Tag: Thrillers

In a word: Park

We mostly understand that a park is an area set aside for recreation, and can have trees, flowers, a lake, and vast lawns.  These parks are also sometimes called ‘gardens’.

A great example of a park is Central Park in New York.

Nearly every city has a park or some sort, some have more than one.

But the word park has a number of other uses.  For instance,

You can park a car, or bike, or yourself; in other words, it’s a place where you stop for a while.  For cars, it is a carpark.

You could say ‘it’s just a walk in the park’, which means that the job is going to be easy.  I never understood that analogy because quite a lot of parks have walks that are difficult, and not so much ‘a walk in the park’.

It is also used to describe a place where animals are kept, other than calling it a zoo, it can go by the name of a wildlife park.  Zoos though are more for cities.  Wildlife parks can be quite huge and many are found in Africa.

A park can also be used to describe a sporting arena or field.

You can park a bag in a locker.

You can park an idea in the back of your mind and come back to it later, or if you are like me, it disappears into the ether.

It can be an area of land around a manor house, but there are very few of those left now.  The most notable of these are in England, and were designed by a man called Capability Brown.

 

It all started in Venice – Episode 20

More Plans

…

Rodby’s generosity did not extend to the Citation taking me back to Venice, but he did fund a business class seat on a commercial flight the next morning.

I was in no hurry to go back, the overnight sojourn giving me time to make a plan of sorts.  A few hours after I left the police I received a message from Alfie, with an attached sound file.

A recording of a phone call between Jaime and Larry.

“Your enemy just arranged for me to be dragged off to a police station and interrogated.”

An interesting start to a conversation.

“Which enemy?”

Good to know he had more than one.

“You know who.  He was supposed to be in Venice not London, and he’s not supposed to be working with anyone, yet it seems he is.”

“On what pretext did they take you in?”

“That C4 you left in your crates in my warehouse.  They think it’s mine “

“Did you tell them about me?”

“Didn’t have to, you left your name all over the crates.  They’ll be looking for you.”

“Let them look.  What did he have to say?”

“Annoyed that you’re going after him.”

“How does he know that?”

“How does he know anything, Larry.  He does.  He says his ex-boss is the one who wants you, not him, and that story you told me about him killing your brother, it’s not true.”

“He’s lied to you, just like I said he would.”

“Then that means your mother is lying too, because I called her, and she had a different version of events.  I can’t trust you, and you are now very hot property and I can’t afford to be involved with you.  The police have taken the crates away, so as far as I’m concerned it’s the last I want to see of them, and you.  Don’t try to contact me again.”

The phone went dead.

Good.  She did the right thing, though it was as expected.  She could also quite easily contact him another way, but for the time being, I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.

Next, I called Larry’s mother.

Same background noise, it seemed she didn’t want to go home.  Larry must be ingratiating himself.

“I spoke to Jaime, the woman Larry is purported to be romancing.  He is not, or not as far as I can tell.”

“She has since then.”

“She does now.  What would Larry want with C4?”

“What’s C4?”

“Explosive.”

“Vaults. His father used to specialize in blowing safes and tried to teach the son but Larry nearly blew the both of them to the afterlife.”

“It’d have to be a very big safe.”

“You could always ask him yourself.  He’s going to be around for dinner tomorrow night.  Just be wary of the bodyguards.  There’s three of them.”

“Things might get a little rough, do you really want that in your house?”

“Someone needs to teach the bastard a lesson.  By the way, a good call from that Jaime woman, asking me about your role with my sons.  She seemed surprised.”

“I wasn’t very nice to her.”

“She’s a criminal,  not a thoroughly bad one like Larry, but one nonetheless.  You don’t have to be nice to them.  Let’s hope she doesn’t have to worry about her sons like I had to.”

That was the problem with that sort of family business.  The children really have nowhere to go but join or disappear.  Then it became a battle for survival, especially if you had a parent running the organization.  Then there were always expectations, and then that first kill.

Larry’s brother had never wanted that life, he wanted to live on his terms, but neither the father nor the eldest son and successor saw it that way.

“I thought I could escape all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff, but Larry seems to have put that on hold.  Perhaps if we have a little chat he might change his mind.”

“I think it would be better than what you had in mind.  He increased their guards too when he was not here, and it’s unsettling for her, and especially me.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It couldn’t be easy for her with a son like him, especially bow the police were looking for him.  He was not going to get back into the country because his name will be on an alert list, so it would be interesting to see how he got back home.

He had the means, simply because he had turned up in Sorrento using none of the known methods of transportation.  And he didn’t own a private jet, or at least, one that I knew of.  Something else to investigate.

I called Alfie.

“Got the message.  Interesting call.”

“Do you believe her?”

“Not really.  But we’ll know soon enough.  Um having dinner at his mother’s tomorrow night and he will be there.”

“Then play c is off the table for the moment?”

Plan c was taking his effect and child to use as leverage.  It might still be needed, depending on the upcoming meeting.

“Backburner.  Where’s Cecilia?”

“I moved her to your place.  Seemed the best option.”

“She will need a sniper rifle, and get herself to Sorrento tomorrow morning.  Give the address.  She’ll need a site that gives a good view of the dining room.  And needless to say, no advertising her presence.”

“Have you got a plan?”

“Not really.  He’s not going to do a lot with his wife and daughter there, but, again, it’s Larry and he is unpredictable.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing “

“Never.  Now, it seems the C4 was to crack a safe or create a diversion.  You need to get the team onto finding out what he’s planning.  You might want to go through ex-partners and associates in case he’s on a revenge kick.”

“Rodby said he wouldn’t be unhappy if you just shot him.”

“We’re not allowed to.”

“There are ways and means.”

“Then we’re no better than they are.  We’ve had this conversation a few times.”

“We’re not winning the war, and people are getting restless.  There’s talk Rodby will be replaced by a more aggressive department head.”

That was all the department needed, someone to hasten its demise.  It was already vastly limited in what it could do, and in recent years reduced to little more than intelligence gathering and a few side missions. After I left, it had lost its sting in the tail.  I thought Rodby was marking time for his retirement.

Now it seemed that might come earlier than expected.  Was this why he was pushing the Larry project, one last hurrah?

“It won’t happen, they can’t possibly get rid of institutions like him.”

“I hope you’re right.”

© Charles Heath 2022

It all started in Venice – Episode 19

An interview with Jaime Meyers

…

I went in and closed the door, leaning against it.  She glared at me, for a moment not recognising who it was, then the expression changed.

And it gave me a tell.

“You’re supposed to be in Venice,” she said, with a hint of amusement in her tone.

“You’re not supposed to be in here, and yet here you are.”

“It’s all part of a witch hunt.  We’ve been down this road before, and like the last time, and the time before that, they’ve got nothing on me.  They know it and you should know it too, but if you’re retired, why are you here?”

“Your new best friend forever, Larry.  You know he wants me dead.”

“He says you killed his brother, but he’s never said anything about killing you, just getting justice for his brother.  Through the legal system.”

“Of course he would say that.  I assure you I had nothing to do with his brother’s death but that’s another story.”  I crossed to the chair and sat down taking a moment to look at her.

Drugs, alcohol and stress had taken the shine off what had once been a stunningly beautiful young woman.  The loss of her father and betrayal of her husband had taken their toll.

“If that’s the case perhaps you should tell me what happened so I can make up my own mind.  After all, there are always two sides to a story.”

I shook my head.  “That would be a pointless exercise.  Let’s talk about you instead, and the reason why you’re sitting in that chair.  Larry.  Until you took up with him, we had no idea who you were or what you were doing and had no reason to find out.  Larry, on the other hand, well, he’s shoulder deep in a shit pile of criminal activity, and my old boss, when I used to work for him, is very interested in everyone who even looks sideways at him.  So, bottom line, you’re only here because of him, and because of him I know everything there is to know about.”

“So you say, but there’s nothing to know.  Never was, and Larry is just a friend who’s going through a rough patch.”

“If you mean losing out on a fifty-million pound inheritance because he killed his brother is a rough patch, then your right.”

“I don’t know anything about that.  All I know is his wife is being difficult.”

“That’s the same line all married men use.”

Her expression sharpened conveying annoyance.  “It’s not that sort of relationship.” 

“Not what his wife is telling his mother back in Sorrento.  And that’s saying something considering how much Brenda hates his mother.”

A change in expression.  Another tell, a nerve hit.

“How do I know this?”  I asked the question for her.  “Simple, and perhaps I will give you a side of the story.  His mother crossed paths with one of my investigations back when I worked in intelligence as an analyst and I got to know her quite well.  As a favourable, knowing I was in a position to help, she asked me to watch over his brother, her youngest son.”

I could see the question before she could ask it.

“Before you tell me I didn’t do a very good job, I was at the handoff Larry sent him to that went bad, one he was told would be a simple briefcase exchange, and ended up having to defend him in what became an impossible situation.”

“What was in the briefcases?”

An odd question but I could see from the furrowed brow that she had seized on a significant detail.

“I don’t know and didn’t ask.  In my position, it was better not to know, but you can guess.  I’m sure you are aware of Larry’s interests.”

She didn’t say, but she knew.  My guess had been drugs on one side and money on the other.  It was anything but a simple job and my reasoning was Larry tried to keep it low-key using a lesser-known courier without backup, and someone found out.  With drugs and cask on that scale, it was too much of a temptation to pass up.

“Anyway, he was shot, not fatally, I patched him up, he called Larry and I stayed with him until Larry arrived, but left before Larry saw me, for obvious reasons.  If you talk to his mother she will verify everything I said.  She was still talking to him after I left and up to the point where he could see Larry coming.  After that. He was DOA at the hospital.  You can draw your own conclusions but 50 million is a great incentive to use a particular situation to get rid of a problem.”

“An interesting story, as you say, but I’m not likely to be asking anyone anything because I’m just not interested, in you or him.”

“As I said before, a pointless exercise.  But, interested or not, you will be helping us with our problem with Larry and his explosives.”

“‘I know nothing about that.”

“Well, let’s talk about something you do know about.  Emily Broadhurst, or to Wendy, Aunt May.”

The look on that fraction a second was both malevolent and fearful.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shrugged.  “I thought you might say that.”  I took out my cell phone and dialled one of the two numbers displayed.  “Let’s bring them in and have a chat, see what they have to say.”  A voice answered on the other end.  “George.  Bring them in.”

“Stop.”  She glared at her lawyer.  “Give us the room.”

“I strongly suggest…”

“Give me the room.  Your objection is noted.”

Her lawyer reluctantly got up and left the room.  She glared at the policewoman standing by the door.

“Pretend she’s not here,” I said.  “She has to be here for your safety and is the very soul of discretion.”  I looked up at the camera.  “This is not to be recorded or observed, so camera off.”  I waited until the red light below the camera went off.

I could see she was about to say something, more than likely regrettable, but understandable.

“Let me say this before you say something you will regret.  You’ve been lying to me.  I don’t ask questions I don’t have answers to.  Because you started working with Larry, we went the extra mile on your life and operations.  You were there when the crates were delivered, as was Larry himself and he told you what was in there.  So, where there’s one lie, what is there you can say that cannot be taken with a grain of salt.”

“Be that as it may…”

“No.  You are the head of a criminal organisation.  It might be dressed up very cleverly to look like something else, but we have a very clear view of what goes on.  To be honest, we don’t care.  You’re not the focus of my ex-bosses obsession.  And, believe me when I tell you, I don’t like being Larry’s target.”

“Then make him disappear.”

“Unfortunately, despite what you and others might think, we did not unilaterally kill people for no reason, and, even if I still worked for that organisation, I wasn’t able to make people disappear.  The paperwork would be horrendous, along with endless external, internal and government reviews.”

“Then what do you want me to do?  I’m not an informer, nor will I become an informant.”  Spoken by a person who still thought they had a choice.

“You’re going to do what you negotiate with the police, who, despite your endless denials, are aware of the truth.  So, first things first, you are going to ignore Larry, and not proceed with any of the arrangements you may have agreed with him..  You can do that with plausible deniability, telling him leaving C4 in your warehouse was not an act of good faith since the police now want your hide for it.  Once again I will reiterate, I’m not interested in you, and nor is my ex-boss, so you are in a unique position to use whatever knowledge you have as leverage for your freedom.”

“And the matter you brought up?”

“Will never see the light of day, or be mentioned by anyone ever again.  Unless you break our agreement.  I used to have the best investigative team on the planet, and they can find anyone or anything, so if you’re thinking of running, don’t.  My ex-boss will have no hesitation in destroying you and your organisation.”

“And yet you say you work for no one.”

“Haven’t for years.  I retired and hope to stay that way, but my wife died, and Larry decided to come after me.  At the moment I don’t have much to live for, so if you want to get in my bad books, believe me you’ll not live to regret it.  When I walk out of this room, don’t get in my sights.”

“And why should I take you at your word?”

“I swear it on my wife’s grave.  Good enough?”

It seemed it was.

© Charles Heath 2022

Searching for locations: Queenstown Gardens, Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown Gardens are not far from the center of Queenstown.  They are just down the hill from where we usually stay at Queenstown Mews.

More often than not we approach the Gardens from the lakeside during our morning walk from the apartment to the coffee shop.  You can walk alongside the lake, or walk through the Gardens, which, whether in summer or winter, is a very picturesque walk.

There’s a bowling club, and I’m afraid I will never be that sort of person to take it up (not enough patience) and an Ice Arena, where, in winter I have heard players practicing ice hockey.

I’m sure, at times, ice skating can also be done.

There is a stone bridge to walk across, and in Autumn/Winter the trees can add a splash of color.

There is a large water feature with fountain, and plenty of seating around the edge of the lake, to sit and absorb the tranquility, or to have a picnic.

There are ducks in the pond

and out of the pond

and plenty of grassed areas with flower beds which are more colorful in summer.  I have also seen the lawns covered in snow, and the fir trees that line the lake side of the gardens hang heavy with icicles.

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 39

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

 

“Are there?  How many should I have?”

The only way he could know there was not a full complement as if he had been told by someone how many people were in our group from the outset.  I looked at Jacobi, and he shrugged.

“This is not a good time to be playing games, Sergeant James.”

The guards gripped their weapons a little tighter and looked ready to use them.

“The only one playing games here would be you.  It would be irrelevant if I had more or I had fewer people here because you have more than enough to cover us, and then some.  But you would agree it would be imprudent for me to put all my eggs in one basket as it were, and yes, there are several others, but they are waiting for me to call them, further down the track.  Not to put too fine a point on it, distrust works both ways.  We don’t come back, I can assure you, your losses will be bigger than ours.  Oh, and a word of advice, don’t go looking for them, not unless you want good men to die needlessly.”

Tough talk, and could get us killed, but I was hoping that until he had the diamonds in his hands, he would humor me.  A minute or so passed where I assumed he was making a calculation on what the odds were, then he shrugged.  There was merit in what I’d told him.  Monroe and Shurl had plenty of ammunition and would have a foxhole that wouldn’t be over-run or penetrated.

“I think you might be right, so let’s not get bogged down in an argument that’s going nowhere.  We have what you want, and you have what we want.  Let’s go inside and talk.”

Was that a sigh of relief moment?  Perhaps.  But it was clear he needed us out of the way before his men could search the cars.  I was happy to let him think he had the upper hand.

“Lead the way.”

We all filed into the building and sat down around a large table.  There were bottles of water out, and we might have drunk from them but I could see the seal had been broken on min so it looked like we would be going thirsty.

The commander drank from his, no doubt as a gesture that the water was safe.  None of my people were buying it.

“I’ll kick it off,” I said.  “Are our people in good health?”

“Of course.  Healthy enough to walk out of here of their own accord.  Did you bring the compensation with you?”

“I did.”

“Can I see it?”

“Can I see our people.”

Friendly, and time-consuming double talk.  I could see he was waiting impatiently.  “All in good time.  “Did you have any trouble getting here?” he asked casually.  “I heard there were some local militias on the road collecting road taxes earlier today.”

“If there was, we didn’t see any.  Smooth run, except for the state of the roads.  I hope the road taxes those people are collecting are to fix the roads.”

He smiled.  “It is what it is.  This is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not the United States of America.  Things are done differently here.  We put the people first, and the roads second.”

There was a discreet knock on the door, followed by a cowering man coming into the room and walking up behind the commander.  He took a few seconds to whisper into his ear, during which the commander’s expression turned very dark.

I had to assume that they had found all the weapons we had left for them to find, and not done a very close inspection to find those we did not want them to find.  It was a bold assumption and could make a difference once we left, and if we were attacked.  I was sure that was part of the message the man had relayed to his commander.

The man almost ran out of the building, slamming the door behind him.

The commander looked at me.  “Where are the diamonds?”

That was as direct as he could get.

“At this point, that’s for me to know until I’m assured you intend to honor your part of the agreement.  Searching our cars for the diamonds tells me you are not a man to be trusted, and, you should have realized in making that discovery, you’re not dealing with fools.”

The dark expression eased, and he tried to look like the man who held all the cards.  He probably did, but it would be interesting to see to what extent he would press his advantage.  We had nothing to lose, though it didn’t send a very good message to the team that I was willing to sacrifice them.  This was after all supposed to be a suicide mission.

“What’s to stop me from just shooting your people one by one until you tell me.”

“The same reason I told you at the gate.  You will lose a lot more than I will.  Something you might not be aware of is that the people who sent me have control over satellites.  You might not be familiar with satellite technology, but be assured that we are being observed, and have been on this little odyssey.  It also means that they, sitting in a bunker somewhere in the world, also have access to nasty drones, you know, the sort that leaves craters where villages and settlements once were.  This place would not withstand a direct hit, and there would be no one left alive after it.  Killing any or all of us will incur wrath you really don’t want to deal with.  Put simply, if I don’t drive out of here with my people within half an hour this whole area will become an uninhabitable crater.”

Bamfield had said as one option, not that he could order such a strike, was to threaten them with a drone strike.  I hadn’t done that in as many words, but the commander looked as though he got the inference.

“You could do that anyway.”

“I could, but that’s not the way I work.  For some odd reason. The people I work for seem to think you might be useful to them in the future, and Jacobi here will be happy to stay and talk about it.  Now, the clock is ticking.”

He took a moment, then stood.  “Let’s go meet your people then.”

 

Ⓒ Charles Heath  2020

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 37

Here’s the thing…

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

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

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

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

 

I took a moment longer to study the differences in the maps, trying to see what our edge was.

“So, according to this map, Alex would be looking for a stretch of shore with two rivers going inland, which you say are no longer there.”

“I do because they’re not.  Well, they’re not visible these days from the seaward side, and not really visible from shore either because I think one of the two might have started where the mini marina is.”

The mini marina wasn’t as marina as such, rather an area of seawater surrounded by a promenade with a bridge over the entrance from the ocean, and a lot of expensive Italian tiles.  It was part of the redevelopment of the old marina when the shopping mall had been built.

“Wasn’t that the old marina, which was part of the old navy yard for PT boats?”

Everyone knew the potted history of the town and the navy yard that put it briefly on the map.  There had been an inlet where a marina was built in the early days.  Then with war looming, the navy was looking for a place to build PT boats, carry out repairs to medium-sized warships, and train PT crews.

“One and the same.  There’s very little in the archives about what happened back then, but I did manage to find a document, mentioned in my father’s notebook, about the navy set up a base.  Attached to it was a geological report that stated two facts, the first, they would be building over a watercourse which at the time was believed to be underground, and secondly, deep foundations would be required.  In the event all of it was ignored, they built the port and it was operational up until the end of the war.”

After which as everyone knew they shut the facility down, put up fences and signs with the words hazardous and dangerous, and trespassers would be shot, and it sat there like a festering eyesore until a plan was mooted to turn the site into a mall.

It was a favorite place for us children to go and play, having the fearless mentality that every child was born with.  Yes, there were hazards on the grounds, in for form of rusting metal and hundreds of barrels holding what must have been hazardous material, but best of all, there were two nearly intact boats moored there, and I remembered being captain at least once on a vessel that had taken on everything the enemy had.

“And then they built a mall.”

He nodded.  “My father always said that it was doomed to failure. There’s a section in his notebook about an earlier plan to rebuild the marina with facilities to repair those new larger ocean-going yachts that proliferate in Bermuda and places like that, only he couldn’t find anyone to back the project.  The Benderby’s at the time didn’t like the idea, and since they basically owned the town nothing was going to happen without their approval.”

The mall, however, was something the Benderby’s could get their hooks into, in the building of it, then a slice of every business that moved in.  It would also be good for employment, and people employed mean customers for their other criminal activities.  Deals were made with the Cossatino’s and everyone was happy.  For a few years anyway.

That’s when a newspaper expose on the mall was published.

Exposes were never plucked out of thin air and presented, there had to be a catalyst.  There had been allegations of corruption regarding all aspects of the mall, from planning through the opening day, and especially in the building.  Allegations of payoffs to get approvals, substandard materials used, and the worst allegation, that the builder had not properly cleaned up the site before building commenced.

All of this came to a head when, not long after the tenth anniversary of opening, large cracks started to appear in the floors and walls, so bad that nearly half the mall, that part that had been built over the old navy base, had to be closed, and now was in danger of collapse.

The mini marina, the focal point for the mall, had also been closed because the pool had become polluted from the old navy base waste that had been improperly disposed of in the foundations rather than being properly removed and stored in a special dump.  But there had also been other problems like excess water continuously flooding the lower level carparks, and flowing into the sea pool making it unusable, and at times, very smelly.

Boggs’s father had discovered at the same time as his research for the treasure maps, that the water came from the underground river that had been mentioned in the geological report made before the naval base had been built.  Just because it hadn’t been there at the time, didn’t mean it wasn’t there at all.  It just depended on rainfall back up in the hills, and the year the problems started for the mall coincided with the wettest period for the area in more than 50 years.

His father’s notebook was a goldmine of information, Boggs said.

“It appears there was a lake right where the map says it was, about a hundred years ago.  Since then an earthquake caused a fault line that drained the lake and makes a river instead.  That river ran from the hills to the sea.  Until someone decided to build on the old lake, raised the level and piped the river underground, and drawing from it for the towns and sounding areas water supply.  That in effect reduced the water flow from the lake to the sea to a trickle, or rather a stream.

“But every now and then when it rains heavily and for a long period, the stream becomes a river, and it backs up until with nowhere else to go, it floods the mall carparks.  The lowest level carpark is actually the lowest depth of the river, and it comes out at the sea where the pool now is.  Unfortunately, with the old naval waste rotting in those old rusting barrels, it collects that waste and not only stinks up the mall but also the pool area which is why it’s now closed.

“And the bad news is, it can’t be fixed.  But that’s got nothing to do with our quest.  It’s just an aside to our quest, proving that three of the landmarks on the treasure map actually existed once, and in some form still do.  The thing is, neither the Benderby’s or the Cossatino’s will realize that which means we have a clear run at getting past the first hurdle and with any luck we will be able to identify the river from the hills which is the starting point.”

A simple job, no doubt in Boggs’s mind.  He never had any trouble coming up with hair-brained schemes, only the logistics to carry them out.  This one required proper transport because there was no way we’re going to be able to cycle there and back in a morning, the only time I had free for exploring.

“How do you propose we do this?”

“Rico’s car.  It’s sitting in the marina carpark.  The keys for it are on his boat.”

“Do you know how to drive?”

“I’ve had a few lessons.  How hard could it be?”

Ⓒ Charles Heath 2020

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 36

Here’s the thing…

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

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

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

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

 

“How long have you been working on this?”

“A week. Lying in bed is boring, so I decided to look at everything I’ve got again, and then again. There were some old maps of the coastline stored with the treasure maps, so I think my father was trying to find the actual location his treasure maps were based on and came up against the same problem. Physical landmarks on the treasure maps are no longer there, and if you didn’t know any better, I would think you were looking in the wrong place.”

“So, in actual fact, what you’re saying now is that your father had no idea where the treasure was buried, that he was just producing maps for the Cossatino’s’ to sell.”

That, of course, could be looked at from a different angle, one that I wasn’t going to suggest right then because Boggs was not ready to hear it. I think the real maps Boggs had found with eh treasure maps were the basis for the treasure maps, that is, his father had to give them real-life elements to keep the punters interested.

“No, not necessarily. I think he knew it was somewhere along this coastline give or take a hundred miles, because of its proximity to the Spanish Maine, but essentially you’re right. He probably had no idea.”

So, he hadn’t come to the same conclusion I had. Yet.

And if I could come to that conclusion, surely Cossatino also would, after all, he was the one who got Boggs senior to make the maps. Why all of a sudden did he think that there was a real treasure map. It couldn’t be simply because Boggs had said there was one. He’d have to know that anything Boggs junior found was an invention commissioned by him,

Or hadn’t Vince told his father what he was doing? Surely the father would have told the son about the treasure map scam.

As for Benderby, senior could base his assumption of the fact that he’d found some old coins off the coast nearby that could be part of the trove. Alex then may have decided to usurp his father’s search with one of his own, conveniently forgetting the treasure maps were an invention of the Cossatino’s. IT was a tangled web of lies deceit and one-upmanship, one that was going to leave a trail of human wreckage in its wake.

Boggs and I were two of the first three. We had lived to tell about it, Frobisher was the first casualty.

But what I suppose was more despairing was how taken Boggs was with the notion that the treasure was real, hidden out there somewhere, and that his father had ‘the’ map. I was loath to label him delusional, but his pathological desire to prove his father’s so-called legacy was going to not end well, especially when we found nothing.

And, yet, I had to admire the lengths he had gone to, to prove his case. Even now, looking at the overlaid maps, there was no guarantee we’d find anything, but at first look, the evidence was compelling.

Except I had a feeling Boggs had something up his sleeve. I had to ask the question. “Where did you get the idea of matching the treasure map to the real map?”

“My father’s journal. It was tossed in the bottom of a box of his other stuff. There are about ten boxes stacked in the shed, stuff my mother just couldn’t be bothered sorting through after he disappeared. Again, boredom pushed me into going through everything over and over just in case I missed something.”

He reached in under the mattress of his bed and pulled out an old leather-bound notebook. It had a strap that bound it together, and by the look of it had extra papers inserted or glued to pages, as well as papers at the start and back of the volume, making it look about twice the original size.

He handed it to me. The leather was old, cracked, and had that distinctive aroma of the hide. I loosened the strap and the top cover opened. The first page was a newspaper cutting, a small piece about some old coins being found about a hundred yards offshore by some surfers. Were these the same coins that Benderby had claimed were part to the trove?

“Benderby was getting that antiquarian that was murdered to identify some coins,” I said after a quick glance through the article.

“I spoke to one of the surfers the other day,” Boggs said. “He told me he came off his board on a big wave and as he was going down saw something glinting on the seabed. He managed to pull up three coins. There were more but he had to come up for air. When he went down again, he realized he’d been dragged away by the current.”

Tides and currents along this part of the coast were particularly bad, and the undertow, at times could get surfers and swimmers alike into a lot of trouble. I’d been caught out once in a dinghy myself, finishing up ten miles further down the coast that I expected to be.

“Then, I take it he can’t remember the exact spot so he could go back.”

“He tried, but alas no. Said he sold the coins to old man Benderby for a hundred apiece and told him approximately where he thought the others were, but nothing’s been found since.”

Not that Benderby would tell anyone if he did. But it explained where the coins came from that he gave to Frobisher.

“Except we can assume that it’s off our coastline somewhere, right?”

“Five miles of coastline to be precise. He and his mate always had a few reefers before they went out, made the ride more interesting he said. He could have been off the coast of Peru for all he knew.”

Surfers, drugs and a colorful story.

“It explains why Benderby and a team of divers have been out in his new boat,” Boggs added, “probably trying to either find the location or line up landmarks on his map from the seaward side at the same time. But he doesn’t know what we know.”

What did we know? I leafed through a few more pages of the diary, but the scrawled notes were almost illegible. I picked up various words, like a marina, underground river, dry lakebed, but none of it made any sense.

“Which map did we give to Alex?”

Boggs went over to a drawer in the wardrobe and leafed through the papers in it and pulled out one and gave it to me. Like the rest it showed the shore, the hills, the lake, and two what looked to be rivers flowing into the sea. Each of the maps had those same features but in different places.

I didn’t want to say it, but it seemed to me we were playing a very dangerous game. The maps might look different in some respects, but the chances were, if Alex was smart enough to hire an expert, that we might run across him out there, and, to be honest, he would be the last person I’d want to see.

“You do realize our paths are going to cross at some point.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

A shiver went down my spine, an omen I thought. Boggs has something up his sleeve, and I really didn’t want to know.

Not right then.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 35

Here’s the thing…

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

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

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

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

 

It was an understatement to say I was dreading going to Boggs’ place.

In fact, in the hour it took to get through the morning chores I had time to consider how and why I was in this position.  Boggs was a friend.  We were friends at school and as best we could we had each other’s back when the bullies came out to play.

At times that didn’t amount to much because as everyone knows, bullies hunt in packs.  Six against two wasn’t much of an equation.  And it those days, the teachers spent more time hiding from the students than being in front of them.

It was simply a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

It didn’t feel like that, not for a very long time.

But, in the end, misfortune can make strange bedfellows, and in a town that depended on a single industry, it soon became apparent that there were more people against the Benderby’s and the Cossatino’s than for, and in small-town politics, that was more than an evening up.  Out of school and separated from their acolytes, both Alex and Vince found that whatever influence they had once, was now gone, and all that was left was a grunt, and we were basically left alone.

Boggs was the dreamer.

He had idolized his father and when he went missing it broke him.

This map thing was the first signs of Boggs finally coming back to life, but the problem was, it was all pinned on false hopes.  The Sherriff was right.  Boggs was in over his head, playing with the two most vicious families from around here, and it was bad enough that his father had fallen foul of them, the Sherriff was not about to see his son go the same way.  I was going to try and talk Boggs out of it.

Yet, on the other hand, it was people like us who needed a win, just to show there was still hope in this place.  With threats every day that the factory might have to close, there were dark clouds hanging over everyone’s head.

If the factory closed, there was going to be a very large hole in the local economy and a lot of people in financial trouble.  I’m not sure how finding the treasure might solve all of that, but I suspect Boggs’ had something up his sleeve.

I knocked on the door and his mother answered.  She looked harried.  She was a nurse and looked as though she just got home from the night shift at the hospital.  

“Boggs is in his room.”

“How are you this morning?”

“Tired.  And an afternoon shift, which I might not get to if I don’t get some sleep.  You know where he is.  Try not to make any noise.”

“Will do.”

I came in and closed the door, watching her dash off down the passage to the other end of the house.

She could not work endless double shifts for much longer, but like all of us, it was not out of desire but necessity.  She had implored Boggs to get a job and help, but he seemed oblivious to the problem.  I’d tried to speak to him, but he had that insufferable way of just not listening.

Boggs was in his room, sitting on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

I looed up too, but there was nothing there.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “but you’ve suddenly discovered you’ve got X-Ray vision.”

“If only.  I could use it right now to find something that’s missing>”

“Your cell phone?”  Boggs was always misplacing something, of forgetting it.  I’d lost count how many times he’d misplaced his phone.

“No.  An underground river.”

OK.  That was out of left field.  I had no idea any rivers were missing, or, in fact, they could actually go missing.

Apparently, they could.

“There’s two,” he said.  300 years ago five or take this part of the coastline had several rivers that ran down from the mountain range.  What we now call the hills on the edge of the coastal plain.  There was also a lake, not very large, but it used to have several streams flow into it all year round and had an aqua flow that came out along the coastline.”

“And you figured all of this out from what?  A copy of the treasure map.”

The moment he started quoting rivers, streams, and lakes, I remembered each of those geographical features appeared on several of the map versions.  I had suggested, rather comically, that it would be funny if the treasure was buried in the lake.

It wasn’t all that funny.  It was also possible.

“Imagine this.  Drop anchor out to sea, in other words on the other side of the natural sandbar that formed at the seaward side of the river, get in the longboats and row inshore to the lake, across the lake, up another river to the base of the hills.  Then do a little exploring, north or south, and find a cave.  I reckon the treasure was buried in a cave.  We know there are caves up there, not many, but I think there used to be more.”

“Someone already did a survey with some rather fancy electronic equipment with the same idea in mind.  He found three, not very long, and certainly without treasure.  Two had substantial falls inside, which is why they were buried.”

“There’s more.”

He jumped up off the bed and went over to the robe and opened the door.  Tacked on the back was a copy of an ordnance survey map of this part of the coastline, and a tracing of the treasure map, to the same scale on top.

“As you can see, I think ‘I’ve found the correlation between the real, and what was real 300 years ago.”

Except there’s no rivers and no lake.  And no sand bar as I recall.  There was a small marina in what might have been where the river met the sea, but that’s gone.  They filled it in and build a shopping mall on it.  A huge, now half empty, shopping mall.  A modern wonder 40 years ago that was supposed to bring business and shoppers to the town.  For a few years it did, until another town 50 miles away got the same idea, sold the land for half the price, and made the rents a quarter of what they were here.

They called it progress.

We called it piracy.

“Then we can hardly row our boat inshore and up the stream, if it’s not there.”

I hated to state the obvious.

“But,” he said, looking like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.  “What if it is still there, but we just can’t see it?”

© Charles Heath 2020

Searching for locations: Gollums Pool, New Zealand

Tawhai Falls is a 13-meter high waterfall located in Tongariro National Park.

It is located about 4 km from the Tongariro National Park Visitor Centre, on State Highway 48.

An easy walk takes just 10-15 minutes to reach the waterfall’s lookout.

2013-03-13 14.47.53

The top of the falls.  There was not much water coming down the river to feed the falls when we were there in May

2013-03-13 14.48.18

Tawhai Falls is also the filming location of Gollum’s pool where Faramir and his archers are watching Gollum fish.

2013-03-13 14.51.45

It’s a rocky walk once you are down at ground level, and it may be not possible to walk along the side of the stream if the falls have more water coming down the river from the mountain.

2013-03-13 14.51.37

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 34

Here’s the thing…

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

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

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

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

 

When I woke the next morning, it was to the sound of voices in the front of the house.  One of the voices was my mothers.  The other I had trouble placing, and I initially thought it was Benderby, calling in on the way to work.

When I threw on some clothes and came out, still a little bleary-eyed, I found it was the Sherriff.  It seemed, all of a sudden, my mother had become the most popular girl in town.

The thing is, I knew little of the history of what went on in my mother’s time in a city where she had been born, raised, and remained.  Married and divorced her high school sweetheart, there was talk of her being one of the popular girls at school, coincidentally the same school I went to, and there was evidence everywhere of her there.

I had not lived up to the family name.

Not that she expected me too, nor did she acknowledge those wild and hazy days where she had not been weighed down by a useless drunken husband, and struggle to pay the bills, hold onto the house, and both work and be a mother.  Life had not gone the way she had expected.

But curiously those times were also those of Sherriff Johnson, in the same grade, along with Benderby, a few years ahead, and both Boggs’ mother and father who were contemporaries along with others including Nadia and Vince’s mother.  They had been friends once until she married Cossatino and she ‘changed’.

Now they were an ocean apart on the social or any scale.

“Ah, Sam.  How are you now?”

“Better.  I’ll be more careful next time.  Got any leads on who it was?”

“Ghosts.  We have a few.  Some of them are Cossatino’s, the others Benderby.  Pity no one is willing to name names.”

“I didn’t see them, Sherriff.  They wore masks.”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything more about the Frobisher case?”

“You seem very interested in police matters Sam.”

“He was an antique dealer, according to the papers, and there’s a lot of talk going around about the infamous treasure maps and you can’t help but put two and two together.  Especially when Rico is related to Boggs whose father was the one responsible for creating those treasure maps.  You think Rico was trying to get some answers out of him?”

“Hardly the sort of thing that any sane man would kill for, don’t you think?”

I doubted he would tell me if he knew anything, but he had taken more interest in what I was saying.  It was stuff he’d know, or at least should know, since he had been the one to investigate Boggs’ father’s disappearance.

“Who said Rico was sane.  He was a terrifying sort of guy when he lost his temper which I’ve seen him do in front of Boggs.  But you have to agree, Rico had to know about Boggs’ father’s role in creating the maps for the Cossatino’s.”

The sheriff shook his head.

“Those are not the sort of rumors you want to be spreading around town, not unless you want an army of Cossatino’s layers on your doorstep.  They are just that, rumors.  Nothing was ever proven, and there was no evidence that the Cossatino’s had anything to do with Boggs’ father’s disappearance.”

“And Rico?”

“Rico is a harmless fool who talks big and that’s all.  He did his time for running a map scam that he claims was run by Boggs senior.  No one could prove it so he copped it sweet.  Now, he should know better.  But I will say this, Frobisher was not here to see Rico, but Benderby.  Benderby apparently had some old coins he’s scooped up off the ocean floor on a dive and thought they might be worth something.  Frobisher took them to be assessed and valued but got no further than Rico’s boat.  And the coins are now missing.”

“Sounds to me like there’s going to be another treasure hunt.”

There’d been another some years before fuelled by news an authentic treasure map had been found, showing the location of Captain Markaby’s plunder stashed away for another day somewhere on our shores.

It all ended with Boggs senior’s disappearance.

“It might, but we can only hope what happened to the father in the last one, doesn’t happen to the son in this one.  It’s why I called in.  Your mother tells me you have some influence on young Boggs.  Please tell him to stop stirring the pot with this notion he has the real map.  He doesn’t.  No one does.  The plain truth is, there isn’t one.  Someone needs to get through to him before something really bad happens to him.  He’s already had one close shave.  I’ll deal with the Cossatino’s and the Benderby’s.  I expect you to deal with Boggs.  Am I clear?”

Put to me in that authoritarian voice, it was very clear.  But to Boggs, it was going to be like a red rag to a bull.

I nodded and went back to my room.

How did I manage to get in the middle of this mess?

© Charles Heath 2019-2020