“Honestly Dad, it has. People in the hotel are telling us that a tsunami is on the way and that we should run to the hills.”
“A tsunami! What the fuck is a tsunami?” I said as the phone line went dead.
“Really. My daughter and her vivid imagination,” I thought to myself as I settled back down to sleep.
The next morning there was nothing on the BBC news other than the enormous earthquake that had struck, just after midnight, in the Indian Ocean, and the ensuing tsunami which had hit most of the bordering landmass including, of course, Thailand.
The mountain wave or tsunami had risen to a height of over one hundred feet and travelled across the ocean at the staggering speed of more than five hundred miles an hour.
Most of the Western coastal area of Thailand had been engulfed and there were reports of as many as a quarter of a million people being killed.
I felt sick with worry and desperately tried to get in touch with Nina’s hotel, but found it to be impossible to get through. The thought of losing my daughter was far worse than any emotions that I had felt at any time during my military career, or my time as an MI6 agent.
Television reports showed dramatic pictures of the hotel where Nina, and her new husband Tom, had been booked into but had been upgraded for their honeymoon. The hotel was completely destroyed and there were thought to be no survivors.
It wasn’t until the day after Boxing Day that I received a call from Tom, telling me that both he and Nina were safe and unharmed. Nina was however very shocked and distressed. She then came on the line and begged me to hire a plane and fly out to get them both home.
Nina always did think of me as some sort of wonderful SAS hero, who was capable of doing, just about, anything. I wasn’t, of course. And given the circumstances all across the affected area, it would have been almost impossible for anyone to hire a private jet and fly out to get them home, even for her ‘super dad’.
The newlyweds got back safely a few days after the traumatic events and Nina seemed to settle down well. It wasn’t until some months later that the shock of the Indian Ocean tsunami would start to have a devastating impact on my beautiful and vivacious daughter’s health.
One of the many skills I was required to maintain proficiency in as an agent, was skiing. At least once a year, the service would arrange, and pay for, a skiing trip for a couple of weeks, normally in Norway.
But this jaunt was at my expense, and not in Norway but in Chamonix in the French Alps. Nina and I had just raced each other down a Red Run and were in a small queue of people waiting for the chair-lift. As we stood casually chatting Nina took a small step forward and unexpectedly fell to the ground.
“What the hell is up with you?” I asked with a laugh. “People tend to fall while they are coming down the piste. Not while they are standing in the bloody queue.”
“I’m scared Dad,” she said. “There’s something wrong with my legs.”
We didn’t know it at the time, but that fall was the first indication that Nina had contracted the debilitating condition multiple sclerosis, known as MS, which she was convinced was brought on by the horrific events in Thailand the previous Christmas.
Back in London, we went together to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where, after a series of tests, Nina was diagnosed with Primary Progressive MS.
Over the following few months, we tried everything we could to alleviate the inexorable advance of the disease. We diligently searched the internet to find some sort of cure, convinced that there must have been a newly developed remedy somewhere in the world. We were willing to try anything. We tried barometric chamber treatment; Chinese tablets that cost an absolute fortune; a trip to a hospital in Hungary, where it was claimed that an insert into an artery leading to the brain was the very latest breakthrough and was providing wonderful results. None of them worked for Nina.
After a while, we were convinced that we had found the solution. We identified a ‘world-renowned’ expert in MS who had his offices in Harley Street, London. For only two thousand pounds per visit, the consultant would examine Nina and give her some drugs to take. The drugs proved to be totally useless and the so-called ‘world-renowned expert’ turned out to be nothing more than a fake who had rented a room in a Harley Street clinic on an hourly basis, just for our visits.
We came to realise that our efforts were futile. There was nothing that could stop the relentless progress of multiple sclerosis.
Now, my once vibrant and ebullient daughter, though still beautiful and full of fun, cannot work and is confined to a wheelchair. Her sight is rapidly deteriorating and she has very little strength in her arms.
Watching her waste away has been the most harrowing and painful experience of my life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
RADCLIFFE ENGLAND 11th NOVEMBER 2015 0552 HOURS
“Sweet mother of Jesus,” I say to myself. Remembering the words my long-deceased father used to say, the nearest thing he ever got to blaspheming. The strongest swear word I ever recall him using apart from ‘Blast’ was ‘Bloody’.
It’s a little after five in the morning and I’m struggling to understand why I have dragged myself out of bed so early. It’s fucking freezing! I can even see my breath. I wriggle my toes in the vain hope of returning some circulation to my bare, but pristine as ever, feet. I suppose I should expect it to be cold, it is, after all, the middle of winter in the small suburb of Radcliffe, North Manchester. Whilst waiting for the kettle to boil I chuckle to myself, confirming how ridiculous I must look, as I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass door, wearing nothing but my partner Carol’s fluffy pink dressing gown.
I clear away the icy condensation from the window and look out towards the bottom of the garden. Even though it is not due to get light for, at least, another two hours, I can clearly make out the sun. The sun I refer to is the Sun newspaper which is plastered across our neighbour’s bedroom window. The yellow glow of the streetlight illuminating the headline of September 11th, 2001: ‘DAY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD’. I find it hard to comprehend why anyone would use old newspapers as curtains. But then again Radcliffe is not noted for being the most salubrious of neighbourhoods.
As I stand in front of the glass door stirring my tea, I once again, consider the image in front of me. Still a fine figure of a man, I manage to convince myself, even though I am now knocking on seventy. I have an appointment at eight in the Doctor’s Surgery, on the first floor of the Business Jet Centre in Manchester Airport. The appointment is for my annual assessment, which I must pass to maintain my flying licence. Doctor Reisler, who has been doing my medicals for the past twenty years or so, knows that I am deaf in my left ear due to all the shooting I did as a young man in the Army. He also knows that I have worked out how to cheat when taking the Audio Gram test. He gives me a knowing look and smiles as he signs the certificate indicating that I am fit to fly. Before handing me the form he reminds me to always carry my reading glasses in the cockpit whilst flying, in order for me to be able to read the instruments clearly. I return the smile and promise I will as always – but I never do, and I think the good doctor knows that.
The sound of our cat, Ginge, scratching to get in after his night on the tiles, and the kids shouting next door, as they awaken, brings me back to reality. I have no idea how long I have been stirring my brew for but it looks more like treacle than it does tea.
The sound of a car and headlights suddenly flooding the kitchen as it pulls up outside the door seems to be very unusual for this time of the morning in our quiet little cul-de-sac.
How weird… I think, as one door slams, quickly followed by another.
Footsteps… Two people… one male, one female I guess.
Stranger still is the urgent banging on the front door. It’s aggressively persistent and probably much louder than necessary given the ridiculously early hour.
As I open the door, for some obscure reason, I am almost expecting what greets me.
“
Mister Patrick James Riley?” the man in a suit and tie asks.
I nod, but only to acknowledge that that is who I am. I am more concerned with wrapping the, rather fetching, pink dressing gown clumsily around my body to conserve, what little bit of dignity I am managing to hold on to intact.
The man in the suit introduces himself.
“I am Detective Inspector Polenski, and this is Detective Constable Julie Green from Lancashire police.” He glances at his young colleague and then back at me. “I am arresting you for the murder of Howard Paul Riley on or about the twentieth of January 1990.”
He then proceeds to caution me and explains to me my rights, before producing a set of handcuffs.
“Ok,” I say. “So, what happens next?”
COPYRIGHT
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2017
Copyright © 2017
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBNs:
978–1-911525–77–6 paperback
978–1–911525–78–3 ebook
Kisses From Nimbus Page 22
