On the run after a robbery, with police breathing down his neck, the runner makes a snap decision that changes his life...


The worst place in the world to hide.


Blazing lights, a security camera on every pillar, rail police, but I had to get off that street fast, and there wasn’t much open at 3am.


The hue and cry was close behind. Like a flaming Dickens novel, and I was loving the buzz, to be honest. Jewellery heists are supposed to be some sort of dopamine nuke. 


I stepped out from the alley to, “There he is!” And looked around to see who they were talking to 


The first five times had been like picking up an order from Amazon lockers. Stroll up, punch in the code Werner gave me, fill the bags with the stuff in the photos, walk out.


But the guy at the storefront fifty metres down the street in a puffer jacket over pyjamas dropped his keys and pointed at me. The two bored coppers with him turned around, and I’d wasted a precious few seconds.


Hell knows what gave me away. An extra level of security? More likely a freak coincidence. Werner didn’t make mistakes. Whatever it was had put the forces of justice between me and my bike, so I embraced the zing and legged it the other way with a couple hundred grand’s worth of high-end diamond necklaces bouncing in the leather messenger bag on my hip. A deserted mall opened up on my left almost immediately, unexpected but handy. The waist high bollards I ducked through would hold up a patrol car pursuit, but otherwise the broad expanse of pavers was a bit of an issue because the department stores and cafes were locked up tight behind security blinds and I knew from long experience that the passages between stores led only to rear delivery access. That’s how I get in and out. It was two hundred well-lit metres to the next junction, boot clatter echoed off the walls behind me and cops yelled, “Stop!” 


So, the brightest lights of all at the Metro entrance were my only option.


I slowed to a nonchalant walk as I entered the station, adjusting my hoodie for maximum concealment. A big islander bursting out of a transport police uniform at the turnstiles was busy on his phone. I could jump the barrier and sprint, but why attract attention when I could go under the radar a little longer? I deliberately fumbled to get my student concession card from my pocket so I could tap the turnstile with my back to the rent-a-cop and realised I’d just recorded my identity against the hoodie guy from the jewellers navigating the ticket barrier. Panic burned my nerve ends for half a second. But faded to calm as quickly. I’d never had anything to do with the police. Country club kids don’t, but they do get their cards stolen by street scum from the projects and mine links to my home address out in the hills so I’ll have plenty of time to dump the hoodie I wear for burglary — ‘Me, Constable? I suppose he does have a similar build, but I don’t own any sweatshirts. I’m no skater-boy’. I’d make my college dorm before they got Dad out of bed to re-directed them. I was good. Breathing hard but composed, with no immediate roar of pursuit, I had a second to choose the airport line or the docks, which ran below the airport line tunnels, a much longer walk and an extra escalator. The airport line also had the stop nearest campus, making it the obvious choice. So I took the other route, keeping my heart rate down to the slap of my sneakers on the tunnel tiles, scanning the advertisements because this was all being monitored and recorded somewhere and suspicious characters ducked their heads. The hubbub finally rose above, the forces of the law berating the guard, I guessed as I reached the mezzanine above the platform with a second choice to make. Up line or down? The cruise terminal or the suburbs? The indicator board suggested the next train into town would arrive in two minutes. Five minutes for the up line, but there were benefits if I held my nerve. The underground public transit system offered a couple of handy interchanges on the edge of the central business district where I could confuse the pursuit by changing trains without crossing a turnstile, then leave the train out in the sticks when the line emerged above ground and duck over the fence without tagging off. 


A solid plan restored my confidence. I sat in a shadow on the platform with my legs crossed, nose wrinkled against a stale urine smell until the train arrived. I sauntered on, a man at ease. A couple of kids were entwined in the prime spot right under the camera at the far end of the third coach. A dangerous-looking dude had the opposite end behind the driver, so I selected a bench in the middle carriage where a dry twig of a man greeted me with a smile and a flick of the Father Christmas beard that made him look top heavy. I tossed my shoulders around, trying to look like the druggie at the driver’s end, but the old guy wasn’t to be denied.


“Good night for it, eh, mate?” he began.


The sort of thing my granddad would say. I had no idea what he meant. I buried my head under the flap of the messenger bag as if I was looking for my book. The jewellery store take glistened in reflected light. Werner would love it.


“What are the odds, eh?”


Another of Pop’s favourites. I gave the old feller the side eye. “Sorry? Do we know each other?”


“I think we do. Yes. Sorry, I’ve confused you. It’s written all over your face. You have a highly expressive countenance.” He grimaced like that was a problem.


My problem was old farts starved of company, especially seeing as I wanted to avoid attention while I enjoyed a leisurely study of the exquisite craftsmanship that produced the diamond choker and only a fraction less valuable bracelets and rings I had lifted earlier. Have you ever carried a quarter of a million bucks worth? It’s crazy good. Anyway, I felt the least obtrusive approach was co-operation, and my dad brought me up to be polite, so I reluctantly buckled the bag and slid it onto the seat beside me. Under my palm, I wasn’t about to let it out of reach.


“We’re two of a kind,” my unsolicited critic said before I could think of a way to discourage further conversation.


“Yeah?”


He mugged a grin.


“I get it. We’re late-night travellers,” I said.


Whatever brought him to the milk run justified a tweedy sports jacket, slacks and brogues. Retired chic. His clothes were long past new, loose, as if he’d lost weight since he bought them, but he wasn’t homeless. He’d been to a reunion, I guessed, or a Freemason’s dinner. Masons are all geriatric.


“That too,” he said. “We’re fish out of water, you and I, caught where we shouldn’t be.”


A reasonable call. A feller his age should not travel alone on the subway after dark. I could handle myself, but if I came across to this old stick as innocent and vulnerable, well, I’d succeeded.


“Runners,” he said.  


I looked down at my trainers. A reflex.


He chuckled. “Refugees, I mean, no, that’s not the word.” He thought and found the one he wanted. “Fugitives. That’s what we are. Fugitives.”


I tightened my grip on the leather bag and checked that our fellow travellers weren’t listening. 


The old guy shook his head like a disappointed teacher. Gloating.


He’d jolted me into a dumb reaction. The close call at the jeweller’s must have got to me more than I realised. My fingers itched to show him what I’d done with my evening. Fugitives! He didn’t know the half of it. But I had no time for flamboyant gestures. I’d change trains in two more stops and he’d forget he ever saw me. But that patronising Father Christmas gaze didn’t waver. I had to say something and it couldn’t be about diamonds. He’d remember those and tell all his ancient mates at the old folks home. So, I made it about him.


“What are you running from, then?”


“Me?” He dropped his eyes. “I left my wife. Forty years we’ve been together. It weighs heavily, mate, I gotta tell you. I told her I was going to the pub and walked out. It’ll hurt. She’ll be livid, and I couldn’t face the reaction, see? It’s not fair after all this time, but I can’t do it anymore. I’ve had enough.”


No wonder he wanted to talk. Ouch! All I could think of to say was, “Bloody hell.”


He tutted, shook so hard his beard whipped back and further across his jacket, and said, “Look, I’m done. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re young. You’ve got time. Your life’s ahead of you.”


“I’m not married,” I said. The last thing I needed was a lecture on picking the right girl. I had to study the line maps and work out my next move. “I don’t even have a girlfriend.”


He leaned into my space.


“You never will if you carry on like this. What did you do tonight? What are you into? It’s something criminal, obviously, and you’re proud of it. I can see that on you. But here you are running for it.”


I leaned back as far as the subway bench would allow and spread my hands. “You’ve got it all wrong, Grandpa. Not me.”


His eyes slid to the leather bag, and my palm slapped down on it before I could stop myself. Damn it. I blustered: “Call the cops on me, then. Go on, make a fool of yourself!” I went for disgusted bravado, but it came out whiny and desperate.


His disappointed coach look returned. “No.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a few minutes, and I’ll talk some common sense into you. If I can do one good thing tonight, I will.”


I pulled my bag into my lap and made to rise.


“No, no. I will follow you and have this conversation in front of the lovers if I have to. Listen up and let’s see how close I am. I’m guessing you’ll do serious time when they catch you. Because they will. Ten years, I’d say. Is there violence? I don’t think so. No, you’re not that type, are you? And there’s no guilt on you. It’s a con, then. You’ve got the better of someone who deserves it, but whatever you got is in that bag, so an exchange is it? You’re not a drug dealer.”


“Look, old man. You may think—”


“Oh, no, I don’t think any more. I’m certain now. You got away this time and the high’s still on you. You smell of it. You got away and you feel invincible.” 


The train lurched into a bend, twisting so the lovers and the dirtbag were both out of view for a moment, leaving me trapped in a tube fifty metres underground with a madman who could see into my soul. My lips had gone dry.


“How did it start? You’re a college kid. Nice clothes. Nice haircut. Nice family. Dodgy mates at the footy club, was it? The gym? A bloke in the pub offering recreational drugs and a bit of excitement? Ah, that’s it!”


No, but close enough that I’d given myself away again. I had to work out how I did that. I met Werner at a college social. God knows how he got in or why he picked me. I thought he’d sensed greatness in my effortless cool, but if I couldn’t hide my reactions to a daft old git trying to rationalise dumping his wife of forty years, I might have to revise that assessment. And he was still talking.


“It starts as a bit of harmless fun. A bit naughty. A little cash. Getting one over is wonderful, isn’t it? Makes you feel superior. A superman. It’s addictive. Until it’s not because next it’s, ‘that was good, mate. Try this, it’s even more fun and better money’. Then, ‘You were great again, a man of your talents will smash this’, and before you know it, you’re in over your head. Oh, I see what you’re thinking. ‘Not me. I know when to stop. I know the line. I’ll tell them no’. But they’ve got you, buddy. They know what you’ve done. They know who you’ve crossed and how you did it. You may be underwater already.” He rocked his head, assessing. “But I think you might still be able to walk away.”


What the hell did I say to that? I had the creeps so bad I hugged the diamonds to my chest like a safety blanket.


He stretched so far forward that the tendons on his neck stood out, and I thought he’d slip off his seat. “Do it! I mean it. You’re a good kid. Don’t throw your life away for a cheap thrill or to impress a girl. There’s nothing cool about being banged up for a ten stretch. What will you tell your mum when she finds out?”


Ha! He missed there. No mum. Just Dad. And my brother, Greg, who would be impressed. He thought I was a geek. Dad would die. He worked two jobs to put something aside for me and Greg to finish school. And Greg wouldn’t be impressed, no, he’d be shocked, and I wouldn’t want him to try what I’d done. He couldn’t handle jail, and he was an idiot. Greg would have no idea where the line was. A shark like Werner would chew him up and spit him out. If this fossil thought I was an innocent, he should see Greg. 


He stared at me. The old guy, not Greg, the skin crinkled around his eyes. What would he say next?


He didn’t have to say anything. Tendrils of anxiety crawled in my chest. What if I did get caught? It had been a near thing that night. If I’d taken a couple of minutes longer to find the trays in Werner’s photos, those cops would have been in the shop and I’d be in a paddy wagon wondering what I’d say to Dad and how he’d make bail.


Werner would want more. Father Christmas was right about that.


Bugger, I’d missed my change, but we were slowing for Butler Row. I could get off there and walk to Upton on the cross-town loop. Fifteen minutes. Ten if I pushed it. I could make it work. I got up, shouldered the bag. “Look, sorry, old feller. You’ve got this all wrong.”


I grabbed for a handhold as the train brakes rocked me off balance. The doors spat open, and all hell broke loose.


“Police! Don’t move!” 


A mob of them, half a dozen in black helmets and flak jackets, charged through both doors pointing machine guns at me. A weapons team. Jeezus! It was only jewellery! The lovers and the deadbeat scooted off the train like it were on fire. I didn’t blame them.


Dear God. I had been so close.


The armed police stepped aside for a shaven-headed, strutting smart ass in a trench coat.


“I told you I’d get you,” he said.


When? This wasn’t the guy at the jeweller’s.


“That beard wouldn’t fool anyone.”


Beard? What the hell?


Father Christmas stood up and straightened his sports coat. “Yes, you did.” 


“Twenty years. Three countries—”


“Don’t flatter yourself, Miller. I had to lay it out on a plate for you.”


The cop frowned.


“Who do you think phoned in the tip? I’m tired, Detective Inspector. Still an inspector, aren’t you? And I’m sick. Got the results this week. I’ll be dead in months. My Violet can’t deal with that on her own.” The old guy turned to me with a shrug. “Accessing services is just about impossible when you’re England’s most wanted prison escapee. This way, Vi, can go back and see the kids, relax for the first time in decades. I regret everything I did. It has been horrible on the run. A nightmare.” He turned back to the police. “So, you win, Miller.” Father Christmas, England’s most wanted, offered his wrists for cuffs with a final word over his shoulder to me. “I think this is your cue to scarper, son.”


Image by MEHRAX from Pixabay

The naive night clerk at a seedy red-light district motel is dragged unwillingly into an unlikely, and potentially dangerous side gig.


They bulldozed the Alhambra Motel.
I drove past last week as I do when nostalgia for my almer mater gets the better of me. From the safety of my locked, parked SUV, because Swampside is still the Swampside, I watched the wrecking ball take down the north wing, filling the pool in the centre of the two-storey U of scruffy rooms with rubble, not that it’s seen water for a decade. I may be the only one in the city who felt the slightest pang of regret.
You probably don’t know the Alhambra unless you were born into the Swampside, and if you were, congratulations on making it out. It’s a hellhole now but you should have seen it thirty years ago.
By day I took undergraduate anthropology at Westmore College.
At night, I got my PhD at the Alhambra. It was a flea pit even then, hell, the A was built derelict and went down hill through decades of calculated neglect before I signed on as the night clerk.
One of the guys in my industrial capitalist society tutorial tipped me off to the vacancy after I mentioned a dire need for spending money. He was sneering, challenging me, trying to impress girls with his wordly inside knowledge of the state’s meanest red-light district. But getting paid for putting my feet up at a quiet desk with thrilling proximity to salacious, dirty deeds sounded good to a country club kid who knew no better. My interview was barely more than proof I was eighteen and willing yet long enough for a couple of drug deals to go down in the restrooms across the sticky, brown stained industrial carpet from the manager’s office. A car was jacked out front while I was shown the reservation system and rostered for my first shift.
What followed was an education in so many ways.
I watched life in the raw play out through the thick glass in reception. Gunshots woke me half a dozen times. Hard-eyed first responders ventured warily into the corridors at least once a month with warrants, vague suspicions or summoned when odours or the ruckus through the paper-thin walls became unbearable to tenants in neighbouring rooms. With my clapped out Kia chained into the staff parking cage and the Ka-bar blade I bought from an army surplus store with my first wage packet, I spent many contented, productive hours in the Alhambra. That trusty blade remained in the drawer under the receptionist desk, thankfully never required, until graduation took me off to more harrowing, infinitely busier, slightly better paid, very occasionally rewarding but much less threatening employment as a city probation officer. I gave the owners a semblance of an official presence as required by law for three years, a  sordid carnival of low lifes room keys, change for the eternally jammed vending machines and a place to report blocked plumbing while I made the honour roll with a vast store of cautionary tales to astonish my peers by keeping my nose out of anyone else’s business and firmly in my books.
I didn’t know it then, but the most important lesson began late one Thursday night about three months into my first year at the A.
The after hours entry bell rang and I lurched to the release button with my head still full of arguments comparing and contrasting patriarchal trends in South Asian and European cultures. The door stuck as it did on hot nights. I said, ‘Push hard,’ into the intercom and it came open suddenly sending a woman stumbling into the foyer. She was neatly dressed, about thirty, flustered, harried, a gym bag over one shoulder, nose wrinkling at the unique Alhambra musk of sweat, cigarette tar and cleaning fluid. A sleek fish in murky waters. They turned upon from time to time in two distinct types, the first rented by the hour to shoot up in private, and she could have been one of those despite the Rodeo Drive vibe. Druggies come in all shapes and sizes, but her short-sleeved top and clean arms put her in the second category, hooking up for an illicit liaison where they wouldn’t be recognised or judged and her husband wouldn’t suspect. So, “Which room?” I asked, reaching for the internal phone because the male half of the infidelity usually checked in.
She fumbled for her purse did a double take and said, “Oh,” when she saw who she was dealing with.
It happened often.
The full glass panel that protected staff from Alhambra clients, and them from us, I guess, was thick enough to distort perspective until you stepped up close and no-one expected a preppy, white kid in a college sweat shirt in the A at any time, let alone ten o’clock at night.
She hesitated, probably suspecting she’d walked into the Holiday inn by mistake.
“Welcome to the Alhambra,” I said, because I have a sense of irony and in case the miasma and peeling paint weren’t enough to convince her.
“I want a room for the night.”
“The night?” I said. The rate chart pasted to the wall clearly stated the hourly rates. Latecomers rarely stayed more than a few.
She planted a hand on the six inches of counter on her side, hip tilted aggressively, but the corners of her eyes had sunk in what looked like exhaustion. 
“Is that a problem?” She phrased it as a plea more than a challenge.
“No, no,” I said, scrambling to realign.
“I’ve been driving a while. I need a place to … to sleep, okay?”
“Sure, sure, only, if you’ve come off the freeway, there’s a Best Western about five blocks over on Tobler Drive.”
She shuddered like she’s had enough.
“Okay. Okay. Fifty bucks for the night.”
She slapped three twenties into the slot under the glass. A panel slid across so I could remove the cash and leave change without fear of human contact, but I held it open.
“I’ll need ID.”
She glanced at the nicotine stains on the ceiling, saying, ‘You’re kidding? In this place?’ As eloquently as if she’d said the words out loud.
“Sorry. State law.” One of the few ordinances my employers enforced. They needed to know where to send collectors when customers generated excess cleaning and repair surcharges unpaid on departure.
She looked into her wallet and back at me, stumped, cornered, and I blurted out the universal Alhambra disclaimer, “Our records are private and confidential and will not be revealed without a court order,” quickly adding, “And, well, I have been known to blur the scan and misspell names,” with a sick grin to cover the flash of guilt because it was a lie. I’d never done it before, but her eyes flashed with something that made me think of a deer in the headlights. Don’t get me wrong, discomfort when we asked for the driver’s licence was universal, no-one wanted to leave a trail at the A, but her unease was different. Sharper, more anguished, deeper than the usual embarrassment or self-disgust.
I swapped her change and a key to one of the less disgusting rooms for her ID. I left the scanner cover open. Yeah, I had done that before, by accident, so I knew the image would be blurred beyond recognition, and sent it back to the woman without looking. By that stage I didn’t want to know her name or why she wanted a filthy room in the depths of Swampside. She grabbed her card and scrammed with a flash of a smile that was half fright and half grateful. 
I called after her, “The a lift’s…’ but she wasn’t listening.
After some thought, I wrote Janet Arbuthnot and a fake address by her room number in the register—Arbuthnot, if you’re wondering, wrote one of our text’s that semester, Women and Leadership: A Feminist Perspective—and shook off my lingering doubts about that woman in this flea pit as I went back to my term paper. She’d paid. She’d be gone by the morning. No-one would question the register entry or call up the scan, but after half a dozen attempts to type a coherent sentence, I shoved my laptop aside.
I rationalised what the Alhambra facilitated by looking down on the despair I saw as self-inflicted wounds, poor choices, but I wasn’t immune. I’d come to understand there’s a cliff edge desperately hard to judge where foolish but voluntary pursuit of mental release becomes addiction. Where turning tricks for easy cash becomes quicksand ringed with predators you can’t escape. Even from my lofty heights of moral superiority I’d chewed my fingernails through a few nights contemplating what went on in the rooms above and my part in putting the more innocent parties there. Praying they’d make it out to another day.
But the ones who’d previously haunted my conscience were too far gone to care who knew they’d checked in to the Alhambra. This woman wasn’t. Whatever brought Janet to the A, had to be bad. Skipped bail? Had she stolen from someone scary? And my dumb chivalry for a passably attractive older woman had made me an accomplice. I tasted iron as I stood over the registry seeing a cop or a mobster pointing at Arbuthnot and staring me down. Stupid, stupid idea. It was too late to make it an incomprehensible scrawl or leave the register blank. I made black coffee, placed it carefully and tipped it over the page. The damned stain only drew attention.
I wasted four hours of study time agonising over more and more lurid horrors. Nothing happened, of course. It never does when you worry yourself sick. It’s the mistakes you didn’t notice that blow up in your face. I never saw Janet again and had filed it safely under weird Alhambra experiences not to be shared in the college canteen room when, nine days later, it happened again.
Another thirty-something, lone woman shaking like a frightened rabbit, this one dressed for the mall in ironed jeans, t-shirt and exercise top. She put her driver’s licence in the slot with her cash but trapped it with rose-painted fingernails when I tried to slide the panel. 
“You fudge the register, right?”
I don’t know what I said, if anything, but her relief when I nodded, too dumbstruck to protest, is imprinted on my brain.
Another wasted night loomed while I kneaded the tight spot under my ribs and tried to think what to write in the register. Another feminist icon? No-one looked last time, but what in hell was happening? Had a network of housewife crime lords fixed on the Alhambra as a bolt hole?
Hammering shook the front door fifteen minutes later and I kicked myself for thinking the worst. She wasn’t another Janet. It had been a coincidence she asked about the register. This would be her lover. Or her dealer. I ground my jaw at the thought this school mum might be a junkie, but I’d seen it before.
I buzzed the lock to a mousey guy fixing a grin to his chops that didn’t want to be there.
“Sorry, son. I went out and forgot my damn key.”
“Okay, which room was that?”
“Here’s the thing,” he jammed his fingers into his hair. “I forgot that too. The name’s Holland.” He strained to see the register off to my right. “My wife made the booking. Rachel Holland.”
Spikes shot up and down my spine. That sounded awfully like the the name on the card I tried so hard not to see when I put it through the scanner with the cover raised. The wronged husband? The guy she stole from?
“Call her up,” he said. “Get Rachel to come down.”
I lifted the register with a flourish to make sure he couldn’t read over my shoulder and asked, “Sorry, sir. I can’t see any Hollands. What time did you and your wife arrive?”
His grin tightened into something feral. He slammed the counter with his open palm. “Just tell me who’s checked in tonight. Since seven.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t reveal any details of our clients.”
“Bullshit!”
“Unless you have a warrant.”
He went to his pocket and I flinched—that security glass is tough but it won’t stop a bullet. He came up with his wallet, pulled out a photo and slapped to the glass. “Her.”
“I can’t help you, sir.”
He added a hundred dollar bill. “You didn’t look at it. Look at it, boy!”
I took a deep breath and let my fingers wander to the Ka-bar. The lady in the head and shoulders portrait was the school mum, beaming, hair up in a cocktail dress and pearls.
“Don’t know her, sir.” How well do we know anyone? “Are you sure you have the right hotel?”
He growled, high pitched like a weasel, but snatched back his cash and photo, looked around the reception as if she might be hiding under the plastic couch, grunted and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
I gave it a minute, held my knife by my thigh while I slipped out to peek into the parking lot. He was by the pool fence, fists planted on his hips, staring around the U of windows on two levels. A pimp enraged that his girl was cutting him out? He didn’t look like a pimp, but he sure looked capable of violence. I locked myself back into reception and called Rachel Holland’s room. It rang out. I dialled again.
“Hello?” A whisper.
“This is James from reception. I don’t want to frighten you.” Any more than you’re already terrified. “But a man calling himself Holland asked after you in reception.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’s in the car park out front.”
A clunk as the telephone receiver landed on something hard, a scurry, then the phone being lifted again.
“It’s him. Is there a back way out?”
“Yeah, sure, the fire escape, but unless you climb the fence you have to come out around the front.”
“What do I do?”
“Call the cops. I’ll call as well.” Because the police did not prioritise the A short of shots fired.
“No. No. He can’t know I came here. It will make it worse.”
“I can’t say if he knows you’re here or he guessed. I didn’t tell him, and either way he has no idea which room you’re in.”
A fraught silence.
“Best if you lock the door and block it.”
A sharply indrawn breath.
“Look, maybe, well, maybe I should come up to your room.” With my knife. Jeezus, Jimbo, what the hell are you thinking? “I could lock you into reception with me.”
“No. He might see me. Somehow. Thank you, but no.”
“I’ll call when he goes.”
“Thank you.”
The man called Holland stalked around the pool for half an hour before he left.
I rang her room.
She didn’t answer.

+++++
​
I usually went straight to school from work, but that day I went home for a shower and a couple of straight bourbons having checked the lot carefully for Mr Holland before I went to my car. Guys like that can be stubborn.
So, when I arrived at college after my Thursday shift, a shout, “Excuse me!” had me reaching for my knife in reflex although the call was shrill and came from a shaggy sheep of a woman with a flower patterned scarf in her grey hair disembarking from a whale of a sedan that had come to a halt behind me. 
“Germaine Hernandez,” she said, brandishing a card.
I took it with trembling hand, expecting it to identify her as a government agent and it did, in a sense. Germaine Hernandez, it announced, was Director of the City Women’s Refuge.
“Thank you, for helping Rachel Holland,” she said, “and Marion Marchent.”
I handed the card back. “Who says—”
“I’m afraid to say I followed you here from The Alhambra Motel. You’re the night clerk, aren't you?”
“Whatever. I did nothing.” 
“Oh, no, you did much. You gave them no-questions-asked security and refused to give Rachel away under enormous pressure.”
I shook my head. “I can’t give out customer details.”
“Sometimes women like Rachel and Marion need a haven, a break, respite for a night or to start their journey out of a toxic relationship. We all know most people in your situation would side with the man, but you didn’t.”
“Isn’t that what your refuge is for?”
“Yes. But we’re swamped and it’s the first place controlling, abusive men look to take out their frustrations. We have a small network of what I suppose we would call safe places. I wanted tyou to know what you’re a part of.”
“Oh, no!” I threw up my hand and turned away. The next guy after Holland, or the next, might not take no for an answer. I didn’t need that anxiety and the A was no place for desperate women!
“Please. James, please, I—”
Except The Alhambra Hotel was already the place for the damaged and scorned of every size, shape and colour, and I couldn’t forget the fear in Marion Marchant’s eyes, or the relief in Rachel Holland’s. Damn that stupid saviour complex.
“Look, okay, but we have to come up with something better than Janet Arbuthnot.”  

+++++

Our city is a jungle full of pain. Three women arrived in the next fortnight. I switched the Ka-bar for a concealed carry licence and a Smith & Wesson and checked in many, many more Marions and Rachels over eighteen months until word of the Alhambra Motel’s unlikely secret spread to too many people who shouldn’t know and we retired the arrangement by mutual consent. I don’t know how many exactly, you’d better believe I didn’t count.


Image by Rochelle Parry from Pixabay

I’m trying. Really trying.

I hold Dad’s hand every day and share only happy thoughts. The kids. The weather.

It’s harder since Dad refused further treatment. I get it. His life has been nothing but pain for months, but I don’t know what I’ll do when he’s gone. He’s my hero. My best friend, the only one who knows it all and understands. Who will I talk to?

He braces himself and forces his chest to rise. It’s what Dad has to do these days to make words.

“Liz came yesterday.”

“Good.”

Great. Incredible. I’m really pleased for Dad and for my perfect sister. Dad’s favourite. Mum’s too when she was around. I’m the disappointment, but even before they moved him to palliative care, Lizzie hardly ever came to the retirement village. I feared she wouldn’t get in at all before Dad passed. She wouldn’t have forgiven herself for that. Liz isn’t a monster. I try not to resent the appreciation she gets for the tiniest gesture while I do all the heavy lifting, but I can’t hide my bitterness.

He squeezes. His grip’s horribly feeble from a man who was so strong, so successful, so recently.

“What’s wrong, love?”

Everything. He’s dying. My life’s a mess.

“It’s Ian, I’ll bet. What’s he done?”

Astonishment dries up the tears that were about to spill. Dad reads my mind. He’s wise. The smartest person I know, as well, but there’s more to being wise than knowing stuff, isn’t there? It’s seeing beyond to what it means. 

“Ian’s started again. He cleaned out the savings account.”

Dad licks his lips, struggling for breath. I know what he’s going to say, so I save him the effort.

“I opened one in my name only, but it’s empty. He must have found it.”

My husband worked out my password or fooled a credulous bank clerk with a tall story. Ian is clever. Not wise, the opposite, incredibly adept and utterly shameless to fuel his gambling addiction. Ian saw counsellors and swore he’d changed after the car dealership sacked him for stealing. He stayed out of the betting shop for months, his best run of abstinence yet, but it’s over.

“His golf clubs have gone from the garage.”

Pawning the irons for betting money is his last resort.

Dad presses harder and wheezes, “Leave him.”

“I can’t. I love him. The kids love him.” I’ve somehow sheltered them from their father’s problem all these years. “It would destroy them.” Me too, because I have failed. I believed in Ian. Believed he could change if I only gave him enough support and encouragement. 

“The kids need better,” Dad says.

Yes! They should have nice things. A better house in a decent suburb. I have a good job, but whenever I get a little ahead, Ian finds the money and blows it on the horses or the dogs or a night at the casino—he’s an equal-opportunity loser. I’ve had all I can take. The last straw has broken. I would get away, despite everything, if only I could break that cycle. 

“You’re right, Dad. But there’s no money. Nothing.”

I ease my hand out of his, disgusted with myself. Dad doesn’t need this on top of everything else.

He stirs, his chest heaves. I’m about to push the emergency button, thinking he’s having a stroke, that I’ve killed him, but he’s gathering strength for an announcement.

“I kept something for you. A secret. You’ll see it. In your pennies. For you, my love.”

The effort has worn him out. His eyes close, his lips flutter silently until he drops into a troubled doze.

My pennies.

Dad was a coin dealer. You probably remember his shop in Rundle Mall. Everyone used to stop and look at the window displays of exotic notes and specie from around the globe. I loved it, begged to go to work with him on weekends and during the holidays while Lizzie played with her vast herd of friends and admirers. The shop and a passion for numismatics were our thing. I ran it after Dad’s first turn when Mum died. For a year. But Ian was on a losing streak. Stock went missing. The books didn’t square with the till, and it was a relief when we sold up to cover his supported living accommodation deposit. Another failure.

Anyway, when I was very small, Dad gave me a bag of coins to play with at the shop, worthless stuff but old and deliciously exciting for a little girl. I forgot all about it until we cleaned out Dad’s unit and found a cash bag half full of change. Ian’s eyes lit up, naturally, until he realised it was all low denomination. The bag’s lumped in with the rest of Dad’s things in our garage.

+++

I should get back to work, but I drive home to Inala instead, hunt out that muslin bank bag, and spill the contents onto an old piece of carpet. The wet rocks smell takes me straight to the workshop at the back of Dad’s shop where we spent so many happy hours. So familiar. A little girl’s treasure trove. The Mexican centavo. The square Chinese coin with a hole in the middle. British and Australian pennies, halfpennies and farthings, of course, and US cents, nickels and dimes left by General MacArthur’s battalions when they flooded Brisbane in 1942. My horde is mostly of that vintage. A lot with King George’s face, even a couple with Queen Victoria if I can find them. No, that Australian penny is George V too. Wait a minute, what year was that?

Bloody hell, it can’t be? 1930? No way!

I turn on the overhead light because it’s dim in the shadows by the workbench. I haven’t got my loupe, but I can’t find any of the telltale marks you get when someone has altered the year from 1933 or 1938 to fake the copper Aussie collectors crave. In the depths of the depression, no more pennies were needed, but the Melbourne mint produced about 1500 in 1930, by mistake apparently. This one's not in mint condition, far from it, but even a well-used George V Australian 1930 penny attracts at least $20,000 at auction. 

The coin is cool against my chest. The bevelled edge teases the skin between my breasts with something tantalising, breathtaking, and overwhelmingly alluring. Freedom. Security. Twenty thousand will comfortably finance a new start. It’s so close I can taste it, but there are hurdles to be cleared yet, tax and pension implications for a start. And Lizzie’s share. I can’t cheat my sister. Dad said it was mine. The pennies were mine before, but when he tucked that 1930 in my old play collection, he couldn’t possibly have meant I should take it all for myself.

+++

“Dad kept a coin worth twenty K in a cloth bag!”

“Shush.” The whole cafe can hear us. I whisper, “Dad his it in plain sight. Only coin nerds know what it’s worth, and don’t tell anyone.”

“How can we sell it if we don’t tell anyone?”

Even a quarter of what 0ur 1930 penny is worth, five grand, would get me started in a flat with the kids. My wages will cover week to week expenses. Ian will pay child support when he can. He’s generous when he has a win, kind, handsome, in every way a decent, lovable bloke except for that overwhelming compulsion to gamble every dollar he can lay his hands on. Liz and Tim, by comparison, have a four-bedroom Queenslander in Chermside, a Prado for the school run, but she’s the one fixated on the money while I’m having second thoughts. Parting with the 1930 penny, the most valuable coin I’ve touched, will be a wrench, and Liz is ignoring the traps ahead.

“We didn’t declare the penny in Dad’s assets. If Centrelink finds out, they’ll reclaim the government contribution, probably with penalties.”

My sister drops her voice, thank goodness. “Okay, gotcha.” She winks. “We keep it under wraps until it goes up for auction. You know how that works, don’t you?”

I do, which is why a belt of tension is tightening around my ribs. She’s too eager. It’s happening too fast.

“You can’t just march into Sotheby’s with an incredibly rare coin and ask how much. They demand provenance, and they’re obligated to report to the authorities.”

“I guess we wait until Dad passes away, then. If we say we found it in his things, which we did, the government can’t touch us, can they?” She pats my hand and quickly adds, “Ages from now, I hope.” Lizzie doesn’t mean it. Dollar signs are flashing in her eyes.

Lizzie cares less about our dad than a few bob extra to buy shoes. I didn't think it would be like this.

“I called you as soon as I found the penny. I haven’t looked at probate rules or anything else yet.”

“Can I see it?”

“I mixed it back in with the others.”

“Are you mad?”

“I left it where it’s been safe for four years. Should I put it in my purse? One of the school mums got mugged last month.”

My sister shrugs off my concerns. “We’ll work it out.”

Lizzie will get her share. It’s only fair. But on top of everything else, this ‘we’ thing makes me want to scream. I found it. If I hadn’t spent all those hours learning the ins and outs of the coin trade, we’d never have known it was valuable, but Lizzie immediately demands control as she always has.

“What does Ian say?” My blank expression surprises Lizzie. “You have told him? You haven’t! Oh my gosh, he’ll be ecstatic. You might get out of Inala finally. I know you have that weird connection to the place because of the baby, but—”

“What?” The cot death horror hits me every time I go into the kids’ bedroom because that’s where we found Jasmine. Our second, only 11 months old, just starting to walk and talk.

“Sorry. Weren’t we supposed to know? Ian told Tim when he asked why you stay in that hovel.”

“I’m leaving Ian.”

“No! How could you? You get a little windfall and you’re off, leaving your husband high and dry? I never thought you could be so selfish. After what he’s put up with, all he’s done for you.”

“Done for me?”

“Changing jobs because you were never satisfied and his work hours didn’t suit your shifts. Honestly! The guy’s career has to come first, Dee!”

“You don’t know my life. We owe half a million on the house.”

“Don't be ridiculous. It’s barely worth that and you’ve been there for years.”

“It’s mortgaged to the limit, beyond the limit, because Ian has a catastrophic gambling addiction. He’s been fired for stealing three times.”

“You are such a drama queen. If you gave Ian the support a husband needs, you’d be fine. Anyway, Tim will know what to do.”

“Please don’t tell him. Not yet. Keep it between us.”

She looks at me as if I’ve sprouted horns.

“For now. Until I get it straight in my head. So much is happening. Dad’s slipping away.”

“Yes. He’s sort of shrunk, hasn’t he? And there’s that dusty smell.” She shudders. With distaste, I think. “I stuck it for half an hour. I’ve no idea how you do it. I couldn’t, but thank goodness you have with this coin thing, eh?”

“And Ian mustn’t know. He’s betting again.”

“You’re serious about that gambling thing, then? He likes a punt? Lots of people do, Dee.”

It’s my own fault, I suppose. My stupid pride. I’ve covered up for so long that when I finally bare my soul, my shame, my sister doesn’t believe me. 

+++

I have to work back late to make up the hours when I nipped home and met Lizzie. Ian’s home early. His car’s in the garage, so I park on the verge and boot the kids out. He should have picked them up from after-school care. They’ll charge us for the extra hour.

While the little ones thunder through the front door, I go in past Ian’s Kia because I need to touch the George V penny, to feel again that tarnished hope.

The bag is where I left it, under Dad’s overcoat, between a shoebox and his chess set. I spill the ludicrously valuable loose change on the workbench, quickly sift out the pennies and… Two 1926, a 1935 but no 1930 George V. I must have missed it, but there are no more pennies in the bag. Surely it couldn’t have fallen out. I shoved it right into the middle.

“Lost something?”

Ian makes me jump. He’s leaning on the door frame, a dishcloth over his shoulder, arms crossed, smiling.

“Come in, I had a win. I’ve bought flowers.”

And he’s made dinner, chilli by the cooking scents. The kids love chilli. Typical Ian. The man I married. So charming, so thoughtful.

I scuff the coins into a heap. 

“Sorry. Something Dad said reminded me about my pennies.”

“They have fond memories for you, I know. Keep them when we get rid of the rest of his junk.”

“Yes.”

He rocks upright. “Probably wasn’t there,” he says.

“What wasn’t?”

“Whatever you were looking for. You misremembered. A false recollection. You were only a kid.”

His face splits with a smile of such genuine joy and affection that a scream explodes in my brain. Typical, typical, typical Ian. He lies with absolute sincerity because he genuinely believes he does nothing wrong.

I tear out my phone and dial.

“Lizzie? What have you done?”

+++

Dad’s having a good day. He’s sitting up. Each breath threatens to tip him over, but a crooked grin plays at the corners of his lips. I love him so much.

“So.” He gulps and wheezes. “You found George?”

Emotions swamp me. Bitter regret. Self-disgust. Dread. He mustn’t know how badly I’ve screwed up his final gift. I can’t disappoint him again. So, I cover my shattered dreams with a wide smile.

“What a find! So clever of you. It’s absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much. I can…”

He tilts his head. The little smile holds, but it twitches, and there are depths of caring that I can’t possibly cope with.

“Can’t fool your dad.” He holds his chest, rolling his cheeks until he can get the question out. “I-Ian?”

I nod, because if I speak, I will cry. 

Dad stares me down until I splutter details of the disaster into his bedspread. I can’t meet his eyes.

“Ian’s convinced Lizzie it was never there. That I dreamed it.”

When I look up, Dad’s shaking his head.

“Feared as much.” He draws in a huge breath. Dad’s prepared something, no doubt expecting me to drop the ball. “I knew you’d share with Lizzie because you’re you. Don’t change, love. You’re the best mum ever. The best person, but you have to learn others are not like you. Don’t trust them. The penny was for you, Dina. No-one else.”

“I let you down.”

“You’ve never let me down and you never will, but have you learned your lesson?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Then there’s something else.” His finger rises to point at my chest. “For you. Only you. Not Liz. Or Tim.” He puts a sneer into Lizzie’s husband’s name that brings a reluctant grin to my cheeks. “Definitely not Ian. Top drawer.” He leans toward the bedside dresser.

I empty out pens and paper, a chapstick, tissues, and a leather pouch. That must be what he means. I draw the string, tip it into my palm, and out drops another penny. An American penny. One cent. Abraham Lincoln’s stern right profile.

“It’s lovely,” I say.

“Got a magnet?” Dad asks.

Why would I want a magnet? Unless… Oh my goodness. It’s a 1943 Lincoln cent. Due to a copper shortage in the war years, American pennies were minted from steel. As a result, 1943 American one-cent coins are, of course, magnetic, except for a tiny few that were accidentally stamped from leftover bronze planchets. The last 1943 Bronze Lincoln Cent to reach the market fetched more than a million US dollars, close to two million Australian.

And the next is warming in my palm.
​
“It’s yours,” Dad says. “Yours!”

​I spent three years as a contract safety consultant working Fly In Fly Out (FIFO as we call it) at iron ore mines in Western Australia's far north and I've felt ever since that there's a book that needs writing about that experience. This story is a stab in that direction.

The clothes were right. Coveralls, Blue Steel boots, clear safety glasses, hi-viz vest. Five hundred or more guys and half a dozen girls were tagging in through the security gate in red-dirt tinted concoctions no different to his, each giving it their individual, world-weary swagger. Another day another few million for Gina and Twiggy, the billionaires who own it all

And that’s where it sat wrong. He didn't belong. It wasn’t his age, grizzled old farts are everywhere on the mines, or even that his gear was newer and cleaner than most. Hell, we all change hard hats every six months, company policy, and his had a few plausible dust smears. Everyone wears out their boots. Every big boss up from the city brings that champion dirt collector vibe with the straight out of the pack creases in their denims. But this guy was no desk jockey on his annual ’I go to site’ PiIbarra jolly. 
The problem was the way he carried those clothes. 

Too big on him, for a start, as if he’d lost a load of weight, and the way he hunched his shoulders. He hesitated at the gate while an apprentice fitter hefted her pack over the turnstile. Seeing how it was done?

It wasn’t even that the guy ducked his head to avoid eye contact with the gate guard. Half of us do that every day. No-one wants to be picked to prove their blood alcohol level is zero and miss transport to the pit. It’s a pain hitching a lift later even if you can produce the required sample on demand. Sod that. 
This one kind of dived through and I couldn’t let it go. It’s an affliction that costs me every time, but I can’t stop myself.

“G’day,” I said.

He startled upright, almost dropped his card.

“First day, mate?” It wasn’t. Newbies have an old lag ‘buddy’ to show them the ropes on their first shift.

“No,” he snapped back. Too quickly by half. And too polite. Any genuine FIFO would have told me to F-off with a stream of uniquely Aussie suggestions as to how I might spend my day, as a Haulpak jockey behind us in the queue did right then with a couple of ‘c’s thrown in as he bumped us out of his way so me and this strange feller spilled out of the current of faded orange-tinged blue and yellow flowing to the minibuses and Rangers lined up on the site side of the gate.

“What’s it to you, pal? You’ll make me late.”

The fish out of water had recovered fast, pulling himself up to full height with a growly snort.
He had a damned good question. What did I care who came and went to an iron ore mine the size of an English county a hundred and twenty klicks from the nearest roadhouse? No skin off my nose who comes and goes up the 20ks of unsealed gravel between the mine fence and Great Northern Highway. I’m a cleaner. Zero authority. Zero responsibility. Which is exactly how I like it.

I left the force for a reason. Well, dozens of reasons and mostly wage comparisons, sure. I take home twice as much slopping dust off the lino in the transportable offices at the screen house, but at least one reason for taking my police pension had to do with sticking my chin out for a living and frequently getting it punched for being where it wasn’t wanted. I hadn’t missed a day of law enforcement.

I should have given him a shrug and a smile. Better still, done it in mining language, with my middle finger extended and a passive-aggressive, ‘Screw you.’

I guess I’m more of a cop than I thought. The grit must have wormed its way into my soul.

“You don’t look like a miner, mate,” I said.

“Piss off! What does that even mean?” He shoved me. “I’ve got to get on shift.”

I caught his wrist. “That’s my point. Where? What swing are you on? What trade?”

“I don’t have to tell you. Who are you?”

“No-one. But you don’t know the first thing, and that gets people killed around here.” When in doubt on a mine, play the safety card. Never fails.

He pulled his arm free. “Back off.”

Red flags went off like fireworks. The look in his eyes. I’d seen it before. When making arrests.

“Oi! What’s going on here?”

I stepped back. We’d caught security’s attention. A needle-thin kid with his thumbs in his belt and one of those shaved up the sides buzz cut on top hairdos that make you look like a toothbrush.
The old guy stumbled off balance into the turnstiles, brandishing his backpack. 

“Get back. This is a bomb!”

That galvanised the dregs of the arriving shift. Those on our side of the tag scanner hot-footed onto site and formed a loose ring to see what might transpire. Those on the real-world side backed off into the bus turnaround.

The company’s fearless guardian stood his ground. Fearless? Or was it gormless?

“Don’t be daft. Give it me here.”
​
He went for the bag, but the old guy hugged it to his chest. 

“Stop!” I yelled.

They did. I’d used my cop voice. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and it seems you don’t lose it. And both were staring at me. Security Boy astonished. He’d got used to the unearned respect that went with his faux law enforcement uniform and positional authority. Bomber Bloke, wild-eyed, desperate. A cornered weasel. Did I mention red flags! Probably everyone in the big ring around the gatehouse was staring, as well, I could feel their eyes. It made my back itch. What the hell was I doing? Quite possibly getting myself killed. 

“Let’s all take a breath,” I said.

Security Boy, his name tag said Hunter, flexed his muscles. “I’ve got a job to do, mate.”

“Getting us blown up?”

“Keeping the mine open.”

“How well does that work with the gatehouse blown to smithereens?” Perfectly fine, I should think, the gatehouse is hardly essential to production, but you know what I mean.

“He hasn’t got a bomb!”

Bomber Bloke’s eyes flicked between us while we talked about him as though he wasn’t there. His tag read Goran, by the way. I notice details when things get hairy and the adrenaline’s running.

“How do you know it’s not a bomb? What if it is? Hey Goran, mate. Can I call you Goran? I’m Don, by the way.” I very deliberately eased my shoulders and forced a friendly smile. As they taught us on a training course. “What have you got in there, then? A couple of sticks of gelignite?”

He hugged the backpack closer.

“ANFO and a NONEL.”

“Yeah? Whatever,” Hunter sneered.

“Easy, Hunter. Easy. I’m pretty sure ANFO is what they put in the blast holes.”

Open-cut mining, any mining, I guess, is earthmoving on steroids. You dig it up, sort out the stuff you can sell, and dig up some more. In the Pilbara, they blow up a couple of football fields at a time, then move in with shovels and loaders. They deliver the explosives in tanker trucks. 

“Yes.” Goran straightened. “Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil. NONEL’s a shock tube detonator.”

“Bullshit.” 

“Is it? Why don’t you check?”

“Yeah, give me the bag.”

“No! Look him up on the system.” I pointed at the other two security stiffs bug-eyed at the office windows. “We’re all in the computer. Look him up. See if he’s the sort of guy who has access to ANFO and det caps.”

“There are thousands in the system. How do I find this one?”

Seriously? Where do they recruit these guys? 

“He just went through the turnstile.” You knob! “He’s one of the last who tagged on. Look for Goran somebody.”

There was a crash in the office as both Hunter’s teammates dived for the computer. I nodded to Goran and relaxed some more. Well, re-relaxed, because I’d tensed up a bit, as you do. 

“Bloody hell, he’s a shotfirer! No, wait, this one’s twenty-five. It can’t be that bloke.”

Goran raised his chin. “My son is the shotfirer. But I know blasting. I learned in the VRS. In the nineties.”

“In the what?”

“I’m guessing he means Yugoslavia. Bosnia, Kosovo, one of those?”

Goran nodded. “Ja. The Odbrambeni Rat.”

“There you go, Hunter,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m taking Goran seriously.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah.” Couldn't have put it better myself.

“What do we do?”

We? We? “What you should do, and your mates in the office, is shut this place down.”

“We can’t stop production!”

“Yes, you can. Anyone can. The last one who did it won a safety award.”

“But how?”

“I dunno. Look up the procedure!” There’s a procedure for bloody everything on site. Five for how to drive a ’ute, I counted them. “And don’t forget your Job Risk Assessment!”

Hunter scuttled off. 

Which was my second chance to walk away. But I stayed with Goran, who slid to the floor, his back against the tag scanning tower, the bomb cradled in his lap.

He wouldn’t have stopped me if I’d gone. Damn it, I should have. Left it to whoever get’s paid for that stuff. The Site General Manager, maybe? But I sat down instead. Cross-legged on the dust-ingrained tiles. They should audit the gatehouse cleaning contract.  

I felt sorry for Goran. Yeah, right! Or maybe sorry for myself, and Hunter, come to that, a kid thrown into a situation he was totally unprepared to deal with because I’d stuck my nose in. My fault. The same old, same old. Once a cop, always a cop, for me. Damn it. 

“Not how you expected this to turn out?” I said.

He sighed. “I would have blown up one of those big trucks.”

“A Haulpak?”

He nodded. “Or a digger.”

“Why, Goran?”

“My son is Goran. Was Goran. They killed him.” He jabbed his finger at the floor. “Here, at this mine.”
“Bloody hell, eh?” Seriously? What do you say? I was surprised I hadn’t heard. Back in the seventies, fatalities went with the job, but not anymore. Serious accidents are a huge deal on the mines. If someone had died, it would have been in daily safety briefings for weeks.

My confusion must have shown because he said, “A year ago.” Ah, before I started. “He was crushed. An accident, but they say it was his fault! My son! They don’t care!” He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Goran had a wife. Children. What are they to think about their papa?” His accent got stronger as the more distressed he became.

I let that sit while I monitored developments through the glass doors. The crowd had dispersed, alerted by walkie-talkies, thank goodness. I’d half expected sirens. They loaded back onto the buses and drove off. So, it was just us two in the likely blast zone. Nice.

“Grandchildren, eh?” I said.

He nodded.

“Boys? Girls?”

“Two girls. Nine and six. Little Aussies.”

“Lovely.” My marriage didn’t last long for kids, but I understand the concept. “I’ll bet they miss their dad.”

The faintest of nods. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“They’d have missed their grandad, too.”

He screwed his eyes tighter.

“They don’t have to lose you. You don’t want to lose them, do you? Watch them grow up. Make sure they remember their dad.”

His eyes flickered open, red-rimmed now.

“We can sort this out. You haven’t done anything.” Apart from possessing and making explosives, which can get you ten years on it’s own, let alone endangering life, threats to kill or destroy property and anything up to and including terrorism charges if it took their fancy. “You don’t want to hurt anyone, do you?”

“No. The company! Make them pay! But, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“That’s good. And no-one’s been hurt. Let’s go out there. Tell ’em it’s over, everything’s okay and see what we can do, eh?”

“I’ll go to jail, won’t I?”

Yep. You bet! I wasn’t going to lie, but I kept up my sympathetic expression and loose shoulders. So loose. Christ, it was hard! “You’ve made your point. They won’t forget Goran. You’ll see those girls.”
He held my gaze without flickering a muscle. Over his shoulder, I could see someone in a hi-viz vest approaching from the distance with what looked like a loud hailer. The last thing I wanted was long range, three-way amateur negotiations. The blind leading the blind is rarely a good idea. So, I stood up and offered my hand. 

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Goran’s dad’s chin dropped, then lifted, and he struggled onto his feet. “Yeah,” was all he said. Defeated.

“Leave the bag behind, eh? Best if you don’t walk out with it.” I didn’t fancy brushing hips with a bag of high explosives and a fragile detonator.

“Oh, yeah.” He looked at the bag as though he’d forgotten he brought it, shrugged and planted it on the tag reader. Where it wobbled once and slid off.

I dived for it and missed.

It thudded into the floor with a crunch and a distinct click.

I curled into a ball to meet my doom, and…

Nothing.

I chanced a look. A backpack on the tiles. A grey-haired bloke in mine clothes that didn’t fit, gaping at me on the tiles in the foetal position.

“Ha.” I struggled up, brushing myself down, feeling a complete tool. “I thought the detonator had gone off.”

“It did. It’s a thirty-second fuse.”

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

What the hell!

I grabbed the backpack, realised we should be going while it stayed, but I’d made my choice. The off-site door was nearest, so I hauled it open, hurled the bomb as far as I could, screaming, “Get down!” To anyone who could hear as I took my own advice, flopping face down into the corner between the wall and floor with my hands over my head.

Nothing happened. Again.

It was becoming embarrassing. But the bomb maker was down too, and the world erupted.

++++

The ANFO blasted a circular dip in the car park road base. The site maintenance guys marked it off with witches’ hats and danger tape as required by the relevant procedure until the H&S investigation was complete, then filled it one morning without fanfare. The explosion demolished a heap of glass, too, most of which landed on my back in granular form, but the windows were soon replaced. Production was interrupted for a whole ten minutes. So, three weeks later, the only remaining evidence was a slightly darker patch in the gravel.

Goran got six months and some top-quality grief counselling, funded by the company, which has a way of producing startling moments of empathy when you least expect it. They made a hefty payout to Goran’s family as well. The managing director delivered the cheque to Goran’s wife personally with an apology for the unconscionable delay.

Which leaves me as the one who’s suffered most for my own stupidity.

I’ve been up before the site General Manager three times for increasingly lavish offers of permanent employment on staff. As a security supervisor or in H&S, kill me now. Apparently, by tossing that backpack into the car park, I reduced the damage bill to tens of thousands from half a million for a new gatehouse, card readers, turnstiles, IT and all. I keep telling them I’m done with taking any sort of responsibility. I just want my mop, anonymity, and the ridiculous salary they pay cleaners, but they think I’m bargaining. They’ve put me up for a safety award, for God’s sake! Why won’t they leave me alone?

The reward that means something? A card that found me through the internal mail from head office. It’s homemade, from a sheet of drawing paper with balloons and a big red heart drawn in crayons on the front. Inside it says, ‘thanks for helping Poppa’ with half a dozen kisses and it’s signed Kristy and Maddy Paunović.

Regressing to my inner police officer was worth it after all.

Image courtesy 95C and Pixabay

They sat us in the corner booth.

Chez Phillipe’s very best table.

Red leather seating for ten, but only two places set.

Such a Lloyd thing to do. 

He was sweet in the important ways, thoughtful. He respected me as an equal, although I was a receptionist and he was so successful, but I could not deny the wonderful buzz when he went all alpha male and swept me off my feet with extravagant gestures.

At school, Lloyd always had the coolest clothes, the swagger, the dangerous edge. The whispers that he sold recreational drugs in nightclubs only added to his bad-boy allure. We all had crushes on him, even the homely girls like me. Especially us, I guess. 

I recognised him the moment he walked into the gym where I work although his hair was shorter and I’d never seen him in a designer hoodie and running shorts. The cheekbones, were enough, the chin, and the way Lloyd set his shoulders as he entered a room, daring anyone to give him their best shot. Before I could squeak his name like a teenage groupie, he hesitated, dropped his mirror Oakley’s to stare into my eyes and said, “Angie? Angie Beresford from Beachside High? No way!”

He remembered me! Wow, he knew my name!

“You’re looking incredible.”

Incredible? I wasn’t so sure. Definitely better than I did in Year 10. I grew into my weight late in my teens. Free gym access did wonders, too, and confidence to shop at the best stores, but it felt good for those efforts to be noticed by a guy I swooned over for three solid years, until he dropped out to start his own business. We smirked at that, all us west-of-the-freeway kids. People like our dads owned legal partnerships, real estate agencies and car dealerships, not penniless state housing kids with nothing but striking good looks and unbreakable self-confidence. Lloyd proved us all wrong with… whatever it is he did. He hated to talk about work. To his credit, I think. My mother said it’s undignified to brag about your wealth.

When Lloyd asked me for a date—after I just about died—high school Angie kicked in with a vengence. I’d be devastated if he dumped me. Okay, when he dumped me because Lloyd Haynes was the all-time heartbreaker in high school. If he’d asked me out, then—as if!—I’d have said no for self-preservation. I could not have coped with the rejection when he moved on to his next fling. Those old anxieties bit hard, but I’d grown resilience. I still hyperventilated over what might go wrong, but I’d learned to ask myself, ‘But what if it goes right? What if I miss out and regret it for the rest of my life?’ I squashed my fears and took the plunge so I wouldn’t die wondering what being Lloyd’s girl might be like, and I was right. It had been everything high school Angie dreamed of. Whisked from the casino to nightclubs, stage shows and five-star restaurants in his Porsche. Deep and meaningful conversations, holding hands under a blanket in front of the telly. Walks along the beach, everything a girl desired. So, there I was, in my purse-emptying, bodice-hugging, A-line Stella McCartney and the diamond earrings Daddy bought me for my twenty-first with waiters swirling around us speaking French, thinking life could not get any better, until it did.

“Guys. Thanks,” Lloyd said, and the head waiter waved his minions away to give us a bubble of solitude in the heaving mass of diners.

Lloyd’s hand shook a little as he flattened it on the table, taking a nervous gulp. These moments of vulnerability made my heart melt for the bad boy made good.

“I… I’m sorry. I know I insist we stay in the moment, party or bust, living our best lives, but I have to be serious tonight.” He reached across the table for my hand.

“About us?” I asked. 

Was he going to dump me? Damn it. Not now! I was still high school Angie after all. I could not handle Lloyd Haynes rejecting me.

No, I was an idiot. No-one booked Chez Philippe to break up.

“Yes, about us.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Our future. Together.”

His free hand went to his pocket.

OMG! He was proposing!

“Is that him? Yes, it is! Lloyd bloody Haynes. What are you doing in Chez Phillipe?”

The interruption came from an abomination looming at our table. A buck-toothed stick insect with a tick twitching his stupid moustache, flanked by two tattooed lumps who looked like they bench-pressed SUVs.

Lloyd let out a slow, calm breath and glared at the stick insect. 

“I’m here for dinner, Ivan. How about you?”

He knew this horrible man?

“Why don’t you answer my calls, Lloyd?”

“Because we have nothing to discuss.”

​“How about what you owe me?”

“I don’t owe you a cent—”

“Two hundred grand he took me for.” Ivan turned his ferrety gaze to me. It made my skin crawl. “Is this your latest mug? Watch out, love. He’ll stiff you for the bill. He scams everyone.”

“What’s happening?” I asked. These men frightened me.

Lloyd raised a hand. “Nothing, it’s nothing, Babe.”

The stick insect sneered. 

“Don’t believe a word he says. This one couldn’t lie straight in bed.” 

He dismissed Lloyd with a contemptuous snort and spun away. His bodyguards closed in behind as the head waiter hurtled from the kitchen, presumably to throw them out.

“Lloyd?” I asked. "What was that?"

He shrugged, all boyish embarrassment. 

“Business. I--”

“You work with that man?”

“I did. Once. Years ago. A mistake. Look—”

“What is your business?”

“What?”

How do you make a living? Whenever I ask, you change the subject.”

"Because it’s boring. It’s what I do for money. This is my life.” He opened his arms to take in the restaurant. “Us. Having fun with you.”

“You deal with people like them?”

“No.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Not anymore. Never again. I make investments. I trade.”

“You owe that animal two hundred thousand dollars?”

“No! Look, Angie. Ivan tried to wedge me for two hundred K. He’s a criminal.”

Lloyd rattled off a wild excuse that I didn’t hear over the clang of scales falling from my eyes, the whiplash of blinkers torn away and the tinkle of rose-tinted glasses shattered. Lloyd Haynes hadn’t changed one bit. He made investments? Traded? In drugs like he did in school or stolen goods, and he owed a large sum of money to a criminal he’d ripped off called Ivan, as well as others, no doubt. Which meant he needed cash fast.

“How much, Lloyd?”

“What? Pardon?”

“How much did you plan to weasel out of me? A few thousand to see you over a little hump? Or more and more ‘to secure our life together’? You bastard!”

When Lloyd Haynes arrived at Realisation Fitness, he saw Angie from high school, all right. Angie, the frumpy, timid nerd who had a rich daddy and would be easily parted from her trust fund by a little attention and his nice-guy act. I would have given him whatever he asked, too. Because I thought he loved me, that he wanted to make me his wife. What an abject fool I’d been.

How ironic that it took a revolting criminal to save me from an equally loathsome fraud.

I escaped by the skin of my teeth.

+++

“Monsieur Haynes?”

The headwaiter, like me, and everyone else in Chez Phillippe, stared after Angie. Her flame-red party dress swung around her hips as she stormed out of the restaurant. I should have chased her, but my legs had gone to rubber.

The best laid plans, eh?What were the odds that  Ivan Rebrov would turn up in Chez Philippe at the vital moment? The waiter read my mind.

“Mr Rebrov recently, err, obtained our restaurant from Chef Phillippe.”

I doubt Ivan paid. The Russian mafia got what it wanted. As Ivan just had from me. Maybe not the two hundred K I made when I flipped the warehouse I bought from him. He decided the profit was his and I wish now that I’d handed over the cash, because the deal had just cost me so much more. 

“Err. Mr Rebrov has asked that you leave.”

I put the little box from my pocket on the table. My hopes. Smashed.

“Should I bring your champagne?”

Funny guy! He meant the Dom Pérignon I brought from my cellar for the celebration if she said yes. I should have known it wasn’t meant to be, that fate would step in to crush my dreams. Angie Beresford. In my new gym. The sweetest, prettiest girl at Beachside High. Way out of my league then, too pure, too innocent. I thought I’d clawed far enough from the sewer to have a chance, but I guess guys like me will always be state housing kids to people like Angie.

“Keep the bubbly, Alphonse, mate. Share it with your crew. You need something nice if Ivan’s your boss now.”

“Indeed.”

“Any chance I can get a Scotch? A double, before Ivan’s heavies carry me out?”
​
“I’ll see what I can do, Monsieur.” 


Image by Ortega Ulloa from Pixabay

To achieve a lifetime goal, Amanda must keep an embarrassing secret...

The test was scheduled for two fifty-four at the training centre. Amanda barely noticed traffic or road signs as she drove up the freeway and Joondalup drive, focussed, ready.
Bench pressing fifty kilos would be a doddle. She’d lifted more at CrossFit, but her distant memory of the Police Academy gym was a cavern of stained gyp rock panelling, scruffy carpet squares, a pervading stench of unwashed teenager and free weights re-used from ballast on the ark. They’d moved, of course, but would the penny pinchers in charge have upgraded the gear?
The run test frightened her more. Amanda’s stumpy legs hadn’t done stamina when she was a star-struck teenager dreaming of front-page arrests, shootouts with notorious villains and commissioned rank. With promotion her only remaining fantasy, she had an extra thirty pounds to drag around and the leggings. They cramped her stride on the aborted practice at Scarborough Beach, but she could not run in shorts.
If the instructor saw her legs…
The parrot on the thigh could be forgiven - Amanda had been drunk and befuddled in the depths of a Bali holiday fling. ‘Let’s get tats,’ he said, and she was all in. As you were when images of babies and living large on his FIFO salary made you forget you were a serving officer.
The SAS dagger on the other thigh—and thank God she resisted that beau’s urging to have their names added—was about balance, but the others, with twenty years hindsight, were insane. A bitter reaction to promotion boards choosing fit, tall blokes time and again over the vertically challenged South Asian? At sergeants and inspectors who took the credit when her painstaking research produced a lead that nailed the conviction? Anyway, the sailing ship on the left calf and Kurt Cobain on the right, which stung like razor cuts going on and looked more like Darryl Braithwaite, had faded into unrecognisable blue-black swirls. One sight of that lot and she’d be off the force, never mind passed over for the Library Sergeant-in-Charge position that was hers by right. It had been promised after her blemish-free acting stint when Fred Tarkovsky took his pension, and she nailed the interview, subject only to the compulsory fitness test for all candidates seeking leadership roles.
In half an hour, Amanda would know. Less if she blew it or exposed her calves. The tension would be epic, but she survived Supreme Court cross-examination by brutal KCs in the Palmer case, did she not?
Amanda parked between two patrol cars, straightened her uniform, checked her cap in the rearview mirror and grabbed her gym bag from the boot.
Her heart skittered when the nice young lass on reception showed her the way to the change rooms, a single door that opened onto a corridor with Ladies on the left and Gents on the right framing a glow of golden pine under skylights pockmarked with weight machine stations. Phew! The opposite of the dingy sweatshop at Maylands. Anxiety swamped her relief. She was so close!
Focus, Amanda!
She stuck with her plan to change out of the blue serge uniform pants in a toilet cubicle although a towel on one hook and a single forgotten Croc under a bench were all that shared the room. If someone barged in before she shrouded her extraordinary pins in psychedelic lime leggings, everyone in WA Police would know by shift change. Amanda pulled the lycra down over her ankles, tucked in her City to Surf fun run t-shirt - a spot of misdirection about her usual activity levels wouldn’t go astray - pulled her socks up to her knees and took four long breaths.
The sergeant conducting the test set off another deluge of skin-tingling nerves, a gravel-voiced Scot built like a fire hydrant. He growled, “Clarke?”
When she nodded, he jabbed his clipboard at the weight bench while he wrote a note with a sneer curling the corner of his mouth.
Ignore him! Ignore him! 
With shaking hands, Amanda loaded fifty kilos onto the bars, then, to prove to herself if no-one else, added another ten, stretched on the bench and pumped out half a dozen adrenaline-fuelled lifts.
“Sixty, eh?” The Scotsman lifted his chin in grudging acknowledgment as he ticked the box. “Now the rope.”
Thickly bunched cord dangled twenty feet from the rafters. Sticky tape a metre from the hook on the roof beam marked the level she had to reach. Easy, she’d practiced at the rock climbing school.
“No shoes.”
Amanda knew that. She flipped off her trainers, reached for her right sock and froze. She’d practiced bare-legged. Would the leggings stay around her ankles as she shinned up the rope? Darn it! The socks would have to stay.
She grabbed the rope and took another calming breath.
“There aren’t grips on those socks, are there?”
The denial stuck in Amanda’s throat, but she got it out in a gulp. “No.”
“It’d be easier barefoot.”
“I do it this way,” Amanda lied.
The socks’ grip failed a metre off the floor, and she slid down with a bump.
“Everyone else does it—”
“Thank you.”
Amanda considered ditching the socks for a couple of beats, but Kurt Cobain itched on the lower half of her right leg. No! She would not let a stupid post-teenage infatuation deny her the rank she’d earned.
She lurched upwards inch by agonising inch with arms screaming for mercy. Lycra slithered higher with each desperate clench to jam rope between Kurt and the sailing ship and anchor the next lunge. She chanced a glance to see what was exposed but the pine floor swirled dangerously and the Scottish trainer’s brow furrowed with transparent concern for her safety, fuelled rising panic, so Amanda set herself for one final drive. The twisted cord gnawed at bare skin. The leggings were up to her knees.
She squeezed her eyelids to hold in tears of shame and reached again. Tape! She hit sticky tape! She’d done it!
“Good job, lass,” the trainer blurted. “I canna say I’ve seen it done that way, but—”
Amanda lost her hold in the shock, scissored her knees desperately, missed the rope and hurtled down, skinning her palms with red-hot burns as she flailed to brake her descent.
The trainer flung his clipboard aside and dived to catch Amanda, but missed by a mile and arrived just as her bum cheeks slammed into the sprung-pine floorboards.
“Aargh!” 
It stung like hell, but nothing was broken, and the embarrassment hurt more.
“Are you okay?” He touched her shoulder, but his gaze tracked unerringly to the blurred visage of the King of Grunge Metal between her crumpled sock and the bunched leggings.
“I’m fine,” she sniffed.
“Umm. Err.” His hand jerked away. “That wouldn’t be tattoos visible when limbs exposed contrary to regulation 325C, paragraph four of the Universal Code of Behaviour, would it?”
The tears came in sobbing floods.
Amanda had failed without even making it to the run. Doomed to suffer as a constable for the rest of her career. If she bothered to stay. Might as well resign now. What a stupid fool she’d been! He might be the greatest frontman in rock and roll history, but what possessed her to have a rock tribute inked on her calf?
“Okay. Dinna fret, Constable Clarke.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We oppressed minorities must stick together.” 
Amanda wasn’t sure what that meant. She’d never been bullied over tattoos. Had the grumpy Scot suffered for his ginger hair? As a migrant? Everyone in Australia was descended from migrants, even the indigenous folk who trekked to Gondwanaland from Asia. Amanda had been born at King Edward Hospital in Subiaco, herself. 
Her confusion must have shown.
The sergeant nodded to her body art. “I’ll not fail a fellow Darryl Braithwaite fan. ‘Horses’ is an all-time classic.” He retrieved his tally sheet and added a flamboyant tick. “You’d have aced it barefoot.”
Not Braithwaite the soppy Sherbet singer, Kurt Cobain! Amanda opened her mouth to correct him but turned it into a laugh. She could deny Nirvana’s iconic deity. Three times before the cock crowed, if she had to. Politics was her job now she was about to be promoted to sergeant.

Image by Kati from Pixabay

When retired barrister, Johnny Siddley, gets caught in the middle of a bank hold-up with his neighbour, Cynthia Tullet, disaster is inevitable because no-one ever beats the bank, do they? 


Johnny Siddley ranked bank queues among his top three most aggravating first-world problems, and the one that day was a doozy.

There were eight ahead of Johnny and Cynthia Tullet waiting for a middle-aged fellow with an Ebenezer Scrooge hunch to decide who might enter the branch proper, and join more queues. Each teller window—two open, four closed—had at least half a dozen more patrons in line, and someone holding a ticket to see the flustered matron who considered more complicated requests filled every available seat. One cubicle manned, two deserted.
“Have you tried our online portal?” he asked a young lady with a pram who sought permission to pass. A badge on his uniform tee-shirt identified him as Melvin. He looked like a Melvin, to be honest. Not a cheery ‘Mel’. A wombat in human form, low-slung, big in the rear, stubbornly guarding his burrow.
When he’d retired, Johnny looked forward to shopping midweek with heaps of time after thirty years cramming chores between appointments before hanging judges, ungrateful wrongdoers and scornful police officers. Now, he wondered how he ever found time to earn a living.  
“What profit did this lot make last year?” Johnny asked Cynthia.
She shrugged.
“Four billion,” said the tradesman behind Johnny. “You’d think they could afford a few more staff.”
“And open more branches,” Johnny told his new friend.
Scrooge McBankFace pointed imperiously to a row of ATMs. The mother surrendered with a sigh, and the line inched forward.
“I’ve seen High Court judges more sympathetic than that bloke,” Johnny told Cynthia. “Got your plea prepared?”
“I know how to deal with his sort,” she said, tapping her passbook on her purse.
Cynthia was capable in astonishing ways for a petite, grey-haired spinster with a ready smile. Johnny had quailed himself under the look that had humbled testosterone-crazed teenage boys and feral mean girls when she was deputy headmistress responsible for discipline at a prestigious, northern suburbs private school. A memory that raised Johnny’s spirits. Wrestling the major bank octopus was one of life’s forlorn hopes. No-one ever beat the bank, did they? But with Cynthia, the tussle should at least be entertaining.
Seven minutes of silent torture brought them to the head of the queue.
Melvin rolled out his spiel. “The Eastern Savings and Equity Bank website—” 
“Rejected the code.” Cynthia shook her head at the failings of the modern age.
“Our helpline—”
“Said, ‘Go to the branch’. So, let’s not hold these people up any more.”
As Cynthia stepped around the dumbfounded sentry, a scream from the teller windows froze everyone where they stood.
“He’s got a gun!” 
Retreating customers opened a semicircle of beige industrial carpet around a startled youth and the woman behind the counter with her hands in the air. The boy, who looked about fifteen to Johnny with a faded black skater-boy hood pulled over his head, raised a pistol half covered by the drooping cuff of his sweatshirt. “Don’t move,” he croaked. “I’ll just get my money and no-one will get hurt.”
An ear-splitting alarm shook the ceiling panels, lights flashed and the doors that opened to the shopping centre slammed shut. The bank robber jumped, and customers dropped to the floor anticipating gunfire.
The bank really ought to think a bit more about the likely consequences of sudden loud noises in a fraught environment. Thank goodness Australian branches went without armed security guards, another cost-cutting measure no doubt, but in New York or Chicago bullets might be flying already.
Melvin shouted over the din, “Now, now. Police are on their way, so why don’t you—”
 The matt black barrel zeroed in on his chest at the same moment the alarm cut out and the lights came back on. The sliding doors remained firmly closed.
“I need the money,” the boy said to no-one in particular.
The teller coughed, and flinched as the deadly weapon swung her way.
The boy lowered it hastily. “Sorry. Empty the drawer.”
“I can’t, Love,” she said. “It locks down when we activate the alarm.”
“What?”
“You’re not getting any money, son.”
The would-be blagger jabbed his finger at the McBankFace wombat. “Shut up and get down.” He thought again and swept his arm to take in the whole room. “All of you. Down! Now!”
Under the threat of the ominous black pipe poking from the youth’s sweatshirt, the rest of the bank patrons, led by Melvin, went down like burst balloons, except for Johnny. His hips didn’t work that way anymore. He offered their tormentor the friendliest grin his lips could manage under the circumstances as he bent his knees, then gaped at Cynthia, who hadn’t moved a muscle and now stood above a carpet of supine humanity like the lone pine at Gallipoli. Taller. Sturdier. She had a way of projecting an oversized presence despite her vertical challenges. 
“You too, please, Mrs,” the robber said with a reluctant flick of his gun hand.
“I don’t think so,” Cynthia answered with the chummy warmth of a chat over coffee. Into the face of a criminally frustrated youth with a loaded firearm! 
“Sit down, woman!” Johnny hissed.
Which brought the barrel his way and succeeded in putting Johnny hard down on his pelvic bones with a thud that sent shooting pains to his breastbone and ankles.
Cynthia ignored the flurry. “It’s quite a pickle you’ve got yourself into, isn’t it? Let’s talk about it. I’m sure we can sort things out.”
“The police—”
Cynthia silenced the contemptuous bank waller with a glare that would have melted plastic.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked the lad. “There’s always a reason people are driven to these things. I’m sure yours is a good one. I know young people. I’m rarely wrong. You’re not a troublemaker, are you? People like you don’t cause a fuss unless it’s forced upon.”
The boy glared, puffed his cheeks and his chest, then as Johnny prepared to get himself off the floor somehow between Cynthia and the bullets, the lad let it all out. His shoulders sagged, drooping his hood over his eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t remember coming here. I was home with Mum and…” He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “We really need money. We’re desperate, so worried, and it’s all I could think of. My dad died.”
“Oh, no.” Cynthia sighed, and half the other women in the bank sighed with her.
The teller touched her fingertips to her mouth.
“The bank accounts are all in Dad’s name. Eastern Savings says Mum can’t get any cash until the estate goes private, or something. They’ve stopped her cards. She was in tears at the supermarket.”
Melvin stepped in. “I doubt that’s right.”
His condescension sparked Johnny. “Let him speak, man. The boy means passes probate, not private, I’m sure.”
“Well, that’s wrong, too—”
“All that matters,” Cynthia said. “Is what Eastern Savings and Equity Bank has led this young man to believe. What brought him to this depth of despair, leaving him and his poor mother with nothing to pay for groceries or funeral arrangements when they are at their lowest ebb after an awful loss?”
There were murmurs of agreement from those on the carpet. The teller lady winced. Mel the moron raised a finger to speak, but Cynthia hadn’t finished.
“I understand what you’re going through. Some rotter got hold of my bank details and tried to buy Converse sneakers and a bottle of Crème de Menthe on the internet. Eastern Savings has stopped my credit card and won’t issue another.”
Heads shook.
“Yeah,” the young fellow said. “And this is where the money is, so—”
“You came here to set things right. Perfectly reasonable.” 
As so often, Johnny marvelled at Cynthia's instincts in such matters. She’d deftly stopped the lad blurting out criminal intent in front of two dozen witnesses hanging on every word.
She speared Melvin with a laser glare. “The website and the call centre are useless.”
Another chorus of muffled agreement.
The gunman had withered in the spotlight, now no more than a pasty kid in a sweatshirt too big for him. A ghost of the skater-boy hooligan who’d terrorised the bank branch. He scratched at his ear, cocking his chin in the hood’s shadow, the gun slack at his thigh.
The churning in Johnny’s chest eased at last, but the forces of the law, as so often over the decades, sent his blood pressure soaring straight back to imminent stroke.
“Armed police! The building’s surrounded,” a bullhorn echoed from the shopping centre. “Come out with your hands up.”
“No!” the boy yelled, his hand rising.
“No!” Cynthia and Johnny yelled together, raising their hands, too, with the opposite intent.
“We can solve this,” Cynthia said, which Johnny rather doubted.
The boy wound into a ball of tension, clenching his free hand. “I can’t let the cops get me. Mum won’t cope if I’m not there.”
Cynthia edged forward, purse clutched at her waist. “No, no, no. Your anxiety’s talking. You don’t want to shoot it out, do you? These people might get hurt, and you don’t want anyone hurt. You just want a bit of consideration from the bank.”
“How do I get out of this?” He threw his arms wide.
“You’d be amazed what a good lawyer can achieve.”
“Where do I get a lawyer! We’re broke!”
“Well,” Cynthia said. “Funny you should mention it. There’s one right here. My friend, Johnny Siddley.”
Who, more than ever, wished he’d gone for coffee instead of agreeing to accompany his neighbour, who now wanted him to step into the middle of a life-or-death standoff.
People were raising their heads to look at him over the person next to them. Talk about hopeless cases. He’d fought the finest legal minds before the most impervious judges of the State Supreme Court, and won, but only after months of careful preparation with the law on his side and a reasonable belief the accused might not be guilty as charged. Never when he saw the crime with his own eyes.
“Johnny will help you. Won’t you, Johnny? He always does what’s right.”
Right in this case being that the perpetrator go directly to jail without passing go, but her eyebrows rose expectantly with that teasing look that said, ‘you dare to disappoint me?’ They both knew he couldn’t deny her when she played the shame card.
The gun jittered, the kid-bandit trying to point it at everyone at the same time while not pointing it at anyone at all. Cynthia was right. This was a a frightened boy, pushed beyond his tether. Frightened now, raising the likelihood of a dreadful slip with dire consequences, but not a bad lad. He needed help, not confrontation, and a couple of dozen innocent bystanders plus a contemptible bank official were sandwiched between two of the elements Johnny trusted least, from long experience, to make calm, rational decisions—the police and an agitated teenager.
He lurched onto his knee, half rose and fell back, bruising his hip again.
Cynthia’s face fell. “You will help won’t you, Johnny?”
The naked uncertainty that flashed in her eyes would have convinced him if he weren’t already. He’d not let Cynthia stand alone. 
If he could get up off the floor.
“Yes, can you, err?”
Two customers and Cynthia got him to his feet. “Right.” Johnny rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see if we can’t soothe things a little. How about you put that thing away while we talk?”
The boy looked at the barrel poking out of his sleeve as if it had just then sprouted from his thumb and shoved it into the pouch on the front of his hoodie.
“Good. I’ll tell the boys in blue we’re having a word.”
Melvin scoffed. “You don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Cynthia rounded on him. “Would you rather be in the crossfire when a SWAT team hot fires in? Good for you! The rest of us would quite like a negotiated solution, wouldn’t we?”
They agreed, so Johnny raised both hands and slalomed through the prostrate customers, most now comfortably on their elbows following proceedings. “Sorry. Excuse me.” He stopped a few feet from the door and raised his voice because his heart was hammering in his chest. If Johnny were any judge, the group outside would be a mix of confused men not unlike the boy in the hoodie and steroid-crazed bullies itching to use their weapons on a live target. He was overly-cynical about the police, true, but rarely wrong. “Don’t shoot. I come in peace. Not armed.”
He pressed his nose between the numbers in a transparent interest rate advertisement pasted to the locked sliding doors. “Can you hear me out there?” 
A science-fiction movie-style helmet poked from behind a pot plant and nodded once.
“Good oh,” Johnny yelled. “Everyone’s fine. Give us a minute to sort something out, alright?”
Johnny motioned Cynthia and their captor towards the manager’s office, the only space that offered privacy other than the safe—which probably wasn’t a good idea—and the staff restrooms at the end of a short corridor.
As he ushered them in, Melvin chuntered something hostile under his breath, and Johnny lost his temper.
“Don’t you dare do something stupid. If a shot’s fired, I’ll take you and the bank for everything you own.” Which was a stupid thing to say, because he wouldn’t be alive to sue anyone, but it shut up McBankFace. “You look like a sensible lass,” Johnny told the teller lady. “If he tries anything, tell us immediately.”
She nodded in a way that told Johnny she’d enjoy a little authority over Melvin the moron.
The robber leaning over the desk from the manager’s chair with his hood pulled low over his eyebrows looked unfortunately like the emperor in Star Wars. “I can’t go to jail,” he said as Johnny pulled the door closed. “Mum’s in such a state.”
“Understood,” Johnny said. It didn’t do to raise false hopes. The chances of the kid avoiding a spell behind bars were slim indeed, but now was not the time for stark realities. “The worst thing would be to use that pistol or run for it because the Tactical Response Group is better than you at this stuff. It wouldn’t end well.”
“What if I went out with some customers? You know, like a shield.”
“Bad. Bad idea.”
“What else can I do?” He threw his head back with a sob, and the hood slipped off, revealing a pale, hollow-cheeked, tow-headed boy with big brown eyes shining with confusion and desperation.
Cynthia, in the visitor’s chair, gulped a breath, and fair enough, the poor kid had come straight from the High School computer club.
“No escalations,” Johnny said. "If you got away, they’d track you down in no time and you’d be in even more trouble. De-escalation is the thing. Remorse is your best bet. Back down. Apologise. Let the customers out, that’s very important, then invite the police in, coolly and calmly, see if we can’t convince them to go easy on you.”
“That’s good advice,” Cynthia said. “Policemen are people too, you know, with families, mums, sons of their own.”
The boy sniffed but nodded.
“Let’s see what we can offer in mitigation.” Johnny grimaced. The client had to be told. Defence counsel’s role was to test the prosecution case to the fullest extent possible, not to deny the obvious. “The gun is a big problem, I’m afraid.”
The boy reached under the table, making them both jump.
“Well,” he said. “Actually…”


Johnny told the customers they could leave from the door of the manager’s office
They looked at each other, but didn’t move. Reluctant to be the first to rise.
“The young fellow will stay in the manager’s office. He’s a very nice young man, as it turns out. A good kid in a bad place, you know.” The more you repeated something, the more likely people would believe it. He and Cynthia had a plan, but it depended on a dozen flimsy assumptions breaking their way.
A motherly lady near the door broke the ice, and the others rose. A milling crowd brushing themselves down and congratulating each other on surviving a tale they’d embellish around the Christmas table for years. The sliding doors clanked, stuttered and sprang open with a whoosh that brought general relief.
Melvin eyed Johnny with disdain. The teller, Lorraine by her name tag, stood alongside him, arms folded, emboldened by her brief promotion in the bank employee power dynamics.
“I promised the boy I’d stay behind to facilitate his surrender to police. Represent him, you might say, but everyone else should go. Get a coffee, Melvin, a breath of fresh air.” Johnny stepped past the bank officers, leading them to the door, but Scrooge McBankFace, back in wombat mode, wasn’t for budging.
“Everyone else is leaving.” Johnny waved to Cynthia, departing in deep conversation with a customer in a pale pink rain jacket.
“I’m not going,” Melvin insisted. “I represent the bank.”
“Oh, dear.” The first small plank of their unlikely scheme had sprung a leak already. “I’m sure the police would say the fewer, the better. They’ll take your statement later.”
“Where is he?” The police had arrived in the form of a woman in a stylish raincoat, pencil skirt, low heels and an air of sophisticated competence. “Detective Sergeant Sally Brooking. You are?”
Two officers in riot gear followed her with snub-nosed machine guns at port arms across their chests, staring under chairs for concealed snipers.
DS Brooking stopped them just inside the door with a whip of her head that dared Johnny to hope he might have encountered one of those rarest of endangered species, the thoughtful copper.
“Johnny Siddley,” he said. “The accused asked me to represent him.”
“Accused! He pulled a gun on us,” Melvin blurted.
“This is Melvin, who’s… something to do with the bank, and Lorraine, the teller caught up in this unfortunate event.”
“Armed robbery!”
Johnny appealed to the police officer by addressing McBankFace. “Now, Melvin. This is why I asked you to leave with the others.”
“The hostages!” 
“Customers.” He appealed to Brooking. “It was quite tense for a few minutes but we’ve brought calm, made things safe. Shall we keep it that way, Sergeant?”
“Suits me.”
“He’s an armed thug!”
“No. No. No. This young chap, a frail teenager provoked beyond reason by Eastern Savings and Equity Bank’s appalling, heartless treatment of his mother grieving the very recent loss of her husband, his father, the family provider—”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you, Melvin?” 
DS Brooking tapped her foot. Johnny had moments to convince her before the handcuffs locked irrevocably. 
“Faced with the bank’s cruel refusal to bend it’s harsh, inflexible rules, this grieving son came to argue for mercy, but there was a complete misunderstanding.”
Melvin spluttered. “Misunderstanding? Misunderstanding. The kid said he had a gun. He demanded money from Lorraine.”
Johnny turned to the teller. “Is that how it happened?”
A critical moment in the approach Johnny and Cynthia had manufactured under duress in the manager’s office. He crossed his fingers mentally, and Lorraine came through on cue.
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“So how exactly?”
“Lorraine—”
“No, Mr Simpkin, I have to tell the truth. He was just stepping up to my window when that woman yelled. He didn’t say anything to me at all.”
“But he demanded money with menaces.” Melvin brandished an imaginary pistol. “He yelled, ‘Give me the money’.”
“The money? Or our money, as in the contents of the family bank accounts rightfully belonging to his mother, which the bank has wrongfully withheld? He merely meant to discuss the situation with Lorraine here.”
“At the point of a gun.”
DS Brooking moved to end the conversation, but Johnny had his trump card to play.
“You saw the firearm in question, Lorraine?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“A big gun? Small? A pistol? A Revolver?”
The earlier exchange had primed Lorraine to be exact. “Well, no.” She stroked her arm. “His sleeve had slipped down, but I could see the barrel poking out.”
“This?” Johnny produced the weapon from his pocket.
Melvin leapt back, choking a yelp as he recognised it for a black felt-tipped marker.
DS Brooking shoved her hands in her raincoat pockets. A snort of amusement escaped her lips.
He had her! The boy would walk free. Justice served. Melvin defeated along with all the ruthless bank bullies he represented.
Johnny twirled the pen like a conductor’s stick. “A confused, troubled boy at the end of his rope who never had a chance to ask for anything before a well-meaning bystander misidentified the perfectly innocent contents of the lad’s hand.”
“All right,” DS Brooking said. “I’ve heard enough. Let’s get him.”
A glorious moment of elation for Johnny, before Melvin stuck his oar in to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory.
“He created the belief that he had a gun.”
“No, he didn’t. That was the woman who screamed,” Johnny corrected.
“But he didn’t correct us, did he? Let us all believe it was a pistol. The law treats that just the same as if he did have a gun. And the bank has zero tolerance for any breaches of the law.”
“I bet it does. Whatever the justice of the situation?”
Melvin scoffed. “DS Brooking, I insist you arrest him for armed robbery.”
She motioned Johnny aside. “He’s right, Mr Siddley.”
Johnny had failed.
The bloody banks always won.
“Where is he?” DS Brooking asked in a tone of command not at all unlike Cynthia delivering a dressing down.
They all shuffled to see into the office. Which was empty.
“The lad said something about using the men’s room.” Johnny pointed down the hall. “Perhaps…”
“Boys!” 
Armed officers thundered to the gents at the sergeant’s direction, yelling, “Come out with your hands up!”
“He’s unarmed,” Johnny pleaded, but they took no notice, kicking the door in when no-one emerged.
Johnny couldn’t look. His latest trouncing burned too much.
A TRG man shouted from the restroom. “He’s gone! A window’s open!”


Cynthia was waiting at a table outside the coffee shop with their friend, Ranjan. 
“I heard it on the radio,” he explained.
Trust Ranjan to come rushing to share the excitement. 
“How are you feeling, Johnny?”
“Relieved to be alive.”
“How did it go?” Cynthia asked.
“The usual. Plan fell apart the moment we engaged the enemy.”
“The police?” Ranjan asked, sipping his coffee.
“No, Scrooge McBankFace.”
“Oh, Melvin.” Cynthia sagged.
“Funny how often the people who know the law are those who really shouldn’t. I had the DS ready to let him off with a stern warning, then it was all riot police kicking doors down. The Tactical Response Group,” Johnny said. “Really, Cynthia, ‘SWAT team hot fires in’? Where did that come from? It’s the TRG in our state.”
Ranjan sniggered.
Cynthia fidgeted. “I was agitated. It worked anyway, didn’t it? They didn’t find that poor young man?”
“No.” Johnny nodded to the pink jacket in her lap. “You got it back, then?”
Ranjan looked from one to the other, open-mouthed. “You—”
“Helped out a troubled young man in his moment of need,” Cynthia said.
“But won’t they get him?”
Cynthia left that to Johnny.
“Perhaps not. Fingers crossed. No-one saw his face except us. He never told anyone his name.”
Cynthia raised her chin. “We made sure of that.”
“And if they search for recently bereaved families with Eastern Savings accounts, he’ll decline to comment.”
“We coached him on that, too.”
“They’ll struggle to place him at the bank. I don’t think Sally Brooking will take the trouble. Until Melvin spoiled it, she was ready to call it a fuss over nothing. A slap on the wrist and don’t be so silly again, the supposed pistol being a Sharpie, and all.”
Cynthia patted her bag and whispered. “What do we do with his gun?”
“A quick run down to Fremantle, I think. Toss it off the bridge in the middle of the river.”
Coffee spat over the table.
“Don’t panic, Ranjan. It’s a toy, a replica much too like the real thing for comfort. Almost gave me a heart attack when he pulled it out.” 
Ranjan rocked back. “You’ve done it then, got him off?”
“Well, hopefully. Justice 1, Bank 0.”
“You got your credit cards sorted, Cyn?”
“Err, no. We’ll have to go back tomorrow. A different branch. I don’t suppose we’ll be welcome in this one for a while.”
“Do the beggars have any others, or have they closed them all?”
“Sorry, Johnny.”
“No problem. Nothing can make me unhappy.” In fact, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “Whatever tomorrow brings, we got it over them today. For once we beat the bloody bank.”

Piggy bank photo credit: Pexels, Maitree Rimthong

Our spanking new Amstrad is the same model we share at work — sixty-four K memory, baby — so I’ve got it booted up and running on the dining table within half an hour of getting it home. My eldest, Helen, is on it in a flash, hunched over the keyboard, elbows spread, tongue between her teeth, squinting through the side of her glasses that isn’t blocked with Elastoplast. Her brother, the little rat, climbs up the chair, pulling on her arm.
“Get off, Kieran.”
“Give me a turn! It’s my turn, Daddy.”
​“Helen asked first,” says I. “She’s only had a minute. Play with your Lego. You’ll get a go before dinner.”
“Go a-way, Kieran.” Helen shoves him off. “I’m writing a story. You have to let me finish.”
And I’m transported twenty-five years back to a wet London Wednesday, an office reeking of furniture polish and a gleaming mint-green monster on a desk stacked with document trays where I crafted my very first masterpiece of original prose.

           ***

“I thought there were two?”
The loud grumpy voice, like the vicar on Sundays, echoes in the wooden box where I’m stranded, salivating over the electric typewriter. My palms are sweaty with longing. My story was going so well, pouring onto the paper. That silver ball spinning and dipping.
“Yes, Your Honour. A boy and a girl.”
“Then why’s there only a girl?”
“Billy’s here,” says Mary from high above me where she can see out of the box. She points at my head.
“Well, let’s see him, shall we?” says the grumpy vicar.
A man in a suit crashes up the stairs behind us with a wooden block. I lean into Mary’s legs to keep out of his way. He’s grumpy, too, not at all like the nice lady who showed me the typewriter. She wore a cardigan, like Mrs Barnes, my teacher, and smelled like Mummy when she squeezed in to put paper on the roller.
I stand up with Mary and perch my nose on the edge of the box. It smells of varnish. And whoa! The room’s big. There are loads of people, mostly dads, sitting on benches like the ones in church. The ones they call pews.
“Your witnesses, Mr Plaistow.”
The grumpy vicar is on top of a tower with a big crest painted on it. Only, he’s not a vicar. He has a funny hat that makes him look like a sheep. Like father Christmas, only he hasn’t got a beard and his cloak’s black. Does Father Christmas have a shave in summer and change his clothes?
Another man in a sheep hat stands up. “Mary?”
Mum’s sitting right next to him. I wave to her, but she sort of grins and bites her lip. She looks sad. Did we do something wrong?
The man next to Mummy says, “Mary, where did you sleep last night?”
My sister scrunches up her eyebrows. “In my bed.”
“Yes, yes, my dear, but… where was your bed?”
“In my bedroom?” Now Mary’s a bit grumpy.
Everyone’s grumpy.
Except me. I can taste that scrumptious green machine. It’s metal, but it’s nobbly. Bumpy under the paint. Not the bit with the letters that you bash. That’s slick and cool and springy.
“And where is your bedroom?” asks the sheep hat man.
“At home!”
“Mr. Plaistow, is this going anywhere?”
“Yes, Your Honour. Establishes domestic arrangements. Mary? Whose house were you in last night?”
“Do we have to do this?” 
Oh, Dad’s here, too. Not next to Mummy. He’s with another sheep man who’s pulling on Dad’s jacket. “Look at the kids,” Dad says, “they’re terrified!”
“Daddy!” I wave, but I don’t think he sees me. I can’t wait to tell him about the typewriter and show him my story.
The grumpy vicar growls, “Sit down, Mr Henderson.”
Oops, Dad’s in trouble now.
“Mr Chivers, control your client. Usher, remove the children.”
There’s a lot of shouting. The man in the suit who brought the step for me takes us out through this scary, dark corridor where it’s just us, but the nice lady who smells like Mummy is waiting with our raincoats. She takes us across the road to the office. There are lots of cars. A Ford Anglia, a Mini, and a big red double-decker bus. I hope we can ride upstairs on a bus. 
“Why’s everyone arguing?” Mary asks.
The nice lady helps Mary off with her coat, but I don’t need any help. I’m a big boy. I go to school, like Mary. 
“Don’t you worry, love,” says the lady. “I’ll get you chocolate biscuits. I think we’ve got pop, too. Lemonade or orangeade.”
Tempting, but biscuits can wait. “Can I go on the typewriter?”

      ***

“It’s my turn.” Kieran has another yank at his sister’s arm.
“No, it’s not. I haven’t finished.” 
I bet she’s doing a better job than I did. Of course, Helen’s eight and I was barely five. Kieran’s age.
I remember that Olivetti like it was yesterday. The solicitor’s office desk pressing my school jumper into my belly. I had to kneel in the chair to reach those keys that thrummed with magical energy as the type ball reeled across the page, spitting back when the paper ratcheted up another notch.  
That momentous day was lost in the mist of time until Mary and I got into the Shiraz on the back deck last Christmas watching our kids in the pool. Her recollections jogged mine, and it all came flooding back.
I went up into our roof space, dusted off the ancient cardboard suitcase where I keep my most treasured childhood mementoes, and found the sheet of yellowed letterhead the nice lady gave me when we left the solicitor’s rooms. Folded in half to preserve my extraordinary creation.
It read:
         XXXXXXxxxxaaaa…. 7777 *& gggg/////////r rrrrrrnshoben
                   vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
And so on.
Those Olivetti golf balls went off like a machine gun when you held the keys down.


Thanks to Annie Spratt via Pixabay for the typewriter image.

A Christmas story, of sorts, featuring the main characters from my forthcoming novel, Johnny Siddley's Life of Crime; Johnny, Cynthia Tullet and their friend Ranjan. It begins in the recreation room at Tranquil Tides Executive Lifestyle Village.


“What’s up, Cynthia?” Johnny asked. “You’re not yourself today.”
“Then who am I? Michelle Obama?”
Bad choice. 
Cynthia felt anything but a giant of a woman, respected the world over, with a handsome, debonaire husband and two gorgeous kids.
Don’t think about children.
Always worst at this time of year, with the lifestyle village buzzing over plans for Christmas gatherings with welcoming offspring.
Cynthia forced a grin, worried by Johnny’s expression.
A prime example himself, Johnny had been invited to lunch with his daughter-in-law, Penny, and his thoroughly adorable granddaughter, Sienna. They’d invited her, but she couldn’t, could she? It was their day. Johnny’s and Sienna’s. They didn’t need a morbid spinster facing what might have been.
In a different life.
Without cancer.
And where did that come from? The disease had nothing to do with her poor choices when options were open.
The anniversary.
Cynthia knew it. Hated the affect it had every year. Leant on her famous determination to rise above the annual reminder of life’s fragility, but how could you really?
She’d delayed the tests until school closed for the summer, which made the deadly diagnosis the worst Christmas present ever.
Five years clear now, lovely Dr Lim assured her. Health restored. Except no-one recovered completely from malignant tumours that devoured their breasts and half their self-worth, did they?
And there was Johnny, soon to be joined by her other best friend, Ranjan, returning to their favourite chairs by the snooker table with today’s bounty from the Tranquil Tides clubhouse selection of home-cooked delicacies.
Even Ranjan had a family Yuletide excursion to savour — his partner Bevan’s son and grandchildren.
“What’s next on that bucket list of yours?” Johnny asked. Trying to cheer her up. It usually worked, but it wouldn’t today.
“Ooh,” Ranjan chimed in, offering a cupcake. “How about some more detecting?”
That got Cynthia’s attention. “What did you have in mind?” Another village mystery to be resolved? Hopefully, this time it wouldn’t be the brutal murder of one of their neighbours, but it had been enormous fun tracking down clues and brushing shoulders with real live criminals — exhilarating even, especially when it had been scary towards the end.
“That one in the paper today,” Ranjan said.
“Which one?” Johnny asked. “The paper’s full of violence. That’s why I don’t read it, or watch the news.”
Johnny hated reminders of his ‘life of crime’ as a barrister for the defence. They all had their regrets. Did anyone really say, ‘I wouldn’t change a thing?’
“The Rockingham Ripper!”
Ah, there was one. Not the serial killer roaming Perth’s southern suburbs, Ranjan. A man as content with his lot as ever there could be. 
“We’ve caught a murderer. Let’s get another,” he said.
“Steady on. That was a one-off, surely.” Johnny wagged a finger. “And how do you propose we solve the murders from Cottesloe?”
“What do you mean?” Ranjan asked around a cupcake.
“It’s rather in the name, isn’t it? The Rockingham Ripper. Rockingham’s forty kilometres away. How did you think we might contribute?”
“By keeping our eyes open?” Ranjan tugged up his sleeve to demonstrate.
The talk of the news was a distinctive tattoo — a rose pierced by a stiletto knife — which the Ripper’s only surviving victim saw on the killer’s forearm as he grasped her from behind.
“Did you think this character might pop in to Tranquil Tides with his sleeves rolled up?” Johnny said.
“Well, no. I suppose not.”
Johnny turned to Cynthia. “So, what is on that bucket list?”
“A parachute jump.” In her present mood, she might not bother with the parachute. Oh Dear, did that constitute suicidal thoughts?
“Perfect,” Johnny said. “An excellent idea.”
“You’ll come with me?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, Johnny. Thank you.” It would be wonderful to share one of her adventures, though she’d never imagined staid old Johnny with his books and his little drink in the evenings doing anything so physical.
“I’ll watch you come down. From the ground.”
“Oh. How about you, Ranjan?”
“Heavens, no. Why would any sane person launch themselves from a perfectly sound aircraft?”
“But that’s sorted, eh? Ranjan,” Johnny said. “Our Christmas present for Cynthia?”




Ironically, the pleasant drive to her appointment with destiny took them along the coast to Rockingham in Johnny’s Mercedes.
He parked at the drop zone and stayed with Ranjan as Cynthia left in the skydive company van with a cheerful young lady called Suki.
“Are you nervous?”
“You bet.” It was one of the best aspects, having the heart pumping. “I didn’t think you’d be able to parachute at my age.”
“Too young?” The girl laughed. “You don’t look old to me.”
What a nice girl.
Sturdy young men met the van in jump suits with the chiselled confidence and windswept tans Cynthia usually associated with ski instructors.
“Is this your first jump?” Cynthia’s guide, Will, asked as she emerged from the changing rooms in her baggy suit.
“Yes.”
“Wicked. Mine too. The regular bloke wanted to go to the pub, so I said I’d have a go. Only joking! There’s nothing to worry about. You don’t even feel like you’re falling. You’ll be strapped tight to me.” He thumped his chest. “But I’ll bet you know all about being up close with young men, don’t you, Cynthia?”
A little laddish for Cynthia’s taste in humour, but she chuckled. It wouldn’t be bad at all to be squashed against the hard muscles Will’s overalls couldn’t hide.
In no time, Cynthia and the nice young couple who’d booked the same time slot — Tim and Trisha — had been fitted out, taken through a detailed safety lecture, strapped to their tandem partners, and they were rattling down the runway.
“How you going, Cynthia? All good?”
“Lovely thanks, Will.” She had to shout in his ear.
The plane was tiny, just the pilot in the single seat cockpit and space for half a dozen jump leaders to sit with their parachute packs against the bare fuselage, their tandem partners in their laps and their boot soles propped on the struts that braced the plane’s walls. It shook like a garden shed as they circled skywards at a steep angle. 
Cynthia exchanged eager grins with her fellow initiates. They couldn’t speak over the deafening thunder of the propeller.
Cynthia loved it. Until they levelled off. The pilot shouted something over his shoulder and Will’s colleague, Jurgen, hauled back the cargo door.
The cabin noise soared to new heights as an empty space opened to clear blue sky, and a dizzying drop to the Indian Ocean.
The plane door was open!
Fear lanced Cynthia in its purest form, a fiery burst of adrenaline, delicious when common sense took over, even as her heart rate galloped off the scale.
Jurgen shuffled Tim into the doorway, raised his thumb and rolled out and down — taking Cynthia’s stomach with him.
Trisha and Suki went next and Cynthia was facing the chasm over Will’s boots, wondering what the hell she had been thinking.
“Here we go. You’re gunna love it.”
Will thrust forward and Cynthia was outside the aircraft fifteen thousand feet off the ground.
Slipstream buffeted her face and helmet.
“Head and feet back, love. Like we said. Kick the plane with your heels.”
She arched into the freefall position they’d learned in the safety demonstration, and they did. Her boots clipped the fuselage!
“Yeeee hah,” Will rolled forward, and they plummeted.
Don’t feel like you’re falling be buggered!
The first seconds were more unadulterated terror until Cynthia got used to wind tearing off her cheeks and madly fluttering her boiler suit as an incredible vista opened before her. Australia’s infinite shades of brown and forest green, a strip of gold and the ocean scuffed with miniature waves, laid out like a sultan’s carpet for her personal enjoyment.
Magic!
It wouldn’t be so bad to die like this.
She’d be content if the parachute never opened. What a way to go, but a pity to take Will to his doom. He had a lot to live for.
Will pulled the rip cord and their parachute billowed with a jerk that stretched the harness straps thrillingly. Cynthia found herself in a silent capsule, suspended in a virtual armchair with details revealed slowly, gently, in perfect splendour as they drifted down; Rockingham’s little wharf, Garden Island Naval Base — a submarine tied to the dock, she couldn’t wait to tell Ranjan — and the glorious sea — ooh, she must look, there might be sharks! 
The professionals pulled on stirrups in the parachute lines to bring the customers into a comfy circle ten metres or so apart.
“Whoa! That was amazing,” Tim yelled.
“And how good’s this?” Trisha grinned. “Did you like it, Cynthia?”
She raised her thumb, too stuffed with emotion to speak.
Will tapped the top of Cynthia’s helmet. “Almost done. Remember? I have to loosen the straps a little so we can land on our feet safely. Are you ready?”
“Okay.”
But she wasn’t. 
The six inch drop took Cynthia’s breath away until the harness caught her again.
She let out a little shriek.
Will tugged hard and Cynthia realised she’d grabbed at his sleeve in her panic. How embarrassing. Until her heart stopped. Will’s cuff and a bandage had risen up his forearm to reveal half a tattoo — a knife blade emerging from a flower of some sort, criss-crossed with scabs as if someone had scratched at it.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Will wrenched his arm free and pulled his sleeve down.
But he couldn’t erase the image burnt into Cynthia’s startled brain.
Below, a long way below, Tim and Trisha swung over the Rockingham foreshore on final approach.
“You saw it, didn’t you? Bitch!”
Straps jerked behind Cynthia’s back and she slipped free, to certain death on the beach below. She threw out her hands, whirled desperately, and caught khaki. Cynthia dug in her nails, and whipped her other hand until fingers caught on leather and laces — Will’s boot.
He roared, grunting and kicking.
But Cynthia clung on, cackling.
Ha! I didn’t want to die, after all.


They thudded into terra firma together. Way too hard, a miracle they didn’t break their necks.
The air whooshed out of Cynthia’s lungs, winded as her back met the turf.
Alive!
Jurgen and Suki were on them in a flash, yelling incoherently in professionally controlled horror.
Suki hovered over Cynthia. “You okay?”
Jurgen released the safety catch on Will’s parachute before it dragged him into the ocean. “Don’t move. You all right, mate? What happened?” 
“The stupid cow—”
Cynthia rocked up, her chest burning as breath returned. She pointed a shaking hand. “Will’s the Rockingham Ripper. He tried to kill me.
“No.” Suki protested.
“Yes, he did. He released my straps deliberately because I saw his tattoo.”
Will staggered up. He rubbed at his arm and backed off under the startled gaze of his colleagues and customers.
Johnny and Ranjan hurtled from the car park, arms waving, straight past the busted serial killer.
Old men looked so silly running in their baggy shorts and sandals, bless their hearts. 
“Cynthia.” Ranjan slapped his hand to his stomach. “We thought you were dead.”
“Me too.” She pointed at Will. “I just caught another murderer. Will’s the Rockingham Ripper.”
Ranjan rose, staring. “He’s the…? Oh.” 
Will limped for the van in a shambling run. Jurgen brought him down with a flying rugby tackle. Suki pulled out her mobile phone and dialled. 
Triple 0, hopefully.
“But you’re not hurt?” Johnny crouched, a palm on her shoulder. Of course, he’d met dozens of murderers, but it made Cynthia feel quite special that he wasn’t the least bit interested in a serial killer’s demise.
“Well done,” Ranjan said. “Two bucket list ticks in one day.”
Cynthia beamed. “Yes. I wouldn’t be dead for quids. Johnny, do you think Penny would mind if I gatecrashed your Christmas lunch after all?”


Banner photo by Joseba Garcia Moya: https://www.pexels.com/