The Long Weekend

A Sam and Scarlett Mystery

Book 1 in the Sam and Scarlett Series

c. 2014

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

# Other Books by Terry R Barca

Schoome

The Long Weekend

Passerby

Loyal and True

Trust

Slightly Spooky Stories

Red Wheelbarrow

Rufus

Keeper of Secrets

Bullet To The Heart — Sam Bennett's Case Files

Dot, Dot, Dot...

No Through Road

The Road Leads Home

For Dianne

Other Books by Terry R Barca

Pellegrini's

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Other Sam and Scarlett books

Sam is tall and Scarlett isn't.

But when they are together you don't notice the difference in height, you only notice that they are together.

# Pellegrini's

The body lay quietly in the street just down from Pellegrini's, and if it was not for the gradually increasing pool of blood surrounding it, you might have thought that the deceased had fallen asleep or fallen over drunk, or just fallen over.

The bloody great knife protruding from its chest was a pretty clear indicator that someone wanted to do this person harm; the kind of harm that you woke up dead from.

The Detective Inspector had seen more than his fair share of dead bodies, but not many of them ended up in plain view in a busy part of Melbourne. Vacant lots, dense bush, but not usually at the trendy end of Bourke Street.

"Bennett is staying at the Windsor, just around the corner. Do you reckon he had anything to do with this?" Sergeant Wilson's question was directed at his DI.

Detective Inspector Blank didn't much like Sergeant Wilson, but he put up with him because he was conscientious and reasonably honest.

"Wilson. You need to get over it. Bennett made you look like a fool during the Emery case. That's a fact, but if you live long enough and don't get caught with a pile of 'fifties' in your locker for which you can't account, and if Bennett makes a particularly dumb mistake, you may, just may, get to take your revenge. But until then, you NEED TO GET THE FUCK OVER IT."

Wilson didn't take offence at his D.I.'s comments, partly because coppers have very thick skin and partly because he knew he was right.

Patience is something that good cops have in spades.

Wait long enough, and the pendulum swings your way.

The only part of this equation that didn't quite work was the bit about Bennett making a dumb mistake.

Sam Bennett rarely made mistakes, and when he did, they could not be classified as dumb.

So Wilson was in for a long wait, and he made a mental note to move the pile of money out of his locker.

# Friday

"Your bags will be brought to your room sir, and we hope you enjoy your stay at the Windsor. How long will you be staying with us?"

Sam had just thrown the Jag keys to the doorman, who expertly removed the luggage from the boot.

Sam hesitated before answering, simply because he was savouring the thought.

"Four whole days. No phone calls, no board meetings, no writing, just me and the wife enjoying a long, quiet weekend."

The doorman smiled the way that doormen do and Sam had no way of knowing that his words were ill-advised, tempting fate and 'a bit previous', as the English like to say.

But all that was to unfold in time; for now, Sam and Scarlett were basking in the glow of 'us time'.

Scarlett took her time alighting from the Jag.

It took a bit of practice to elegantly remove one's self from a Jaguar.

Fortunately Sam owned a Sovereign and a Jaguar saloon is a bit easier than an E Type, but in any case, a lady who is about to enter Melbourne's most famous hotel must give a good impression.

The doorman stopped attending to the bags when he realised that the lady was still in the car. She wasn't actually waiting for him to open the door but she did enjoy his haste in doing so.

The reception desk personnel were swift in their duties and before long, Sam and Scarlett were in the lift on the way to their suite.

By the time they reached their room, the Jag was being expertly inserted into a parking space reserved for special guests.

It was possible to make it reappear within a few moments, but Sam and Scarlett would probably not need the faithful old girl over this weekend.

Everything they needed was within walking distance, and room service could supply the rest.

The Big Cat could rest comfortably until she was needed.

She was much sportier than the Rollers and Bentleys she was stabled with, but she was also considerably older.

Sam bought her many years ago, and even then she was getting on a bit. He spent the proceeds of his first successful crime novel on having her exterior restored.  A bare metal respray which cost a fortune, but it was worth it; she looked magnificent.

Gleaming, British Racing Green.

Sam left her interior as it was.

Old leather; it looked lived in. She hadn't done very many miles, so her mechanicals were left untouched.

She had looked after Sam very well and only embarrassed herself the one time when her coil gave out in the middle of an intersection.

The first Sam knew of it was when everything went dead and the Big Cat sailed noiselessly through the intersection and came to rest on the side of the road.

It was a little embarrassing for both of them, but she was nearly twenty-five years old at that point, 'classic' as Sam described her, so it was probably inevitable that something would break one day even though the mechanics at Spitiri's did their best to make sure that any problems were dealt with before they happened.

Sam had solved a little problem for Andrew Spiteri.

One of the local hoods thought he could squeeze a little protection money out of the Jaguar service centre. He saw the local business as a soft touch, but he had not reckoned on Sam.

The problem mysteriously went away, and Sam never admitted to being the cause of the threats sudden disappearance, but he always received a remarkably low price for his car's services from that day onward.

Sam looked out for his friends, and it was not only women beaters who got stomped on from time to time.

~oOo~

The couple were blessed with more money than God, but Sam refused to book into the Prince of Wales suite.

It was the most luxurious suite that the Windsor had to offer, but Sam wouldn't have it.

"That's where Malcolm Frazer sat on the morning they declared him the winner in the '77 elections. I loved Whitlam and all that he achieved in that short time. That bastard Frazer stole my dream, and I'm damned if I going to inhabit the suite that he did his smiling in."

It had been a very long time since that morning, but Sam was in no mood to forgive or forget.

There were a few historic photos scattered around the famous old Victorian-era hotel, but it was fortunate for them that the famous shot of Frazer sitting up in bed reading the newspaper on his victorious morning was not among them!

~oOo~

Despite the couple's vast wealth, Sam was not 'part of the establishment', and he liked it that way.

He was offered membership of the Melbourne Club, and he told them to stick it up their collective arses.

They only offered because he was married to Scarlett Holmyard and her family had been members for generations, without his marriage to her they would not have given him a second thought.

Scarlett thought that the whole thing was quite funny.

"You shouldn't let them get to you, Sam. It's only money, and they are no better than you are, and besides, you have more of it than they do."

"That's not the bloody point."

She knew it wasn't, but she enjoyed teasing him.

~oOo~

Their suite was right down the end of the building on the first floor.

It was on the corner of the building, and a bay window gave an excellent view of Exhibition Street, the Treasury Gardens and Burke street.

Despite the view, they would not be doing a lot of looking out of windows, if Sam had his way.

Scarlett was thinking the same thing, but a lady did not express such thoughts in public, at least that was what she was taught at Finishing School.

On the other hand, once that door closed all bets were off, and Sam was going to be lucky if he had enough energy to walk down the ornate staircase to the dining room after she was finished with him.

~oOo~

Luckily Sam's eagerness had not damaged the beautiful new dress she had just bought, but it was a close-run thing.

She made his heart sing but he never said that out loud because it sounded too corny for a tough guy to utter, but that was how he felt.

She would allow him to have his wicked way with her and after a brief interval, he would make love to her with only her in mind.

Slow and gentle, unless she wanted it otherwise.

He performed complicated mathematical gymnastics to keep the whole process going.

He enjoyed her body so much that it was sometimes like torture to prolong the act, but he loved her, and a bloke always wants his lady to be happy.

It was not hard to figure out if she was enjoying herself and he hoped that the people in the next suite were out somewhere enjoying the sights rather than sitting quietly listening to his wife express her pleasure.

They had been entwined for some time, and he was glad when Scarlett suggested a sleep before dinner.

Scarlett's demands had left Sam in a little bit of pain, but it was the good kind.

Scarlett fell asleep with her head resting on his chest, and she knew that he would wake up with a dead arm and she also knew that he would not move for fear of waking her.

She loved this amazing man.

He was well built, and he had great thighs, or at least she thought he did.

There wasn't any part of her that Sam didn't like; every bit had its charm.

~oOo~

Sam was constantly surprised by Scarlett.

Sometimes, when they were home alone, she would disappear for what seemed like only a few minutes and reappear with a batch of scones.

"Where the hell did you learn to make scones?" he asked.

"At Finishing School"

"You have to be kidding."

"The Finishing School I went to demanded that we knew how to cook as well as how to tell a drunk millionaire to fuck off without losing our dignity."

"Were there many occasions where a drunk millionaire needed chastising?"

"Once or twice, I was very attractive you know."

"And very rich." Sam could not help inserting that insight.

"Money had nothing to do with it. They lusted after my body, and rightly so." Scarlett struck a pose to emphasise her point.

No longer a girl but a mature woman, she looked amazing with or without clothes. Incredibly, she didn't have to work at it whereas Sam spent more than the occasional minute keeping his body in shape. It was a habit he had learned from the days when a certain amount of strength and quick reflexes could mean the difference between reading the paper the next morning or being on its front page.

Naturally, the scones were delicious.

Sam was still curious.

"What else did they teach you at Finishing School?"

"Lots of very cool things". Scarlett thought about telling him some of the stories from her year in Rougemont in Switzerland but she wanted to maintain that air of mystery that young women were taught about back in those days, and besides, they had only been married for a little over a year and maintaining an air a mystery around a man who wrote about mystery for a living was difficult enough. If she had mentioned that Princess Diana had attended the same school, it might have made Sam even more uncomfortable about her world.

Finally, she wilted under his persistent stare. "I'll tell you if you show me your scars".

"Oh, no you don't, my mother left me those scares in her will, and she told me never to show them to anyone, especially nosey, rich women".

"Oh, go on, just the small knife wound, and you have to tell me the story that goes with it."

"You've heard that story, and besides it's nearly time for bed, you can see it then."

"That's all very well, but you keep the lights on when I undress, and you turn them off when you do."

"Really, I've never noticed. Maybe it's because I'm momentarily dazzled by your beauty."

"Don't come the malarky with me, young man, show me that scar."

Reluctantly he pulled his handmade shirt out of his waistband and exposed his left hip.

The scar was small, but the making of it was near fatal.

He began the story in a low almost hushed tone.

"You know how in the movies William Powell gets shot, but the bullet manages to miss all the major organs?"

"Yes, go on". She was impatient and eager. She loved his stories, and she loved the way he told them.

"Well, that's not how it happens." She didn't interrupt this time, so he continued.

"It started out as research for a book, but the more I got into it, the more I didn't like this bloke. He liked hurting people, especially women, and my mum always told me to stomp on people who hurt women."

"What is it with you and your mum?" She interrupted him, but he was used to it.

"Never you mind about my mum, she was a wise and insightful woman, and she could bench press my father while singing the national anthem. She was quite annoyed when they changed the national anthem because it threw off her rhythm."

"Enough about your mum, I want to hear about that scar."

Scarlett's world had not previously contained scars, and guns, and sheilas, and associated paraphernalia, until Sam had come along and she was secretly disappointed that he had given it all up to be with her. It was true that her family fortune was too much for one person to manage and she did need Sam's help, but his life before her was so exciting that at the very least she wanted to hear about it.

The only scar she could remember from before Sam was when the cook cut her finger and it took a long time to heal.

Not exactly a best seller in that story.

"So there was this bloke, and your mum wanted you to stomp on him." She was pretty wound up by now.

"Take it easy, my mum didn't know this bloke and the whole 'stomp on him' was a bit of hyperbole, and why am I telling you this and why are you smiling at me. I fall for that every time don't I?" He took a breath and dived back into the past.

He tried to leave out the boring bits (was it Hitchcock who said that drama was real life without the boring bits?)

"This bloke was no chump, and he knew I had been following him, so he led me down a dark alley. Well, it wasn't that dark, but it sounds better if I tell it that way."

"Was it a bluestone alley or concrete?"

"Bluestone I think. What difference does it make? Stop interrupting!" He wasn't really mad, he adored her enthusiasm in the same way that he adored the rest of her.

"As I was saying, he led me down this dark, damp, dank, dangerous alley and stuck a knife in me."

"Oh come on! There must have been more to it than that." Now she was annoyed.

"He was wearing a hat," he said with a smile.

Sam did not want to draw Scarlett too deeply into his former world partly because the word 'former' was not quite accurate. Sam's previous life seemed not to want to remain former.

In the year they had been married there had been several incidents that threatened to undo his retirement. People kept dangling enticing cases in front of him, and after all, he was only human.

Detective Inspector Matt Blank from the Homicide squad was the worst offender.

The cops would like you to believe that they don't call in outside help on difficult cases but that's a load bollocks.

D.I. Blank had used Sam many times in the past, and in return, Sam got to see stuff that most writers never saw which gave his books a compelling richness that no ordinary imagination could match.

Sam had an instinct for crime, and his instincts had brought him close to death on more than one occasion.

The tiny knife wound on his hip was one of those times.

Scarlett saw Sam's 'former' life through the eyes of someone who had been protected from a lot of the harsh realities of life.

She was no fool, but she had never seen the life drain out of a person lying on the ground surrounded by litres of that sticky red fluid that movie makers never seem to get right.

The colour of blood is not like you see it in the movies and the amount that drains out of a person who has bled to death has to be seen to be believed.

All that is bad enough, but then there's the smell.

Copious amounts of blood gives off a sickly sweet metallic smell that is not replicated in everyday life. Paramedics, cops and nurses know that smell and Sam knew it as well.

That night in the alley he saw quite a lot of it, and it all used to be inside him. Now it was trickling down between the century-old bluestones and heading for an old cast iron drain.

The guy he was following simply turned around and plunged the knife into him.

Sam's reflexes managed to move him sideways just enough so that the blade missed his large intestine but not quite enough to miss his skinny hips completely.

The blade hit the bone and that hurt, but it also nicked an artery, he never did find out the name of the artery or the name of the bloke who kept the pressure on the wound until the paramedics arrived.

By the time he was in the ambulance he didn't much care what anyone's name was and besides, he was lousy at names, and he would probably have forgotten them anyway.

The anaesthetist told Sam his name, which was nice, it sounded like Nigel, which was nice, but it could have been Erving.

Not long after that Nigel/Erving gave him something and Sam saw a large black pool open up in front of him, and he dove right in.

His dreams were confused, and a little disturbing and at one stage Sam thought he saw a unicorn, and he made a mental note never to mention that to anyone.

~oOo~

Eventually, Sam woke up in a bed at The Alfred Hospital, which coincidentally was the hospital where Scarlett had done her nursing training.

She was frighteningly rich and obviously did not need to work, but her father always wanted his children to be useful, so after Finishing School came nursing school.

In those days nurses did their training in a hospital.

Right off the deep end, right from the start.

Scarlett was bright and a little older than the other girls, and they looked up to her because she always seemed to have a handle on things. They didn't see all the tears that she shed in the pan room.

The charge nurse on each ward seemed to be harder on her than the rest of the nurses, which only made them look up to her all the more.

She took whatever they threw at her.

She never understood why they rode her so mercilessly, but maybe it had something to do with jealousy or envy or perhaps they were just arseholes.

The fact that there was a wing of the hospital named after her family did not seem to help.

One phone call from her grandfather and it all would all stop, but she never made that call.

She was going to achieve this on her own.

~oOo~

The nurse who woke Sam was cute, and he was young and single, and he always had a soft spot for nurses.

Her name was nurse Scott, and she was tiny, efficient, and she smiled a lot.

Sam made it his mission in life to keep her smiling.

After a week in that ward, she was gone, moved to another ward to continue her training. The blokes in the ward had treated her gently, she was so young that they all felt very protective of her, but that did not stop them from stealing the batteries out of her torch to use in their transistor radios.

She copped it big time from the charge nurse for continually requesting more batteries, but she didn't mind. This was the job she had dreamed of all her young life.

Being on an all-male ward was a bit scary, but the men treated her with respect, except for continually stealing her batteries.

She was sad to be leaving this ward.

She didn't get a chance to say goodbye, only finding out that they were moving her when she looked at the roster on Sunday night.

Life moved on, and so did she.

~oOo~

After having been in the hospital for a few days, Sam worked up the energy to ask the surgeon what had happened to him in theatre.

The nurses had hinted that he had been lucky, and one of them had said it in such a way as to suggest that it would have been a waste if he had died.

He made a special effort to remember that nurses name.

The surgeon was a busy man, and if he had his way he would never have to speak to patients, he preferred them unconscious and lying flat on the operating table.

This was exactly what Sam wanted to know about, what had happened when he was unconscious and lying flat on that table? Was it as dire as everyone was hinting at?

The surgeon was annoyed to have his routine interrupted.

He was generally considered to be an excellent surgeon and a pain in the neck.

Sam was not going to let this arrogant arsehole get away without answering his questions. He had already built up a dislike for this person based on the way he spoke to the nurses.

Tear stained nurses were often left in his wake.

Sam fantasised about stomping on him as his mother suggested, but he was way too weak, and the bloke had saved his life, so he gave him a pass.

The surgeon reluctantly informed Sam that when he made it to theatre there was very little blood left in his body and if that stranger had not known a bit about spurting arteries, he would not have had enough blood left for his heart to pump.

As it was, they found it difficult to find a vein.

Under the strain of trying to pump non-existent blood, Sam's heart had gone into fibrillation.

Sam pretended to know what fibrillation was.

His heart was beating so fast that the machines had difficulty counting the beats, and then his heart decided that it was a waste of time and stopped completely, which apparently was not good.

After using something akin to a fire hose to force blood back into his system, his heart was restarted, but he had been technically dead for four and a half minutes, which probably explains the unicorn and a couple of other things including seeing his first girlfriend who had died a few years earlier.

They were both thirteen and by the time they had gone their separate ways Sam had learned what girls looked like without their natural covering.

What amazing creatures females are.

The surgeon explained that repairing the artery was straightforward and the only reason he was still in hospital was that his heart needed time to regain its strength.

He mumbled something about possible brain damage, but Sam thought that was possibly payback for the tight grip he had on the surgeon's arm.

The surgeon escaped, and Sam felt rather pleased with himself.

Dead for four and half minutes.

'You can't kill Sam', he thought to himself.

His self-satisfaction knew no bounds.

~oOo~

After a few days, the police turned up.

They knew who Sam's attacker was and he was already in custody. They showed Sam a picture of the man with the man's name and address on it, which Sam thought was a little unusual.

"Aren't you blokes supposed to show me a bunch of photos and get me to pick him out?"

"What would be the bloody point mate? You know who he is and so do we so just fucking say so and we can get the fuck back to work!"

"Oh, and by the way, D.I. Blank said to tell you, and I quote, 'Pull your fucking head in you fucking meddling arsehole' end of quote'."

Sam replied but by then the large detectives had left the ward, but they got the gist of it and would probably give D.I. Blank a précis version of Sam's message.

~oOo~

What was it with cops anyway?

Sam disliked the way they would happily use you and then ignore you after you had outlived your usefulness.

He tried not to fall into the stereotype of hating cops just because it was cool. He understood that their job was difficult and that they saw things that people shouldn't see.

But did they have to be so blatant about using people?

When he was younger, he and his girlfriend parked their old car at the front of a pub on Gertrude Street.

In those days Gertrude Street was a very rough part of town.

Sam and Lois had been clothes shopping on Smith Street and needed a drink. It was a hot day, and Lois wanted a beer. Sam was not a big fan of pubs unless he was working, then they were a vital source of information.

They were only in the dusty old pub long enough to down a beer, but when they got out, Sam had that sick feeling you get when you realise that you have left your wallet on the train after cashing your monthly salary check.

He was sure he had parked the car right there.

As it dawned on him what an idiot he had been and Lois was asking where the hell the car was, his phone rang.

"Not now," he said out loud.

"What do you mean, not now?" Lois asked.

"Wasn't talking to you I was talking to the phone."

"While you're at it, ask your phone where the bloody car is. I was really looking forward to trying on those pants, not to mention the shoes."

"Take it easy. I've got enough problems without visualising you putting on pants."

Sam answered the phone and started to smile.

"What are you smiling at?" asked Lois.

"It's the cops, and they want to know if I'm Sam Bennett and if I own a 1985 Corona Station Wagon, bronze in colour. They want to know why we have not reported the theft of our vehicle."

"How the hell do they know about our car being stolen, we only just worked it out?"

Lois was starting to get more than a little annoyed. She really wanted to try on those pants.

"The lovely policeman says that our car has been involved in an armed robbery and a hit and run. And before you ask he didn't say anything about your pants."

"There is no need to be like that Sam I was only asking".

Sam and Lois split up not long after this incident but for now, they were still together, and the 'lovely policeman' dropped around to the pub and picked them up in a Divisional van known affectionally as a 'Divi Van' by pretty much everyone who has ever lived in Australia.

The problem with a 'Divi van' is that it only has two seats and the 'crims' ride in the cage at the back.

Despite the seatbelt laws that were usually enforced by the 'lovely policeman', all three of them wedged into the Divi van with Lois sitting on Sam's lap. Sam didn't put the seat belt around both of them as he had seen how cops drive and he figured that if this bloke hit something on the way to the station he and Lois would be swished together into an unrecognisable mess, so he took his chances.

The cop didn't seem to mind, he was too busy berating fellow motorists who were foolish enough to get in his way.

It was a short ride to the station, and there were several 'wankers', and at least one 'arsehole' who were observed along the way.

The 'lovely policeman' was obviously a bit stressed from his day's work, and the woman who ran a stop sign and tried to run him off the road didn't help. The politest thing he had to say on their journey was, "My mother drives better than this person." Which was probably true even though Sam had never met the policeman's mother.

Statements were taken, and Sam and Lois were ejected back into the world to find their own way home.

"Dropped like a hot scone", was the way that Sam described it.

Neither of them ever heard another word from the police, and to this day Sam does not know what happened to the armed robber. He could find out easily enough, but that wasn't the point. Once he and his girlfriend were no longer of use, they were forgotten.

It was just the way cops were, but it cheesed Sam off something fierce.

It also annoyed him that all cops seemed to have way too much white around their eyes.

It was mesmerising.

To make it even worse, cops would stare at you without blinking. Somewhere someone had told them that if you stared at someone long enough, they would say to you whatever you wanted to know.

"Maybe they had a point". Sam was thinking out loud again, and Lois didn't fall for it twice.

After several drinks and a meal at a cafe on Brunswick Street, they caught a tram home.

Lois never did get to try on those pants.

~oOo~

Scarlett knew that she was not going to get any more out of Sam about that particular scar, but they were staying at the Windsor for four days. A long, long weekend without any outside distractions and she knew that there was plenty of time to crack that protective shell that he maintained so assiduously.

~oOo~

The ritual continued.

The lights stayed on as she slowly undressed.

It was a new dress.

She bought it on Collins Street before they checked into the Windsor.

Her purchase came from the kind of small shop where there was very little on display, and the vintage window frames were copper and polished to within an inch of their lives.

The young lady who served her was friendly and aware that anyone who stepped into this shop had enough money not to ask how much anything cost.

She knew how to keep such people happy.

She recognised Scarlett as soon as she walked in.

It was part of her job to read the society pages, and she knew that Scarlett had recently inherited her family's shipping and glass manufacturing empire.

She was a little excited to see such a famous woman in her shop, and she expected the usual attitude of dismissal that she had encountered many times before.

Her monthly salary would not come close to the price of this woman's shoes.

She was pleasantly surprised when Scarlett addressed her by name.

She wore a name badge, but no one ever took the trouble to read it.

Scarlett smiled at the young woman and looked her directly in the eye.

She told the sales girl that she was looking for a dress that would knock her husband's eyes out.

This was the first time the young woman had heard a request like this.

Truth be known, most women dressed to impress other women, or so it seemed to her.

She was good at her job, and Scarlett fell in love with the first dress she showed her.

It fitted Scarlet in all the right places, and she did not ask how much it cost.

After handing the girl her platinum American Express, she pulled a crisp one hundred dollar note from her wallet and put it on the counter.

"You have made me very happy, please buy yourself something nice."

In all the years she had worked at the shop no one had ever thought to thank her, other than the usual 'thank you' that people throw away when they feel that they should say something.

This was absolutely the first time anyone had ever given her a tip.

The hundred dollars represented less than 2% of the sale price, but the young woman's mathematical brain didn't care about appropriate percentages at this point.

That night she went to the most expensive bar in Flinders Lane and bought the most expensive drinks she could find, flirted with the barman and took a taxi home alone and with a smile on her face.

During her memorable evening, she toasted the elegant lady who had smiled at her and who had taken the time to say thank you.

~oOo~

Buying the dress on Collins Street was a spur of the moment thing, and it seemed appropriate for the occasion, but Scarlett's dresses were usually made by Rosella Towner.

Rosella came to Australia to escape the violence in her country. She came in a time when refugees were not treated like dogs. Australia opened its arms to those who sought a better life. Unfortunately, Rosella came from a country that the politicians were fearful of, so anyone who came here was looked on as a potential spy, and this included Rosella.

Scarlett rarely asked her grandfather for favours, but on this occasion he had the political clout to get Rosella a visa and eventually, she became an Australian citizen though Scarlett's patronage.

Rosella was a talented dressmaker and designer.

She could easily have established her own label, especially with Scarlett's help, but she was happy making clothes for rich ladies, particularly Scarlett's friends. They weren't rude and arrogant like a lot of the women she worked for.

The horrors she had witnessed had affected her greatly, but she never mentioned them to anyone. She wanted to leave her old life behind. Her new country had taken her in and kept her safe. People called her a 'New Australian', and she liked that very much. She liked the idea of being 'new'.

Her skill with a needle and thread had become legendary, so much so that she had more work than she could cope with.

Scarlett sometimes worried that she was not succeeding in her business because she always seemed to be able to work on her dresses as soon as she asked for them. Rosella dropped everything when Scarlett wanted something made. Even if her order book was full, everything stopped until Scarlett got her dress. Rosella was not a person who forgot who her friends were and Scarlett was indeed, her friend.

~oOo~

D.I. Blank was standing there looking like a policeman when Sam opened the door.

"To what do we owe this dubious pleasure Detective Inspector?"

"Aren't you going to ask me in?" The inspector had been practising having more than one facial expression, but so far it was difficult to detect with the naked eye.

"Not without a warrant, I'm not". Sam was smiling, but he wasn't kidding.

"Don't be like that Sam. I've got a nice juicy murder for you, and it's right on your front doorstep, so to speak."

"Not interested." Sam still wasn't kidding.

"Hear the gentleman out Sam and invite him in, it's rude to have a policeman cluttering up the hallway."

Blank smiled, he'd been practising that too, and moved past Sam and made himself comfortable on the couch under the bay window. He glanced about the well-furnished room taking particular note of the open, well-stocked bar cabinet which stood on one wall. D.I. Blank tried to look thirsty, but Sam didn't seem to notice.

The sound of a tram rumbling by could just be heard as D.I. Blank went into his spiel.

"It's Denny Leveson. Someone bumped him off and left the body in the street next to Pellegrini's."

"Did anyone give the body a good kick, just to be sure that he's dead?" Sam wasn't smiling.

"Sam, that's not very nice". Scarlett was a little bit shocked to hear Sam speak about a murder victim in that manner. "You sound like you don't like this person. I didn't know you knew him?" Her voice was softer, but she was still a little disappointed in him.

Sam shot back at her. "He's that prick who anchors 'A Current Affair'. I'm surprised someone hasn't knocked him off before this."

Scarlett didn't watch a lot of television, but she knew of the reputation of the dubious current affairs show.

"There'll be a huge crowd at his funeral, and most of the people in attendance will be there to make sure he is really dead!"

"Sam!" Scarlett had gone back to being shocked.

"I'm sorry, but that heartless 'gentleman' [he managed to make 'gentleman' sound like a swear word] has ruined more reputations in the pursuit of ratings than you've owned pairs of shoes."

The reference to shoes drove home the point to Scarlett as Sam knew it would, but even so, she thought he had gone too far.

Blank had been enjoying the to and fro of the conversation and it gave him time to practice his concerned expression. To the untrained eye, it looked a lot like his other expressions, but it was early days, and he was determined to get the hang of it.

"You are in town for a couple of days, why don't you come and have a look at the body and give us an opinion."

"You are a very wise fellow Blank, and I'm sure that if you put your mind to it, you can work out if this low-life is actually dead or just pretending to boost his ratings." Sam was calm now and quite enjoying the fact that Denny Leveson was actually dead.

"Are you still cheesed off that he went after you over the Enselmo case?"

"Not at all, I love having my reputation dragged through the mud. I may even pop over to St Francis's and light a candle to his memory. The journalistic profession has lost a shining light."

~oOo~

D.I. Blank never missed an opportunity to remind Sam of his one and only failure.

The Enselmo case was Sam's Achilles Heal; his Moby Dick, his 'large white whale'.

It was the only case that Sam had not been able to crack, and it irked him.

Not being able to get it right was for other people, not Sam.

Blank had worked on that case as well, but the spotlight was not on him.

The newspapers loved Sam.

He was always good for a quote, and he always got his man, like some kind of hybrid Australian, Canadian Mounty.

So when he appeared to get it wrong, they pounced on him.

That's what the media always does.

They coined the phrase 'tall poppy syndrome'.

In any regular business you would not beat up on your best client, but journalists think they are above all that.

"The public has a right to know", they bleat.

It sounds good, and they can hide behind it when the spotlight turns on them.

They reason that EVERYONE wants to see their name in the papers so when it all blows over, the people they go after will come back with their tail between their legs, begging for attention.

They made a mistake with Sam.

So now he won't give any of them anything, even when he needs their help.

It was a futile gesture as they don't particularly care, they just make stuff up. The theory being that 'celebrities' like the exposure and those that don't, won't be bothered with the expense of taking them to court.

Mistake.

Sam had won a series of out of court settlements over the past year, all to do with untruths printed about him and his new wife. Long pockets and a truckload of lawyers came in handy, especially in a country that has strict libel laws.

Recently, they had been more careful about what they printed about Sam and Scarlett.  Newspapers don't have the influence they used to have before the internet became a thing.

The financial settlement wasn't the point, Sam gave it all to charity.

Mostly to the Fr Bob Maguire Foundation.

He had a soft spot for Father Bob. "A bloke who puts his faith where his mouth is. Rare in this day and age." He also liked the way Father Bob stood up to the Catholic Church when they tried to shut him up about the problems of homelessness and drug addiction.

Taking on the Catholic Church was hopeless, but Father Bob did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.

~oOo~

Victor Enselmo had been neatly sliced into several pieces, and the pieces had been spread around the city in no particular order.

He was an accountant, and naturally, suspicion fell on his former clients.

Had he seen something he shouldn't have?

Had he cooked the books and kept a healthy slice for himself?

Was one of his former employers from the dark side of town?

Probably, but the closer Sam got, the more the case seemed to slip away from him.

Almost anyone he tracked down would disappear without a trace.

Evidence went missing, while in police custody.

Sam liked to stir up his friends in the police force, but it did not sit well with him that some of them might actually be bent.

Dumb he expected, but bent was something else again.

Whoever was behind the cover-up was very good at their job, and finally, Sam had to admit defeat. It stuck in his craw, but Sam was outnumbered, and his enemies were well equipped and determined.

As the years went by Sam, put the case in his 'wait and see' file.

He knew how life went.

Eventually, one of the leading players in this sordid little affair would be faced with his own mortality and feel the need to 'get it off his chest' before he kicked the bucket.

It would all come tumbling down, but it would probably be too late for justice to take its share.

The public and the authorities of the day would feel that it was 'all in the past' and it should probably stay there.

The police commissioner would make a speech saying that this kind of thing happened in the past but of course, now, things were different, the force had cleaned up its act, and the public could have confidence in it's excellent and well-trained defenders of the law.

It would not be any consolation to Sam when it all came spilling out because he would not be the one who cracked it.

The grim reaper would be staring at some bent copper and forcing him to spill the beans.

Sam would rather it was him standing over this gutless bastard.

In the meantime, he would have to put up with all the jibes from the likes of Blunt.

By all accounts, Victor Enselmo was a nondescript little man just like the stereotype everyone has of accountants.

He had a family who loved him and a dog who thought he was wonderful.

He had dreams and hopes, most of which he never achieved.

He was not greedy as the newspapers hinted and he wasn't mixed up in anything shady, in fact, if he had been dishonest, he might still be alive.

He was just an honest bloke who worked for a big firm and who made the mistake of noticing something in a long string of numbers.

He took his discovery to his boss, and within a very short space of time he was bundled into a van on his way home from work and never seen in one piece again.

His boss disappeared but showed up in a country which does not have an extradition treaty with anybody to speak of, but there was no way this bloke was the brains of whatever it was that got Victor sliced and diced.

His boss drove a Holden Commodore, so how bright could he be?

For some reason, the forensic accountants could not find what Victor had stumbled over.

Everyone except Sam thought it probably had something to do with drugs, but that seemed too easy to Sam.

The extent of the cover-up was too dramatic for a modern drug operation.

It was way too easy to simply shut down an operation and start up somewhere else.

All this smoke and mirrors stuff did not fit.

Besides, Sam had a friend in the drug squad, and they were not aware of any connection between Enselmo's employer and any drug operation.

Despite what you saw in the movies, drug gangs are quickly identified by the police, and they watch them until they make a mistake, and then you get headlines and a new crew move in and startup, and away we go again.

It's a vicious cycle with the emphasis on the word vicious, but it's not rocket surgery and the people involved, at both ends, are not that bright.

No, this had to be something else.

Someone mighty did not want to be embarrassed, and they were prepared to be cold-blooded about avoiding that embarrassment.

Victor's family missed him very much. Sam kept in touch, but what could he say.

All they wanted to hear was that the person responsible had been caught.

Sam ached to deliver that news.

Time had gone by, and the journalists had moved on to the next story, but Sam had not forgotten.

The last letter he had received from Victor's wife said that his little dog had died and she was sure that the cause of death was a broken heart.

~oOo~

Blank believed that he did all the grunt work and very rarely did anyone want to know what he thought, unless of course, when something went wrong. He had a sneaking admiration for Sam's innate ability, but he felt that he was way too smug about life and his role in it.

Secretly he wished he could live Sam's glamorous life, but he also knew that his role was to be the bloke who inspected the bodies and caught the bad guys, and despite his grumbling, he was happy with his lot in life.

~oOo~

Blank was beginning to think that he might be wasting his time, so he stood up and practised his 'beginning to leave' face. He must have been improving because Scarlett moved towards the door and opened it to let him out.

D.I. Blank gave it one more go. "You will consider it, won't you Sam? You could have a lot of fun with this one."

"If you let me pin a medal on the bloke who croaked Leveson, I might consider it." Sam was pleased with the thought of pinning a medal on Leveson's killer, but his satisfaction was interrupted by Scarlett's observation.

"It might be a woman, it doesn't necessarily have to be a man."

Sam got sucked into her reasoning. "A knife is not a woman's weapon. Now if she ran over him while trying to parallel park, I would be looking for a woman."

This comment didn't please Scarlett, and it showed. Sam thought it was time to change the subject. There was always the possibility that his sarcasm might spoil his chances for some more horizontal folk dancing later in the evening.

"What was he stabbed with?" Sam asked.

"You can see for yourself if you want to wander over, it's still sticking out of him. I've seen a lot of knives in my twenty-six years in Homicide, but I've never seen one like this."

Sam didn't mind admitting that he was intrigued by the sound of an unusual murder weapon, but for the moment he wanted Blank to be gone. Sam had other things on his mind, and some of them involved eating. Melbourne had some of the best chefs in the world and one of them, Adam Trengrove, worked right here at the Windsor and Sam was keen to put him through his paces.

"I'll consider it over dinner Blank, now be gone."

"Was that an invitation, I haven't eaten in quite a while?"

"No it wasn't, and I'm not sure if the chef would cook a burger with a doughnut for afters."

The doughnut jibe was intentional, but Blank didn't bite; he had heard them all before. He wondered why people thought that Aussie cops ate doughnuts. Half price burgers from Maccas were heaps better, and easier to find.

"OK Sam, your loss. Goodbye Mrs Sam, it was a pleasure to meet you."

"It is always a pleasure to meet one of Sam's little friends. Goodbye Detective Inspector."

The door closed behind the bulky detective, and Sam's mind turned almost entirely to food.

"Let's eat, sweetheart', said Sam in his best New York accent.

Scarlett smiled at him and went to get her coat.

The conversation over dinner was going to be interesting.

~oOo~

The dining room had that old world elegance.

Sam felt a little out of place but no one was looking at him, Scarlett was stealing the show.

"Good evening Mr and Mrs Bennett, your table is ready," said the Maitre De.

Scarlett asked for Champagne without specifying the brand. Sam ordered a Laphroaig 'neat'.

Only half-wits and Americans would put ice in the same glass with an Islay single malt.

Scarlett felt that the best way to judge a new coffee place was to order a long black.

Sam felt that the best way to judge a cocktail bartender was to ask them for an 'Arise My Love'.

If they looked at you with a blank expression or just said that they did not know how to make one, it was time to move to another establishment.

If the bartender smiled and asked how to make one it was promising, and better still if they wondered where it came from and what era.

If they actually knew how to make one without asking it was grounds for marriage or a decent tip at the very least.

It didn't happen often.

Once in Paris and once again in New York. The biggest surprise came in a bar on Little Collins Street.

The bartender was in his forties which made him about twice the average age of most bartenders.

Marcel had worked all over the world, and he never had any difficulty finding work. He demanded twice the salary of most bartenders.

The reason?

There was not a drink known to civilised man that he could not make.

Just to make things interesting, he would issue a challenge to the public; if he could not make it, you drank for free for the rest of the evening.

No one ever drank for free although some 'smart Alecs' tried making shit up, Marcel was ready for that.

Back in the day, he carried a book with him that had every known mixed drink ever invented in any era, but these days the internet was a thing, and a customer would have to point out the winning drink to claim their prize.

It never happened.

When Sam ordered two 'Arise My Love's', Marcel smiled.

Marcel was an old movie buff, and he loved the movie that bore the same name. Ray Milland at his best, Claudette Colbert wasn't bad either.

1940 was a bad year for the world, but an outstanding year for Hollywood movies.

Sam and Scarlett had travelled all over the world only to find the world's best bartender in a little bar in the heart of Melbourne.

Sam was not a big fan of traveling, and he thought that most travellers were either running away from something, probably themselves, or running towards a supposed better experience of life.

These people tended to miss what was right in front of them in their mad rush to hurtle off to some far off land.

When Sam was a boy, talented people needed to leave these shores to realise there potential but that had not been the case for a very long time, so what was it these travellers were looking for?

Sam had everything he needed, and a large part of that was sitting at the table opposite him.

"Are you considering Blunt's offer Sam?"

"I'm retired. R.E.T.I.R.E.D." Sam had been known to spell stuff out just for effect.

~oOo~

Sam asked the Maitre De if the chef would join them for a drink.

There was more to Sam's request than just the usual politeness of thanking a world class chef.

Sam had known Adam since he was a boy.

Sam was his basketball coach at the local youth club, and Adam was one of his star players. Sam followed his career since he was an apprentice at this very restaurant, all those years ago.

At that time Sam had asked to speak to the new apprentice, just to say hello, but his request was denied.

How things had changed.

Head waiters and Maitre De's no longer said no to Sam.

What a difference half a billion dollars makes in the eyes of those who aspire to status.

Adam was pleased to see Sam and Scarlett. They drank a particularly old port and talked about the early days.

~oOo~

On the way back to their room neither of them wanted to be the one to break the silence. Scarlett emerged from the bathroom wearing a spectacular nightgown and climbed into bed next to Sam.

He put out his arm, as he had done countless times before, and she moved towards him and settled with her head on his chest.

They lay there silently, lost in their own thoughts.

Sam's body felt warm and secure.

She wondered if he was truly happy.

Did he miss his old life?

He said he was happy and maybe she should just believe him and stop worrying.

He was the most important thing in her life, and she was still amazed that he seemed to have emerged out of nowhere.

She had never had any shortage of male company, and they seemed to be divided into two groups.

The first group were the 'money boys'.

These chaps were born to money, and she had known many of them since they were children.

Rich people tend to associate with other rich people.

Most of them were nice enough, but there seemed to be a greyness about them.

Too much money and no ambition.

The other group were the 'I'm not sure if you like me or my money' boys.

There was no shortage of these, and it was almost impossible to know the answer to the question.

How do you really know what is in a person's heart?

Scarlett's upbringing had been strictly controlled by her parents and grandparents, and she knew that they had her best interests at heart, but it all seemed so cold-blooded.

Sometimes she felt like a prize thoroughbred filly.

Which stallion would her parents choose for her?

Her situation wasn't helped when her older cousins kept getting into relationships with fortune hunters.

Out would come the check-books and the gold diggers would suddenly disappear. The only sign that they had ever been there was the sea of tears shed by a young girl with a broken heart.

Scarlett had an excellent ability to sniff out 'the bounders' as her grandfather called them, so there were no tears for her to shed but she was disappointed on a few occasions.

Right from the start, she knew Sam was different.

He was polite but cheeky and although he did not have an actual disdain for money he was not obsessed by it either.

He had other ways of judging a person's worth.

He was cultured and well-read, liked drinking good wine rather than talking about it and he had some bizarre friends, all of whom adored him.

They had inventive names like Big Eddie, Boofhead, Billy the Bag and Fingers.

Knuckles Moran was her personal favourite.

He looked like someone had stuffed him into a wheat thresher, but his gnarled countenance hid a big heart.

At some stage in the past Sam had helped him with something important, probably life and death, and now he could not do enough to help Sam.

In the time that Sam and Scarlett had been together, Knuckles had been Scarlett's bodyguard on a couple of occasions.

Knuckles stuck out a bit at sophisticated soirées, and he always looked very uncomfortable in a tuxedo but Sam loved him, and Scarlett was quite sure that if necessary, he would take a bullet for either of them.

How could you not love a guy who would willingly die for you and not ask why?

If you wanted Sam in your life, his strange assortment of friends came too.

~oOo~

In the silence, Sam had been doing some remembering as well.

When he first met Scarlett he had been dragged along to a fundraiser by friends who thought he should get away from his typewriter and meet a few people who weren't fictional and likely to shoot, stab or generally maim anyone.

He enjoyed getting dressed up, but he was only there because he could not come up with an excuse quickly enough to get out of it.

In the past, these occasions had worn a bit thin.

The women were usually beautiful, well dressed and vacuous.

The men tried too hard to be amusing and wore Sam out with conversations about money and football.

Sam would not have minded if these chaps had watched the games from the outer instead of a private box that cost more than most people spent on rent for a small house.

They didn't follow football because they liked it, they were at the games because it was good for business. They all had a matched set of personalised golf clubs as well.

Sam hated golf.

"It's not a bloody sport if you don't get to knock someone over occasionally, and the balls you play with need to be larger than your own."

Just as he was about to pass out from a mixture of expensive booze and boredom someone elegant said it was time to eat.

Food seemed like a good idea, so Sam moved somewhat unsteadily towards the dining area.

It took him a few moments to find his place-card.

He was 'stag' so he knew that he could expect to be seated next to some homely spinster who either did not converse at all or would not shut up.

The person on his right was deep in conversation with a bloke who looked like he may have invented electricity and as he looked to his left, he was pleasantly surprised to find a woman who could be described as gorgeous.

She wasn't speaking to anyone at that moment so Sam thought he would try his luck.

"The food looks good," Sam said and immediately wished he had thought of something less banal to say.

"Yes, it does."

Scarlett looked up from her plate to see a reasonably tall [as best she could tell as he was sitting down] reasonably handsome man in a reasonably good Tux. He had reasonably good hair too but would he live up to his reasonably good overall appearance?

"It's basic tucker for one of these Do's, but I'm a big fan of 'basic' when it comes to food." Sam figured that he had very little to lose at this stage, so he just kept going. "My mother used to cook basic tucker, and it never did me any harm."

"That remains to be seen." Scarlett was not sure why she had said that but the man she had just said it to seemed to like it.

Sam smiled —— this one's got a bit of spunk.

"Do you know much about food, little lady?" Sam was taking a chance referring to her petite appearance, but she didn't flinch.

"I know that if you have one food of every colour on your plate, you cannot go wrong." Scarlett's nursing training was beginning to show.

Sam was no longer falling asleep.

"Are you at this shindig with anyone?" Sam was moving rather fast, but he might as well know.

Women this interesting were invariable taken or in a crappy relationship with some guy too busy to notice how cool his wife is.

It was best to clear the air.

"No. All alone. I came along to support Jane. She's your host. She's the one who puts in all the hard work, and I like to support my friends."

"Your dress is a stunner. I'll bet you had to save your pennies to afford that."

This was where Scarlett had to make a quick decision.

If she mentioned that she had no idea how much the dress cost, things would change.

They always did.

"A nurse's salary does not go very far so yes, it took a while, but I'm very careful with my money, and I only buy the best when I can afford it."

Which was all true.

So far, so good.

"A nurse. That's cool. You must show me your uniform some time."

"I only wear it when I'm at work." Scarlett was ignoring the innuendo. "A big healthy man like you has probably never seen the inside of a hospital."

"I have. I had my tonsils out when I was six."

"I'll bet they were very cute tonsils, too."

This was getting interesting.

She didn't miss a beat, and she was matching him comment for comment.

He was getting cheeky, but she didn't seem fazed.

"They were very cute tonsils, and I didn't give them up without a fight. I kicked the doctor several times when they were trying to put me under."

"Anesthetist," said Scarlett. "The chap who was trying to put you under is known as an Anesthetist."

"I have no idea what religion he was, but I know I gave him a good kicking."

Scarlett tried not to smile, but a small one leaked out despite her resolve.

"And what do you do for a living apart from kicking poor innocent doctors?"

"Anaesthetist," said Sam.

"God bless you," said Scarlett, "But that's not answering the question."

"I write."

"On walls?"

"On pieces of paper, then we stitch the pieces of paper together, slap a cover on them and put them in bookstores and wait and see if anyone will buy them."

"And, do they?"

"Sometimes. But not as often as I would like." Sam conveniently left out the private detective bit. No sense frightening the horses at this early stage.

The conversation went quiet for a time while both Sam and Scarlett digested what had just happened.

It all seemed so relaxed and comfortable.

They were evenly matched and evenly interested.

When the eating part of the occasion was over some handsome bloke, who Scarlett seemed to know, asked her to dance. She excused herself, and it was a long time before Sam got to talk to her again.

The next time he saw her she had come back to the table to collect her things, and some friends of hers were talking to her about where they were going next.

"Not on duty tomorrow?" Sam just needed something to say before she left, but her answer was to come in handy.

"No, I'm not on duty again until Monday. A rare weekend off. Doesn't happen often. It was good to meet you, Sam."

She had remembered his name.

Scarlett breezed away with her attractive friends, and Sam was left to wonder if he should have said something else.

His instincts told him that she was special and that not pushing his luck was a good idea.

Maybe he would call her, but what the hell was her surname?

Sam almost panicked but then he remembered he was a detective. He would track her down by asking his host.

His host smiled and gave him the information he needed which he wrote on a napkin, which made him think of Hemingway.

She was a woman that Hemingway would have fallen for.

The smile on his host's face was a kind of 'you are wasting your time' smile, but Sam simply smiled back and said, "Thank you, I had an excellent evening, and I hope you raised a heap of money for......"

The host helped out, "Homeless youth."

"For homeless youth, of course."

"It went very well, and I would like to thank you for your generous donation."

The host quickly lost interest in Sam and moved away to talk to other guests.

Sam was too wired to go straight home.

He drove around for a long while before parking by the bay.

"Life is about to get very interesting indeed," he said to no one in particular.

~oOo~

"Is that Scarlett Holmyard?"

"Yes it is, who is that?"

It had taken about six minutes for the nurses' home chaperone to locate Scarlett and this gave Sam more time to worry about what he was going to say.

As a rule, women didn't make Sam nervous, but this was different.

She was different, and he didn't want to mess it up.

Person to person he had his physical charm to get him through the awkward moments, but on the phone, there was only the sound of his voice.

As Sam was to find out in the months to come, getting past the woman who was in charge of the Nurse's Home was more laborious than winning a fist fight with Lionel Rose. She had the physical and moral welfare of a building full of young women to think of, and she took her responsibilities seriously.

A few months on and Sam would save this woman's life when she had a heart attack at the front desk when Sam had come to visit Scarlett.

She gave Sam the third degree, so much so that if things had been different, he might have offered her a job as an interrogator.

He must have sounded presentable because eventually, she said, "I'll see if I can find nurse Holmyard, and I'll see if she wishes to talk to you." Sam was also wondering what the answer to that question would be.

"It's Sam."

"My cousin Sam?"

"No Sam from the other night."

"Sam Oldfield?"

Who the hell was Sam Oldfield? A question for another time perhaps?

"No, Sam Bennett from the fundraiser. 'Every coloured food on the plate for a balanced meal', remember?"

"Oh, that Sam. How are you?"

"Exhausted, but happy that I finally established my credentials. By the way, who was that women who answered the phone? It would be easier to break into The Royal Mint than to get past that woman."

"Oh, she's 'The Dragon', she protects our virtue."

"Does your virtue need protecting?"

"I'm not sure yet, what do you think, Sam-from-the-fundraiser."

"Definitely, and to test the theory, would you have coffee with me on Thursday night?"

"Can't on Thursday; night duty. But you can buy me breakfast on Saturday morning. I might be a bit fuzzy after two weeks of night duty, but you won't be offended if I fall asleep in my eggs, will you Sam?"

"I'll ply you with copious amounts of coffee."

"7am at the Hospital main entrance. I'll let you choose the breakfast venue."

"I'm already looking forward to it."

Sam hung up the phone and smiled. That went better than expected. Scarlett was just as amazing as he remembered. He had been slightly worried that he had imagined her, but there she was, just as sharp and interesting as he remembered.

Sam was not usually awake at 7am, let alone out and about, but this woman was worth losing sleep for.

Roll on Saturday morning.

~oOo~

Mornings didn't agree with Sam, the sun seemed to be coming from the wrong direction, and everything seemed all new and bright; disgusting.

Now, the afternoon and evening, that was a time of day.

A time when interesting things and interesting people were out and about.

Wage slaves owned the morning but bad guys inhabited the night, and wherever nefarious deeds were being done there was a dollar to be made.

Nighttime was easy on the mind.

Jazz sounded better at night, women were more beautiful, and money had that excellent dark, vibrant colour that it lacked in the daylight.

If you knew what you were doing, you could move around in the evening, and no one noticed you.

Sam was a little bit concerned that he might not wake up on time to take Scarlett to breakfast, so he solved the problem by not going to bed.

This was not a hardship, his job often kept him awake for days at a time, especially if there was surveillance to be done.

Sam worked alone, he liked it that way, but it meant that watching someone meant no sleep until the results were in.

No one needed watching that night, so he watched a series of baseball games on late night TV.

Baseball was an interesting game which had a long history in Australia.

The largest crowd ever to watch a game was in Melbourne in 1956, during the Olympic Games.

Close to 110,000 people watched that game.

For many years a baseball game would be the curtain raiser for Australian Rules Football games, but in recent times the game had slipped into the background.

Sam liked the subtleties of the game. It had the strategy of cricket, but the action was jammed into a few hours play.

Sam was waiting as Scarlett emerged from the entrance to the massive hospital complex.

She was with a large group of nurses who had just finished a night shift. They were happy and laughing and talking about what they were going to do with their day. Boyfriends, movies, dancing later in the day, washing of hair all got a mention, but sleeping seemed to be high on everyone's list, oh, and of course, breakfast.

Nurses were famous for eating anything that was put in front of them. How did they stay so trim with this kind of attitude to food?

Scarlett thought that the stress of the job was responsible for all its skinny participants.

Scarlett gave Sam a big smile and peeled off from the main group. The other nurses were smiling and no doubt, sizing up this new man. Sam didn't give their opinion of him much thought, but Scarlett would give him a full account at a later date.

"Where are you taking me, gallant sir?"

"To 'Sails', down on the beach, fair lady. Does that meet with your approval?"

"We shall see."

It was a short drive, and the car-park was almost full.

"Who the hell are all these people, and why aren't they tucked up in bed?"

"Maybe they are all nurses with their beaus, looking for breakfast."

"Maybe, or maybe they are just idiots who should be asleep."

Breakfast was ordered amid some light conversation.

Scarlett suggested they go out onto the sand and soak up some sun. She looked great in her nurses uniform with only a coat to disguise her real profession.

Sam put his coat down for her to lie on and resisted the urge to quote Sir Walter Raleigh.

They lay there staring at the seagulls whirling around when Sam noticed that Scarlett had stopped talking.

She was fast asleep.

Sam thought it best to let her sleep. He walked down to the water's edge and looked out on to the bay. It was unusually still.

Sam kept glancing back at his sleeping breakfast date, feeling protective towards her.

He felt calm in her presence.

No fireworks, just a feeling that this is how it is supposed to be.

He liked this feeling.

Scarlett woke after about an hour when a family with small children arrived on the beach.

Sam bundled her up and took her back to the nurses home, where she smiled at him and kissed him before going inside.

All in all, and as far as first dates go, this was a strange one.

Successful but strange, and Sam was sure that there was nothing in the literature about taking a prospective girlfriend out for breakfast and watching her sleep.

But, even if the 'how to' books had not thought of it, it seemed to him the perfect way to start a relationship.

~oOo~

Sam and Scarlett worked around her nursing roster and Sam's clients for the next couple of months but just when Sam felt comfortable with the relationship he found himself fighting hard to hold on to what he had found.

He rang one night after work to see if Scarlett wanted to grab a coffee before she turned in. It was a habit that he had cultivated; ring first in case her roster had changed, and also because he felt that he was showing respect for her.

Better than just showing up.

On this occasion, when Scarlett came to the phone, she said, "I don't think we should see each other anymore."

This was not what he was expecting, but he noticed that there was not a lot of conviction in her voice. Sam had been given the kiss-off before, and he knew what it was supposed to sound like. This seemed more like 'talk me out of it'.

"I'll be there in half an hour, will you meet me?"

"Yes I will, but it won't do any good."

"See you in thirty minutes."

The 'comfortable' feeling that Sam had experienced was gone, now he was in combat mode. In a blinding moment, he realised that this woman was meant to be with him and he had to find a way to convince her. This was the last time that he would take Scarlett for granted.

Sam went through the door twenty-two minutes after he put the phone down. A few traffic laws had been broken, and he was braced for the fight of his life.

Scarlett was already in the waiting room where young men usually sat waiting for a pretty nurse to emerge for the safety of the nurses quarters.

She seemed to be hiding behind an enormous cup of coffee. She was dressed in casual clothes, and she looked even more petite than usual.

"What happened between the last time I saw you and tonight?"

"Nothing happened, It's just that —— it's not going to work."

"Why do you say that?"

"We are from different worlds, I don't think you are good for me."

"Is that you talking, or your family?"

"A bit of both, I guess."

"You've always known who I am and what I do, so what has changed?"

"Nothing I —— I just don't think it's going to work."

"That's not an answer. Have I done something to make you ashamed of me?"

"Absolutely not." The way she said this gave Sam hope. She seemed to be coming to his defence. She seemed a little taller when she said it.

"It seems to me that someone has been whispering in your ear. Would that be a fair thing to say?"

"My family have never thought much of you, but that never worried me, I knew that they would like you when they got to know you. It's just that a few of my friends, the ones I trust, think that you are a bad influence on me."

"What kind of a bad influence are we talking about? Sex?"

"Well yes, that's part of it. They think I've changed. They say I used to be quiet and focused and now I'm not."

"You mean that you are exhibiting symptoms of being in love. Happiness, bright eyes, talking about happiness, not eating enough, not sleeping enough?"

"Yes, I guess."

"I've got those same symptoms, and you are the cause. I love you Scarlett, and I'm not going to let you go. You can send me away, and I'll go and never bother you again, but if you feel the same way as I do, you won't tell me to go. You want to know how this works out, exactly the same way that I do. So what is it to be? Do I go or do I stay?"

This was a dangerous strategy, but he had to show her how he felt. He was awake and clear-eyed, he knew what he wanted, and he wanted her to want it as well.

He held his breath and waited for what seemed like an eternity.

"I want you to stay."

Sam started breathing again, but he did not want to push his luck.

"I suggest that we meet for dinner in a few days and in the meantime, you think about anything that is troubling you and bring those concerns with you, and I'll do my best to answer them. Talk to your mates and see what the problem is. Fair enough?"

They met a few days later, but there was only a small amount of talk. Scarlett said that she was just feeling low and that her friend's comments had gotten to her.

Most of the evening they sat and enjoyed what felt like a new phase in their relationship. They had moved forward, and their bond was stronger.

~oOo~

D.I. Blank was not always a policeman although those that knew him would not have been surprised if he had been brought into existence fully formed with a gun and badge in hand.

It was almost impossible to imagine him as anything else.

None of his colleagues had ever heard him speak about his family and no-one had ever met anyone even vaguely related to him. He turned up to functions solo, and his former police partners could not recall him being in a steady relationship.

Blank knew that marriage for a copper was close to impossible.

You could turn up at a church and say the words, but within a short space of time, your spouse would decide that living with you was too hard.

Cops saw way too much bad stuff, and unlike soldiers, there was no R & R.

No way to escape the memories.

Every morning it started all over again.

Wives or husbands did not, and could not understand.

Blank decided long ago that he wanted to be a career copper and to achieve that he was going to cut to the chase and divorce himself.

He got lonely, but that was a price that had to be paid.

He did not know any other life.

He started out like most other coppers, wanting to help.

He felt that being of service was an excellent way to spend his life.

The reality of police life was boredom mixed with occasional patches of danger, and most of the danger was supplied by his fellow officers.

Twice he was nearly shot by some clown messing around in the station house.

One bloke was cleaning his gun when it went off.

Unfortunately, this dimwit did not blow his own head off.

The bullet from his gun grazed Blanks knee adding yet another scar to his growing collection.

The next occasion saw Blank in the passenger seat of a Divi van as it sailed through the air at approximately 100 KPH on its way to landing in the Yarra at the end of a high-speed pursuit.

Yarra water mixed with the injuries sustained while scrambling out of a submerged Divi van saw Blank laid up for three months.

The driver of the van wasn't retrieved from the wreckage until 4AM the following morning.

Fortunately, there were no suspects in the back at the time.

Blank missed the young constable's funeral because he was still in the hospital, but he kept in touch with the widow until she moved back to New Zealand to be with her parents.

His partner was an idiot, but a partner is a partner, and his widow did not deserve to be left alone to face the world.

In the coming years he had been shot at, stabbed at, had stuff thrown at, spat at and cursed at by a variety of crims, hoons and yobos, and some of them had come dangerously close to causing his name to be added to the honour board for fallen Victorian policemen, but at least these threats were coming from the bad guys.

His greatest fear was that his career would be destroyed by being killed meaninglessly by one of his own.

But, for now, he was still in one piece, and there was a murder to solve.

Then again, there was always a murder to solve and sometimes, despite his exceptional success rate, they didn't get resolved.

~oOo~

D.I. Blank took one final look at the case folder before closing it and heading for home.

The folder had the usual details that go with a murder inquiry, and on his desk, there was also a pile of printouts that would have caused a shorter man to stand up to see the door.

D.I.Blank had no such problem, he could see the door to his office perfectly well, and it beaconed to him.

He looked at the massive pile of papers stacked on his desk in neatly tied bundles. Each bundle stacked on top of the other bundles, until the uneven tying of the bundles caused a sort of leaning tower of information, all of it articles about Denny Leveson.

Most cases were hampered by a lack of information about the victim, and various constables of both sexes would have to ferret about and gather enough to form a profile of the victim, and that profile would hopefully lead to the identity of his or her killer.

In this case, there was way too much information.

And which smart arse put the banana on top of the pile?

Was someone taking the piss?

Did someone have something to say?

As it turned out the banana came from a pretty constable who thought that D.I. Blank was not eating well enough, and so she left it in the vain hope that he might eat it.

Denny Leveson was a 'show pony', and so there were articles about every facet of his life and daily movements.

"They left out what time of day he takes a shit." He said to no one in particular.

He spoke too soon because there was an article on Leveson's personal habits and this bodily function was delicately referred to as something that was dealt with at 8am every morning; like clockwork.

"Bloody celebrities. Who reads this shit anyway?" There still wasn't anyone to hear Blanks question but sometimes he felt better if he said stuff out loud.

His subordinates knew better than to answer Blanks rhetorical statements unless they were mentioned by name.

It was a bit of a minefield, but most senior coppers had their foibles, and no one died as a result.

Blank wondered if the unfortunate individual who was assigned the task of downloading all these annoying details had actually read them all. He thought about asking but decided against it.

He thought back to the days when such tasks were assigned to him.

Days of sifting and collating information that would most probably not be read.  It wasn't what he had signed up for, and he thought that the lowly PC who had built this tower probably felt the same way.

He took one last glance around his office.

It was tidy, sort of.

The days of stacks of paper and ashtrays with piles of fag ends were long gone.

When a case finished, the paperwork disappeared into some mysterious building to be stored and digitised.

His pile could wait until tomorrow.

~oOo~

Tabloid television was the way to go, at least that's what Denny Leveson thought, when he was alive that is.

Now that he was dead he didn't think much about anything.

Denny noticed that Australia was moving to the right politically and he had always been a fan of Fox News, ever since his wife insisted that they get cable TV.

As it turned out, Denny was right, and Australia got more mean-spirited the longer John Howard was in power, and that turned out to be a long time. Fortunately for Denny things didn't improve when the electorate threw Howard out. Only the second prime minister to lose his seat in a general election.

The country stayed mean-spirited and as a result, shows like A Current Affair thrived.

Frightened ignorant people like easy answers to complex questions and they are always looking for someone to blame and someone to hate.

Denny didn't write all the garbage the show dished up, but he did present it to the nation.

Sometimes they even let him do interviews.

Only the easy ones mind you, it was too risky to let him loose on anyone with a brain.

They would eat him alive.

Mostly the show went after soft targets; refugees, single mums on welfare, dodgy plumbers, that sort of thing.

He made a lot of enemies that way, but the worst that these people were capable of was turning off his water at the mains.

No, whoever bumped him off had a bit more clout than a cowboy builder.

The ornate dagger sticking out Leveson was a message. A message that so far, no one had been able to decipher.

Denny didn't hate his fans, but he didn't like them much either.

Signing a few autographs was easy enough, but it was apparent, even to him, that they were mostly sad moronic racists.

Whenever his conscience started to stir, he reminded himself about the two point six million dollars that went into his bank account every year, and that was only his network salary. Personal appearances, adverts, and book deals netted more than his salary, and some of it came 'under the table'.

He always got great tables at restaurants, and he never had to book.

People treated him like a celebrity, which is what he was.

He was annoyed that Andrew Bolt had stolen some of his nut-bag audience and that he got paid twice as much.

Denny thought of this angle first, and Bolt had changed sides and skimmed off some of his gravy.

Denny did not believe half of the things he said on TV, but he knew that it was his job to say them.

Hell, he thought that everyone should get a fair go, but that was not the party line, and he was enjoying the party.

He'd had a few death threats but that came with being on TV, and no one took them seriously.

There was that bloke who broke into his house, but as it turned out he didn't want to hurt him, he wanted to be him, and not in a John Lennon sort of way.

This bloke was in the 'funny farm' when Denny was killed, so an easy answer evaporated with one phone call.

Denny's wife thought he was boring and she was keeping fit with a fitness instructor, which seemed appropriate, so it was unlikely that he had decided to kill Denny, why bother?

In the months before he expired in that alley, Denny was worried that the network was considering replacing him.

Not because his ratings were slipping; they were but so was everyone's, people were not watching TV.

Denny's problem was that he had a generous contract and the network was losing money.

They had not renewed several high profile contracts.

There was always a new face who would work for peanuts to get that big break, and after an initial backlash the audience would return, where else could they go.

They certainly were not going to take up reading or thinking for themselves.

Denny was right, they were going to let him go when his contract ran out in a little under a year.

Denny could see it coming, and he probably should have been able to predict his own death when the two assistants he had been working with on that secret project died suddenly.

One from a car accident and one from drowning in a backyard pool after a particularly drunken party.

They were both young and foolish, and no one saw the connection, not even Denny.

What he was working on was dynamite but his ego told him that he had done an excellent job of keeping it secret and when the story broke he would be famous and the network would not dare to sack him and if they did he would have legitimate journalistic integrity, and people would be lining up to hire him.

The writing was on the wall, but he would not see it.

Killing him in such a dramatic fashion was a calculated gamble, but the person responsible felt that he had covered his tracks.

He never considered that his arrogance would be his undoing.

Powerful people never do.

# Saturday

Sam was awake, and it was 4 in the morning.

This wasn't unusual, Sam was often awake at 4am.

Sometimes he felt that he had his own personal alarm clock set to that time, only trouble was, he didn't know where the off button was, let alone the snooze button.

It didn't really matter, he always put the time to good use.

It also didn't matter what time Sam went to bed he would wake again at 4.

Once he went to bed at 3:30am just to see what would happen.

He fell asleep and woke at 4am, or thereabouts.

Time was when he would get all het up about losing sleep, but those were days when he had to get up and work; here he was on a break, and it would be a pleasure to wake up next to Scarlett with a whole day's worth of nothing to do.

Sam remembered the line from the Beatles song, 'Oh that magic feeling: nowhere to go'.

~oOo~

The knock on the door heralding the arrival of breakfast.

"Have you thought any more about Blank's offer?"

Sam had tried very hard to forget D.I.Blanks' offer but to get him and Scarlett off his back, he had decided to visit the morgue and take a cursory glance at the hapless Denny Leveson.

"Thought I might take a look at the body, and the murder scene this morning. Get it out of the way."

"That sounds like fun." Scarlett instantly realised how that sounded. "Not fun exactly —— you know what I mean."

"Yes I do my little turtle dove, but I was not planning on taking you along. I thought you could wait here, dutifully, for your lord and master to return."

Scarlett considered hurling the butter at him but instead, she smeared it on her toast with a little extra feeling.

"I would very much like to come along, oh lord and master." Playing along seemed wiser than being outraged.

"Only if you keep yourself covered modestly at all times when we are in public and walk at least two paces behind me."

"I think I can manage that. Are there any other requirements?"

"Yes. You are not allowed to faint. I just won't have it."

"You forget what I did for a living."

"It was your profession dearest, you did not require 'a living', daddy had taken care of that."

"Now, now. No need to rub my nose in it. I worked very hard and paid my own way."

"I'll bet the other girls made you pay when you went out on the town."

"They didn't know my family had money. Well, not that sort of money. They knew my family lived in Toorak, but that could have meant anything. Half the families in Toorak are mortgaged up to the poop deck."

"That's pretty high."

"Appearances, don't you know? Reputation is critical to these people. Family reputations going back several generations must be protected, even if you are flat broke. Being broke won't keep you out of society but a sullied reputation will.

Some people will do anything to avoid a scandal. When I was at school, my best friend suddenly stopped turning up. Her father was involved in some scandal or other, and all their money was gone. Her father shot himself, and my friend's mother took their girls and moved back to the country to be with her parents. It wasn't the money troubles that finished him off, people can recover from that, it was the disgrace that he had brought to the family name.

Sometimes it's all a bit like a Japanese Samurai movie. Kurosawa would love Toorak."

"The Seven Equity Traders, coming to a screen near you."

"Something like that. Now, do I get to come?"

"Yes woman, get your face on and let's get out of here."

~oOo~

Scarlett did indeed have her face firmly in place when the doorman suggested calling a taxi.

Sam politely declined to say that a walk after last nights feasting, would do them good.

The doorman smiled, the way that doormen do and the carefree couple headed off.

"Where is the morgue in this town?" Scarlett wondered if they were headed in the right direction.

"The morgue is way out of town, but fortunately for us, the body is temporarily being held at The Alfred Hospital. You know where that is do you not?"

"I could walk there in my sleep, but still a bit of a hike from here."

"We will grab a cab, but first we are going to have a chat with the delightful D.I. Blank at his little cubbyhole of an office."

Sam missed the old Russell Street police headquarters. It was built in 1940 in the Art Deco style and bore more than a passing resemblance to the Empire State building, at least in design if not in height. The move to the bland modern building in William Street gave the cops a modern headquarters, but many people felt that it was at least partly to erase the memory of the bombing that occurred in 1986. Those who were old enough to remember were shocked that something like that could happen in old conservative Melbourne. Constable Angela Taylor became the first woman policeman in Australia to lose her life in the line of duty.

Sam walked by the old buildings from time to time, and if he looked closely, he could still see the shrapnel-damaged parts of the brickwork.

That was all in the past and in the present Sam, and Scarlett found D.I. Blanks office to be somewhat more substantial than a cubby hole.

"Nice digs, Detective Inspector" Sam was slightly impressed.

"Sam, you can stand anywhere you like; Mrs Bennett would you like a chair?"

"My, you are a gentleman Detective Inspector." Scarlett was mocking slightly, but she was appreciative of the attention.

"It's a pleasure to see you again Mrs Bennett, you've brightened up my morning."

"It's a shame that you have to work on a Saturday. Do they give you time off to make up for it."

"If I'm lucky. But this case is a big one so there won't be any weekends for anyone until we get a result."

"Does this apply when ordinary people get murdered or just the celebrities?"

Blank didn't like the question, and he didn't like the answer either. "Ordinary people don't play golf with the Commissioner Mrs Bennett, so no, they don't get the deluxe treatment. It's sad but true, and as Ned Kelly said, such is life."

"I hate to break up this touching little discussion, but I would like to get back to my long weekend, so could we get down to it?" Sam wasn't exactly annoyed, but he didn't want to spend any more time at police headquarters than was necessary.

"Fair enough," said Blank.

"The victim was killed in the street next to Pellegrini's, which you know. Amazingly it is one of the few places on Burke Street that isn't covered by any sort of CCTV. There is a camera facing down the street, but it was put up decades ago and is one of those fake ones that shopkeepers used to put up when the damn things were expensive. Either the killer got lucky, or he knew that the camera was a dud."

"Has anyone come forward with information? That's a bustling part of town. I find it difficult to believe that no-one saw anything."

"Not a peep out of anyone. Not a whisper on the street either. It doesn't seem that he owed anyone money, he didn't gamble all that much. The occasional game of poker and the odd side bet on his games of golf, but that seems to be it. No women problem as far as we can tell, and for some reason he breaks the show-business golden rule and doesn't seem to be into drugs, recreational or hard."

"The man's a saint. Maybe God killed him." Said Sam.

"Then God has a sense of humour."

"How so?"

"The dagger used to kill Leveson, was a rare ceremonial piece. A real antique, worth about two years of my wages, and it is not reported stolen. It's been off the radar for about a hundred years according to the Antique Squad. The previous owner was some joker from France. It just doesn't make any sense."

"What exactly do you want me to do about all this?" Sam was getting bored and annoyed all at the same time.

"Dig around, ask around, that sort of thing," said Blank. He pushed a photo of the dagger in Sam's direction. Scarlett picked it up before Sam could get to it.

"It's a remarkable piece of workmanship. Did Leveson collect antiques?" Scarlett was starting to enjoy herself.

"No, apparently he didn't collect anything."

"Except enemies, and he had quite a few of them. It should take you a while to work your way through all of them." Said Sam.

"Don't worry, we have already started."

"I never worry, Detective Inspector, especially when Melbourne's finest are on the case. I'll ask around and see what I can find out, and I'll let you know."

Scarlett could tell that the fun was coming to an end and she tried to think of another question to keep the occasion going.

"Is his wife a suspect? In the movies, they always say that the spouse is the most likely suspect?"

D.I. Blank almost smiled, but he caught himself just in time. "His missus has a tight alibi. She had a bunch of her giggly friends around for some women's club meeting. Saving something or other. About thirty annoying people say she was at her house at the time of the killing."

"Maybe she hired someone?" Scarlett was really getting into the swing of this detective stuff.

Sam had had enough. "I think we should let the nice detective get on with his job, and I'm sure he has heard the rumours about Mr and Mrs Leveson."

D.I.Blank had not heard the rumours, and this made him uneasy. "What rumours?"

"Just the usual stuff, trouble in Paradise, that sort of thing, nothing substantial, I wouldn't put too much store in it." Sam was making this stuff up just because he liked to fluster the good Detective Inspector. He knew that he would waste the rest of the day trying to find out if it was true. For all Sam knew it might be true so possibly the time would not be wasted. In any case, Sam already had his reward; the look on Blank's face.

"Time we were shuffling along dearest," said Sam. She gave him that look that said she was mildly annoyed -- she had pushed this as far as it would go.

When they got outside Scarlett almost skipped along the footpath. "That was fun, where do we go now? Can we go and see the body?"

"The body is not going anywhere, and besides, I'm hungry. Let's visit the scene of the crime and feed the inner man at the same time. Pellegrini's."

~oOo~

The city was full of people as it usually was on a Saturday. There was a game on at the MCG, so a few people were walking around wearing their team colours. From what Sam could see it looked like Richmond was playing Hawthorn. It was difficult to live in Melbourne and not get caught up when the Australian Rules football season was in full swing.

Sam didn't follow the game the way he did when he was a boy. He and his dad and all his cousins and uncles and most of his aunties followed Fitzroy, but since the club had folded after more than a hundred years of history and eight premierships, Sam had lost interest in the game. He could still 'talk football' if he had to, but his heart was not in it.

Sam and Scarlett wandered aimlessly down Queen St before turning into Bourke. The Mall was packed and entertaining as always. It was too nice a day to be in much of a hurry.

Walking hand in hand was what was called for.

By the time they reached Pellegrini's they were hungry and hoping for a seat, which is not always guaranteed, as they both remembered from their younger days.

Scarlett came here during her nursing training, and Sam used it as a late-night pit stop when he was working a case.

The place could be packed at almost any time from breakfast until late closing.

Anyone who has lived in Melbourne from 1954 onwards has a story about Pellegrini's.

The place oozes history and atmosphere and has been populated by several generations of loud, brusk and slightly rude waiters since day one.

It's all part of the charm of the place.

The place just never changes, and that is a part of its charm.

Amazingly, it doesn't have a liquor license, but no one seems to care.

You come here for the atmosphere, the coffee, the basic tucker and to listen to the conversations, including the ones where the owner gives his waiters a hard time.

Many of the conversations are in Italian.

Sam and Scarlett both speak Italian, but they don't let on because it is more fun to listen in when the men behind the bar don't know that you understand.

Crossley Street, the scene of the crime, runs down the side of the building but before any inspection, Sam and Scarlett needed food.

It was way past breakfast, but a bit of a smile from Scarlett was all it took for them to be able to order the breakfast speciality of the house; an open toasted salami and mozzarella on Italian bread.

If you listened very carefully, you could hear your arteries hardening just by saying the words.

Breakfast is not complete without coffee, so two 'long blacks' were ordered.  Pellegrini's and Moccopan were established at about the same time, and jointly they have been mostly responsible for making Melbourne the coffee capital of Australia.

When Scarlett came here as a student, the waiters would flirt with her and her mates during a time when such things were harmless and expected.

The staff had fun, and the girls enjoyed the attention.

These days such things are frowned upon, but not at Pellegrini's. Almost every female is referred to as 'bella'.

Scarlett and her mates would come here to get away from the nurses home and to soak up a bit of sophistication.

Scarlett had seen a lot of the world, but her friends were young and not as well travelled. She enjoyed their company and was pleased that they accepted her.

She'd sat in cafe's and restaurants all over the world, but Pellegrini's was a match for any of them. She felt that 'honest' was the best way to describe the place, and honesty is hard to come by in any age.

Sam and Scarlett found two seats at the bar, but they would have been just as happy sitting along the wall. The mirrors that run along the wall make the place look much more extensive than it is, and it allows those who sit there to surreptitiously watch their fellow diners.

"It feels strange to be so close to a murder scene," said Scarlett. "It's even stranger that life goes on as normal even though someone was murdered just around the corner."

"I'll bet the staff don't see it that way," said Sam.

"A murder changes the clientele. Some of the regulars stay away until the memory starts to fade and others are ghoulishly drawn to the spot. It will be a bit weird in here for a while."

Suddenly the voices from behind the bar were even louder than usual.

The owner was shouting at a customer, and at least one of the waiters was joining in.

"We donna wanna talk about it any more. Bugger off. Out! Mova your arse or Gino gonna move it for you!"

As the slightly shaken 'rubber necker' left the cafe a few of the customers burst into applause followed by a few calls of, "Good on ya mate."

This was sacred ground, and the dead could stay outside and so could those who were fascinated by them.

"This is probably not the best time to ask questions," Sam said. Scarlett smiled, she had to agree. It was doubtful that anyone on the staff had seen anything and what they had seen would be in the police report. The police were annoying, but they were thorough, at least the ones who worked for D.I. Blank were.

He was a stickler for details.

For a long while, they sat in silence the way that couples who love each other often do.

They were lost in their own thoughts, and none of them had anything to do with Denny Leveson.

Sam was wondering what he had done to deserve this amazing woman.

Was that how it worked?

Did you have to do something right?

He had not seen much evidence of it.

The good died just as violently as the bad, and in his estimation, the universe didn't care much either way.

However it was, he knew he was lucky.

She could have had her pick of any of the eligible bachelors on the planet, and she picked him, what's more, she seemed to be happy with her choice.

He'd had plenty of female companionship in his life, but until Scarlett came along, he believed that he was destined to be alone.

He really didn't mind that much.

It wore a bit thin on occasions, but he got by.

Single Malt helped, but now he doubted that he could go back to that life.

Once you had tasted heaven, you would do anything, and hurt anyone who tried to stuff it up.

Despite his general ambivalence towards this case, and his desire to have it done with as soon as possible, he could not help feeling uneasy, and his apprehension was more about Scarlett than himself. He could not understand why but it made him all the more determined to be rid of this case.

A walk in the Treasury Gardens seemed like an excellent way to work off their late breakfast.

The ponds were full of ducks and their nearly grown families.

One pair of ducks seemed to have fifteen young ones trailing along behind them. Ducks don't usually have this many offspring in one season. It made for an impressive sight. A crowd had gathered to watch them.

The male duck seemed quite concerned that the group stay together.

Four of the ducklings were obviously a lot younger than the others, and an old lady in the crowd said that she thought that the adult pair must have adopted the little ones for some reason.

Scarlett admired the ducks for taking on the responsibility even though they had a huge family to begin with.

Sam thought that the father duck looked a bit stressed with all those mouths to feed and he felt sorry for him.

Fortunately, it had been a good spring with lots of rain and consequently many bugs to eat. Most of the ducklings would make it to adulthood. In a city where drought is a constant shadow, wildlife makes the most of the good weather.

Sam was following their example; make the most of the good times. He had lived long enough to know that life could change very quickly. Scarlett had given his life a shine that it had not had before and he was determined to make the most of it.

The walk in the park lasted until the late afternoon.

On their way back to the Windsor they stopped at the JFK memorial. Scarlett and Sam knew that the world changed forever and a generation lost its innocence when Kennedy died.

The doorman greeted them as they arrived, but Sam got a strange feeling as they walked past him.

"Have a good evening Mr and Mrs Bennett".

It was a simple enough thing to say but because he had not seen them check in, how did he know their names?

Sam made a mental note of his name badge. Stephen.

On the way past the reception desk, Sam asked the receptionist, "How long has Stephen worked here?"

"Stephen isn't in this evening sir, he called in sick."

"I'm pretty sure I was just talking to him at the door."

"We don't have a doorman on duty after 6:00 PM sir."

"Not to worry, I must be dreaming, don't give it another thought."

"What was that all about?" Scarlett asked as they walked away from the desk.

"We aren't going up to our room just yet, we need to give the 'nice men' time to finish searching it."

"What!" Scarlett said, slightly too loud.

"Keep your voice down dear we don't want to frighten the horses. Let's duck into The Cricketers for a stiff one. I do believe they have a twenty-year-old Glenfiddich."

"How do you know there are people searching our room?"

"The doorman isn't Stephen. Stephen called in sick, and besides when I looked, 'Stephen' had vanished. He was a rather elaborate lookout, and when he saw us coming, he rang through to the room and legged it. Didn't you wonder why he knew our names?"

"I come from a world where everyone knows my name, especially at a five-star hotel."

"Well, I come from a world where you don't trust your mother unless you have two independent witnesses."

"Shouldn't we call the police?"

"For all I know, they are the police. When we go up to our room, and the place is a shambles we will know it was the police. If it is in good order, then I really start to worry."

Scarlett needed a glass of 'bubbly' to settle her nerves and Sam had two single malts —— he had much larger nerves.

When they got to the room, Sam put his hand in his pocket. The gun was still there, and he hoped to God that he would not need it.

The suite was empty of people, friendly or otherwise, and there wasn't a thing out of place.

Sam knew it was time to start worrying.

~oOo~

Sam had barely taken off his shoes when the phone rang.

The front desk had managed to stop the two newspapermen from marauding through the Hotel looking for Sam, and they wanted to know if he wanted his privacy violated?

Sam was curious, so he told the thoughtful desk clerk to send them up.

"How the hell did Blank get past the front desk and these two newspaper clowns got nabbed?" Sam said to Scarlett who by now was making a cup of coffee in the kitchen of the suite.

"The nice policeman must have a good disguise," said Scarlett trying to be helpful.

"I've seen newspaper men hide in the cracks in the pavement and go unnoticed, and they can't get past a desk clerk. The standard of journalism in this town is declining."

Sam met them at the door.

"Invite the good gentlemen in Sam," said Scarlett.

"Not before we count the silver we won't." Sam wasn't kidding, but he wasn't sure if the suite had any silver.

"Don't be like that Mr Bennett, we only want to get your side of the story," said the tall skinny one. The short one just nodded.

"Story, what story?"

"The murder, and the story about how you are going about solving it."

"I don't do that sort of thing any more fellas, don't you read your own rag? I'm rich and busy, and for the next couple of days, I'm on holiday. No detecting, no solving, and you can quote me."

"Come on Sam give us a break, being a reporter ain't easy these days. Our newsroom has fewer people in it than the Simpson Desert. Every day we wait for the tap on the shoulder, we're a dyin' breed."

"And I'm sure when you are gone there will be much rejoicing." Said Sam.

Scarlett thought that he was a bit harsh, but Sam knew that newspapermen were immune to criticism. They had skin thicker than a Collingwood supporter.

As far as these two reporters were concerned, Sam could insult them all he liked as long as he gave them a quote.

They were not exaggerating about the empty newsroom.

Most newspapers in Australia had been walloped by the advent of internet news, and they were doing what all idiot businesspeople do, they look at the most significant item on their list of costs, and that's usually staff. So some bright spark says, 'Let's sack a few thousand people and then we will be profitable again.' Unfortunately for these morons, they have forgotten that News is a people business, and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late to get back all that experience. So in the meantime, you get eighteen-year-old bloggers writing the news based on something someone said on Twitter.

The newspaper men were destined to be disappointed in their quest for a quote unless "I'm definitely not on the Denny Leveson case" constituted a quote. It was, but it was not the quote that would stop their boss from calling them a whole range of names that a lady should not hear.

Scarlett showed them out, and they made one last attempt to get a quote by appealing to her to intercede on their behalf.

~oOo~

Sam understood 'desperate'.

When he was younger, he felt that way a lot.

Angry, bored and desperate is no way to be when you are a fifteen-year-old boy.

'Nelly' Turvaville, (no one called him Cornelius, not even his mother) had a soft spot for the boy, and the boy almost didn't know that 'Nelly' existed.

That is often the way with young men, and Sam was not quite old enough to be called a man, not just yet.

In the very near future circumstances would accelerate his maturity but for now, his future dangled by a thin thread.

If Nelly decided that he was not worth the effort, then Sam's story would probably include the description of the inside of a gaol cell.

"This kid is either going to be very good or very bad."

It seemed that Sam was destined not to be mediocre.

Nelly was wise enough to know that peaking Sam's curiosity and challenging his pride were the keys to his attention.

"I'll bet you don't have the stomach for a dead body?"

There were many dead people in Sam's family and pretty much all of his relatives, who weren't still alive were dead, but he had to admit that he had never seen any of the dead ones.

He'd never seen a dead person related or not, but he was not going to let this geezer know that. Besides, this sounded interesting; it might lead somewhere that was slightly less boring than here.

"I've seen heaps of dead people. Some of them had their guts hanging out."

"Then you won't mind coming down to the Coroner's court with me to identify a client?"

There was only a slight hesitation. "Yeah I'll come with you, but why do you have to identify the body?"

"He is, or was, alone in the world and, for a fee, he asked me to help him. A fee I'll probably never collect, but I owe him this much. Everyone should have a name when they put you in the ground."

"Was it your fault that he kicked off?"

"Kinda. I was a bit too slow in finding out who was after him. The creep got to the client before I got to the creep. So I guess you could say that it was partly my fault."

"What about the creep. Are you going to croak him?"

"That's not what I was hired to do. I was hired to find the person who was after my client, and that's precisely what I did. I gave the info to the cops, and now it's their job. They want me to identify the creep as well.

It's my week for identifying people.

You can come along for that one as well if you like. One dead, one alive. A matching set."

"Yeah, I'll come."

Nelly had an 'in' with the Morgue attendant, so he was able to smuggle the boy into a world that was usually forbidden to minors. Sam was smart enough to know that he was in on something that other kids could only dream about.

The morgue attendant went away and came back with a waste paper basket.

It came in handy as the sights and smells took their toll.

Sam's head was buried in the basket a few times, but he always came back to Nelly's side.

Nelly noted Sam's courage.

The second identification was less 'chunderous', and this time he had to pretend to be Nelly's nephew to get past the desk Sergeant. Nelly was impressed by the boy's cheek. He was a natural liar, but then again most boys are at that age.

Nelly pointed out the murderer without hesitation, and he was led away to be formally charged.

"I didn't really need the hint, Sarge. I was the one who tracked him down. By the way, he was the third bloke from the left, not the fourth, but it's the thought that counts."

The Sergeant didn't think that Nelly was even a little bit amusing, but Nelly was beyond caring.

He saw a glimmer of hope for the young man, and he was looking forward to teaching him his trade.

Sam was an eager learner and as the next few years went by he absorbed the finer points of lock picking and following a suspect. Amazingly it seemed that the closer you followed someone, the less likely they were to know that you were following them.

Adults rarely took much notice of young people so Sam was the perfect person to follow a target who would typically be looking for a tail.

Sam learned how to fire and service a revolver. "Automatics might be sexy, but if they jam, you might as well have your dick in your hand for all the good it will do you. Always carry spare shells. If nothing else, you can always leave a bullet in a bloke's letterbox, it has an excellent laxative effect."

Sam also learned the fine art of sitting on your arse for hours while a suspect slept soundly in their bed. "It's boring as hell, but it gets results just often enough to make it worthwhile. Don't fall asleep and don't drink coffee unless you have an old milk bottle to pee in!"

Sam learned that "Paperwork sucks, but when things go wrong it will get you out of the shit."

"Always get paid, leave the booze alone, women are poison except for the ones who aren't, always carry cash, spare ammunition and a handkerchief. No tissues, always a handkerchief, they come in handy for all sorts of things, and they wipe off fingerprints without leaving fibres. Tissues go in the bin and can be used against you, handkerchiefs go in the wash, and one looks very much the same as another. You can use them as a filter with a vacuum when gathering fine particles and you can use them to plug up holes on a cold, windy night, and nothing will get you laid quite like the gesture of handing a weeping woman a freshly washed and ironed handkerchief."

Of course, all this activity was worked around Sam's school work.

Nelly would not have it any other way.

"You pass your exams, and I'll teach you the business. No school, no gumshoe."

Sam was bright, but like any intelligent child, he disliked school. Now he had a reason to stick it out. Nelly would not tolerate low grades, so Sam worked hard.

By the time Sam had received entrance to university, he had learned all that Nelly could teach him.

Sam was halfway through his second year when he got the news that Nelly had been killed in a fight with a bloke who liked to beat his wife.

Nelly wasn't very big, and the husband was.

Women beaters were the top of Nelly's hate list, and he had metered out a bit of instant justice over the years but on this occasion, something went wrong, and Nelly's skull hit the ground way too hard.

The wife beater got 10 to 15 for manslaughter and Nelly got a hole in the ground and a headstone.

Sam was Nelly's only 'family', and it was Sam who organised the headstone.

As a final' dig in the ribs,' the stone bore the name Cornelius Turvaville.

Sam fully expected 'Nelly' to haunt him for that, but that was OK with him.

The world would not be the same without Nelly.

~oOo~

Sam opened the door to see a rather large gentleman standing in the hall. He was big enough to block up the doorway, all he had to do was take a step forward, and he could take up all the space.

He mumbled something and Sam was about to ask him to repeat it when he suddenly took a swing at Sam.

A roundhouse right which was an inappropriate punch under the circumstances.

Sam moved back slightly, and the punch landed on the door frame. The large gentleman hesitated for a moment but did not seem to mind.

He mumbled something again, and this time Sam recognised his name.

Sam decided to hit the large gentleman as it seemed like the right thing to do under the circumstances.

He hit the large gentleman several times, but it didn't have much effect.

Sam hit him in the mouth a couple of times but this only made it harder to understand what the large gentleman was trying to say.

Before Sam hit him again, he discerned the words 'stay away from.' 'Stay away from .......... Sam Bennett?'

That didn't make any sense.

It was at this point that Scarlett intervened.

Her first blow struck Sam on the shoulder, and it hurt quite a lot.

Sam wondered if Scarlett had found a hammer somewhere in the suite and he hoped that her aim would improve quickly because he was not sure how many of these mistimed hammer blows he could take.

Scarlett's hammer was, in fact, a lovely little crystal travelling clock that her grandmother had given her when she started her nursing training, it even had an inscription, 'To Scarlett on the commencement of your nursing journey.' There was also a date and a 'love grandma.'

Scarlett's mistimed blow momentarily distracted Sam and gave the large gentleman a chance to catch his breath. He was definitely mumbling through broken teeth, but Sam clearly heard, "Stay away from the Leveson case, or it'll be too bad for you Sam Bennett."

Sam was just about to be pleased with finally deciphering the message when Scarlett regained her aim.

The solid little crystal travelling clock came into violent contact with the large gentleman's skull and after a moment of silence, the fight came to an end.

The large gentleman lay motionless on the rug, but there was a disturbing groaning sound coming from.

This soon stopped.

He wasn't dead as it turned out, but he wasn't going to be conscious for a long while either.

Scarlett stood looking at the crumpled man lying on her rug.

She wondered if her little crystal clock would need repairing.

She also wondered if this was a taste of the life that Sam had lived before he married her.

The blood that dripped off the clock and onto her shoes only added to her wondering.

Sam stared at Scarlett.

She was standing there, holding her weapon of choice, blood slowly dripping.

She looked beautiful and a little stunned.

Nurses tend to repair wounds rather than create them.

His Scarlett was a woman to be reckoned with.

He was very proud of her for coming to his rescue.

He had been doing quite well in the tussle, but he was not too proud to accept help when it was needed, but he did hope that her aim would improve should another occasion arise.

His shoulder, face and knuckles hurt a lot, but the rush that arrives at the end of a successful bout would sustain him for a while.

The apartment had sustained a deal of damage as the two men fought and there were bits and pieces of some expensive furniture strewn about the floor.

Housekeeping was not going to be happy.

Scarlett came out of her temporary trance and Sam smiled at her.

"Good job slugger, you saved my bacon."

"My pleasure, but I'm sure I broke my clock. Do you think I killed him?"

Sam checked. "No, but he is going to need an aspirin."

"Do we know him?"

"No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that he was sent to deliver a message."

"I didn't see any papers."

"It wasn't that kind of delivery. It was the kind where you definitely remember the words because they are pounded into your skull. It seems that someone doesn't want me on the Leveson case. I do wish I could convince everyone that I don't want to be on the Leveson case."

"You know about these things Sam, what are we going to do now?"

"First we call the cops and get them to take this character away. Then we spend a lot of time answering a lot of annoying questions. Then we talk to D.I. Blank, because I think I know where he should be looking. A nice long hot bath would be nice, then I think we need to get out of this bomb site, and maybe a move to another room would be a good idea."

~oOo~

The hotel was efficient and discreet.

They had Sam and Scarlett in a new suite within a matter of minutes. Sam soaked in the bath and took note of where the bruises would be by tomorrow morning.

Spending time with the detective who had been dispatched to take their statement had given Sam a headache.

It was painful watching him laboriously writing in his notebook.

Sam closed his eyes and slowly slipped under the water.

It felt good, and he could hold his breath for a long time, but eventually, he would have to surface.

His mind was racing.

He didn't want to be involved in this case, but it seemed that it didn't make any difference what he wanted, he was in it.

Some of his best ideas had come to him while soaking in a hot bath.

It was true that his injuries were a distraction, but nevertheless, the ideas started to flow.

By the time he was dry and dressed he had a pretty good idea who the murderer was. Maybe not the name just yet, but he knew where he came from and what he wanted.

You didn't need to be a member of Mensa to work out that Leveson had stumbled onto something that someone didn't want to be discovered. Something important; something worth killing for.

Sam would share his insights with D.I.Blank tomorrow, but for now, he was looking forward to spending the evening with his beautiful wife.

Melbourne has some fantastic eateries, and one of the best of them, at least as far as Sam and Scarlett were concerned, was Il Bacaro on Lt Collins Street.

It was usually impossible to get a seat in this cozy place, but Sam knew, as all the regulars knew, that if you were lucky, there was always a seat at the bar, and the bar was the place to be.

The bar stools were comfortable and the bar wide enough to serve an excellent dinner.

The food and wine are an attraction, but it is the atmosphere of the place that keeps people coming back.

The staff are all males, and they all speak Italian.

They constantly talk among themselves and have an excellent time.

Anyone sitting at the bar who looks at all interested gets drawn into the conversations.

They specialise in quality Australian and Italian wines, but they also have a good selection of single malt whiskies, which pleased Sam very much.

Sam made a few notes while Scarlett finished dressing and they made the short walk to Il Bacaro. It was a beautiful night with just a slight chill in the air.

If IL Bacaro was full Sam didn't have a backup plan but Scarlett was never fussed about such things, she always 'went with the flow' where Sam was concerned. Her relaxed attitude had led them into some interesting situations, but they always seemed to come out unscathed.

As they walked up the few short steps, Sam noticed that the place was full.

A staff member met them at the door and said that they were not to worry as there were two people about to leave.

Sam had a sudden vision of the waiter grabbing two unsuspecting patrons and turfing them out the back into the alley, but this proved unnecessary as the couple at the end of the bar got up to leave.

Scarlett ordered a cocktail, and Sam asked for a McCallan.

Scarlett's cocktail was hot and smelled like flowers, Sam's whisky smelled like angels feathers.

The conversation was brisk and witty.

The owner said that his staff were exhausted as they had worked nine days in a row over the Spring Racing Carnival.

This answered a few questions as some of their humour reminded Sam of those times when he had been without sleep for a long time. There is a certain sense of liberation that comes from not caring what you say, a bit like being mildly drunk.

Many of the funnier moments came when the owner was talking to his lieutenant. Sam wondered if he realised that the customers could hear him.

None of the staff was excessively young, and this helped to give the place a more sophisticated feel.

The entrees were excellent, particularly the Proscuto and Mascarpone cheese.

Scarlett had the fish for mains and sweets consisted of a baked apple with crumble.

A short black coffee and a glass of Pedro Ximenez finished off the food and drink part of the evening.

The couple sitting to the right of Sam were from Toronto. They had only arrived that day, and the conversation turned to writing and writers. The couple was very proud that a Canadian writer, of long standing, had recently won the Nobel prize for literature. The husband promised to find one of Sam's books and Sam said he would be happy to autograph it for them if they ran into each other again during their stay.

The walk back to the Windsor was slow. It had been a good evening, and they had both been able to put the violence of the day on hold for a while.

Sam scanned the street carefully as they walked along.

Scarlett held on tightly to Sam's arm as they walked the slight uphill distance to the hotel.

It was still not late, especially for a Saturday night, and many people were walking to and from cafes and bars. If you were young, the night was just starting.

The doorman smiled as they turned into the main entrance, past reception and The Cricketer's Bar, which was still half full. The tiny elevator with its wood panelling and it's half-length mirrors took them swiftly to their floor.

As they walked along the corridor, they saw a man standing outside a room. They would have to pass him, so Sam moved Scarlett to the other side.

If anything kicked off, he did not want her in the middle of it.

He did this so skillfully that Scarlett thought that he just wanted her to hold his other hand, so she was surprised when he put his hand behind her and hurried her past the stranger.

All of Sam's muscles were ready for action, even the ones that hurt, but as they passed the man, they heard him say, "Mary, let me back in, this is embarrassing. I didn't mean it. Your mother isn't that fat." Then under his breath, "But she could lose a few pounds."

Sam didn't relax until they reached their door. As he ushered Scarlett in, he looked back to see the young man leaning against the door, which was still closed. 'Come on Mary, it's cold out here."

It wasn't, but Sam knew what he meant.

"You are going to have to work hard if you are to get any tonight, my son," Sam said in a quiet tone.

"What was that Sam?"

"Nothing, just thinking out loud."

"Well, stop thinking and get yourself in here Mr Bennett, your wife needs you."

~oOo~

About an hour later, as Sam lay with Scarlett cuddled into his side, he played out what he thought might be a possible explanation for the events that took place next to Pellegrini's only the night before.

In the morning he would tell Scarlett and see what it sounded like when he said it out loud.

Everything is different in the morning, and everything sounds different when you say it out loud.

The morning would see what it would see.

# Sunday

The sounds of the city were unobtrusive, so they slept quite late, but a knock at the door heralded the arrival of breakfast.

When they were well into a scrumptious breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast with those delightful little jam pots, Sam decided to test his theory on Scarlett.

He would deliver it to D.I.Blank, but not until Monday.

He was not going to waste his long weekend with Scarlett talking to a policeman. Not if he didn't have to.

"You know that murder that everyone is so keen for me to solve?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I think I've solved it. Well, not completely, but enough for our large detective friend to round it out."

"I'm all a twitter, please tell all."

"Well, the best bit is the dagger. You remember the dagger?"

"Yes, I do, very fancy, very old, no-one had seen anything like it, etc."

"Etc, indeed. Well, I think it's meant to send the police off on a goose chase, possibly a wild one. The dagger is window dressing No international assassins, no devious oriental plot, just good old-fashioned, local, homegrown greed. I'm betting that Leveson had uncovered some nefarious goings-on. Possibly a land deal, or kickbacks or illegal access. I'm betting it is a government minister, probably state government. Someone who has been around for a while and knows the ropes. Knows people who know people. Knows people who kill people. Probably didn't do it himself, which is what will bring him undone, assuming it's a him, which it will be.

I'm betting that when the state museum does an audit they will find a ceremonial dagger missing, probably not one that had been on display or it would have been missed by now, but one from the back room collection.

I'm betting that the minister or public servant responsible will have something personally to do with the museum trust. Possible a wife might be the connection to the museum. However, it works out there will be a connection.

Leveson was an idiot, and if he had stayed that way, he would probably still be alive enough to annoy me. His eleventh-hour attempt to be a hero got him killed."

"You worked out all that, but you don't know exactly who it is?"

"The 'exactly' isn't important. A little cage rattling and a few questions in the right place and this will either get solved or covered up."

"What have you got your money on Sam?"

"My money is on solved.

Blank isn't the sharpest pencil in the box but he is honest, and if they let him he will deliver the killer.

I just have to give him a push in the right direction.

Blank is brave, honest and just a bit thick, but if my life depended on it, he's the copper I'd want.

I might get old waiting for it, but he would get there in the end.

I'd miss him if he weren't around."

"I thought he was kind of cute, and it's nice to hear you say that you trust him to do the right thing."

"If they will let him. It all depends on how much clout this guy has got. If Blank can build a strong enough case, his cronies will most likely desert him and cover their own arses. It all rides on D.I Blank, which is a frightening thought. So what do you think of my theory?"

"I like it, it all fits, kind of. I guess the finer details are up to the good detective."

~oOo~

Sunday morning in the city of Melbourne is for eating a quiet breakfast, drinking coffee and watching the world go by.

Only those who had a quiet Saturday night were out and about which meant that the streets were relatively quiet until the afternoon.

Sam and Scarlett walked around the city looking for a suitable cafe. Unfortunately, Pelligrini's was late to open, so they ended up at the plaza in the Sofitel. Scarlett enjoyed going in and out of the clothing stores, and Sam tagged along for moral support.

They bought a gift to give to their friends who were babysitting their two dogs.

Sam suggested a bottle of good whisky, but Scarlett overruled him with a hanging candle holder which cost more than a bottle of good whisky, which seemed ridiculous to Sam.

The cafe was a bit rough around the edges, and the short order cook had not cleaned the grill in a while, and Sam was sure that eggs Benedict was not supposed to look like that, and when did a hard boiled egg become part of this particular dish?

Scarlett's breakfast looked and tasted great.

Lots of avocado and tomato and a poached egg of the correct consistency.

Obviously prepared by a different chef.

The coffee looked like it had been drained out of a Bentley, but it tasted good.

Even lousy coffee tastes good in Melbourne, if it doesn't, they run you out of town on a rail.

The 'Bentley' coffee was sipped while watching the world go by.

A lady went by walking her Blue Healer, off the lead.

The dog looked very happy, but it was an unusual sight to see a large dog so close to a hotel.

A couple of minutes later she went past the cafe again, and Sam said hi.

Amazingly, she replied.

People in the city often don't acknowledge a greeting, but maybe dog people were friendlier.

Their waitress was from Canada, which was an interesting coincidence after meeting the couple in the restaurant the previous evening. She was from Vancouver, and Sam wondered if Canadians mixed up Melbourne and Sydney the way we confused Toronto and Vancouver.

There were more shops to look in and more walking to do, and as the day wore on, they were both aware that their long weekend was ending.

Soon they would be back in their working lives but not before they delivered their theory to D.I.Blank on the following morning, but then their latest adventure would be over.

But, that was tomorrow and today was today.

There was still fun to be had, streets to walk down and people to meet.

They decided that the last evening meal of their long weekend adventure should be informal.

~oOo~

Scarlett remembered seeing a 'little burger joint,' as she put it, on one of their walks.

Exactly where she could not say.

"It was on a corner."

"Yes, but which corner?"

"I don't remember."

"OK, so what was the name of the place?"

"I don't remember."

"How the hell am I supposed to find it then?"

We'll just walk down that way, and I'll know it when I see it."

Sam looked exasperated, and with good reason. He had been through this before. Delving into Scarlett's mind, and how it worked could be a terrifying experience. They could end up anywhere this side of the New South Wales border.

After walking for a while and finding nothing Sam tried again.

"Have you remembered the name?"

"It had 'chips' in it."

"A burger joint with 'chips' in the title?"

Sam knew enough about the way that Scarlett's mind worked so he started trying words associated with chips. He hit the jackpot when he got to 'fries'.

"Lord of the Fries?"

"Yes, that's it."

A quick search of the internet on Sam's phone brought up an address that they had not passed all weekend. They headed in that direction anyway, and naturally, when they got there, it was not the one that Scarlett recognised.

There was nowhere to sit so they headed off again only to stumble across it on Swanston Street.

A few bench seats were looking out onto the side street, and Scarlett claimed two seats when they became free. The sun was setting and spilling directly down the side road creating a golden hour.

Scarlett tried to photograph its beauty through the shop window.

There was a sudden commotion, and as Sam looked outside, he saw two horses at the front of a carriage come to an immediate and disciplined stop.

A father ran in front of the stationary horse to retrieve his errant son who had just come within inches of death.

The driver was telling the father what he thought of him as the father apologised while trying to decide whether to beat his boy or hug him.

Sam wondered at the physics of all that weight coming to such a sudden stop and decided that physics had nothing to do with it.

Life was a tenuous and fantastic thing.

One minute you were here and the next minute you were lying under a horse-drawn carriage —— or not.

Everyone went about their business, and a little boy and his father got to live out their lives.

A split second sooner or a less well-trained set of horses and the story became something completely different.

If Leveson had stuck to being a second-rate television presenter instead of trying to be a hero, Sam and Scarlett's weekend would have been a lot different and a lot less eventful.

It was only halfway through his meal that Sam realised that he was eating a meat-free burger and Scarlett was eating a meat-free hot dog. He wanted to complain, but it tasted delicious. So, instead he just asked the question, and Scarlett smiled. She might have led him on a merry dance, but she still could surprise him.

# Monday

Sam woke early, and despite his promise to Scarlett he decided to work on his latest book.

The ending was driving him nuts, and his writing muse had deserted him in recent weeks, and now she was back.

He wrote furiously as he always did when the juices were flowing.

He had to get it out; get it all on paper so that he could relax.

He didn't stop for spelling mistakes, and he didn't care about clumsy sentences, that could all be sorted out later, for now, he wanted the idea to unfold.

He'd felt guilty when he packed a writing pad and his favourite 'Blackwing' pencil, but now they were earning their keep.

He managed to finish the chapter before Scarlett woke.

He was happy with his work, and it made the small sadness of having to end their long weekend just a little less sad.

The couple showered, dressed, packed and headed down to the lobby.

Scarlett paid the bill, and Sam arranged for the porter to store their bags until they got back from breakfast.

Breakfast was only a short walk to Florentino's.

The place was half full with colourful characters who apparently did not need to be anywhere else.

"How nice it would be, not to have to work, to quietly eat your breakfast and contemplate the day ahead. To be that rich."

"You are that rich, but tomorrow you have to help me run a huge company."

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow." Sam was in a playful mood which always came when his stories were going well.

Sam ordered a coddled egg, just because he liked the name.

It tasted as good as it sounded.

It looked amazing as well.

The coffee was excellent, as expected, and Sam took a long time to drink his, sipping it slowly like a twenty-year-old single malt.

Each sip a trip to coffee heaven.

The morning became early afternoon, and it was time to collect the car.

It usually only took a few minutes for the Jaguar to appear from its comfortable lodgings but on this morning it ended up taking the better part of an hour.

Sam never did work out what the problem was, maybe the Jag didn't want to leave, perhaps it had struck up a romantic relationship with an Alfa Romeo. Maybe it got into a fight with a Bentley over the affections of a Mercedes. Sam's thoughts were a bit fanciful on this not so sunny Monday morning.

The Jag arrived eventually but not before Scarlett had struck up a conversation with a lady who was waiting for high tea to begin.

This lady had travelled all over the world since her husband had died. Sam was careful not to ask where the money was coming from, but the detective in him wondered if it was life insurance, and the writer in him was working out how she might have bumped him off.

There was a birthday party about to begin in the ballroom, and the foyer was full of beautiful young ladies and assorted family members.

Whoever was having the party had the sort of clout it takes to throw a party on a working day and has many people turn up. Sam was curious who this birthday person might be, but when the Jag arrived, he was happy to leave it as a mystery.

Their waiting time had been made more enjoyable by a very talented harpist, who was probably part of the birthday party. The birthday person had clout and class, an unusual combination.

The doorman helped Sam put the bags in the Jaguar and held the door for Scarlett. Sam had one stop to make on the way home, and he hoped that D.I. Blank appreciated his theory. When it panned out, he was in for a significant promotion, and as usual, Sam would get very little credit.

Sam didn't care, he had Scarlett, and all the praise in the world could not keep him warm, but being with her was all the warmth he needed.

Scarlett waited in the Jag until Sam returned from his errand.

"How did it go? Did Blank believe you?"

"I don't know. He just smiled when I told him. I guess we will see."

The dominos started falling when the thug that Scarlett thumped woke from his slumber.

# Epilogue

Under Australian law, newspapers are prohibited from reporting a murder trial until the verdict is read, after that the newspapers are free to tell the whole sordid story.

The right honourable Kelly Braxton was on trial for the murder of Denny Leveson.

Braxton was the minister for development in the two previous state governments. It seems that he had been receiving regular kickbacks from large building companies for most of his tenure.

Kelly Braxton had a gambling problem and a desire for young women.

Combine these two things and throw in a liking for a particular white powder and you can quickly see how the honourable member for Dunlop would be easy pickings for organised and disorganise crime.

That's not to say that Kelly Braxton was an unwilling participant, far from it.

He threw himself into this life with complete abandon.

It seemed to him that the party would go on forever.

He considered himself invincible and untouchable, and with good reason, he had been happily getting away with it for a long time.

His only mistake was underestimating a certain dogged policeman and a recently retired private detective.

As Sam had surmised, Braxton's wife was on the board of the state museum, and Braxton was well known, so no one thought anything of it when he asked for a tour of storage areas.

He slipped the dagger under his coat, and no one missed it, especially as the government had cut their funding twice in the last four years and they could no longer employ enough staff to clear the backlog of cataloguing that desperately needed doing.

Braxton didn't do the deed himself; instead, he hired a third rate crook who owed him a lot of money.

Sam was right again when he said that this hired murderer would be the key to Braxton's downfall.

The assassin, who was using the name of Harvey Oines at the time, sang like a boiling kettle and struck a deal with police so fast that everyone in the room was a little disappointed.

It was a big case after all, and they wanted to have some stories to tell.

Watching this weasel roll over so quickly was not much of a story, so they secretly agreed to make it sound much more dramatic, and it was this dramatic version that made it into the newspapers.

The dagger was indeed a diversion, even though Braxton never admitted it.

He hated Leveson almost as much as Sam did and Braxton rather enjoyed plotting his demise.

When the police came to his door during a dinner party which had half the Victorian Government in attendance, it was actually possible to see the blood drain out of Braxton's face.

He didn't see it coming, and none of his so-called friends and colleagues had tipped him off.

They rejoiced in his downfall, for in the world of politics when one above you falls, there is a good chance that you will move up.

Braxton was so sure that he would get away with this and everything else he had been up to that he did not have an escape plan.

Not that it would have done him any good, but any decent crook has a bag filled with money and a spare set of underwear just in case it all hits the fan.

When Sam read about Braxton's lack of preparedness, he was disgusted. "What an amateur."

The case dragged on for a few weeks, but it was just a formality.

The judge, who was annoyed by Braxton's 'not guilty' plea added a few extra years just for wasting everyone's time.

These 'extras' would be overturned on appeal, but it barely mattered, he was effectively in for life. His assets were seized, his wife divorced him, and he was declared bankrupt.

Amazingly, none of the companies and individuals who were giving Braxton the kickbacks was ever charged.

The elite closed ranks, and the government put out a statement saying that their enquiry had not been able to establish who the bribers were.

Which was a load of bollocks.

Braxton had delivered a long list of names, dates, times and places, but this list had mysteriously disappeared.

This made Blank very angry, but at least he got 'his' man.

Sam was also very angry, and he made a note on his 'to do' list —— 'find the bastards!'

It would be a while before he got around to this particular item, but he would get to it.

Scarlett read the same newspaper accounts that Sam read, and she was proud of him for not saying, "I told you so."

She was very proud of her Sam, but she wondered how long he could stay away from his previously chosen profession.

# Acknowledgements

Books don't write themselves, although sometimes it feels like they do. Many people helped to bring Sam and Scarlett's first adventure to life.

My amazing wife Dianne gets the largest thank you. If she had not encouraged me, this novella would not exist. Thank you to my son Matt for moving out and giving me a room to write in, and also for his encouragement, and to a good friend, Faye who attacked my first draft and helped me whittle it down to something more like a finished story. A thank you also goes out to our two dogs who waited patiently for me to get around to walking them.

'The Long Weekend' was a long time coming, but it definitely won't be the last time that Sam and Scarlett embark on an adventure together.

Terry R Barca

# Other Sam and Scarlett books

Bullet To The Heart — Sam Bennett's Case Files

You Must Remember This 
  1. Other Books by Terry R Barca
  2. Pellegrini's
  3. Friday
  4. Saturday
  5. Sunday
  6. Monday
  7. Epilogue
  8. Acknowledgements
  9. Other Sam and Scarlett books

