The bells of The Borello Clock Tower rang out its three rings that echoed around the entire town, the hour was late – too late for the bar. And looking at the horizon I knew it was only a couple of hours before sunrise. The night sky was already changing, shimmering with the red pearlescent tint that was bringing in dawn’s early light.

  ‘You’ll be still standing there when the police come and take you away to The Saunders Institute, you will…’

Harry wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but he had enough know-how and experience to get a job done, whenever it needed to be done, and no matter how it had to be done, either. I’d been working alongside him for three years now, on and off, but mostly off as a workaround Borello wasn’t fast coming.

  ‘I’ll be out of here quicker than you can say Scotland Yard, Harry, don’t you worry about that,’ I said softly as my gaze left the alluring brightening sky. ‘Let’s get this thing done.’

Harry had bartered a deal with the Lady of Borello House, Alice Gruber, which required a pair of brute men to persuade one of The Quarter’s residents who was behind on repaying a debt to pay up. Truth be known our actions against this resident would, in turn, pay off both mine and Harry’s debts to the woman they say went insane from killing her own Father several years ago.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked following Harry through a large door into an old, disused warehouse just off St. George Street.

  ‘We put him in here,’ Harry replied pointing out hazards of the short corridor; nails that were sticking out floorboards half missing and ceilings that had dropped down to make them become unsafe to walk or crouch under.

The building was dark and damp and the air was distastefully moist with just as bitter a smell of sewage that had us check our noses.

  ‘Hell’s Bells! That is rank!’ Harry gasped covering his hand over his mouth without hesitation.

My thoughts were to the resident – was he dead?

  ‘That smell…it’s like death itself.’ I muttered under my breath before turning to face a green-gilled Harry.

Leading me through one more door he put up a hand, telling me to wait and then turning back he shook his head in disbelief. ‘FUCK!’

The Quarter resident had tried to escape the temporary prison that Harry and his Partner had put him in the day before, only for the fool to fall through the one place that was unsafe; the floors, walls, and ceiling were thick with mould spores while hanging on by a thread with decayed dry rot. It would only be a matter of time if left alone before the whole building fell to the ground of its own accord.

Harry didn’t know what to say – or do.

  ‘Do we move him, Harry?’ I asked resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Give him a Christian burial, huh, what do you say?’

Many people believed that Harry was a robot; a machine that killed in cold blood without any mercy, no hesitation, but I knew people for their weaknesses and Harry had a weakness for something in that building – that room – and something told me that it wasn’t the sight of the dead prisoner.

  ‘Poor bastard, he must have dragged the pipes down onto himself and caved in the floor… Just er…Go check and see if we can move him out of that hole, will ya, Kid?’ Harry replied assessing as much as he could of the situation from a distance. And, as I said, if I knew people the way that I did, I’d say good old Harry was scared of what had been eating away at the flesh of the dead body.

Walking over to the man, who later that evening I found out to be Jack Haulier, a Frenchman who had moved to Evermore to seek his fortune, only to land himself in deep debt that he had no way of getting himself out of again. Here in the town nobody came back from borrowing money, nor did they learn that there is only one winner in quick, fast convenient loans – The Loan Sharks.

Haulier had fallen through the floor while around him the thick steel bars had collapsed and crushed a big part of his back, forcing his whole body to bend and snap clean in two. Carefully moving the debris out of the way my eyes suddenly caught sight of his face – his head, or what was left of it anyway. Underneath I saw something moving – RATS!

  ‘Christ!’ I yelped with shock.

Harry was suddenly spooked! As spooked and as scared as anyone could have been at that time, including me, too.

  ‘There are hundreds underneath him,’ I cried searching the rest of the floor for a foothold in which to stay upright.

Harry was holding his breath for me, too, standing by the door of the room readying himself to escape – if he needed to.

  ‘Watch that floor, Kid, it’s not safe…’

Suddenly, from behind Harry, there was a clicking sound that became louder as footsteps, voices and a show of torches shone their way through the building toward us.

  ‘Police!’ Harry whispered loudly.

It was very doubtful that it would have been the police, more like Urchers; the residents down on their luck with no way of acquiring a loan, or making anything of themselves in the town – or any town for that matter. All the same, both Harry and I didn’t wait around to find out who it was.

Master Lucas Cavendish

The town of Borello was somewhere that I considered both very adventurous and daring for the likes of myself, considering my birthright was of Evermore Manor. My Mother, Cousin to Lady Melissa Evermore, allowed many misdemeanours to go unpunished by the many relations that made up The Evermore Family, mine, however, should I ever be caught would be dealt with most swiftly, harshly and probably end in my death while I  slept! Yes, the two towns were still at war with one another with no sign of it ending any time soon.

  ‘Lady Evermore would like to see you, Master Lucas,’ Edward the Head Butler informed me upon my return to the Manor a few hours after parting ways with Harry.

  ‘Sounds ominous, Edward, what is it that I’ve done this time, I wonder,’ I laughed out loudly, patting him on the back and making my way to the Study Hall; a place where, like that of Borello House, you could see the whole vastness of the land estate in its complete beauty and Majesty; rolling lawns and hills stretching as far as the eyes could see, ending only with the wide horizon of Evermore Wood, a dividing line between Borello and my families land.

  ‘Good morning, Lady Evermore, you summoned me?’

Lady Evermore was sat at the bay window table while around her there were five visitors whom I did not recognize by face. One, however, did look familiar at second glance. A glance that had the man suddenly glare back at me oddly, as if he, too, had recognized me from some other place.

The closer I approached, the more haste the men made to gather their things and excuse themselves from Lady Evermore’s presence. When the last man had left and closed the door, she called me over to her and insisted that I take a seat.

  ‘May I ask where you were last night, Lucas?’ She asked in what could only be defined as a demanding tone that clearly demanded an immediate answer. ‘Well?’

For the first time in a long time, I froze. It was then that she closed her eyes and sat perfectly still in front of me. She did not move at all. This was truly the hallmark of a ‘Need to Know’ moment.

  ‘I was in Evermore Town with…’

  ‘Try again?’ She shouted out suddenly, half scaring the life out of me from my attempt to sit down.

Thought after thought, after thought ran through my mind, each one searching with speed on what I could say to her that wouldn’t place me in Borello the previous night.

  ‘Alright, Okay, I was with friends in Evermore,’ I lied to her before forcing myself to calm down.

Lady Evermore said nothing – did nothing.

  ‘Can I ask what all of this is about, Cousin?’ I asked with the hope of cracking at least a piece of the ice off of the old girl’s frozen heart.

  ‘There was a murder…In Borello!’ She exclaimed.

The thought of knowing this made it hard for me to stay on top of the bombardment of information that she fed into my young mind, while my eyes were distracted by The Lime Line; a beautiful cascade of fruit trees that branched off in several directions around the grounds, its huge plantation taking up over five full acres of Evermore land and almost running the whole house on its sales of fresh fruit alone.

  ‘It’s beautiful!’ I whispered without thinking.

Realizing that I had spoken aloud the words that I was merely thinking in my head awoke something in Lady Evermore; her whole face changed from a livid angry woman to something that I could only describe as ‘Normal’ – if there was such a link that existed within the human side of her.

  ‘My Mother, Lady Eleanor, she loved that Orchard. Do you know, Lucas, when Eleanor was forty years old, she raced me to the last fruit tree at the end of the land?’

I didn’t know that my Mother, Duchess Eleanor Cavendish didn’t really care for sharing family antics or shenanigans that would probably incriminate her, if not Lady Melissa Evermore, too.

  ‘I didn’t know that, but it sounds like you two had a very good childhood!’ I said off the cuff.

  ‘GOOD!’ She laughed out loudly. ‘If you were a true…’

She stopped! But why did she stop when obviously she wanted to say something…tell me something.

  ‘Are…Are you Okay, Lady Evermore?’

She stayed quiet and still while staring at me for quite some time before finally breaking her stance and looking away.

  ‘The life you lead in Borello, Lucas, needs to be toned down. My contacts tell me that you were with Harry The Executioner Crabtree last night. Is this true?’ She asked in a more calm knowing voice that sounded all too strange for my liking.

  ‘Harry who?’ I attempted to play this whole thing blind and take my chances. ‘I don’t think I know him.’

It was obvious to the likes of you and me, that what I was trying to accomplish was anonymity, not forgiveness for the lie.

Lady Evermore rose from her chair and approached me.

  ‘Come with me.’ She said taking a hold of my hand and leading me through the bay doors into the Lime Line. By the time we reached the middle of the Orchard, both Melissa and I were panting for our breath back. It was indeed a huge place.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked as I tried catching my breath to gain energy. ‘If you wanted to get to the end, why didn’t we just drive up here?’

This was something that she was trying to bring to mind, maybe something that she wanted to show me, or tell me about before she suddenly lost grip of it – whatever it was.

  ‘Do you want me to summon Edward, Melissa?’ I asked walking over to my Cousin and resting a gentle hand across the back of her shoulders.

Lady Evermore shuddered.

  ‘Don’t!’ She snapped. ‘Your friend, Harry Crabtree and a young man calling himself Robert Spinks were captured only minutes after you left them. That man they killed, he was my Father’s Nephew.’

I was shocked. Harry told me that the man was just a resident of The Quarter, an Urcher of sorts.

  ‘Nephew!’ I gasped out mortified.

Lady Evermore began walking around me while she informed me of who Jack Haulier was to the family – and of his importance.

He and Lord Evermore had fought in two wars; the first being the Second World War, while the second being able to cope with the waking nightmare visions of the atrocities that they had both seen during combat. Many times had been shared saving one another from bullets, bombs and silent assassins, so much so, that on their return from the war, Lord Evermore gave Jack a precious gift.

  ‘He believed he owed him something for saving his life!’ I gave a silent whisper whilst picking an orange from a nearby tree.

Melissa nodded. ‘It was a great gift – most probably one of the greatest gifts that Evermore Manor has ever had the honour of possessing…Until my Mother brought shame to us all and handed the title of Lady down.’

Lady Melissa Evermore – The Ice Queen, as she was better known to the residents of the town, was a person who could never be trusted. Her twenty-year reign had brought a lot of misery to the town, including those of the Manor. Everyone felt her hurt and pain of losing a daughter like Carrie, though this was not believed to be the whole cause of her sudden decline in happiness.

  ‘Your contacts in Borello, what did they tell you?’

  ‘That I should be asking you about the gift that Father gave to Mr Haulier, which is exactly what I intend to do as soon as you tell me why you were with Harry Crabtree?’

It was pointless trying to keep the truth from Melissa, she had gone through most of the things that I was going through by the time she was in her twenties, so why did I hold back?

  ‘Maybe I could find this “Gift” that you have so much interest in, or, I could go and check into this man for you…Robert!’ I suggested while enquiring his name again.

Melissa took in a deep breath. ‘Then go to Borello and find this man Robert Spinks, and when you do find him, you report back to me. I just have one piece of friendly advice, however…’

Nodding my head the answer was already written all over my face.   ‘It will be done, Lady Evermore, you have my word.’

The soft resistance in my Cousin’s face told me that she was looking past the deceptive self-made ego that I made a good show of, only to make me aware that once this was all over, I could never return to the life I had become accustomed to and had learned to love; the midnight runs through Borello’s streets, escaping over rooftops that on every height gave magnificent visions of the whole town below. All of this I would have to give up.

The Executioner

Harry had been released from police custody just as I returned to The Quarter in Borello, his face messed up with the kicks and punches from the officers who arrested him. Worse for wear I agreed to take him home where he could at least change into some clean clothes. A new coat was needed, too, as it had sustained more fatal injuries than Harry did himself. As we walked the cobbled streets I could see that he had been dazed by the sudden if not surprising apprehension that had the authorities rubbing their hands with absolute joy and glee at his capture.

  ‘They surrounded me. There was nothing that I or Robert could do, you see?’ He begged me to understand.

I got the idea. ‘So they did this to you?’

Harry didn’t answer, he just opened his ripped torn coat and showed me his ribs; redrawn, some bleeding, most of them bruised. The raised skin along several clearly indicated that the ribs had been broken, and almost immediately having me offer to take him to a clinic or hospital. Harry refused.

  ‘The police wanted to know who you are, Kid!’ He blurted out suddenly while catching me unaware.

  ‘Me, Harry? Why would they want to know about me?’

The glare in my gaze seemed to break him a little more, as his understanding of my question sunk in very fast.

  ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t tell ‘em who you was, I wouldn’t do that to you. But they were interested in what you were doing in that building with me.’ He admitted.

The first thought that appeared in my mind’s eye was the fact that Harry had been arrested for the murder of Mr Haulier, and yet, he had been released on bail to appear before the Magistrates in seven days’ time – was this now the routine of Borello’s Authorities?

  ‘At least you got bail, Harry, it could have been worse. Let’s get you home and get you cleaned up.’

Harry agreed with a weak smile. ‘Thanks, Kid, I knew I could count on you…not like that backstabbing Son-of-a-Bitch, Spinks!’

The cry of frustration and loathing in his voice said everything, though this was not all that dear old Harry sounded out about his partner in crime Robert Spinks.

When I finally got him back to his place that was located on the East-Side of The Quarter, we hurried into his apartment, which was pretty lavish for the kind of person I’d have never expected to live there. It seemed a little too jazzy for someone of his age.

  ‘Nice place you have here, Harry,’ I complimented.

  ‘I need some Bourbon.’

Looking around the room I spied upon a small mini-bar at the far end of the sitting room, walking over I picked up the bottle, just as I caught sight of a photograph out of the corner of my eye. Looking at it more closely while Harry staggered to a nearby wardrobe to change out of his old clothes, I poured us both a drink.

  ‘You know Lady Evermore?’ I finally spoke up.

Harry was wrestling a clean shirt over his head at the exact same time as my question, one which had him pause momentarily.

  ‘Yes, she and my business partner are sworn enemies!’ He replied continuing to dress.

I took him the drink and stood before him as to have him explain more on the Lady of the Manor – Melissa Evermore.

  ‘And what about Spinks?’ I added, swigging my Whisky to the silence that followed.

Harry was tired, shaken and very much stirred by the whole police ordeal, but he wasn’t stupid. The line of questioning that I had started with him ended on a low note that shocked even me.

  ‘Lady Gruber paid the bail for both me and Spinks, it’s an arrangement that we have with Borello House and its Lord’s, Ladies and Masters’, I thought you were under their protection, too…given the manner in which you dress, that is! Or are you an opportunist? In fact, who the fuck are you, Kid? You walked out of that place along with me and yet, you didn’t get arrested, which begs the question, who the hell are you?’

I had inadvertently brought attention to myself, some may have called it ‘Sloppy’, though, in my time of growing up around Borello House, as shady as it sounds too, I did always have the stealth to consort with the Staff. So why couldn’t this work with Harry?

  ‘Why, are you planning a birthday party for me, Harry,’ I laughed playfully, hoping that the attention break would lead him onto something else other than ME.

He smiled at my laughter. ‘Maybe. To be honest, I don’t know you from Adam…’

  ‘Whose Adam?’ I exclaimed, adding more laughter to my appearance, which in turn seemed to loosen Harry up a little bit.

  ‘You’re funny, Kid, but unfortunately, I’m growing thin of the cloak and dagger shit! Who are you? How come you only do jobs when it’s dark? What do you do during the daylight here…Are you a Copper?’

Harry was definitely grasping hold of the idea that I would finally tell him who I was, even though by looking at him, he didn’t have any weapons, no protection from me at all.

  ‘Do I look like a Copper, Harry, really?’ I gasped with disbelief at the mere thought that I appeared that way to him. ‘Besides, you already know who I am, I introduced myself when we took on the job of the Frenchman…remember?’

This didn’t cool down the mental fight that Harry was having in his mind, a fight that I didn’t know which part of him was trying to gain control of – but certainly, one which I was very surprised to be faced with, especially by the likes of Crabtree.

Taking from his wardrobe a loaded handgun he pointed the end of the barrel at my head. ‘Hands up, Kid, where I can see them!’

Visions flashed through my mind; those that were previously null and insignificant images that you would see when in times of soul departure preparations, or those at the very moment everything becomes crystal clear just before you concede to your sealed fate.

  ‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to put the gun down, Harry, I can’t talk to you when you have that thing stuck in my face.’ I spoke up through the suffocating silence.

  ‘You’re him, aren’t you?’ Harry whispered while staring at me as if I was something that he should fear – but what? Harry was scared of nothing, except rats, but that was a fundamental emotion that many people shared.

  ‘Him, Harry!’ I enquired with great interest.

Until this very day, I still don’t understand why Harry did what he did, maybe it was something that I failed to read from him during our run of the Borello jobs, but all the same, all I had was a name: Shade.

  ‘You’re him, the one they call The Hood…well you’re not getting me, Shade will be forever safe!’ He announced just before turning the barrel of the gun onto himself and pulling the trigger.

My reaction was obvious; the ill-digested sight of Harry’s last final thoughts splattering all over the walls, while all around the room there were the dreadful sounds of gurgling blood that came from his bloodied mouth.

  ‘Fuck, Harry!’ I finally called out pulling myself together.

There was no point phoning an ambulance – Harry The Executioner Crabtree was dead.

Passing Strangers

It was almost a week since Harry’s suicide at his home in Borello, though nobody in the general public knew of his strange demise that had led me onto a separate path to that of my Cousin, Melissa. The trail became cold for the Lady of the Manner to find Spinks, but then, so had it done the very same for me, too until I received word from a contact in Borello; Spinks’ ex-wife, Susan Faraday, one of Borello’s House Maidens had been found by a friend of mine who worked at Evermore Police Station, High Park Top. This was something done behind my Cousin’s back, of course, though maybe someday she would find out. But not today.

  ‘This Faraday woman,’ I began asking the young PC. Andy Ward, ‘Will she be able to give us Spinks?’

The officer looked nervous, he was always that jittery, even when we went to school together at Evermore High, he would be a total nervous wreck.

  ‘Faraday is the ex-wife, Elizabeth Faraday is his young daughter…’

  ‘Elizabeth Faraday!’ The name seemed to jump out at me like I suddenly recognized or knew the name I’d heard somehow.

Andy patted me on the back with a smile. ‘You are way out of her league, Lucas, but here’s the address…Oh, if it helps they drink at the Coffee Shop here in Evermore. The chances are they’ll be there today, most probably.’

Taking the details from him I walked from outside Evermore Police Station down the street to the tiny Coffee Shop before going inside and ordering a drink. I had never seen the wife of Spinks or the daughter, so it was frustrating to know that even if they walked straight past me I would never know. But it turns out that fate was over Evermore that day.

  ‘Excuse me!’ A woman’s loud demanding voice called out to me.

Turning around to see a middle-aged woman with an angry look on her face, I greeted her with a smile, one which she came to reject with a growling volley of unrepeatable words.

  ‘You pushed in front of me! Are you some kind of fucking retard, or something?’

The staff of the Coffee House were shocked by the words, as well as her tone toward me. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel intimated or insulted in any way by her words.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that!’ I replied, returning to the counter and taking my coffee.

The woman stood, her hands on her hips, her face twisted and contorted like she was about to kick someone’s arse – most probably mine – any second now.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at the top end of town, Mate, where the Wine and Cocktail Bars are?’ She threw what appeared to be a second insult at me, one which required a response.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, or why you’re so terribly injured by the fact that I accidentally went in line before you, but…’

I didn’t manage to get all of my words out of my mouth – words that I was favourably in two minds to shorten – before I felt the first slap of her hand across my face.

  ‘Accident! Injury! I’ll give you a fucking injury…’

The sting from the sheer force of the slap had me on the edge of breaking; the rage flooding to the surface to replace the respectful and sincere gesture. But before I could act upon its impulsive response, I was faced with another woman, younger, more fragile-looking than the one who had just alerted every customer in the place to my presence.

  ‘Mother, leave him alone!’ She cried rushing up and standing between us both. ‘My Mother is sorry, aren’t you Mother?’

The woman turned away to look at her daughter.

  ‘He pushed in…’

  ‘You’re sorry…for hitting him, aren’t you, Mother?’

The insistence in the young woman’s voice told me that not only was she strong-willed, but also free-spirited to an extent that beckoned me to her spiritually – arousingly. This was an unusual cross of all my emotions that suddenly began to run wild.

The Mother turned back to me and apologized with half a curtsy before declaring her order to the woman behind the counter, just before I nodded my head and pointed at my drink for her order to be billed on my personal account there.

  ‘My Mother is a little…’

  ‘Territorial. I can relate to that. Lucas, my name is Lucas.’ I introduced myself to the young woman.

Inviting me to join them at a table I agreed if only to find out and learn more about this young woman who had caused such an unfamiliar besiegement of attraction, allurement, bewitchment, even, to every nerve in my body.

Sitting down near the window I spent my time throwing gazes over to her until the Mother finally brought the drinks to the table and watched us both very carefully.

  ‘I am sorry about the misunderstanding, Mrs..?’ I apologized with a warm smile and prompted a name.

  ‘Faraday, Mrs Susan Faraday, and this is my daughter…!’

I could not help myself. ‘Elizabeth!’

Both women looked at one another with puzzled faces.

  ‘That’s right, are you the police?’ The Mother asked with caution sounding in her tone and a readied stance to start running – if she had the need to.

  ‘No, I’m not the police. Why, are you in trouble with them?’ I replied with another question.

Elizabeth was chilled, and relaxed in her way of handling the whole situation, while her mother was more the nervous type. It was almost certain that both of them had nothing to fear from me.

  ‘The police are looking for my husband, Robert, they say he killed a man in the town…’

  ‘He didn’t kill anyone, it was The Hood, he killed that man and set my Father up to take the fall,’ Elizabeth declared with conviction deeply rooted in her voice.

The young woman sat with her cup resting between both her palms, the quarter exposing her face that gave me a view of her hair, eyes, nose and partial glimpses of her soft perfect lips kissing the cup edge and sipping the hot dark liquid into her mouth before swallowing it instinctively.

  ‘Do you have any proof of this?’ I asked, quickly and forcefully shaking my head and breaking the fixed stare away from Elizabeth’s radiant beauty.

Placing the cup down in front of her she took from her pocket a piece of paper. ‘This,’ she said waving it under my nose.

Taking a hold of the paper I began to scan the document.

  ‘This is a memo from Borello House…Lady Gruber…’

  ‘That is who The Hood is, Mr.….?’

Now Elizabeth was asking for a formal introduction.

  ‘Cavendish, Lucas Cavendish, Ms Faraday.’ I replied keeping it short and simple.

Elizabeth’s response was neither of shock nor surprise at the revealing of my name – but then, why should she? I was in Evermore less than four years, except for visits made from the fallen House of Cavendish, of course. So my identity would just as well have been that of the Prime Minister’s – not everyone in Evermore knew who the hell was in power over the nation, because most didn’t care; Evermore residents enjoyed and boasted their lavish life, while Borello and its people gave everything to better their lives, and yet, nobody of Borello searched to be like their rival townspeople. Normal was a Quest best done with strength and leverage, as my recently deceased Second Cousin used to say.

  ‘Well, Mr Cavendish, I’m sure you think me a fool?’

The point of interest was focused on why a beautiful young woman such as Elizabeth would even think such a thing in her mind. She was nothing of the kind.

  ‘You are neither a fool nor foolish to have your very own opinion. I should point out, however, this is hardly the time or place to discuss such a matter…’

Elizabeth was headstrong. ‘Then where do you suggest we discuss this further, Mr Cavendish?’

I couldn’t think straight. Elizabeth was having some kind of effect on my whole body – I was struggling to restrain myself, to stop myself from falling into those eyes so deep and full of mystery.

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry, I can’t…Please, excuse me?’

I didn’t wait for any permission to my excusing myself, I just rushed out of that Coffee House with the wind in my hair and a caffeine boost in my step. What the hell was wrong with me?

Returning to Evermore Manor, I bumped into Melissa, who was at the time taking a call from her Uncle, Lord Monty Brindley-White.

  ‘Uncle wants to know if you’ll be attending his annual Masquerade Dance this weekend, Lucas?’ She asked while hanging a draped hand over the phone. ‘Yes, or no?’

I nodded, only half concentrating on what she had just asked me.

  ‘I don’t feel too good!’ I exclaimed.

Melissa felt my forehead, her face showing a little concern.

  ‘You have a temperature! Go get into bed and I will call for the Doctor to come and see you.’ I didn’t have the strength to argue, I just got on with doing it and soon found myself in bed feeling tired and exhausted.

To purchase this book, then click on the following link: Casanova Da Vinci’s “Breathe”

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