Tuesdays

He was thinking the other day.  If someone can write a novel on Twitter, why can't we make the story work on a blog?
Is it momentum? Is it energy? Is it vision? Is it Tuesday?

"Maybe it's Tuesday", he thought.  "I never could get the hang of Tuesdays".

Sondra looked at the file in her hand again. was she sure of what she was about to do? She knew the moment she walked out of that door, there would be no turning back. Mark's death (was it a murder? was it a suicide? was it an accident?) had affected her more than she wanted to admit and Jimmy was right, she was too close to the case. But she had to do this. She had to find out what had happened to Mark. She got out of the door and into the corridor, then she turned left and went to the coffee machine. She felt him even before he said anything

"You sure you want to do this?" Jimmy asked as he reached for a paper cup

"Jimmy!" she said with barely masked irritation

"Forgive me, I just want to be sure. Where are you going to start?"

"Well after my cup of coffee, I am going over to the school to see what i can find"

Jimmy smiled, "I hope you are not thinking of speaking to his school mates? Unless you find someone really dumb who stayed 15 years extra"

Sondra smiled. "I am hoping to speak to some teachers or even a caretaker or something." She had not been to the school since the fateful day when she had dropped him off at school. She just hadnt been able to go back there again. She walked towards the door that led outside - the city of Highend (Sondra had always wondered who had come up with the name Highend for a city - it sounded like a suburb)

"Wait" Jimmy said, just as she was about to exit

She turned and said nothing

"I am coming with you." With that he ran to his office, grabbed his jacket and together they stepped into the pouring rain.

That was all a memory now, although still fresh in her mind. When she closed her eyes she could still hear the terrifying shrill of the phone ringing at three in the morning. The sound of her Aunts worn old flip flops rushing down the short flight of stairs to answer the call that would change her life forever. When that phone rang, she already knew, somehow, deep down inside that it was bad news. She remembered the feeling of lying there, cold, staring across at the bed that her big brother Mark would usually be cuddled up in, but that night his bed was empty. She felt disturbed looking at the way it lay there, blankets neatly made up and pillow fluffed, constantly reminding her that her brother had not come home that night.

Every night since their parents were brutally murdered, her only comfort was knowing that her older brother was always there, sleeping just across the room from her. He'd never let anything happen to her, thats what he said the night they were told they were going to have to live with their aunt and uncle whom they barely new.

All those years ago she decided that it was enough, first her parents and then Mark. For a while she lived on tender hooks, wondering when her time was going to come. She felt prepared for it, everyone else that mattered to her was gone anyway. Sometimes the darkness took over completely and she would sit on the edge of the bathtub, one of her uncles old razors in hand and wonder why she shouldn't just end it all. What would it matter anyway? If this was the way life was going to be then she didn't want anything to do with it. The temptation was always there, but her parents raised her better than that. She would remember the warmth of their embrace and the love that surrounded their home and she would be reminded that there was something more to life. A reason that she is alive...

Fifteen years later and here she is, she worked so hard to get here and she made it. She felt such a sense of accomplishment thanking God almighty for looking after her all these years. She also remembered her parents and her brother Mark, up above. She knew they would be proud of her, they were the reason she was here after all. Sondra Keller, or rather Captain Sondra Keller as her colleagues knew her. Head of the Cold Case Unit.

~~~~

"Jimmy, don't try and talk me out of it" they all knew she was too close to this case to work it but what Sondra Keller wanted, she inevitably got. The cold case team had come a long way and they were more like a family rather than a team. They knew what each member in the team could handle, and more importantly, what they couldn't. Jimmy was the smooth talker, he could talk his way out of anything. It was a gift, when it came to dealing with criminal suspects he could convince them of almost anything, providing they gave him the time to talk!
Sondra knew him too well though, she did take his advice but when her mind was set on something it was hard to dissuade her. Jimmy knew that.
"Sondra, at least let someone take point on this case, just in case... incase... you know, things could turn ugly. You know how this job gets" it was rare to find Jimmy stuck for words. She glared at him long and hard before she slowly started to speak, his words barely passing through her thoughts. "You know how long I've needed this Jimmy, I've worked my fingers to the bone to get here and I've finally made it. I have to put Mark to rest, once and for all".
They've had this conversation many times before and even though Jimmy was trying to convince her otherwise, even he didn't really believe what he was saying. He knew there was no way to talk her out of it, "It's your call Keller but whatever you decide, just know that I'm behind you all the way, we're all behind you".

She slowly spun round in her chair, turning away from Jimmy so he wouldn't see her fingers shaking, even though she was trying not to let it show. The file she held in her hand was marked with large letters, though slightly faded with age you could still clearly make out the name written across the middle, "MARK KELLER" it said. Blazoned across that lettering though was a red stamp written "CASE SUSPENDED", below that someone had carelessly scribbled in pen "Case Inconclusive - unsolved".

She already knew what was inside that file, she had seen hundreds before just like it. It's dull brown cover, coated with a thin layer of dust. The edges slightly tattered from months of handling, but the cover stiff from years of sitting packed in a box, back to back with many others that had gone unsolved just like it over the years. Jimmy watched her as she gazed at the file, his heart sore for what he knew resided within her. The pain of watching her family slowly disappear, the pain of being left behind. The loneliness...

"Sondra, let me read the file..." he barely began to speak before she stood up sharply "No!" she cut him off mid sentence somewhat agitated, "This is something that I have to do Jimmy, something that I need to do alone! Please, just... just leave me for a while..." Jimmy gave her one last look, a look that questioned her, a look that asked her if she was sure. He reluctantly nodded his head and turned towards the door. "You know where to find me if you need me, cap" he said as he hesitantly walked out the door. Sondra didn't respond, she dropped into her chair trying to summon the strength, the will, to open the file. As she pulled the covers apart she realised that she wasn't ready for what she was about to see, the truth is she would never have been anyway, not now, not ever.

The photo's lay there, right in the front of the file. Photos of Mark, but not as she remembered him. Tears began to run down her face, tears that she didn't realise she was crying. She couldn't take her eyes off that first picture in the file of Mark lying there with a horrid red stain across his face, stretching from his left temple all the way across his face to the right corner of his mouth. His eyes gazing off into another world, dull and gray, like dolls eyes.
The worst thing though was the pool of blood he was lying in, the very same blood that ran through her veins, the same blood that ran through her parents veins. The sense of sadness and torment turned into one of anger and rage. Who gave anyone the right to spill their blood, she was going to make this right, even if she died trying.

She closed the file and marched towards the door, it was time to get the team together but as she got to the door, she hesitated...

Two hours seemed to just fly by, the story of Clere seemed perfectly put onto paper in his numerous diaries, leaving the whole class to be seemingly happy and intrigued by how the lesson had taken grip of their emotions and laboriously toyed with them.

History was always a pleasure but one boys face seemed untouched as though his ear was wrenched toward whisperes of fate instead of the present. His face was sweaty, his expression dreamy. The class vacated but he remained, pen in sweaty palm held firm and still digging into the wood of mint chizzled wood. Something ate at him, something of menacing teeth gnawning relentlessly at his very soul. His name should have been Mark, Clark or something of a sort but then he had been an outcast, nobody spoke to him and noone knew he existed. What a sad thing to be of no consequence with no power to alter the rotation of somebody's earth.

His life had been a pain that stung with every pump of blood through his veins, his parents burried, his only sister left him for dead to instil into him the feeling as if he didnt deserve to breath the air that brought pain to his every cells.

School was over and his every step brought him closer to his torture house where his aunt waited to make him a cup of coffee then force him to lick it off the same floor he forgot to clean in the morning. He took the detour.

He seemed like a zombie guided by mindless emotion and bitter hate and when at last his senses came around he was alone, it was dark and he was lost with a heart pounding away in the silence. In a hurry he tried to replay his steps, to the right, to the left, he was circling his fate in the shrub. He almost gave up to wait until light ruled but a loud scream of terror shrieked through the bush, murderous gun shots fired and footsteps thronged the air. He was only 19 but death riddled his mind. He rembered vaguely how Clere had been a soldier burning with ambition, the thought amazed him for it was as stupid as his underwear. He moved toward the rackuss. Hidden in the darkness he lurcked like a shadow.

Moving closer he thought his eyes betrayed him, it was Mugabe, held prisoner by white men. One of the 7 foot monstrocities emerged just centimeters from where he was quivering at the gruesome sight staring a torn apart face, torture perhaps? The giant brought in the woman who had made the scream then ran wildly on her doomed escape. Clark was astounded to witness what he thought to be the asassination of his beloved president barely 5 years into office. The shock rode his body like a wombat, his body made to leave only to be betrayed in the hands of a dry branch. Machine guns roared through the crisp dark night, the smell of fire power mated with oxgen to become one only to be dimissed by the deeper smell of death. Mark was nomore and his eyes can nolonger tell the tale of his president...

How did we get here?

As much as he hoped that she would see through him and refuse, he also hoped that she would go and carry out the mission.  He was no coward, but the implications of his plan were suddenly heavy on his heart.
He hesitated.
If he let her go, he had no control of how she would be received.  If inDuna Mjaan realised how close she had become to Clere, her life would be at best untenable - at worst, piteously brief.
But if he called her to stay, he and all in the Fort were at risk.  He had come too far.  He had to let history play itself out.

* * * * *

Col. Patrick St.John Clere of the British South Africa Company was an adventurer.  
Although born to a respectable middle class Irish family in 1867, Paddy Clere was never going to be satisfied with his life in provincial Annacotty.  When, in 1884 he got the chance, he boarded a ship to The Cape with no more idea of what the future held than of how he would pay his way.
At the end of the 19th century, The Cape was a hard place, and Clere soon found that he had to make his mark quickly or he would not survive.  The Cape Colony parliament was looking north, and to achieve the hungry expansion, military personnel were as much in demand as were the trackers and linguists.  Clere soon realised that his fastest path to power and the comfort it offered was to “acquire” military status - along with a class-ridden middle name.
When the railhead was established at Kimberly in 1885, Captain Clere rode escort to the second train to travel north.  His natural abilities got him noticed by the rising powers, and it was not surprising that Bonato and Rhodes chose him to carry out an undercover reconnaissance of the new Witwatersrand diggings late in 1886.

The life of the adventurer was well under way.  He was not just an escort and spy.  As disputes arose on the expanding frontier, Clere discovered that he could mediate and soon became recognised as a mobile governor to the peoples beyond the reach of the Cape Government.

And then it happened.

The British South Africa Company was declared under Royal Charter, and Rhodes’ dream of lands in the north was ready to begin.  The Company had nominal right to administer everything from the Limpopo River to Lake Tanganyika.  All they had to do was move north and enact that authority.
And Clere was ready to ride with the column.

* * * * *

That seemed so long ago.
He hesitated, his mind in turmoil.
How could he have got so caught up in this mess?
This was no longer just a game to be played.  The woman in his Fort Victoria room was Ndebele.  He had by his silence misled his own people, and something now told him that the mission he had persuaded her to carry out for the Company was a bad idea.  Although Lobengula’s mighty nation were aware of how the Rudd Concession had affected them, so far there had been limited direct conflict between the Ndebele impi and the settlers with the BSAC.
At least, until now.

* * * * *

Nomvula was ahead of her time.
She should have been subservient.  She should have left the politics to the men, the elders, the izinDuna.
But Nomvula was not content to be a dutiful Ndebele maiden.  She was named as the Bringer of Rain, and now in her hands lay the coming storm.
She had been intrigued by the strange pale settlers of Fort Victoria.  The Shona chiefs of the area were vassal to her people, but the presence of the White Men seemed to have made them forget.  Although she knew her people did not want to risk direct confrontation of the White Men, they could not allow the Shona to become insubordinate.  The Shona must be made to play tribute – however closely they lived to the White Man.

Her visit to and friendship with Clere in Ft Victoria were her own idea.  Mjaan, her strong and mighty cousin had reluctantly agreed, but on the understanding that she would make herself his friend, but have no part in events beyond that of intelligence gathering.
 
But now everything seemed so different.

Clere seemed trust worthy.  He had said that the Ndebele should enforce their rights to tribute from the local Shona chief.  He had said that the Company was not interested.  He had said that the Shona were a common enemy – his people and her people were friends.
When he said that the British would stand aside, could he be false?  How could he possibly be setting a trap for her people?
It couldn’t be true.  Her whole being knew that she could trust him.  And yet, and yet….

* * * * *

There can never be two powers ruling in the same area.  One must dominate.
It had been so easy to get Nomvula to swallow his plan.  Clere should have been satisfied.  When she took the word back to Mjaan, the inDuna would quickly lead troops north, and the inevitable BSAC conflict with Lobengula’s people could be triggered.
It was a simple plan.  Clere’s natural diplomacy combined with the natural chemistry between him and Nomvula had made it all too easy.

But suddenly he was unsure. He had been sure, but now he doubted.

“Nomv…”.

Her name stuck in his throat.
He forced himself back into control.  I could not let his feelings get in the way.  There was more at stake than this amazing woman.  This was bigger than the two of them.  It was bigger than his career with the Company.

Let her go.  
Let her carry the message to Mjaan.
He turned his back on her and let her go, forcing himself to concentrate on the paperwork on his rough desk.

When she got to the door, Clere hesitated.

The First Sentence

When she got to the door, Clere hesitated