Just over seven minutes later we were parked in a quiet part of Reading Services near the Motel.

“Ok, out withi it... What’s so important that couldn’t wait until we got back to the office?” asked Jemma slightly impatiently.

“I’ll show you. Give me a moment.”

I flicked through the photos of the documents we had found in Farthing’s safe until I found one in particular.

“Here read this,” I said giving her the phone.

The document was in Spanish.

Jemma struggled for a few minutes before giving me the phone back.

“I’m confused. Your Spanish is better than mine.”

“What it says is that when Mr Farthing went to Portugal a month ago where he met with Daniel Esteban. It goes on to say that he came to a deal with Esteban to get us killed in return for the two million Euros.”

[The following January]

“Come on you laggards. Just because you are effing women does not mean that you can slack off. There is still six miles to go. Then it is only a few more hours then, you can have that hot bubble bath that you females all love so much!”

Ms Jennings came into my room with a smile on her face.

That made me very fearful given her reputation.

She worked for a Government ‘Special Services’ Department somewhere in Whitehall. A sense of foreboding came over me. Their normal function was to provide HR services to a number of departments but their real function was known to very few people. Everyone in her section had ‘Top Secret’ security clearance so if something a bit out of the ordinary was needed doing that wasn’t assigned to us, they did it.

The HR function meant that you generally only saw her or people from her Office when it was bad news and for us, that bad news invariably meant ‘we have no further use for your services’.

Another boring day at work was over. Marty Chapman was bored. He’d been bored for years. He worked in a warehouse as a palette truck driver. He’d been there for more than 10 years. The only thing he had to look forward to was seeing Ellie, his only daughter at home in the evening.

His whole life revolved around her. Since his wife and her mother had traded them in for a Spanish Waiter some 8 years earlier, they’d been in it together.

“Hi Dawn, Thanks for fitting me in at such short notice,” said the man was obviously dressed in drag as he came into ‘Dawns Hair and Beauty’ late on a Friday afternoon.

“No problem Roxy. Where are you playing tonight?”

“Nelson and Colne Working Men’s Club, replied ‘Roxy’ as she sat down at the chair.

“Them’s a hard bunch over there.”

“Aye, they are but the money is good. Give and take eh?”

“Where’s Gina?” asked Dawn referring to the other half of the double act.

Subtitle : Travellers’ Tales

Dining alone when you are working away from home is not the most enjoyable of pastimes. Many restaurants turn their collective noses up at single diners or at best, they seat you in the most awkward table possible. These are usually right next to the entrance or exit from the kitchen or even worse right by the toilets.

The exceptions seem to be those eateries that are directly associated to the Hotel where you are staying. During the week, the majority of their customers, coach parties excepted are the single travellers.

“Ms Wilson will see you now,” said the assistant.

I stood up and after a moment’s hesitation; I followed her into the very impressive office. The views out over East London were impressive.

They should be. We were on the twenty third floor of one of the large tower blocks that fringe the edge of the City of London.

Ms Wilson stood up from behind her desk and came to greet me.

“Thank you for coming Susan. Please take a seat.”

I was shown to a comfortable seat where after smoothing my skirt I sat down.

This is a sequel to “The Editors Dilemma”

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/47384/editors-dilema

The tale resumes at the Hotel in Cynthia’s room after Cynthia has poured a cup of tea for Jennie.

Jenny sat down totally stunned by the person who was in front of her.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Cynthia smiled.

“I know that both my manuscript and how I look now is a bit of a shock but this is me now. Oh, and the final three chapters of it are on the table.”

“Cynthia…?”

“I have to do this darling. It is really who I am,” I said as I pleaded with my wife.

I was dressed in a way that she’d not seen before. I was wearing a dress, makeup and all the rest including my first pair of high heels!

“Don’t give me that rubbish. These past few years it has all been about you. I don’t get a look in.”

“Really? I don’t think so.”

“Now you are just grasping at straws. If you think that I’m going to sit here while you go out all dolled up like a dogs breakfast then you have to think again. After all the things I do and have done for you…”

I sat for a while when I was back in the Depot at the end of my first week back from holiday. It had been working for the company for almost ten years and very soon, I’d be giving it up for good. Letting go was hard but it had to be done. It was time to move on to pastures new.

On my way out of the Depot, I checked my schedule for the next day. I smiled when I realised that I’d be returning to the Depot in the middle of the afternoon to change both the type of bus and the route. I’d have a chance to go into the supervisor’s office to hand in my notice. In a strange way, I’d miss the place and a good few of the regular passengers that I carried almost on a daily basis.

Jon was waiting for me when I got home. The expression on his face told me that he had something he wanted to tell me.

“Out with it!” I said as we sat down to eat.

“I was sort of wondering if I could go and see Christine for a couple of days?”

After quite a bit of juggling and working extra days to allow other drivers time off to do their Christmas shopping, I managed to secure a decent period off over Christmas. I didn’t tell Jon/Fiona until I’d booked a week in Tenerife over the holiday. It wasn’t cheap but I’d secured a self-catering apartment and flights for a week away. The downside was that the flight was from Birmingham on the 21st. We’d need to set off really early in the morning to check in by 07:00. The other downside was that the return flight was not due to land until 23:00. I booked a Hotel close to the Airport for that night as I guessed that neither of us would want to drive home in the small hours of the next morning.

When all the tickets and everything arrived, I showed them to Fiona.

“Dad?” she said when she’d seen everything.

“Don’t you want to go?”

“You know I do but I don’t have anything to wear for that amount of time away.”

“Funny that, neither do I. Why don’t we go shopping in Manchester a week on Saturday?”

For once in my life, I was lost for words.

“The thing with George is just business,” said Pritti in a total expressionless manner.

Those words seemed so cold, so out of place for her.

Pritti reached up and kissed me. Part of me I wanted to break away but I didn’t. I just wanted to savour every second. The woman I loved was going to marry someone else.

When we broke off, I said,

“How can it be just business?”

Hidden Talent – September Contest entry

Monday’s were always a trial for Tristram Morris. He worked in a TV Advertising sales office with three women. Monday was the day when his female colleagues recounted in glorious (or should that be gory?) Technicolor detail their respective weekends.

Most of the chatter was about men and who did what to whom in bed and how much booze they’d consumed in how short a time…

For much of the time that they were chattering, Tristram was simply ignored because he wasn’t a woman. Add to that, he wasn’t particularly interested in their frankly juvenile antics. He considered them just silly and immature even though they were almost the same age as him.

The only time his presence was recognised was when one of the three recounted a particularly intense or lurid sexual act. Then they sent their jibes in his direction in the hope of seeing him get embarrassed.

“Whose round is it?” asked one of the six women.

The six were celebrating a good Christmas Season for their Company. They all worked in the Offices doing various Admin and Clerical jobs apart from one of then, Elise. Elise was the boss, the Managing Director and principle shareholder in the company. They were at a pub in the market town of Sudbury in Suffolk. The locals were always willing to stress that it wasn’t Essex but the more salubrious and, in their opinion, the frankly superior county of Suffolk. Many of the staff came ‘over the border’ from Essex. As a result, when episodes of TOWIE (The Only Way is Essex) were on TV, there was much talk about the lifestyles of ‘Essex Girls’ the following day.

ACC Bishop called later in the day with some news. She told us that she’d managed to get a prominent Journalist to agree to interview me on the understanding that no manipulation of my words would be done post interview. We all felt better for this as despite my former colleague being arrested and charged with numerous offenses, the press seemed to be having a feeding frenzy with my past. Many facts were being reported about me, most of which were simply fiction. This made me angry. Mary did her best to calm me down and tell me that my side of the story would be told in due course.

The she asked,
“Did Sergeant Pratt go anywhere in the house apart from the hallway after you dialled ‘999’?”

“No Ma’am. I made sure that no one went anywhere else. I didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene.”

“I think that is everything we needed to cover. Any other points?” I said mightily relieved that the meeting was coming to an end.

My team looked at each other but no one spoke until the newest one of the team, Jeremy Ford said,
“So, Frank, are you going to tell us where you are going for your Holidays?”

I smiled. I’d not told anyone what I was going to do for the next three weeks.

“I’m going to the Outer Hebrides. I’ve rented a cottage on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis,” I replied smiling.

“What are you going to do up there?” asked another of my team, Melvyn Sands.

“Not a lot and that’s the beauty of it. There is a long white sand beach just yards from the cottage and not a lot else for miles.”

We found ACC Bishop in her office. Her assistant soon understood our predicament and arranged for us to see her boss.

To give her credit, the Assistant Commissioner listened intently to our plan without showing any emotion or reaction one way or the other.

At the end of our speech, she closed her eyes for almost a minute.

When she opened them again she smiled at us.

“Well, I have to say that of all the ideas that have been floated by me and the other commissioners to catch this killer… This is just about the most ridiculous and silly and… You know it might just work but…”

I arrived a few minutes late for work to find the squad room a scene of what can only be described as organised chaos. From the looks on everyone’s faces we’d picked up a new case. I headed for my desk and after slipping off my coat I sat down, started to get my bearings and waited in vain for anyone to remark ‘oh you are back then?’ or some such greeting.

I was just returning from three weeks holiday and I was already feeling slightly miffed that none of my colleagues had even noticed that I’d returned to work.