Nearworld Realized

By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

Nearworld Realized is Book One of the Nearworld Trilogy concerning the life and times of Jaq Bennett, a Private Detective in this world but in Nearworld she is The Investigator and that world expects her to apprehend a psychopathic killer who murders in many universes. Jaq discovers the other world completely by accident when she is investigating the disappearance of a daughter of a distraught mother. She steps into an alleyway and finds a gateway to another world, Nearworld. They have been expecting her and searching for her, for over three hundred years. She struggles to live her life between two worlds as Nearworld asks more and more of her. This novel is the first of three very entertaining fantasy novels by S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.D. Gripton
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215646830

S.D. Gripton

S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

Book preview

Nearworld Realized

Book One

Of

The Nearworld Trilogy

A Jaq Bennett Fantasy Crime Novel

By

S.D. Gripton & Sally Dillon-Snape

Copyright © Sally Dillon-Snape & Dennis Snape (2024)

The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with

The Copyright Act 1988

All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced,

stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means

without the written permission of the publisher

cover by Snape

***

Chapter 1

Christmas Day

The Cave

The cave was sited in the mountains south of the city, it was large in size and had a narrow entrance. Lots of city citizens knew it was there and used its darkness during summer months for illegal parties and the smoking of dope. But not today.

Today was Christmas Day and the only people inside the cave were the time-traveling magician and his half-starved, raggedly-dressed acolytes. They had been promised Indestructability by the magician who was, himself, an Indestructible. Today the cave was not dark, it was lit by the majic from the magician’s hands, warmed in the same way because outside, in the wider world, snow and ice and freezing temperatures were what mere mortals were suffering.

The bundle the acolytes had delivered lay upon the rocky ground. It was bound tightly, unmoving, only its fear-filled eyes moving, attempting to make sense of what was happening.

The muscled, leather-clad magician stepped over to it, staring down, smiling.

You have done well, the magician said.

The acolytes bowed their heads, muttering among themselves, each of them suffering in the past from the hands of the magician, none wanting to speak in case they spoke wrong.

Does it have identification?

There was a pause whilst the acolytes worked out which one of them was to answer.

It is called Neeta, a wavering voice answered.

The magician grinned.

Neeta. We shall have fun with Neeta.

And fun was had.

***

St Stephen’s Day

The Heist

Gio Bonnetti was the main man. he was the brains behind the operation, the organizer, the man who was running the show. He was currently sitting on a red leather bench seat in the rear of a silver 1961 Alpha Romeo Giulietta Berlina, dressed as if for a ball. He was wearing an immaculately cut and styled dark suit and very shiny handmade dark leather shoes. He also wore a pocket-monogrammed white frilled shirt, a black bow tie. His short gray hair was cut in military style, his gray eyes stared out of a rear window of the car into the darkness of a city night that surrounded the car with the frightening menace of a rabid dog. It was especially dark around the car because that’s where Gio Bonnetti had ordered it to be parked.

On the passenger seat beside him lay five cell phones, all new, all fully charged, all of which would be dispensed with once his newest business venture was completed. Gio waited for one of them to ring. He glanced at the gold Omega watch that lay around his left wrist, held there by a gold band. It was two minutes until seven p.m.

Soon be time, Mr Bonnetti, Alfred, the middle-aged driver of the car said.

Soon, Alfred, Gio answered.

At exactly seven p.m. the nearest phone chirped.

Gio picked it up and took the call.

Leaving now, a voice said.

Gio switched off the phone.

And it began.

The security wagon that was going to pick up the cash takings from all the stores in the Village Mall was on its way. One wagon picking up the cash from all the stores was something that happened only one day every year; on St Stephen’s Day, commonly known as Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day. Stores usually employed their own security firms to move their cash but on this one day, because it was a National Holiday and working staff were short in number, it had become tradition for all the money to go into one wagon, staffed by six heavily armed guards. It had happened this way for the past six years, since Village Mall had opened, there had never been a problem, no one had ever tried to rob it.

Tonight, there would be a problem.

Tonight, somebody would rob it.

The cell phones lying on the back seat of the Giulietta continued to ring; the progress of the wagon being followed across the city. It would arrive at the Mall at seven-thirty p.m. precisely. That was thirty-minutes before the Mall closed, but money taken during the final thirty minutes would remain in safes within the stores, the rest of it already being counted, notated and loaded into boxes ready for being transported to the wagon.

Cell phones in the Giulietta rang in sequence as the wagon neared the Mall.

Gio looked at his Omega Watch again.

Timing would be tight. He had to be at a function by eight-thirty; it would have to be over by then, even if it meant leaving some of the money behind.

Another phone chirped.

Gio took the call.

We are here, a voice said.

Gio switched the phone off.

Now it really began.

He imagined what was happening inside the Mall; boxes being loaded onto trollies and rolled towards the rear service entrance, trollies rolling along the hidden walkways through which the stores were supplied. Trolley after trolley being pushed towards the rear door, where the security wagon waited. The wagon would have been reversed almost all the way to the door; the Mall’s own security people being responsible for the cash before it entered the wagon. Five armed guards would climb out of the double-back doors of the wagon, thrusting them open, leaving them that way ready to receive the boxes, they would be standing and staring outwards from the Mall, across the service yard, weapons raised, helmets fixed with visors down; looking for trouble from the only direction from which trouble could come, away from the Mall. The driver, who would normally be locked in the cab but who was required for protection services, climbed out, lugging a weapon with him. He’d been forced to become an armed guard because the security firm was short-handed, so many guys not turning up for work during the festive period. He took his place in the line, three guards down each side of the truck, weapons raised.

Inside, the Village Mall’s own security force would, by now, have been forced into storerooms on every level, bound and gagged by seemingly innocent people, men and women alike who had only recently been customers and shoppers. The security members’ places would have been taken by identically dressed men and women who would slide into place without a murmur, a protest or a scream. They would be responsible for pushing the trollies down from the stores. Gio imagined the events almost as identically as they were happening.

In the car a cell phone rang and then rang off.

Gio picked up the cell phone nearest to him, connected it to a number, let it ring twice before he, too, rang off.

He was stiffly tense in the rear of the car.

It never ceased to amaze him that even now, at sixty-one years of age and with rheumatic knees and high blood pressure, he could still be tense and worried every time a job went down.

It will all go well, he told himself.

Six men who were identically dressed to the genuine guards, exited unseen from the rear entrance of the Mall. They carried the same weapons as the guards, except theirs had been adapted to fire tranquilizer darts. These men stepped from the Mall into the yard, knelt on one knee and fired their darts containing Etorphine, into the backs of the genuine guards. Etorphine was the drug that the serial killer and police blood splatter specialist, Dexter, used on every victim during his fictitious TV series. The darts sped towards the guards, punched their way through their uniforms and injected the tranquilizer into their blood systems. Two of the guards were hardy enough to turn to face the robbers, they even attempted to lift their weapons, until all six crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Several stolen sedan cars rolled into the yard, lights off, and a man climbed out of the front one and climbed into the wagon as the new driver, slamming the door shut once he was in. The unconscious guards were lifted into two of the stolen cars and driven off and abandoned some miles away, where they would awaken after one hour and be very disorientated. The other cars waited with engines running, ready to take away the gang members.

The trollies arrived at the rear entrance and one by one the boxes of cash were lifted into the back of the wagon, until all the stores had complied with their orders. The new guards climbed into the back of the wagon, the doors were pulled shut and locked from inside, the wagon drove away. Pushing shut the rear service doors to the Mall, the pretend internal security staff climbed into the cars waiting for them and they were driven away, leaving the yard strewn with abandoned trollies and very little else.

A cell phone on the seat next to Gino rang three times and Gino smiled and relaxed a little.

***

Charitable Donations

Thirty-one minutes later cops were notified of the crime.

By that time the wagon was safely hidden in a warehouse, money was being lifted into canvas bags and into the trunks of cars. This was a part of the operation that Gio Bonnetti need not involve himself in, so he asked Alfred, his driver, to take him to the ball. On the way, the phones were dropped into the river, never to be seen, or used, again.

At exactly eight-twenty-six Gio arrived at City Hall at the exact same time as his wife, Gloria, who arrived in her own limo, and arm in arm they climbed the steps between the huge Gothic columns into the Town Hall, where the annual Mayor’s Christmas Ball was being held. A gathering of the great and good of the city. Flashlights popping all around them, the media represented in some numbers, recording the entrances for the record and for the public.

Inside the huge foyer, two hundred people were gathered, being served drinks by dark vested waiters, glasses of champagne for all the guests, courtesy of The Mayor; paid for from his own personal finances. Gio and Gloria smiled, circulated, shook hands and made small talk with people they knew, and they knew almost everyone present. Chatting amicably, they made their way towards the people with whom they would be sharing a table when they sat for dinner at nine p.m., upstairs in the ornate dining room, before dancing into the early hours. Gio lifted his glass in celebration towards those people, other businessmen; not exactly in the same profitable business as he was himself, although he did own a legitimate office cleaning business; who were other very rich men who ran most of the industry in the city. They chatted in a friendly manner, the ladies gathering as a separate entity to chat amongst themselves.

A bell rang out, a distinctive sound above the chatter of the two hundred, and the guests began to climb the wide, impressive, curving staircase, making their way towards the dining room and their tables, eight to a table, each table having donated ten thousand dollars towards The Mayor’s charitable organisations for the privilege of attending. People took their places, name cards on tables in front of every chair, each table alternating between man and woman or other, though the pairings were not necessarily partners’ or wives and husbands or others. Gio and Gloria were extremely happy with this arrangement; it was, after all, the twenty-fifth year of their attendance at Christmas Balls, hosted by four different Mayors, some serving longer than others.

As the two hundred settled, Gio began to look around the room to see who occupied other tables. There were four further tables of businessmen towards whom Gio smiled and nodded; raising his glass to one or two of them; there were three tables of local celebrities, people from City TV, a couple of actors and producers, a couple of very pretty actresses, one of whom Gio had been proud to aid in her bid to become a star. She was dressed in a slinky, low cut purple dress, showing ample bosom, she smiled a gloriously white-toothed smile at him; Gio bowed his head slightly as his eyes scanned the rest of the room.

Eventually he espied a table that excited him, it contained a group of people who made his blood flow a little faster in his veins.

Sitting at it were Chief Denny, Chief of Police, in full uniform, with his wife, Rosemarie, along with his Chief of Detectives, Clyde Naismith and his wife, Sarah. Gio knew them and all their names. Also sitting at the table was Robert Edison, the city D.A., with his wife, Sonia; and his senior Assistant D.A. Ronald Heathcote with his petite, fair-haired, green-eyed partner, Jacqueline Bennett, dressed in a festive red gown. As Gio looked over at them, they in turn looked back at him; none of them smiled, their looks being perfectly amicable but cold, though Gio smiled to no purpose. His gaze hovered upon Jaq Bennett for a moment, then moved on to other cops who took up a couple of other tables. None of them smiled at him.

It was two hours into the Ball as Gio was returning from the gents’ bathroom, buttoning up his jacket with his freshly washed fingers, adjusting his bow tie, as he stepped along a deeply carpeted, low lit, narrow corridor that led back into the ballroom that he discovered someone blocking his way. It was the slim and petite Jaq Bennett; from the table with the Chief of Police and her partner, A.D.A. Heathcote, sitting at it; and she was resplendent and beautiful in her red gown.

Gio halted, staring down at her from his six-feet-one-inch of height, Jaq being only five-feet-five-inches tall. Her stare was unremitting, her lips compressed, her attractive features coldly set. Looking around him to see if anyone else was near, Gio finally spoke.

This is not a place to talk, he said.

I’m not here to talk, Jaq said as she held out a paper napkin, holding it towards him.

He stared at it without touching or taking it.

What is that? he asked.

I could say it’s my demands, but it isn’t, not strictly so. I saw on my phone that there had been a heist earlier this evening. News networks are saying more than eight million dollars were taken.

She didn’t pause to see what affect her statement had on the older man, she knew from experience that his expression rarely changed, especially under pressure.

On this napkin I have written the names of eight charitable organisations to which you will donate a share of ten percent of the sum you stole this evening. That’s ten percent gross, not ten per-cent of what you may have left after you’ve paid off everyone involved. No one was seriously hurt or killed during the heist, so I am going to let you walk again. Take the napkin; study it well, make no mistakes, ensure the charities receive their windfalls; I will be checking.

Jaq thrust the napkin further towards the taller, thicker built man, who stood in the corridor as if frozen to the spot.

Take it before someone comes along and asks what it is we are doing here, what we are discussing because I will then have to tell them. I will have to tell them who, how and where. Take the napkin.

Gio Bonnetti took the napkin.

He made no attempt to read it; he simply folded it and placed it in the right pocket of his jacket. Jaq Bennett turned from him without saying another word, without acknowledging him with a nod or a smile, and she walked back to the ball and to her partner, A.D.A. Ronald Heathcote. Gio watched her go.

He didn’t think it was any way for a daughter to speak to her father; it was certainly no way for her to treat him. Ten percent, how would he be able to explain that to the other members of the gang? He would have to speak to Gloria about such insults, see if she could get their daughter to ease her demands and, in future, watch her mouth. A loud soulful sigh emitted from his mouth.

Kids, he thought, what th’hell can you do with them?

***

The Private Detective

The day following St Stephen’s Day, the 27th December, began very cold, with ice on the highways and covering all the vehicles, but for many it was a normal working day, weather conditions were of no importance to them, they were something to be suffered and ignored, people had to get to work. Jacqueline Teresa Bennett, for one, had to get to work; she had a business to run, an income to earn and holidays, even holidays as joyous as Christmas, during which she and her partner had exchanged wonderful gifts and enjoyed extremely fine times, didn’t bring cash into her business.

It had been wonderful though, she reflected, spending time with the love of her life, Ronald Heathcote, the A.D.A. in the City Justice Department, a man of great intelligence as far as she was concerned, a man who would be running for D.A. at the next election in two years’ time. He was intelligent and clever, not always the same thing, and he was beautiful, especially when stripped down to his shorts. They’d been together four years now and she could never see herself being with anyone else. Why should she? She loved him and he loved her, they were a perfect match. Every day when she left for work, she looked forward to returning home, though sometimes both of them had to work late because of their jobs. As she drove, she smiled at the memory of him; his warmth next to her body, his caresses…

…and she almost rear skidded the car.

Concentrate, she told herself. Keep those thoughts for appropriate times. Driving on icy roads was not the time for thinking things like that. Numbnuts.

It had been difficult walking out of the third-floor apartment she shared with Heath, carrying her briefcase, returning to work in the cold, the apartment being an engagement present from both Jaq’s parents, Gio and Gloria, the money paid through her surrogate mother, Lilleth; and Heath’s mom and dad; his dad being a Bank Vice-President, his mom being a social butterfly of some standing within the city. Jaq loved the apartment, with its small balcony where they enjoyed drinks and snacks during the summer, with its large rooms and huge windows that overlooked acres of city roofs, with its own private elevator, their third-floor apartment being the one at the top of the building, a private key-card to use the elevator when they stepped out of it, immediately stepping into the lounge area of their home. To Jaq, it was a fantastic place to live. And she hadn’t wanted to leave, not on such a cold morning.

But what th’hell, she thought, that’s life.

She drove to her place of work in her red and white British Mini-car, not one of the new ones built by BMW, but a genuine one, built by the Brits, when they could build such things and build them well. She loved the car with a vengeance, almost as much as the apartment, and this morning she had lovingly scraped ice from the side windows and the windshield, something that had attracted knowing shakes of the head from other early risers, before she’d climbed in, the heater blowing at full heat.

Heath, of course; Heath being her name for her A.D.A. partner; was still enjoying his holiday season; he was still warmly tucked up in bed when she departed; the pressure on state officials to earn a living being somewhat less than on those individuals who actually ran their own businesses. She was happy enough in her work though, ecstatically so on occasion when it worked out well for her.

She parked the car on what seemed to be a sheet of ice in front of the door to her business and bumped gently into the sidewalk, not causing any damage to her beloved car, parking next to dark blue SUV, the car that belonged to her secretary. No matter what the weather conditions, no matter how early she arrived at work, her secretary was always there before her; the man being more fanatical about the business than Jaq, herself, was.

She climbed from the car, lifting her briefcase from the passenger seat, locking the door and looking up briefly to see the sign above the door ‘JAQ BENNETT – PRIVATE DETECTIVE’ something of which she was inordinately proud. Her very own agency; and she had her city and State licence to prove it, the licenses hung on a wall of her office framed, behind glass. She’d worked hard to achieve them, taken all the exams she could take, taking advantage of connections through Heath and his friends in law enforcement to ride with cops, to study past cases, being offered a job with law enforcement while doing it and refusing, wanting to be a Private Detective, wanting her own business, something that had just celebrated its fifth Christmas of existence. As she pushed the door open, she smiled and kicked ice and snow from her shoes, wondering how the upcoming year would pan out. She’d earned a pretty good living from the Agency so far, but she’d never had a headline-grabbing case, the kind of investigation that set up a Private Detective for life. Maybe this would be her year.

She climbed the well-lit, colorfully decorated and carpeted staircase, something that was the secretary’s idea; the lights, the decor and the carpet; make the whole thing an experience, he’d advised, when they’d first opened their doors, make people welcome, make them feel at home. Having thick carpet on a staircase that led directly up from the street was something that had to be replaced every year, people tramping up and down it every day bringing with them, unintentionally, all the dirt of the street on their shoes and it had not been one of the secretary’s better ideas.

At the top of the stairs, she pushed open the half-glass door that had JAQ BENNETT painted upon it with silver paint, another idea from the secretary and she stepped through.

***

The Secretary

Clive Redding was her secretary; a faux-Englishman who’d apparently arrived in America many years earlier with a self-confessed dream to act or write or direct or produce or anything, something in entertainment, but none of those dreams had come to fruition, maybe and because he had many of the well-known eccentricities of his proclaimed nationality. He was forty-years-of-age but had dark curling hair down to his shoulders which he wore like a wayward hippy from the late Sixties. He was someone who was so unbelievably slim that female clients often asked for the secrets of his diet, except Clive had no idea what a diet was, because he ate everything he laid his eyes upon, and he drank enough wine in a week to refill a vat. He possessed cheekbones that most women would kill for, except Jaq had similar ones so she wasn’t jealous of them, though she could easily have accepted the long eyelashes that Clive fluttered with such devastating effect. When he looked at you, he looked with eyes that were a perfect shade of gray and which gazed into your soul with kindness and warmth, as a person felt themselves melting under his gaze.

Though he could also be something of a brute.

Especially where the business of the Jaq Bennett Private Detective Agency, and the defense of it, was concerned.

He protected Jaq with every trick he’d learned during years of martial arts training. He may well have come across as a mildly effeminate, irrepressible Englishman, with the classic limp wrist and an idiosyncratic way of speaking, but if upset, if Jaq was upset, if someone made threats, he could take testicles all the way up to the ears with one swing of his slim and elegant left leg, or his right one come to that. At close quarters Clive Redding was quite deadly and, as well as serving as Jaq’s secretary, he also acted as her bodyguard.

Bullies and felonious characters of low repute may laugh at him once but none of them ever laughed twice.

***

The Family Bonetti

Jaq entered the reception area. It was as brightly decorated as the staircase and smelled of Ralph Lauren’s aromatic Safari perfume, one of Clive’s favorite scents. The aroma was heady and Clive, himself, was sitting behind his large highly polished wooden desk, a laptop to his left, cell phones and a fixed line phone to his right, pads and paper, pencils and pens neatly laid in front of him, with filing cabinets arranged in an arc behind him. He was dressed today, Jaq thought, for the festive season, in a dark pink shirt, a lighter pink necktie, loosely tied, a white belt and dark pink jeans. He was either dressed for the festive season or he was still to return home from one of the numerous parties he’d attended.

Miss Bennett, he gushed as he lifted his right hand to his mouth, as if Jaq entering reception was a life changing event for both him and her when, in fact, the office only closed on three days a year, Christmas Day, St Stephen’s Day and New Year’s Day, and only on that day because everyone had a hangover. When Clive took his vacations, Jaq manned the phones and carried out the investigations; when she was away, he took the messages and left them tidily in date and time order upon her desk, ready for her return. They’d endlessly discussed employing a temp but they could never agree on whether it should be another Private Detective or a secretary.

But it all worked, after a fashion.

And it had been working that way ever since the first day the Agency opened, when Jaq unlocked the door and she and Clive stepped in. Jaq already having held interviews for a secretary, Clive being appointed. As they stepped in, he sniffed the air, looking around in despair and demanded singular authority over decoration. The same two people who stepped in on that first day, Jaq and Clive, were still working together five years later, both of them earning a living from the business, sometimes Clive earning more than Jaq because he had a contract for a minimum monthly wage that she was legally bound to pay him, a contract she did not have with herself.

Clive rolled back his chair, came from behind his desk, sashayed across a reception area which had comfortable clients’ chairs and a coffee table arranged down one wall, and spread his long arms wide, the fingers of his huge hands extending widely as he swept Jaq up in them. Being over six-feet tall meant he could do this with ease. Jaq tucked her head into his slim chest and held her breath in case she overdosed on Safari fumes. Eventually, and almost at the point of Jaq taking a breath, he held her at arm’s length, pulling her back in again to almost kiss both her cheeks, mawing them; maw, maw; Jaq holding her breath again.

You look fabulous, Miss Bennett; absolutely fabulous. Have you and the lawyer finally agreed to marry, you look that happy, or are you with child and glowing with expectation? You look that happy, too.

Neither of those things, Clive, and I am sure you would be the first to know. I am just delighted to be back at work, nose to the grindstone sort of thing.

Clive lifted a hand to his brow.

Oh Miss Bennett; how expressive and expansive you are. That’s us is it not; noses to the grindstone type of people, workers and toilers, never letting the grass grow beneath our feet, always on the move, the business always coming first?

Yes, Clive, if you say so; any messages?

He stepped back, an astonished expression upon his face.

Oh, Miss Bennett, you failed to ask what kind of festive season I have had. It may well have been disastrous for me; I could, at this very moment, be bleeding to death internally from the sadness of my existence. I could be on the point of ending it all due the wretchedness of my situation. On the other hand, it may have been glorious; but you will never know if you do not ask.

He placed his chin in one of his large hands and placed one foot behind the other, like a dancer, his feet clad in pink trainers, no socks despite the weather.

Pardon me, Clive, please forgive me. How was your festive season?

Oh, Miss Bennett, it was glorious; above all expectations. Lots of wonderful parties attended, new people in my life, new friends, new lovers…

No details, Clive, if you would be so kind. It’s fairly early in the morning, and it’s my first day back. I want coffee, I want to read the newspapers and discover what’s happening in the city, I want clients to climb the staircase and demand our attention, thereby keeping us in the state of joyful poverty to which we have become accustomed, at least in the way I have become accustomed.

She smiled sweetly as he pouted at her, before he returned to sit behind his desk.

Newspapers on are on your desk, he said in business-like manner, showing his more efficient side. Coffee is in the machine but I’m afraid I cannot yet offer you up a client though, to be fair, it is the holiday season, the most stressful time of the year, according to many polls, relationships notoriously fall apart at this time of year. Have no fear we will have a client shortly.

He fluttered his eyelashes and Jaq temporarily hated him.

She pushed open her office door, entered and closed it behind her, leaning on it for a moment. Sometimes she wished she’d employed a ditsy blond American girl to be her secretary, someone not quite so effusive and outgoing, less colorful, not so overwhelming, as Clive was wont to be. Still, he was brilliant at the various jobs he did for her.

She had no need to switch on the lights in her office, Clive had already done that, just had he’d put fresh water into the coffee machine, which was already perfectly made to drink. She placed her briefcase flat on her desk, removed her gloves, coat and unwound her muffler. Pushing gloves into coat pockets, she hung both coat and muffler on an antique wooden hat-stand, a gift from Heath, which stood to the left of the door. Returning to her desk, she clicked open her briefcase and removed papers held inside it. She laid them all neatly along her desk. She poured a coffee and finally sat, laying the empty briefcase beneath her desk, unfolding the city newspaper placed there by Clive.

The headlines were all about the heist of yesterday.

She skimmed the details, but seemed to know what they were before she even read them. The organisation of it could only have been controlled by one man; her father; Gio Bonnetti; it was a trademark heist. Everyone in law enforcement would know it was him, from street cops to the Chief, to the City D.A. and the A.D.A, all the lawyers who worked in Justice, just as they would know that they would never find any evidence to prosecute him with. Or enough evidence to prosecute his sons, Jaq’s brothers; Anthony, Eric, twins Paul and Frederick, and Gio Jnr. The most powerful defense lawyers in the city would be available should any of them be arrested and questioned, or God forbid, charged, which was about as likely as the North Polar icecap melting. In other words, it could happen, but it was something deemed impossible by the majority.

Jaq leaned back in her chair, letting the newspaper lie on her desk, and she thought of the circumstances that had led to her father and brothers being on the opposite side of the legal fence to her.

***

Family History

When she’d been born, the only girl amongst all those boys, Gloria, her mother, had insisted that she be given a chance in the world, a chance that didn’t involve criminal behavior. She’d argued this for her daughter until Gio relented. At two years old, her mother strapped her into a car seat and drove her across the city to where her sister, Lilleth, lived. Lilleth was the true innocent of the Bonnetti family, someone who had not used the family name since the age of fourteen, when she’d left home to live with a distant uncle, who was a librarian at the time the baby was two years old, when she was handed Jacqueline for safekeeping, for a chance in the world, a chance for an education, maybe of a university education, something none of the men in her family had achieved, a chance for a girl to lead a life free of crime and criminals. Lilleth ceased being a librarian the moment the baby was handed to her, she became the surrogate mother of Jacqueline Teresa Bonnetti.

Gloria Bonnetti thought it somewhat ironic that her only daughter, her beautiful Teresa, now known as Jaq: whatever kind of name that was for a girl: was reared under the surname Bennett; which Gloria thought distanced her further from the family; had become a Private Detective and was involved in crimes and criminality every day of her life. Though she worked at it from a different point of view to that of her family; Gloria did concede that.

And, of course. Jaq had attended university, studying law, her fees, all her education fees being paid for by Gio, money handed down to Lilleth, who had never married, but who had, since the age of fourteen, used the surname of Bennett, who had explained away the baby to neighbors in the early days by saying her family had fallen on lean times and she was taking care of the her for a short time. Within months of the little one arriving at her home though, a new apartment was found for Lilleth and Jaq in a better part of the city, where no one asked questions. Gio paid for that, too.

He loved his daughter, just as his wife did, but the girl had gone over to the bad side in Gio’s opinion, she never gave him an inch of space within which he could act or move. Everything he planned, everything the family did, every heist, every robbery, she was there demanding money for her charities. God forbid if anyone should ever get hurt or die during one of the crimes. He was sure she would turn them all in, she would do it without so much as another thought. That’s why all his robberies were so meticulously planned. He couldn’t afford to have anyone seriously hurt during them. He had a conscience sitting on his shoulder in the shape of his petite daughter.

When he agreed to her going away to be reared by another woman, it never occurred to him that she would turn out to be a Private Detective, one of the best in the city, living with an A.D.A. with whom she was, apparently, in love, and who she was determined to marry. How many nightmares did one man have to suffer in his life? The worrying didn’t do his blood pressure any good at all.

And no secrets had ever been withheld from Jaq. She had always known who her mother and father were; Gloria visited her sister occasionally for arranged meetings with Jaq, sometimes she would pass on messages from Gio saying he would like to meet her too, and Jaq would find his car parked in dark places, very often down by the docks, him sitting in the back, the driver having been given instruction to take a walk, and they would chat for thirty-minutes or so before she returned to her life. Jaq never met her brothers in any formal way, or uncles or aunts or cousins; she never attended church or family occasions, weddings, funerals, christenings; she never spent Christmas with them, or any other festive period, she never had; though she did bump into her brothers sporadically during the normal run of her business. They were always friendly towards her when they did meet, as she was to them, and she knew her oldest brother, Anthony, was being groomed to take over the family businesses. He was becoming particularly important in the daily life of the city, too. He had attended adult education classes in his effort to ready himself for promotion and was now able to converse with Jaq on almost any subject. He was even considering a political career, Jaq heard, maybe running for Mayor or for the Senate; he had some powerful backers. He was forty-two-years-of-age now; the oldest of her five brothers, Anthony being forty-two, Eric forty, the twins Paul and Frederick thirty-eight, the youngest, Gio Jnr thirty-six, almost four years older than Jaq, her being something of a mistake in the family, an afterthought in the love life of Gio and Gloria Bonnetti. But they did love her.

***

The Alleyway

Jaq sipped her dark coffee, no milk, no sugar, ignored the newspaper, rifled through papers from her briefcase. There was a note reminding her to visit Anna Kneilson, who had employed Jaq five weeks ago to trace her missing daughter, Agnetha, known as Neeta, who’d disappeared following a night out with friends. Cops had investigated but had found nothing and moved on. Jaq had spoken to all the friends who were drinking with Neeta on that night, had decided that none of them were involved in her disappearance. She’d traced Neeta’s last steps, followed her from the moment she’d left her friends to a place where she thought she might find a cab for her ride home. She’d spoken to all the cab drivers who used the pick-up point, she’d shown Neeta’s photo to them but none recognised her. Jaq had used her contacts to take a brief look at any criminal records the cab drivers may have had, but there was only one who had any convictions of any kind, and that was for the possession of cocaine, not exactly a crime that would lead naturally to the abduction of a young girl. There was no one among the cab drivers who had any inclination to abduct a pretty, blond-haired Scandinavian-looking girl of eighteen; besides, they were too busy earning a living.

Jaq had concentrated her search on the streets between where Neeta had