anniversary, she sent me a letter, perhaps thinking it was the only way she could speak to me, I had long since traded my old phone in for a new one, in another country.
I toyed with the idea of reading it, but in the end scrawled on it black capital letters, “Not known at this address, return to sender”. It was time to move on.
We all make mistakes, errors of judgment, stupidly or otherwise.
I’ve made a few, just like in the words of a song that rattled around in my head for a long time after.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but there was one that, in the end, I didn’t.
But I guess it took a while to get to that point.
Sometimes it’s hard to work out why, sometimes because it’s simply time, others, well when you look back you realise that it should have happened for so many reasons, but at the time you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
We were in a bad place.
I’d been spending too much time travelling in a job that I had begun to hate, and I could see our relationship slipping away. It was not that neither of us cared for the other, or even stopped loving each other, it was simply the stresses of everyday life.
And it was not as if Chloe didn’t have a high pressure job, the one she had always wanted, and the one, we agreed, nothing would get in the way if she was given the opportunity.
I was happy with that, and for her. She was as entitled to have her dream job, as I was. I thought, I think we both thought, and believed, that would be the foundation of a good relationship.
And it was, to begin with.
There’s a point where there is a catalyst, that action, or statement, or person, or moment in time that comes along like a wrecking ball, and sets a series of events in motion, and no one really knows where it’s going to land or it’s effect.
That event?
I came home early and saw an old friend of mine, Roger, leaving our house. OK, not so much a big deal, except for the send-off. Still, even then it might not be such a big deal, because I knew Chloe was a very affectionate, touchy feely sort of person.
It used to faze me, way back in the beginning, but she had said, and proved, that I was the love of her life, and that others, well, she made them feel special.
I thought no more about it, of course, and I didn’t even mention it, though at the time, when I did walk in the door, she seemed distracted.
And I would not have thought about it again until Roger’s wife, Melissa, called one morning, though why she would call me was a mystery, to say that she was planning to surprise Roger in Las Vegas.
OK, I was suitably surprised, thinking that she was suggesting that Chloe and I should both go and make a weekend of it. We had done it before, because Melissa was a travel agent, and sometimes got airline and hotel deals that made it affordable.
I remember saying that as far as I was aware Chloe was in Pasadena doe the week on a conference.
No, she said, Chloe was co-incidentally in Las Vegas and Roger had accidentally run into her.
Should alarm bells be going off, I wondered, when that sliver of memory of him leaving popped back into my mind? No, it was just me, running around like a headless chook, failing to read her diary correctly.
I simply said, fine, and told her to make the arrangements.
It was going to be a surprise, because I hadn’t seen Chloe for two or three weeks, time seemed to pass too quickly these days, and it would be good for the both of us to spend some time together, away from home and the stresses of our respective jobs.
…
I met Melissa at the airport. Unlike Chloe, she was travelling light with only a carry on bag. I was used to moving fast and light with a bag that fitted in the overhead locker.
Sher had secured business class which was a treat because in this day and age of economics, that perk had disappeared a while back and was only available to the senior staff.
Onto the fourth glass of champagne, she dropped her bombshell, whether deliberate or otherwise I was never sure.
“It was very nice of Chloe to find Roger a job in her company.”
Did she, I thought. It was the first time I’d heard about it, and my expression must have given me away.
“You didn’t know.”
“Chloe never mentioned it, no. But it is like her.” She had also employed members of her family that, in my opinion, wouldn’t get a job anywhere else.
“Odd, don’t you think? It’s been about a year now. His company went broke, and all the employees were tossed out onto the street with nothing.”
A year was a long time to forget to tell someone. “Has it. Perhaps it just slipped her mind. She doesn’t tell me everything that goes on, nor do I want to know unless she thinks it’s important.”
Except employing my best friend was important, and it surprised me that he hadn’t told me himself. He was never backward in bragging about his achievements. Odd, yes, that he hadn’t told me he’d lost his other job.
…
Melissa had found out the hotel they were staying in, how I had no idea and didn’t ask, and it was simply a matter of telling the front desk clerk their spouses had arrived, and without question he handed over the keys.
They were staying on different floors which to me made sense. I wasn’t expecting they would be staying together, but I had an awful feeling Melissa had.
On the floor I went to the room and knocked on the door.
A minute later the door opened. Chloe, still in her nightgown, and an expression which lasted a fraction of a second before it registered surprise.
“Tom!”
Any other time, I might have thought she was expecting someone else.
Then my phone buzzed, an incoming message and I looked at it.
From Melissa. “Lobby, now.”
I looked up, thought how beautiful she still looked, and said, “Hold that thought. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Then I closed the door and headed for the elevators.
Once inside and going down, my brain finally registered what it had just seen. A woman prime for sex with that lustful look she used to have when we were first married. Yes, she had been expecting someone, only not me.
Yet, in that moment of realization I wasn’t mad at her or angry. She was exactly where she was because of me, and my lack of consideration. I had several opportunities to toss in the job that was clearly causing us issues, and I didn’t. It was inevitable we were going to end up here.
When I stepped out of the elevator, I looked for Melissa, but she was not immediately noticeable. Then, a further scan showed she was outside, and not in a good state. When I reached her, it was evident she had been crying, and she was angry.
“Is it what I think you’re going to say?”
She nodded. “When he opened the door, his first words were, “Chloe you sly fox, back for seconds? And then nearly had a heart attack when he saw me.
“I’m sorry. But did you have an idea this might happen?”
She nodded.
It explained everything, the hints, the sadness, the trip. Obviously, she had known about it for some time.
I gave her a hug, and she melted into my arms, and we stayed that way until I saw Roger coming out of the elevator, looking around.
“Roger’s coming,” I said.
“I don’t want to see him, much less talk to him.”
“Then I’ll head him off. Do you want to go home?”
Again she nodded. “Then get a taxi to the airport and I’ll be along in a short time. I’ll text you when I’m leaving.”
A quick look in Roger’s direction, she headed to the taxi rank, and just as Roger came out the door, her taxi departed, leaving him standing there.
He saw me coming towards him, and to give him credit, he didn’t run. IT would be difficult for him to know exactly how I might react.
“Tom.”
“My best friend, Roger. I might have been able to cope if it was some random guy, but not you.”
“Look…”
If he was going to try and justify himself, or make excuses, I didn’t want to hear it. “Now is not the time. I’m going to take Melissa home, and I suggest you take the time to figure out how you are going to deal with her, because I’m not the problem.”
He was going to reply, but possibly thought twice about it. Instead, he shrugged. “Later then.”
I watched him go back inside. What I should have done, then, was go back to see Chloe. The thing is, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want the conversation to descend into blame, or worse. Better I just head for the airport, and come to grips with what I was going to do next.
…
As expected, about five minutes after the taxi had left for the airport, Chloe called.
“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. Her tone was not confident, but a little bit hesitant.
“Sorry. Roger came looking for Melissa, and seeing him, well, that just threw me.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you?”
“About?”
“Going to Pasadena. I came here to end it, because it made me realize what was missing between us, and I wanted it back.”
“And if Melissa hadn’t played out her worst fears that would have worked. The world, it seems, works in mysterious ways.
If I thought about it, I might have had suspicions, but I was not the sort of person to let them get the better of me. And had it not been for Melissa, my ignorance would have been bliss.
“What is it telling us, then, Tom?”
“That we need to take a step back. I know that I’m to blame as much as anything else, and although you might find it hard to believe, I don’t hate you, nor am I angry with you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I saw the signs and I didn’t do anything about it. WE’ll talk when you come home.”
I disconnected the call. My voice had broken, and I hadn’t realised just how much it had affected me, suddenly overcome with a great sadness.
…
I didn’t go home.
On the plane back, I realised that where I lived was just a house. It wasn’t mine, Chloe’s success had contributed most towards it, and everything else. If I was to be objective, there really wasn’t anything of me there.
It was easy to walk away.
When Chloe came home and found me missing, she called, three times before I answered. I had thought long and hard about what we had together, and whether or not we could get over what had happened. Perhaps, if she hadn’t lied about where she was, perhaps if it had not been Roger, my best friend, who, by the way, was no longer my best friend, I might have considered we had a chance.
But the trust was broken, and I’d always be wondering. She was successful, she had everything she ever wanted, and she was a grown woman who had to take responsibility for her actions.
She would always be the love of my life; it’s just I couldn’t live with her. We spoke about divorce, but it never seemed to happen. I think she always had the notion that we would eventually get back together.
We parted friends, but never seemed to travel in the same circles. On our twentieth wedding anniversary, she sent me a letter, perhaps thinking it was the only way she could speak to me, I had long since traded my old phone in for a new one, in another country.
I toyed with the idea of reading it, but in the end scrawled on it black capital letters, “Not known at this address, return to sender”. It was time to move on.
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!
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.
It could have been anywhere in the world, she thought, but it wasn’t. It was in a city where if anything were to go wrong…
She sighed and came away from the window and looked around the room. It was quite large and expensively furnished. It was one of several she had been visiting in the last three months.
Quite elegant too, as the hotel had its origins dating back to before the revolution in 1917. At least, currently, there would not be a team of KGB agents somewhere in the basement monitoring everything that happened in the room.
There was no such thing as the KGB anymore, though there was an FSB, but such organisations were of no interest to her.
She was here to meet with Vladimir.
She smiled to herself when she thought of him, such an interesting man whose command of English was as good as her command of Russian, though she had not told him of that ability.
All her knew of her was that she was American, worked in the Embassy as a clerk, nothing important, who life both at work and at home was boring. Not that she had blurted that out the first tie she met, or even the second.
That first time, at a function in the Embassy, was a chance meeting, a catching of his eye as he looked around the room, looking, as he had told her later, for someone who might not be as boring as the function itself.
It was a celebration, honouring one of the Embassy officials on his service in Moscow, and the fact he was returning home after 10 years. She had been there one, and still hadn’t met all the staff.
They had talked, Vladimir knew a great deal about England, having been stationed there for a year or two, and had politely asked questions about where she lived, her family, and of course what her role was, all questions she fended off with an air of disinterested interest.
It fascinated him, as she knew it would, a sort of mental sparring as one would do with swords, if this was a fencing match.
They had said they might or might not meet again when the party was over, but she suspected there would be another opportunity. She knew the signs of a man who was interested in her, and Vladimir was interested.
The second time came in the form of an invitation to an art gallery, and a viewing of the works of a prominent Russian artist, an invitation she politely declined. After all, invitations issued to Embassy staff held all sorts of connotations, or so she was told by the Security officer when she told him.
Then, it went quiet for a month. There was a party at the American embassy and along with several other staff members, she was invited. She had not expected to meet Vladimir, but it was a pleasant surprise when she saw him, on the other side of the room, talking to several military men.
A pleasant afternoon ensued.
And it was no surprise that they kept running into each other at the various events on the diplomatic schedule.
By the fifth meeting, they were like old friends. She had broached the subject of being involved in a plutonic relationship with him with the head of security at the embassy. Normally for a member of her rank it would not be allowed, but in this instance it was.
She did not work in any sensitive areas, and, as the security officer had said, she might just happen upon something that might be useful. In that regard, she was to keep her eyes and ears open, and file a report each time she met him.
After that discussion she got the impression her superiors considered Vladimir more than just a casual visitor on the diplomatic circuit. She also formed the impression the he might consider her an ‘asset’, a word that had been used at the meeting with security and the ambassador.
It was where the word ‘spy’ popped into her head and sent a tingle down her spine. She was not a spy, but the thought of it, well, it would be fascinating to see what happened.
A Russian friend. That’s what she would call him.
And over time, that relationship blossomed, until, after a visit to the ballet, late and snowing, he invited her to his apartment not far from the ballet venue. It was like treading on thin ice, but after champagne and an introduction to caviar, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.
Even so, she had made him promise that he remain on his best behaviour. It could have been very easy to fall under the spell of a perfect evening, but he promised, showed her to a separate bedroom, and after a brief kiss, their first, she did not see him until the next morning.
So, it began.
It was an interesting report she filed after that encounter, one where she had expected to be reprimanded.
She wasn’t.
It wasn’t until six weeks had passed when he asked her if she would like to take a trip to the country. It would involve staying in a hotel, that they would have separate rooms. When she reported the invitation, no objection was raised, only a caution; keep her wits about her.
Perhaps, she had thought, they were looking forward to a more extensive report. After all, her reports on the places, and the people, and the conversations she overheard, were no doubt entertaining reading for some.
But this visit was where the nature of the relationship changed, and it was one that she did not immediately report. She had realised at some point before the weekend away, that she had feelings for him, and it was not that he was pushing her in that direction or manipulating her in any way.
It was just one of those moments where, after a grand dinner, a lot of champagne, and delightful company, things happen. Standing at the door to her room, a lingering kiss, not intentional on her part, and it just happened.
And for not one moment did she believe she had been compromised, but for some reason she had not reported that subtle change in the relationship to the powers that be, and so far, no one had any inkling.
She took off her coat and placed it carefully of the back of one of the ornate chairs in the room. She stopped for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the wall, one representing Red Square.
Then, after a minute or two, she went to the mini bar and took out the bottle of champagne that had been left there for them, a treat arranged by Vladimir for each encounter.
There were two champagne flutes set aside on the bar, next to a bowl of fruit. She picked up the apple and thought how Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden, and the temptation.
Later perhaps, after…
She smiled at the thought and put the apple back.
A glance at her watch told her it was time for his arrival. It was if anything, the one trait she didn’t like, and that was his punctuality. A glance at the clock on the room wall was a minute slow.
The doorbell to the room rang, right on the appointed time.
She put the bottle down and walked over to the door.
Jacks’ mother is missing, well, not technically missing, but dumping the package and disappearing seemed a very close equivalent.
Maryanne has finally dropped the pretense and told Jack the truth, she its working with the authorities (but will not tell him who exactly they are) and that she is only interested in the diary, which everyone now assumes was in the package.
Who does it belong to? That will be revealed soon.
Failing her mission, Maryanne tells Jack she’s been taken off the case, and when Jack tells her is going after Jacob, she decided to tag along, perhaps for his protection.
Looking like Jacob, and going to look for him has some irony attached to it, and it would not be unreasonable to assume Jack is about to find himself in some very hot water, from good people and bad alike.
Then, if that isn’t enough on his plate, McCallister, the reputed owner of the diary, and Jacob’s father, and probably likely his, calls. He wants the diary back, or Jack’s mother will be harmed.
The search is now not for Jacob, but his mother.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,186 words, for a total, so far, of 51,629.
The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
It was odd having a voice in your head, well, not really in your head as such, but in your ear, and sounding like it was in your head.
You could truthfully say you were hearing voices.
It was the next step after going through some very intensive training, having someone else as your eyes and ears when breaching a secure compound, and avoiding the enemy.
I’d signed on for this extra training thinking one day it would land me in the thick of the action. Some of the others thought I was mad, but someone had to do it, and the fact it was quite dangerous added just that extra bit to it.
But as they say, what you learn in training, and practise in a non-hostile environment, is nothing like being in that same situation in reality.
Now on was on my first assignment, part of an elite team, packed and taken to what was to everyone else, an unspecified location, but to us, it was the point of incursion.
The mission?
To rescue a government official (that was how he was described to us) who had been illegally detained in a foreign prison.
Our job?
To break him out and get out without the knowledge of the prison staff, or anyone representing that government. Yes, what we were doing was highly illegal, and yes, if we were caught it was more likely than not we would be executed as spies.
…
We were under cover in an abandoned farmhouse about three miles from the prison. We had been brought in under cover of darkness, and had only a few hours to set up, and then wait it out until the following night.
It was now or never, the weather people predicting that there would be sufficient cloud cover to make us invisible. Two of us were going in, and two remaining strategically placed outside to monitor the inside of the prison through a system of infrared scanners. We also had a floor plan of the building in which the prisoner was being held, and intelligence supplied, supposedly, by one of the prison guards who had been paid a lot of money for information on guard movements.
To me, it was a gigantic leap of faith to trust him, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
We had been over the plan a dozen times, and I’d gone through the passageways, rooms, and doors so many times I’d memorised where they were and would be able to traverse the building as if I had worked there for a lifetime. Having people outside, talking me through it was just an added benefit, along with alerts on how near the guards were to our position.
I was sure the other person going with me, a more seasoned professional who had a number of successful missions under his belt, was going through the same motions I was. After all, it was he who had devised and conducted the training.
There was a free period of several hours before departure, time to listen to some music, empty the head of unwanted thoughts, and to get into the right mindset. It was no place to get tangled up in what ifs, if anything went wrong, it was a simple matter of adapting.
Our training had reinforced the necessity to instantly gauge a situation and make changes on the fly. There would literally be no time to think.
I listened to the nuances of Chopin’s piano concertos, pretending to play the piano myself, having translated every note onto a piano key and observing it in my mind’s eye.
My opposite number played games of chess in his head. We all had a different method of relaxing.
Until it was 22:00 hours, and time to go.
…
“Go left, no, hang on, go right.” The voice on my ear sounded confused and it was possible to get lefts and rights mixed up, if you were not careful.
It didn’t faze me, I knew from my study of the plans that once inside the perimeter fence, I had to go right, and head towards a concrete building the roof of which was barely above the ground.
It was once used as a helipad, and underneath, before the site became a prison, the space was used to make munitions. And it was an exceptionally large space that practically ran under the whole of the prison, built above ground.
All that had happened was the lower levels were sealed, covered over and the new structures build on top. Our access was going to be from under the ground.
Quite literally, they would not see, or hear, us coming.
The meteorological people had got it right, there was cloud cover, the moon hidden from view, and the whole perimeter was in inky darkness. Dressed in black from head to foot, the hope was we would be invisible.
There were two of us heading to the same spot, stairs that led down to a door that was once one of the entrances to the underground bunker. We were going separate ways in case one of the other was intercepted in an unforeseen event.
But, that part of the plan worked seamlessly, and we both arrived at the same place nearly at the same time.
Without the planning we might easily have missed it because I didn’t think it would be discernable even in daylight.
I followed the Sergeant downstairs, keeping a watchful eye behind us. I stooped at the point where I could see down, and across the area we had just traversed.
Nothing else was stirring.
As expected, the door was seamless and without an apparent handle. It may have had one once, but not anymore, so anyone who did stumble across it, couldn’t get in.
Except us. We had special explosives that were designed to break the lock, and once set, would not make a lot of noise. Sixty seconds later we were inside, and the door closed so no one would know we’d broken in.
I was carrying a beacon so that the voice in my head could follow my progress. The sergeant had one too, and he led.
“Straight ahead, 200 yards, then another door. It shouldn’t be locked, but it might be closed.”
In other words, we had no way of knowing. Our informant had said no one had been down in the dungeons, as he called them, since the munition factory closed, and had been sealed up soon after the prison building had been handed over for use.
We were using night goggles, and there was a lot of rubbish strewn over the floor area so we had to carefully pick our way through which took time we really didn’t have. It looked as though our informant was right, no one had been down there for a long time. We were leaving boot prints in the dust.
We reached the door ten minutes later than estimated. Losing time would have a flow on effect, and this operation was on a very tight time constraint.
“Once you are through the door, there’s a passage. Turn left and go about 50 paces. There should be another passage to your right.”
“Anyone down here?”
“No, but there is a half dozen prison officers above you. Standard patrol, from guardhouse to guardhouse. Unless they can hear you through five feet of solid concrete, you’re safe.”
My instincts told me five feet of concrete were not enough, but I’ll let it ride for the moment.
The door was slightly ajar and it took the two of us to pull it open so that we could get past. Behind it was the passage, going left and right. Trusting my invisible guide was not getting mixed up again, I motioned right, and we headed down the passage.
Despite the fact we should be alone, both of us were careful not to make any noise, and trod carefully.
At 50 or so paces, the passage came into sight. The sergeant went ahead. I stayed back and kept an eye in both directions. The passage before us was the one that would take us under the cell of the captive we were sent to retrieve.
There would be no blasting our way in. The floor to the cell had a grate, and when removed, a person could drop down into the ‘dungeon’. Currently the grate was immovable, but we had the tools to fix that.
The sergeant would verify the grate was where it was supposed to be, then come back to get me.
Five minutes passed, then ten. It was not that far away.
I was about to go search when the voice in my head returned, but with panic. “We’ve been compromised. Get the hell out of there, now. Quickly…”
Then I heard what sounded like gunshots, then nothing.
A minute later there was a new voice. “I don’t know who you are, but I’d strongly advise you give yourself up to the guards. Failure to do so within one hour, I’ll execute the two men I now have in custody.”
Ahead of me there was a sudden explosion, followed by a cloud of dust and fine debris.
Hand grenade, or mine, it didn’t matter. The sergeant wouldn’t be coming back.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 